Gill Gibb talks about the importance of leading with courage, but also being humble enough to admit you can't do it all as a leader and being willing to ask for help when you need it. She also shares her secret to achieving work-life harmony and how empowering her team play a big part.
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Gill is CEO of Tree of Hope, a charity which supports families to raise funds for operations and therapies not ordinarily available from the UK health sector. Gill was formerly a Director at both Future builders, now the Social Investment Business and the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), winning the Queens Award for Enterprise at CAF for innovative financial services products. She has managed significant investment portfolios and is highly experienced as a practitioner and consultant in charity governance and finance.
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Gill Gibb talks about the importance of leading with courage, but also being humble enough to admit you can't do it all as a leader and being willing to ask for help when you need it. She also shares her secret to achieving work-life harmony and how empowering her team play a big part.
Subscribe here to be notified of new episodes
Gill is CEO of Tree of Hope, a charity which supports families to raise funds for operations and therapies not ordinarily available from the UK health sector. Gill was formerly a Director at both Future builders, now the Social Investment Business and the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), winning the Queens Award for Enterprise at CAF for innovative financial services products. She has managed significant investment portfolios and is highly experienced as a practitioner and consultant in charity governance and finance.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
LET'S STAY CONNECTED:
Follow Mary Eniolu https://linktr.ee/maryeniolu
Follow Scott Brown https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-brown-a99a0215/
Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE before you leave
Can Do Academy is committed to making ordinary people extraordinary leaders. Find out more about our work here
Have any questions about this episode or know a leader that should be on it? Reach out to us here
I really try to be a servant leader non-dictorial non-top-down really kind of invert the pyramids and it's quite easy to do when you realize who you're working for as opposed to who's working for you because it doesn't matter how good you are as an individual if you haven't got a team around you that want to work with you and get on with each other and get on with you and look after your customers or families or clients then you haven't got a business or you won't have one for very long You're listening to the life and Leadership podcast where leaders from across the globe share openly about the trials triumphs and Lessons Learned along the leadership Journey whether you're a seasoned new or aspiring leader get ready to receive powerful insights and practical takeaways to help you grow in your leadership and now here is your host Mary Eniolu. Welcome to the life and Leadership podcast I'm Mary Eniolu and I am delighted to have with me on the show today Mr James Gardner James has been in business for over 20 years and has successfully set off several businesses including one in the states he's on a mission to help grow the next generation of amazing leaders and loves working with people to help them set and exceed their own amazing 3D goals that all sounds amazing James thank you so much for joining us on the life and Leadership podcast thank you Mary thank you for having me I'm really excited about today's episode I am as well I can't wait to hear all about this amazing 3D goals but first I'd like you to just tell our audience a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you are today yes of course yeah well it started around 30 years ago and was my first job and I often find this I asked this of other leaders as well what was their first job and how old were they and what did they do and it's a fascinating sort of start to understand where people really come from so I was around 12 13 years old and I would cycle from my home to the local pub on a Saturday and Sunday morning to bottle up the back bar with all the different drinks the orange juices and the tonics and all the different things that had been used the night before I remember I got three pounds per day for doing that and it was my first kind of insight into getting your own money and working hard for earning some money and I you know I took that on board I really enjoyed that and another opportunity came up as they often do and I went to work for another um local business I had to cycle a bit further for this one but this was washing cars again on the weekend and I used to watch Cars for local Funeral Directors but the reason I tell you that is because a long story cut quite short but I left college and university a little bit early actually I didn't finish my degree and I left to join the same Funeral Directors as a full-time member of staff there and quite quickly realized actually I wasn't going to be able to progress up through the ranks because there weren't many ranks there to progress it was a small family business and I left there to kind of go and conquer the world is how I put it I went up to London for a couple of years I worked for a large banking corporation and a travel company as well and then my brother and I set up a business in manufacturing we manufactured plastic parts and we then expanded that all the way over to America started from scratch over there which was really interesting lots of flights back and forth to build the team up over there and again long