Al Crawford

0:06Al Crawford: Hello and welcome to the Amber Moment, a podcast that tells stories of remarkable careers. My name's Paul Howarth. My guest today is Al Crawford. Al is a strategic consultant who began his advertising career in London before relocating to Sydney in the mid-noughties. There he held senior planning and strategy roles at a couple of large agency groups before founding his own business, Shapeshifter Consulting, almost a decade ago. He's worked with all sorts of businesses, from big established organisations to start-ups and scale-ups. And he says that he turns gnarly marketing problems into dead simple strategies that work.

0:44Al Crawford: Al, welcome to the Amber Moment. How are you today? Thank you, Paul. Yeah, I'm good. I'm embarrassed by your introduction, which I suspect will leave everybody baffled as to what I actually do on a day-to-day basis. but then they wouldn't be the only people we can get into that it's a great platform to explain yourself and look what's been keeping you busy this week or recently well the nature of my profession is very eclectic so even without defining what i do the essence of it and you would know this best than anybody else is being in advertising which i was in originally and now marketing in many ways the essence of it and obviously being a let's call it obviously a consultant means that my knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep so i know enough to be dangerous a lot across a lot of different categories whether i know enough to be useful is a different matter entirely but yes so it can vary it can vary i suppose from anything from telcos to toothpaste in a week well enough people obviously find you useful or have found you useful down the years but look as i think you know what i'm trying to do here on the amber moment is to tell some great stories and I'm pretty sure I can say that yours is a fascinating one.

1:58Al Crawford: So if you wouldn't mind, I'd love it if you could start by telling us a little bit about your background, your childhood, your upbringing, education and any early influences you might have had. I can do that. I really, really wish that I could tell you that I was brought up on the mean streets somewhere on the wrong side of the tracks, but very much the right side of the tracks in terms of the luck that I was kind of given. I mean, my dad was in the Navy for a very long time. So I grew up in that classic kind of forces household where my dad was deployed for nine months of the year. And so my mum had three boys and I imagine is still severely traumatised from the experience.

2:42But yeah, classic sort of forces background. I think as with a lot of forces kids, ultimately I ended up going to what might be described as some posh schools and that was assisted by the fact that I am my face does not lie all the nerds are having a party inside me right now so I got assistance to do so both from the navy and from academic awards and everything like that so I did that and then I followed that very sort of traditional path into university whereupon I did very, very little. And I can confidently say I was the worst student at a good university. Oh, really?

3:24Al Crawford: What was your academic bent then? Which way did you lean academically? I was always absolutely useless at maths. Weirdly enough, I've actually got quite good at maths in my later life, but it always struck me as incredibly difficult and very, very hard to apply. So I was arts all the way, basically. So languages, history. And I did notionally. I did history at university. But as I say, I think that they would disagree vehemently with that. And then I emerged out of that. And I think like many people that emerge out of university without much idea of what they're going to do, I looked through the careers booklet and there was accountancy and there was actuarial services.

4:11and then there was advertising and that was the extent of my diligence and dedication.

4:17Al Crawford: So it was a little alphabetical finger down the page? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, look, I obviously, that's a caricature to some extent, but I knew of advertising and I felt like it felt, especially in those days, I think it's probably been more corporatised since, but I felt in those days, it probably still had the glow of the Mad Men era. And it felt a little bit rebellious, a little bit pop culture-y, and definitely not what my dad did, which was engineering in the Navy. And that is how I made my entrance into the workforce. And I did that for ages. And then I expanded out somewhat into marketing.

4:57Al Crawford: So can you give us a little potted history then of your career? You've told us how you arrived in advertising. what happened? How did you get to where you got? Well, I don't really know, to be perfectly honest. I always like that thing that Jim Carroll, who was the BBH chairman for a long time, he described people in advertising and probably by extension in marketing as directionless talent. And I cannot speak to the talent element of it, but I can speak to the directionless element of it. And I presume that you speak to a lot of people that have some sort of what Sir Ken Robinson would describe as the element, some burning desire inside them to do something and some clear sense of direction.

5:41I can definitely say there's been no grand plan and no grand ambition. I've just sort of toddled my way through it quite happily.