story cut short 20 odd years later we actually sold that business to an American company who had UK and European operations but we stayed on every team member stayed on and retained their their role if that's what they wanted which they did and I ended up after all of that time actually being managing director of the UK and European division for that manufacturing company and really enjoyed it lovely company to work for but I ended up working for another company as opposed to being my own boss so I hit a midlife crisis around 40 years old I didn't go and buy a sports car or anything like that but I said to my wife I think I'd rather try at this age to have another go at running our own businesses again rather than working for somebody else until I'm 65 and get a pension and a gold watch maybe and do that so that's what we did so the reason I told you where I saw sort of started out my journey was because I went back to that same funeral director 20 years later and had a coffee and a catch up with him and I proposed the question to him he was 62 at the time I said I'm not sure if you're ready to retire yet but when you are would you give me first refusal on the business because I'd love to buy it and I'd love to sort of take over from you and you know see how that goes and he turned around and said I think I'm ready now so it was a great time and place to be in that position that was October 2019 well before we knew anything about the pandemic and then in March the 6th we signed on the dotted line so the business became ours and then 10 days later 16th of March 2020 Boris Johnson said anybody that can work from home go and work from home because the pandemic sort of first wave was really enforced then wow that is amazing that is an amazing story and I'm very curious now so how how did that come about did you stay in touch throughout those 20 years or did you just remember them and thought let me give them a call out of the blue? Yeah no we stayed in touch with family friends so we would stay in touch and see at different um sort of events and birthdays and Christmases and things like that so that was really nice uh but again there'd been enough period of time I'd gone off and I'd sort of cut my teeth as it were learning leadership and how to run businesses and all those sorts of things alongside of my brother learning from my brother who's 12 years my senior so there was a real sort of nice age Gap and and had a wonderful sort of time working with him and learning from him as well and and it was a great kind of opportunity because I came back into that business having worked there having known a little bit how it ran um and it kind of felt like actually not a lot had really changed and I was able to sort of hit the ground running quite quickly with the existing team who were fantastic and sort of grow and develop them as well yeah it's completely different to the manufacturing business you were in before was did you have to do a huge mind shift to run this business what sort of changes did you need to make internally it is yeah is it interesting so from the outside it's very different obviously what what the the two businesses uh are doing and and who they're looking after but when you break down I think pretty much any business it comes down to the people around you again your team that's around you I don't call them employers or staff but the team that we have around us um getting that right is vital and key to success and less headaches and less stress and growing and developing them so I've been doing that already in the you know with the previous business for the last 20 years and with the travel side and setting up in America uh trips to China to see manufacturing and operations over there as well and around Europe and everything else you quite quickly learn that people aren't that different anywhere in the in the world and um even with a language barrier of you know I don't speak Chinese and you know other languages not very well but people fundamentally are all the same people are either happy or sad you can hurt people by the way you do things and how you react and so on and so forth and I guess I'd learned that about looking after people and again by getting it wrong as well and making silly mistakes as a young man and not doing things right so now I think that stood Us in good stead to be able to to look after this company and um yeah so there's lots of lots more similarities I think than people would think that's quite interesting it reminds me of a quilt I can't quite remember who said it now but he said we're all in the no we are in the people business making coffee we're not in the coffee business serving people and that's basically what you're saying like if you understand that whatever business you're in whatever industry if you understand it's about people it's all about people that's a skill that you can take with you wherever you go whether it's manufacturing whether it's law or accounting we're all first in the people business and people meaning either your staff or your employees or your clients or your customers if you put people first that is a big good skill that you can take wherever you go I'm going to ask you now so what is leadership to you how would you define leadership okay and that's a great question isn't it I really tried to be a servant leader um non-dictorial non-top-down really kind of invert the pyramids uh and be the servant leader from the bottom up and it's quite easy to do when you realize who you're working for as opposed to who's working for you because it doesn't matter how good you are as an individual if you haven't got a team around you that want to work with you and get on with each other and get on with you and look after your customers or families or clients then