5:50Al Crawford: Well, you say you expect that most people I speak to do have this grand plan or ambition or mission or whatever we would call it. But actually lots don't. So if that makes you feel any better. But in the absence of that, I'm kind of curious to know what did drive you. At the start of your career, you sort of fetch up at a great advertising agency. What were you trying to do? What got you out of bed in the morning? What made you excited to go in? Well, I think, and I know obviously we have a shared past in this regard, is I never, I did not know at the time how lucky I was to get into the agency that I did get into.

6:23And I think my career in many ways, looking back on it, was I was just so incredibly fortunate to end up in an agency that you would know that other people won't as BMP. and that was we arrived there and that was very much the agency that pushed out or produced from them pushed out probably some of the greatest greatest hits of advertising smash martians marmite bartley car with rowan atkinson gary lineker walkers chris so i arrived to something that was producing kind of i suppose you know the best of what advertising could be which is brilliant watercoolery pop culture-y moments but equally also in a culture that was absolutely a hand-in-glove bit for the person that I was I arrived there thinking that I was going to be all in advertising at the time you had strategists who were the nerds and then you had the account people who were the people that organized the nerds in many ways and made everything function And I arrived thinking that in my slightly self-deluded alphaness, that I would be a person that made things happen.

7:37But as was quite rightly pointed out to me about 10 years ago, I am shit at life, but I'm reasonably interested in people. So I immediately got diverted to my great disappointment into the strategic side of things. But that's because this culture understood me and the culture itself was full of people that knew that it was very good ideas to do as good a job as possible, but equally to hold that job as lightly as possible. And so I look back on it and I absolutely loved it. So having done it as a kind of slightly sort of fuck you to everything, actually I emerged into an environment that could not have been better for me in terms of its attitude and its ambition and those two things sort of coalescing.

8:23So that, as I say, it was both fantastically fun, but equally actually when we did it really, really well, taxi drivers would say, oh, I didn't know you did that. and you feel a sort of your bosom swelling with the same time yes so indeed so how how would you

8:38Al Crawford: say that the brilliance of the work and the culture of the place how do you think that affected the kind of trajectory of your career can you talk us through that a bit well I think it affected it incredibly well because I think they were in very very tolerant of my idiosyncrasies which are numerous and so I look at it and in retrospect you know there are aspects of me that aren't necessarily as balanced let us just say I should not play poker let's just say that for it's very obvious what mood I'm in and often those moods are quite I think the word is labile they go up and down and so this was a culture that understood my ridiculousness and enjoyed it and nurtured it and I for example I was reminded the other day that my first my annual assessment the two things that were said about me in the first annual assessment was I used to wear a backpack quite a lot and it said he looks like a lost member of a Swedish tour party which I thought was an excellent assessment at the end of the year and then there was another one that said he looks like a frightened bird that has fallen out of its nest so I think you realise in retrospect just how much the institution I think understood me they understood what I was and they chose the career path that I should follow and they understood who I was and they understood yes that they that I sometimes I take myself too seriously and took the job too seriously and they had a brilliant way of leavening that I think a lot of the time and so I guess as I said I look back on it with incredible affection.

10:17Al Crawford: Yeah and so how then did you fetch up in Australia what was the pull and how did your career progress once you'd made that move well again you know these are just a series of sort of happy accidents basically i think that i with no disrespect to london i think because i get quite easily overstimulated i think that london was probably a bit too much for me i think um despite the fact that i have what is known in australia as a moon tan and I am a walking melanoma risk I think that you know obviously for somebody like me and we can talk about it in greater detail because I'm a reasonably open book I have pretty bad sort of anxiety and so I think when you are in a city that feels very underground and it feels like there's a maelstrom of humanity there I suspect a person that is equipped with a hamster heart is probably despite the moon's hand is better geared to an environment with a sort of lower vibration which is sydney it's just a more chill chill out kind of place and the sky feels about you know 20 000 foot high rather than just over over your head so i think you know for me it's probably i suspect with all of these things i don't know as i get older sometimes I feel like probably your gut knows roughly what you should be doing.

11:44Like George W. Bush, your gut knows, rather than necessarily your brain a lot of the time. So I've ended up, I've gone with my gut.

11:53Al Crawford: Who knew that we'd be quoting George W. Bush as a source of wisdom 20-odd years ago? Well, you know, I mean, I think, in fairness, his history probably will be kinder given what has what's what's followed him so uh yeah yeah good old w he deserves to be resurrected so i'll go with my gut i'll go with w's gut so it was your gut that that you think prompted you to make the move from london to sydney and what happened with the career having made that move al yeah well yeah i came over here and i had a quite herculean resistance to change so actually just coming over here in the first place was felt seismic.

12:34It's not really. I mean, obviously, it divorces me from my family and my friends, which is pretty seismic. But actually, the cultural overlap, despite the obvious kind of sporting wars that have occurred over the years, the cultural overlap's pretty high. So you're not talking about something that is, it's not like I took myself off to Kyrgyzstan or something like that. This is not a gigantic cultural leap. There are lots of things that overlap one with another. But I think then, yes, having transplanted myself, I did exactly the same thing, just in a different city for the next 10 years. So I worked for big networked institutions.

13:14So I played it relatively safe in terms of doing roughly the same thing, just in a place that I should say an ex-Prime Minister has described as the arse end of the earth. So, yes, that was pretty much it. Who was that? I can't remember. I can't whether it's Keating or something like that, probably. I'm not sure. But there's a good turn of phrase in this neck of the woods. They're very good at that sort of turn of phrase.

13:43Al Crawford: Well, you're very modest and I'm going to try and make you not be modest in a minute. But to be to be clear, having made that move, you're now doing kind of planning director and strategy director roles as opposed to just being a planner in an agency, which you were doing in London. That's fair to say, isn't it? So how did you find that change different? That sort of increasing seniority, shall we call it? Yeah, that's never actually sat terribly well with me because I think that by and large, you know, again, it's probably a long tale of disappointed employees that I've had. But I think leadership for me was I always had a particular bent, I suppose, which was more leadership by osmosis than it was.

14:26I'm not very good at structuring things. So I think that if I had any sort of leadership tendencies, I hope that it was mostly that people quite enjoyed working with me and noticed that I cared. I wouldn't particularly say that if you wanted a very clear career plan that I would be right at the top of the tree for structured leadership plans. So I think looking back on it, the reason that I am doing what I'm currently doing is I prefer doing stuff rather than leading things. I prefer working with people rather than people working for me, I suppose. And those are things that you realize as you get older is I think the tiny store of testosterone that I might once have had has probably dissipated.

15:12And so the desire to climb any tree, you know, corporate tree or ladder and to achieve some sort of title is kind of gone from me now. And I really do, you know, I describe myself very much as a rent-a-nerd and I know that's partly because I have an aversion to kind of grandiosity, I suppose.

15:34Al Crawford: But it's also because that genuinely is what I am and what I enjoy doing is just wandering around and solving problems for people. I think this is a fascinating point that you make and you see it in advertising all the time. and no doubt in other sectors as well, where just because someone is a great creative, let's say, in our industry, does not make them a good creative director or leader of a creative department. They are two very different skill sets. In fact, the likelihood of one person being as good at the management thing as they were at the day job thing, it's very low, isn't it, really?

16:05Al Crawford: It always reminds me of this story. It's probably apocryphal of Foxton's, the estate agents, and they go in on the Friday afternoon, who's the top salesman to date this week? And it's Jeff. And Jeff gets tossed the keys to a new Ferrari. You know, it's totally gross, the story. But you keep Jeff in the sales role. You don't want Jeff in an MD or CEO role because he's a really good salesperson. Anyway, so anyone toss you the keys to a Ferrari? No, not recently. But I was hoping that that might be where this anecdote ended up, is you tossing me the keys to some Ferrari. You know, I hope, and who's to know, because I'm now a long time out of it.

16:40You know, it's weird, obviously. I think the other thing that I've realized is, is obviously inside I am about five years old. But obviously I can see in this Zoom screen that there are some fairly deep notches. There are some deep notches in my forehead and lines around my eyes. So but I think, you know, it's one of the liberations, I suppose, of getting older. And there's some great things about getting older alongside the really bad ones are that you do realise a little bit more who you are and what makes you happy and what makes you fulfilled. and I hope that those people that have worked with me have realized that I care greatly even if I'm not necessarily able to organize my way out of a paper bag so I think that my leadership skills are probably they're true to who I am they may not be fully rounded but that's absolutely fine because I'm not I'm deliberately not pursuing that from here on in and I just love collaborating with people rather than necessarily doing that sort of particularly corporate role as well in fact to some extent it's also a miracle in some ways that I managed to it's not that I'm unprofessional but it's definitely definitely reasonably idiosyncratic so I think the more corporatized advertising became the more constrained I felt and I felt like my first part of my career I'm sure there's some very good things about the increasing professionalization maybe you know but definitely that sort of creeping corporatization I think was was something that that made me feel more constricted and so I feel like this part of my career I've really really enjoyed because people in some ways it's awful on the one hand is people don't buy me for who I am but equally they also buy me for who I am as well so it is it is in some ways a referendum on the self a lot of the time which is both horrible and awesome