you haven't got a business or you won't have one for very long and to me leadership like I said is that servant-hearted leadership about I'm here to serve and that's whether that's the people around me in my team whether that's the families whether that's doing things that nobody knows that I'm doing um those are really the key things it's kind of how how do you operate how do you work when no one's looking I think if we had more leaders like that especially in key positions in global politics and so on and so forth which I don't know won't go into that but I think the world would be a better place right so for you leadership is more about service and I suppose um leading by example you know if you're serving then you're you're doing leaders go first I always like to say so you're showing the way with your actions what is expected and how they should act absolutely I quite agree with the idea of servant leadership I think it's it's the best kind of leadership and understanding that when people serve and work with you because they want to that's always more powerful than them doing it just because they think they have to because if they do it just because they feel they have to maybe because of the pay then the minute they feel like they don't have to then they don't so having people follow you or work with you because they want you it's a great achievement for any leader to attend to so that's really powerful if um if you could look back and I know you've had loads of experience business experience leadership experience uh that's brought you where you are today if you were to look back back and there was one person you would like to say thank you to that's really inspired you and I'm sure there are loads of people that have inspired you but if you could pick just one person to say thank you to who that person be and why um so yeah that's really tricky because there's been so many wonderful mentors in my life from family members to uh other mentors that I've actually seeked out and you know paid for to have mentorship and training and development things like that but I'm gonna say my brother so my brother Paul both my brothers are fantastic but my brother Paul who I worked alongside with for 20 years um I learned so much from him because it literally we were you know working together from the ground up uh learned so much about business about family life as well about how to you know look after the team and everything else like that so he again had such an impact on my life I wouldn't be the person I am or the leader I am without his influence and um will be forever grateful for that I hope your other brother is not listening to this no and again we actually were very close and um I have a lovely relationship with my other brother Pete he's a fantastic guy a really gifted musician and guitar player and songwriter and everything as well um so yeah all three of us get on really well and um again just because I'd spent a lot more time with Paul on the leadership side of things but again there's been lots of lessons I've learned from Pete as well in how to conduct myself um both both my brothers are older so 10 and 12 years older than me so I was you know very much the baby of the family and um privileged position to be the last to be able to learn from them learn from their mistakes and try not to get caught or not to do that so mum and dad didn't tell me off as well but again have a wonderful relationship with all of my family so it's lovely but you you asked me for one I had to pick blame it on me um so can I just ask you James what was your first experience of stepping into leadership for me it was when I took over as MD of that manufacturing company from my brother and it was four or four years ago just over four years now first of November four years ago and that was the first time that I really realized that the buck stopped with me always up until that point I'd had somebody else that I could go to even though I was in charge of quite a bit of the company um it was at that moment it was a real Bittersweet really because I'd loved working with him we had a great working relationship um and I I got my goal of being MD of the company but I'd lost working with my brother on a day-to-day basis in the same day and it was real Bittersweet but that for me looking back would have been the first time that I would have been in charge of a company and and lots of people where again even with the support from the parent company in America it was still pretty much under my watch and did you feel ready I thought I was this is interesting so I thought I was again a 20-year succession plan is quite a lot of time to get ready and then the reality is um I I was ready for certain elements we'd had a great kind of long Handover period as well and everything else I wasn't ready for the fact that I'd be going it alone uh even though I had support and I still had my brother here and then we met up and so on and so forth but I wasn't ready for that which which sort of caught me unawares and I wasn't ready really for the role because you're not really doing the role until you're in it and for me I handed my notice in and left that company three years later to start my own businesses um through a sort of the acquisition process and three years later that's when I was ready and I always sort of say to people you're never going to be ready for the role you're promoted into or you shouldn't be otherwise you know you're not aiming high enough and to me like I said you're always ready when you're leaving because you know everything you know what happens each year year and all that kind of thing that goes on so looking back definitely wasn't ready I thought it would be um grateful for the support around me and again three years later that's probably when I was most ready I really hope that encourages someone listening because very often we feel like we're thrust into a leadership position and we're not ready and it can be very frightening but it's quite encouraging to hear that you don't have to be ready as long as you have a a desire to learn and you're eager to to learn then that is probably the best time for you to step into leadership when you don't feel like you know it all and you're open to to receive instruction and direction from others perhaps that have gone before so I think that's quite encouraging yeah I also think and I had the statistic but I can't remember it but there's a greater proportion of men in the leadership roles of companies as opposed to women and it's not because they're better because we know that they're not and but what it is is men think that they are better and and sort of blag the six the sort of you know they know 60 of the role and they'll blag the last 40 percent whereas women want to know 90 95 even 100 of the role before they even apply for it so my plea is to people that are listening whether you're a male or female doesn't matter to me if you're wanting that even if you don't get the role on that time you'll learn so much through the process um and often you might get it because you've just put your name into the hat and you've been given the opportunity like I was I I thought I was ready people around me thought I was ready hindsight says I wasn't as ready as I probably could or should have been but nor is anybody else and they said hopefully someone's listening today and they're thinking okay that's why other people are getting promoted around me because I'm not putting myself you know in that position and there's a great quote it's by Les Brown he says it's better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one come along then have an opportunity come along and not be prepared absolutely so be prepared but you have to put your name into the hat to even be in with a chance to get a leadership role that is such good advice good advice and you are right I think more women than men tend to um put themselves out of the race before they even start again I'm going to put you on the sport and ask for just three what if you had to pick three top qualities that you think every leader should have what will those three be um so for me it would be care caring for people again coming back to that people's side you know and and it starts with yourself actually if you're not caring for yourself mentally and physically nutritionally and holistically then at some point you're gonna fall down in one of those or multiple of those areas so caring for yourself and caring for other people and and then caring for your clients or customers the families that you're looking after so that's really important um for me I would also have learning as part of that I'm a lifelong learner continuing to read listen to podcasts listen to audio books when I'm driving uh I don't listen to the radio or music hardly at all unless my girls are in the car and then that might go on because they don't want to listen to one of my boring books um but just pushing yourself every day to learn a little bit more so definitely learning and and having the correct attitude I love this other little quote there's a there's the difference between try and Triumph and all it is is just a little oomph and it's having that attitude of I'm gonna have that oomph and sometimes we don't feel like it as people let alone as Leaders but it's convincing yourself to have that attitude that you can do things I know that's your company and that's your line but it is that can do attitude where you've got to just go for it as well you know the Nike thing as well but just do it it's that combination all rolled up into one word of attitude is what I would say yeah absolutely I agree with you on the care definitely because there's a quote that says people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care and it goes back to this people thing isn't it I mean we talk about it all the time people first well I think as As Leaders especially it's important that we really do put people first and we really care about people as people not just as objects to be um to be there to help us fulfill our purpose even though that's a big part of why they're there so I think that's important all three qualities you've mentioned are quite important I think are definitely you need to have a can-do attitude because as a leader you're there to solve problems you have to give hope and to give hope you have to have hope and people have to say that I'm leading someone who might not have all the answers but they they have Direction and they're going to pull us through so yeah absolutely important so you mentioned your girls I'm gonna pick up on that and tell me about leadership at home because I think when we this is a life and Leadership podcast and very often when we talk about leadership we're thinking about business we're thinking about the work environment and that's all good but how important is it to lead your home your family you know how how important is it for you to be a good leader at home yeah for me it's it's vital and and it's sort of interesting and almost perfect training ground um we've got two girls now one is 16 and one is 13 and their growth throughout those years has just been fantastic you know I'm so proud of them for the young ladies they're turning into and they're both very different as often the case with having two children brought up in the same household I am very proud of my girls and want to continue to sort of teach them and the way we do that sort of coming back to answer your question is that typically that's around the dinner table so every night as a family we have