18:38Al Crawford: in equal measure so this lovely expression referendum for the self which you've been doing your own thing rent a nerd whatever you called it as well for about a decade now and it's a shapeshifter is the name of your business yeah why why that why shapeshifter well because exactly for the reason that a lot of the time i'm collaborating with organizations or organizations and their partners and really the ability to sort of morph and shift and operate within those and with those entities is kind of really important. But also because a lot of the time, really, a lot of what I do, I suppose, haven't really described it terribly well, which is ironic, given that a lot of the time I'm articulating simple strategies for organizations.

19:22But, you know, a lot of the time I'm trying to construct a different future for an organization through, largely through, as you say, solving marketing problems. So I am good at understanding what customers want a lot of the time. and then constructing strategies that allow businesses to grow often by understanding what the customer who the customer is and what they want i'm delighted that you started that sentence

19:48Al Crawford: with i'm good at because it's the first time you don't this is i'm not a therapist but i think that's a good thing al um and also this is the question coming up where you have to leave your modesty at the door because i want you to along with the thing you've just described about understanding customers i want you to describe what you think your sort of magic tokens are What do you possess that others don't, that have allowed you to be successful in your career? Well, I suppose one thing, which I know is probably relatively cheesy, is, I suppose, a limitless curiosity, which would be, is pretty useful in our neck of the woods.

20:23Because there's very, very few things that bore me. It takes enormous amounts to bore me. I find almost everything fascinating. My friends, you know, will observe that a lot of the time they'll find me sort of reading flyers on tube trains. You know, I'm pretty much fascinated by almost anything and anyone. And I think, you know, one of the great things, I suppose, whilst we worry about new technologies and we worry about swimming in the shallows, for example, and we worry about the sort of brain rot or cognitive surrender, the counter to it is it's never been more possible to access and revel in and inundate yourself with new and interesting inputs.

21:08And I was saying to somebody the other day that, you know, even if you look at it, you have a podcast or music, for example. But the reality is that, you know, if I look at the ability these days, for example, you know, we talk about understanding different demographics, for example it's really we've collapsed all of these generational divides for example so where in the past both culturally and access wise it was you could easily get stuck in a kind of cultural silo I suppose it was expected of you that a 50 year old would behave as a 50 year old and have access to 50 year old sources of culture now there are no silos there you know if you're reasonably curious that doesn't exist anymore so i think that has that's definitely propelled me forward is that i find almost nothing and no one boring if that isn't a double negative i don't know and then i suppose bizarrely irrespective of how i have communicated thus far i think although i am pretty introverted once the lights go up and i have to toddle onto the stage i am reasonably persuasive when I stand and deliver.

22:17And, you know, our profession in many ways is not just a strategy is really choosing a way to achieve an outcome. And there are lots of different ways, lots of different ways to achieve that outcome. And we're not operating in a objectively correct world in many ways in advertising and marketing. A lot of the time it's just choosing that way and then violently executing it as General Patton would have said. So I'm good at finding alternatives and then advocating for those alternatives so I think that has been reasonably that's that's been a thing that stood me in in good stead is the ability to sort of stand and join the dots between things and take you on a journey and advocate for those things and then I hope and I know that you say you don't want me to be modest but I hope that I think during the course of any career it's hard to be decent the whole way along but I hope the relative ratio of decent to arsehole it's been more on the let's let's let's hope for a 70 30 split i think that's what you can hope for your decent to arsehole ratio decent to arsehole ratio i'm gonna go for the 70 30 70 30 i think i hope that's as much as we can as we can hope for yes can you think of any

23:30Al Crawford: examples that you're particularly proud of of where those skills and talents and abilities have have served you particularly well with particular clients it's interesting that as i say like you You know, a lot of the time as a consultant, I find it scary because, you know, rejection feels very personal and acceptance equally feels personal. You try not to take it that way. But it does feel that way because a lot of the time, actually, there's an inordinate number of people that could do the job. And so actually, a lot of the time they're assessing you both for capability, but also for compatibility as well.