dinner at the dinner table and we don't have a TV on we don't have music on and things like that we we talk we talk about our day we talk about what the girls have done at school we talk about what we've done in business so leadership at home starts with communication as is pretty much everything in life and it's again listening to them creating time for them and vice versa and one thing that happened just last week actually um my youngest daughter went to a youth group my wife was going out with some friends and on the same night my eldest daughter and I went out for a dad and daughter dinner date and we had a lovely time lovely meal and just talked about her future and after GCSE's and a levels and does she go to university or you know do some traveling and those types of things to us so those moments are just so key in in my happiness and and then hopefully in her future development as well oh wow that is so good um really really good because it's it's very tempting when you run a business and you're trying to be successful at what you do to put the family at the back burner and say well they'll always be there they understand why I'm doing what I'm doing they understand I'm doing it for the family but you just mentioned about time you know there's a lot of spell love is spelled time you know and just having that time with your family and showing them that they are important you know you're not waiting to be in quotes successful before they become important in your life I think that's such a powerful thing and like you in in our home dinner time was my before I say it was because our kids are all grown up now our youngest is over at Uni dinner time was my favorite time of the day because I could just I just loved and looked forward to all sitting around the dinner table and having those conversations that's when we catch up no mobile phones you know that was the rule no mobile phones at the dinner table and just just have a conversation and really get to know them and what's happening in their day so um I think that's really important um as well so I really just loved that I just had a big smile on my face as you described that but but I want you to tell me because when we talk about again leaders and and business and and everybody thinks about you in that setting as a leader but leaders are human beings they have their personal lives as well and that's why we we wanted to focus on the life and Leadership and to me it's all intertwined it shouldn't be different um tell me what it is like a typical day in the day of Mr James Gardner what does that look like from when you wake up in the morning to when you go to bed yeah it's very interesting because it that you know as you were saying that I was mining too because there's not really two days the same um if I tell you kind of what I would like to do but please don't think I'm perfect and do this every day because I'm definitely not in time but what I would love to do I'm an early bird so I wake up fairly early um and not uncommon for me to be awake between sort of four or five a.m um but I'm getting better at sort of especially with the darker mornings that we're having at the moment so say five to six a.m I'm up and um getting myself ready I love to journal in the morning something that I've learned later on in life I was never a journaler in my younger years and I do different forms of journaling and guided journaling through different books and things like that but just have that reflective time to journal is really important really sets me up for the day and then potentially listening to a podcast or an audio book I also read in the mornings as well when I can a few chapters of a a physical book rather than just listening to one and so again setting myself up and if I'm in in a really good state of mind I would do that all before turning my phone on to look at emails and messages and things like that again I'm human so that doesn't always happen but that's really how I like to start my day and then I would ideally like to go to the gym and either do a class or a workout and the reason I go to the gym is to do that obviously to keep fit uh or fitter that I am at the moment would like to be but I also if again I've got time is I have um sort of my own time in the spa area in the hot tub the steam room or the sauna afterwards and that's just time for me and my mental health so whilst I'm in the hot tub for example I would do a breathing routine um just to clear my head after that whilst recovering from the workout and then I will do sort of maybe some meditation whilst I'm in there as well um and it's a fantastic way to sort of set myself up and start the day and then I really try and get my day um fairly full with meetings uh I try not to have meetings before 10 a.m because that's time for me just to catch up on work and wherever everyone is and what's happening and then sort of 10 a.m onwards so today I've had a meeting um where I went to a face-to-face meeting which was great I then was asked by one of my team members if they could have a quick word with me so I popped in to see them ended up having a quick word with a few people which was lovely and then I had another Zoom meeting as I came back from this uh meeting and then obviously recording a podcast with you which is fantastic and then we'll be on to dinner time with the girls again which is our favorite time as well we also have that rule no Tech at the table is what we say because otherwise you go off into your own worlds and um just for that half hour hour or so is lovely to have that time and then I'm to bed quite early you know I typically will go up around half eight and then sort of get ready and sort of try and get to sleep by half nine so that I'm ready to get up early and tackle the day again wonderful wonderful so do you tend to have dinner at home every evening with a family of the family yes that's our goal yeah and again every now and then we'll have you know a meal out together again as a family as a treat um but yeah we we try where wherever possible we rarely eat separately or alone or on our laps in front of the TV that never really happens at all so you know 99.9 of dinners are together the four of us at the dinner table um or with my parents you know we're going out for a birthday meal or something like that or my other family so um yeah very very important time that's in the time yeah definitely I think it's a good way as well to make sure you spend time with your family every day because you're gonna eat anyway so why not do it together if you make it a tradition then you make sure every single day you're spending time with a family that's wonderful what does success mean to you gosh it's such an interesting word isn't it and um I think it means so many different things different people to me success I would look at is is happiness to be successful isn't necessarily how many um you know zeros or pounds you've got in the bank or dollars it's it's around happiness happiness to me equals doing whatever I want whenever I want with it with whom I want well we're almost out of time but I've got a few more questions that I really want to to ask you so the next question I want to ask you is about failure and I always say fairly unsuccess are the same thing they're just two different sizes the same coin but tell us about the time that you failed um how you handled it and what lessons did you learn from me because I don't know about you but I find that I learned more from in quote failures than when I feel like everything is going on as it ought to you absolutely I I love failing um I try and um you know encourage my team members to fail as much and as quickly as possible so we learn the most from it we rarely learn from our successes when we look back but we definitely should or could learn from our failures one of the questions I posed to them is when was the last time you failed you know and if you can't remember maybe you're not pushing the boundaries enough so for me it was it was today there was a failure today you know and I've got loads I I made an announcement um just last week at work for some promotions for some different people and in doing that I'd upset somebody else a really other key member to the team wasn't my intention to do that but I did that and we had a conversation today around that and how that person felt and um and it upsets me because I desperately try not to hurt or upset people but I had failed because I had done it in a way where um it was upsetting that person that I could have done it better so from that failure I've learned that actually in those situations I need to handle um the announcement in a different way and there's another way of doing it to the way that I did it and I'm so grateful for that person Having the courage to to tell me about it and again we're trying to create that environment where people do feel open so what I did about it was I apologize first and foremost and and it was a heartfelt apology because I was genuinely upset and sorry that I'd cause this person any stress or or unhappiness and then I asked please help me in any area that I'm failing in I need to know and if other people are um moaning or complaining or upset and they aren't going to come to me can you tell me so that I can try and fix it as well because we're human we make mistakes not everyone's the same me thinking something good and positive doesn't always have that same repercussions um with everyone as well so failure is key and it's such a shame that it has a bad and dirty word a bit like mental health almost you know we're getting a lot better of that but I think it's the school system where we you know get a 9 out of 10 and we're a failure or what have you and that's not the case you know we are not failures people aren't failures they may not be good at certain things there's so many things I'm not good at and there's a few things I'm pretty good at and I really enjoy those and I'd encourage people to learn what they're good at and what they're not good at and don't worry about failing and if you're an environment where failing is still a bad word then maybe you need to try and break free of that I absolutely agree with you I when I talk to my clients I said we need to normalize failing you know we need to normalize it because it's normal to fail like you just said if you're trying something new or you're stepping out of your comfort zone you are going to fail if you're not failing it means that you're stuck I think I think it's a mindset thing very much um and there's this shame that we attach to failure we think everyone is looking at us everyone is judging us because we failed well if we can just get past that and just reframe it to it's a lesson learned I learned something new today then hopefully that will help because I don't know what you think but I think some people play not to lose rather than play to win and that is such a big difference between plain not to lose and plain to win um I think you you actually hold yourself back when you're playing not to lose and it's that fear of failure that causes people to play not to lose yeah and I understand it like I said I think it comes from very early in our days and our upbringings and um again that's one of my encouragements to my team but also my girls as well and other people and young people we've got the Fantastic young lady who works for us at the weekends and I had a great conversation with her about trying things you know it's but I wish somebody had taught me this when I was 17 and why don't you just volunteer for