24:04So I would say that a lot of the time, you know, the fact that I've managed to do it for 10 years, it suggests that often my somewhat childlike enthusiasm has probably stood me in pretty good stead. And I think I get that feedback a lot of the time. And it's not a I'm not faking orgasm. A lot of the time it's I just genuinely am fascinated by other people, difficult problems and things I don't know, things I don't know, which is almost limitless. So therefore, my energy is almost limitless at the same time. And in fact, actually, most projects that I take on, I like to say to the clients, the first stage of any project for me is the panic and cry phase, where I realise I don't really know how on earth to solve this thing.

24:48And then you find your way out of that dark room. And I've learned to accept that that initial panic and cry phase is actually, to some extent, is me gearing up for the challenge ahead. so i think it stood me when you say can i think of times it stood me in good stead i think that is relentlessly what stands me in good stead is this sort of wide-eyed enthusiasm slash underlying nervousness of can i do this what is this thing can i do it are you able to give us

25:17Al Crawford: an example of where of where that's created a great outcome for a client without breaching any confidentiality i think this is this is the thing is that a lot of the stuff i do is internalized by organizations as much as externalized. But I think that obviously, if we go back in time, it's probably easier stuff that's further in the rear view mirror, which I hope isn't because I'm old and nostalgically looking back. I worked on The Guardian with a colleague of yours for a very long time. And I think a lot of the work that we did on The Guardian in those days was really kind of trailblazing for a newspaper that in many ways was trailblazing as well.

25:56In fact, The Guardian, the reason why I really enjoyed working on that is because The Guardian, as you would know, was very much known as the last paper out of black and white, the Grawny ad, you know, affectionately known for all of its and very much seen as a sort of left-leaning newspaper. And I think, obviously, BBH subsequently have done a magnificent job of this, but our job in many ways was really clear there, which is let's communicate some level of modernity. Let's communicate this paper. You know, it's the first one, actually, that really embraced the digital world and actually was much more eclectic and much more Catholic with a small C than you'd expect.

26:30So actually working on that was a real pleasure because actually we were doing the brand, the service that it deserved, which was to stop this kind of monochrome monolith that it was perceived as and give it a sense of kind of technicolour, eclectic perceptions. And so I really, really enjoyed that. And obviously that one's easy because The Guardian and it was very much my newspaper and very much my kind of political leaning. But yeah, that would be something that I kind of look back on and go, that was something I was very proud of.

27:01Al Crawford: And I do remember you doing the crossword in about 55 seconds one day. I'm still absolutely blown away by that. Incredible. So there you go. This is the thing though, isn't it? I'm nerdy and I'm curious and I like puzzles. That's basically it. It probably explains my very limited circle of friends. Me too, but I couldn't sprint through the guardian crossword that quickly that was super impressive now you are obviously the hero of your own story but any great story also has an anti-hero that pulls in the other direction so without naming any individual names unless you particularly want to what have been the things or systems or ideas or prevailing attitudes that have stood in your way that you've had to overcome to be successful yeah yeah look i think you know obviously as you say that i i can't think of too many people in my career I genuinely think most people are pretty decent and anybody that I've come into conflict with for which many apologies and they're not many of them because also I just roll over and let people tickle me most of the time I genuinely think that most of the people if I've come into conflict with them it's probably because my values are out of kilter with their values rather than one person being in the right and the other person being in the wrong I would say the most constrictive thing for me is in no way being other people at all it's mostly been and you can probably tell from our chat as well is more the inner demons and the inner lack of self-belief and I would put that very much down to my early years and I think often the belief that I wasn't that I haven't been good enough and you can see it in the way that I talk about myself I I struggle to advocate on behalf of myself.

28:42I don't struggle to advocate on behalf of other organisations or other people. I can see their merits almost immediately, but it's somewhat lacking in me. I find it uncomfortable, hence I'm shifting around as I say this quite a lot. It seems to have got a case of St.

28:59Al Crawford: Vitis' dance there for a second. But yeah, that's been the big thing for me is to learn how to feel able to advocate on my behalf and to feel that sense of belief that I think people often do tell me afterwards that I do instill in others as a result of what I do. but it's not necessarily something that I intrinsically feel myself. So I would say that the anti-hero in my story has often been the inner monologue rather than any external sort of actors or anything like that. Got it. And you touched on values there. So would you say you have a particularly strong personal code or rules that you like to live your life and your professional life by, any behaviours that you particularly cherish?