a business you know for a week for free don't ask for any money and learn what you like and what you don't like and learn it whilst you haven't got a mortgage and the wife and kids and responsibilities and you can still go back home to mum and dad so you know encouraging people to fail encouraging people to push the boundaries but it's still quite unusual and I think you know I forget that sometimes that not every workplace is like that and not every leader I say loosely more managers are not like that as well but as soon as you can get in an environment like that or put yourself in a situation where you're surrounded by people that are happy to be failures um because we go from strength to strength from our failures and if you think of the likes of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and and all those people they uh they've been massive failures some of the things that they've done Steve Jobs was fired from his own company I mean it doesn't get much more embarrassing and failing than that but he managed to learn and turn it around and and went on to you know make apple the success it was and is so very interesting that we can learn from other people's failures absolutely and it's important to have that growth environment which is what you're describing I would love to come and work for you James because honestly I think When leaders create that growth environment and part of creating that growth environment is just taking away that fear of failure from your people so they can own the mistakes they make and learn from it as long as they are learning they don't feel like heads are going to roll and that's when people start to hide things that go wrong because they feel like uh if I told my boss then things are not gonna go very well for me but it's so important to create that growth environment where people know they can try things and they can be curious you know to see where this is going to lead very important if I was to ask you what would you say are you three mantras or keys to success if you like that you you tend to live by um so for me again coming back to mindsets and my own personal mental health and my own mindset needs to be top-notch in order to be able to lead others um I think having the ability and this is a John C Maxwell quote but having the ability to see before others and to see more than others um is a great mindset for a leader you've got to put yourself in a situation where if this happens and I do that what's going to be the outcome and that's a skill that is learned over many years and many decisions that you get right and wrong and learning from those so that after many years of doing that you can make a quick decision and often it becomes the right one and then again just based on decision you have to make a decision at some point I've worked for people in the past or been surrounded with people in the past that aren't able to make a decision and it's just infuriating and it's destructive to companies so there's a quote that Barack Obama used to get to 51% of the information he needed to be able to make a decision because he waited it at 100% of the information he would never have made a decision so that's quite extreme but he was running a country um but what's the you know what's people's percentage of how much information do you need before you can say yep we're going to do that or no we're going to not do that and so to me having those kind of abilities to make a decision and stand by it also not to be too proud if it was the wrong decision great what did we learn we failed let's try again and I think something that prevents people from making decisions or making it quickly is this fear going back to the sphere of what if it goes wrong you know um I think in his book Napoleon Hill said successful people have a habit around decision making they make it very quickly and they seldom change their decisions once it's made and unsuccessful people also have a habit around decision making they're very slow to make decisions and it's just that thing of fear but it's it's important like you said to make the mistakes early on learn from it and move on you're going to be further ahead than those who are still stuck at point A waiting for the perfect moment and the perfect opportunity before the step out so absolutely true what would you say has been your biggest life lesson I mean you've had so many experiences just listening to you talk about your journey and how you came to where you are today and all the business experiences you've had and the life experiences, if you had to cast your mind back and just think of all the lessons you've learned and I'm sure there are many which would you say is probably the biggest one that you've learned that you would like to pass on to somebody else? It's it's around planning do you have to plan but be prepared for it not to go to plan and I love you know that you know we have a plan a and we have a plan B and so on and so forth there's lots of letters in the alphabet so be prepared have a plan but also be prepared for that not to go to plan because if you're not prepared for it and things start going off track it can derail you and what you need to do is okay we're taking a slightly different turn here where's this going what do I need to do and that comes from you know the ability to sort of plan ahead and different scenarios in your head for what might happen what will happen if I do this what's that person going to say and what will the result be and I've used that from interviewing in in you know different countries and appointing people that didn't turn up and having to quickly change plans to acquiring businesses where the sellers saying at the 11th hour I don't know that I want to go ahead with this and all these different things that