29:45Yeah, well, yes, I would think so. I haven't thought about it too much because I think it's one of those things that you, it's one of those unconscious things, isn't it, that you sort of go through life. But I definitely have a very strong set of values. As I say, my original employers and my original alma mater in BMP, I think, as I say, that's why it was so consistent with my values. I think it understood that you do things as well as you possibly can do. You're as decent as you possibly can be to other people and that you don't take things, or at least you understand that ultimately, this is both the ride of your life and you're incredibly fortunate to be doing it.

30:27But it is still as Howard Gossage said, who is a famous ad person in San Francisco, I don't know a first class brain in the industry that has any respect for it. And so I always felt that that was the way to handle it. When I feel like I'm at my best, I do feel like I understand the glorious pointlessness of it all. And I think that helps with a sense of kind of lightness and creativity. At the same time as I've never underestimated the privilege and the duty of doing things incredibly well. But I think when those two things overlap, that's really important to me. So those values are there. Is that sort of diligence, but equally also that kind of sense of levity about things.

31:08but equally also i hope and again as i say i don't know where i sit on the sort of arsehole to you know benign spectrum or whatever it is but i hope that during my career you know i've generally just tried to be as decent and as honest and as reasonably sort of open book as possible despite pursuing what george orwell called the rattling of a stick in a swill bucket was how he

31:29Al Crawford: described our the the our dominant career our noble profession yes and yes our noble profession No one person is an island as well. So perhaps you can think about other people or groups who've been particular allies for you throughout your career. Yeah, yeah. Well, there are many. And I think actually, again, as you get older, it's then you start to, as I say, like, you know, I'm still somewhat recovering from whiplash from Hissing 50 a few years ago. It just strikes me as absolutely bizarre that this arrested development that I clearly have an extreme case of, I've somehow managed to inhabit this sort of shell, this aging shell.

32:09So I think the more that you look on it, the more that I, yeah, in particular, lots of people that I've come across that I've gone through my career, but actually particularly the ones at the beginning of my career that I think recognized that I was an interesting bag of fish. and were incredibly tolerant of it. So I look at somebody like, these names won't mean anything particularly to people outside the profession, but people that were very good to me in the first years, the likes of Sarah Carter, for example, who's a very eminent strategist, but I think understood me very, very well and was both nurturing, but also challenging an equal measure and expected the best, but also still calls me to this day young Al, even as I crest 53.

33:01And I think, you know, you realise that those are the people. I'll forever be stuck in kind of Peter Pan world with Sarah because every time she speaks to me, I feel like I'm about 20. So it's, so yes, so for example, Sarah or Olivia Johnson, who was my original head of department, I think was very, very good to me as I rode some waves of, as I oscillated wildly, I believe, is the expression that I should be using here, but was just a fantastic force for good. And then, yes, many people, Philippa Roberts, for example, who headed up BMP as well, you know, many of them. And I was very, very lucky in that first instance.

33:42See, I could name so many, Martin, Sandy, Ross, Barr. But going back, I think those formative years were just incredible, really, and probably set me on a path of having... I think when you first start and you realise in retrospect that those people were very much my early heroes, and you realise retrospectively how much you took from that and how much you benefited from that, from those people. And there were myriad people at that first job. And that's not to say that hasn't continued, but I think because you're so young and those are your formative years at that stage. You look back afterwards and go, wow, God, I was blessed to be in that company.

34:27Al Crawford: And so when everything kind of comes together perfectly, when all of your talents and abilities, all of your kind of cherished values and behaviours, when everything works properly and as it should, what does that kind of happy ending look like for you? Yeah, I don't think, I think as ever, you know, it's not in any way a sort of ending. It's actually, I don't want to say it because obviously it's said a thousand times, but that sort of flow state, I suppose, you know, for me, very much because my mind is playing tricks on me a lot of the time. And I think as that Miltonian line goes, the mind is its own place.