at the time kind of seemed quite crushing and big that when you look back in hindsight there's stepping stones in the Journey of learning how to deal with life in general so always plan but be prepared for your plans to change absolutely it's about being agile isn't it and you know thinking outside the box John Maxwell say there's nothing like the answer it's just one of the answers so it doesn't you don't have to find the way there's more than one way of doing it so what you're saying is if you've planned around a way and that doesn't work understand this another way and don't feel like it's come to the end of the road because that did not work that is such great advice um what advice would you give your younger self or someone who is just starting out in leadership? I wish I tried more things I wish I'd had the courage and the options and the ability to just try more things in life in work um maybe to have traveled a bit more and learn different cultures and things things like that I'm fairly well traveled but I would love to have I've done more of that so my advice to my younger self would be especially you know coming out of University and college and not having that pressure of um you know a family commitment or a mortgage or lots of bills is before you get into that just try lots of different things and and embrace all the learnings from it somebody said um the biggest regret that most people have is that they didn't try and we all have only one life to leave you know so if you step out and try and do what it is that you're fill in your heart then you're gonna you're not gonna have those regrets and you're not gonna want to think oh I wish I could do it all over again so as I start to round up James I want to go back to something you mentioned when we started you talked about your love for helping people set and exceed their own amazing 3D goals that sounds intriguing tell me about that so yeah I absolutely love doing that I've done it in my own personal life and for my team and our family as well so it's something that I came up with about six years ago we were on holiday in France and early one morning I was listening and watching some YouTube clips whilst you know checking some emails and things like that the rest of the family was fast asleep and they were talking about goal setting I'd heard a goal setting and smart goals and different things and I'd always thought smart goals were a little bit restrictive I didn't think that goal should be achievable or attainable and realistic and things like that so I came up with a very simple format and one that I've taught in schools and universities and colleges as well to business people is that the amazing 3D goals and it's just 3DS that's where the 3DS come from the first one is around your dreams what are your dreams and everyone's got a dream so what do you dream what do you desire from life and the next is to describe that dream or that desire and you wanted to do describe it with so much passion and energy and focus that anyone you tell it to will get it and understand it and it will make the hairs on the back of their neck stand up as well so that's the second D and the last e is to put a date by it a date of when you want to accomplish it by and putting a date of when you want to accomplish it by turns it from a dream into an amazing 3D goal and it's very simple I don't think things should be average I think there's so many people living an average life I want people to live an amazing life I've got over 200 goals that I'm still working on I've accomplished over a hundred of my own goals some of those are small and just personal to me some are big in terms of property and holidays and positions and buying companies and so on and so forth and I love sitting down with people and talking about the different areas of life in general and helping them set and exceed their own amazing 3D goals I love that I really love that and like you I I've struggled with this idea of a dream or a goal needing to be realistic because I've always asked the question realistic to whom you know and I've replaced that with believable I understand it shouldn't be Airy fairy and all up in the air you know if you can't sing a note then wanting to be the next Liona Lewis might be too much right so it needs to be believable but yes like you I've always said no it doesn't have to be realistic it just needs I just need to know that I can I don't know how I'm gonna do it but I just need to know I can do this and it's what I want but I absolutely buy into your 3D goals because when I talk to clients I talk about what do you really want very often we set goals based on what we've been able to achieve in the past or what someone else thinks we can do or what we think we can achieve but very often I say no just forget all about that and just think about what do you really want where you're talking about the dream what is it it if everything was possible for you what would you go for and that's what we really should be pursuing but obviously then you know putting a date to it turning it from a dream into a plan somebody said the dream is just a dream a plan or rather a dream is just a dream a goal is a dream with a with a deadline so absolutely love your 3D goals absolutely absolutely love it you know what James were out of time I could stay and talk with you for the next 30 minutes but I'm sure you've got things to do but really want to say thank you thank you so much for coming on the life and Leadership podcast thank you so much I've really enjoyed it thank you for listening to the life and Leadership podcast if you enjoyed the conversation hit the Subscribe button that will help us reach more people and inspire more leaders see you on the 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