35:02It can make a hell of heaven and a heaven of hell. I think for me, you know, really, actually, when things are clicking is that even if it is hell, I believe it's heaven. and I'm enjoying myself and I don't have that sense of overweening, you know, anxiety or a sense of constrictedness and foreboding. I have a sense of possibility. And I think that's what anybody really wants is that nothing is promised and, you know, nothing is guaranteed. But yes, I've been incredibly lucky with, you know, the life that I have had. When it's brilliant, it probably is objectively brilliant but subjectively sometimes I've turned it into something else but that for me is just happiness is that feeling of openness and expansiveness and enjoyment as I go and so there is no ending there is just a sense of this is fun.

35:55Al Crawford: If there's no ending what is coming next in both the near and the far future what's next for Al Crawford? Well I don't know I think that's I go back to the directionless talent thing is I'm you know actually my only ambitions now really are keep learning you know it's actually it's interesting I've just taken a job recently with a media company but a large part of that is because I've never worked in I've never worked in the the media distribution side of things so I was just curious to do that and so I've now started to do things that I think are much more about am I going to learn something interesting or work with interesting people and so I think my career will inevitably be eclectic and meander somewhat but it's a deliberate meandering because that I've realized gives me the enjoyment so it's not really like I sit here and think to myself I want to achieve x by yeah here actually if I a few things It'd be nice to live on as long as possible in Spockian terms and live long and prosper would be good.

37:04And I think obviously that prospering would be to keep mind definitely active. So that's pretty much it. So my demands are actually reasonably and obviously enough to keep me in the gilded cage that I've constructed. Well, indeed.

37:23Al Crawford: And so think about life outside of work and we'll take as read that family and friends and loved ones are important in your life. Outside of that, do you have any any other sort of passions or hobbies or interests that stimulate you? I do. But I mean, one thing I will say is that as you've observed with me over the years, yeah, obviously I'm interested in almost anything. So I'll read pretty much anything. I mean, by and large, I think, you know, I fall into that similar, sort of slightly middle-aged male trap of it a lot of the time being non-fiction. And obviously you have to be very careful, but you then don't get into a kind of doom scrolling, whether it be current affairs or whether it be some sort of downbeat, kind of screed on the way sort of society is going.

38:06But yes, obviously, you know, as I think Herman Hesse said, the life of the mind I'm quite interested in. And so I quite like that kind of glass bead game-y thing of seeing the connections between lots of things. I'm sure that's why I like the career that I'm in, is that I always loved that book, the Hermann Hesse book, The Glass Bead Game, that sort of sees the sort of synchronicity and overlap between a blade of grass and a musical concerto where you really see the harmony and everything. That really is sort of what I enjoy. Equally, on the other hand, because of my slight hamster heart and my ability to get angsty quite a lot, I do like doing quite psychotic exercise at the same time.

38:44So one of the reasons that I remain relatively rake thin, despite a relatively boiled diet, is that I spend a lot of time running around and running around at the moment with a very heavy backpack on my back because I find that useful. So get outside, scan the horizon, weigh myself down, not with my thoughts, but with large metal plates attached to it.

39:05Al Crawford: With bricks in your rucksack. With bricks. Yeah, exactly. exactly yomping around yeah it's basically yomping yeah yeah yomping around all right shuffling let's call it shuffling shuffling that's good well you look very well on it so if i may say so okay look uh final final question al this has been brilliant to chat to you by the way but final question since we're on a podcast would you have for our listeners a podcast recommendation oh my goodness well obviously the twilight turn um you you obviously yeah you yourself are deep in this kind of podcast well well look this will give you an indication i don't think this is going to be useful for anybody but I have always been a massive fan of and you will be familiar with the final word podcast before because I'm deep into cricket as well so it's not it's this is not fringe stuff I suppose but it's only because those two journalists and I don't know them particularly well it's going to be Jeff Fleming and Adam Collins isn't it yes so Australians but very good in terms of I'm just amazed by how quickly their minds work how articulate they are and how real they are as well so even if you're not into cricket they seem to have an interesting sort of perspective on life generally yeah but equally their ability to articulate themselves is something to behold so yes that's not gonna make some fringe podcast go mainstream nor is it a particularly interesting one but well i disagree i think they're great and and thank you for that recommendation but thank you even more for coming on and telling your fascinating story of your remarkable career.

40:37Al Crawford: Al Crawford, thank you very much and good luck with the next chapter. Thank you very much. Cheers, Paul. Join me next time on the Amber Moment when we'll be hearing another story of another remarkable career. Until then, stay amber.

41:05Team