How to build one culture across 100 companies and 40 countries

22:24And that was, and I had to do some soul searching and figure it out. And also understanding a number of things that I had to do as a leader and what was my responsibility and what was expected from me, from going from what was expected, delivering a good film, then delivering some good numbers to then transforming operators and driving product to keep these things. It was a very interesting journey that got into those points of inflection and crisis sometimes where it's like, is this what I want to do? There's always this fantasy of like, I just want to go back. But sometimes it's like, no, come on, let's not go back.

23:02Let's always go forward and see what's next around the corner.

23:06Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:So if I'm going to put you on the spot a bit here to say how? Because I think there's a lot of people going through this at the moment. They're needing to evolve. They're needing to step into a kind of a new identity of the leader that's needed today. If you were to think back, like, some practical steps, if someone's got their notepad and pen ready to take some notes now, what are some practical things that you think you did or focused on that helped you make that transition in yourself? I think that one is, I think that people need to, need to and it's something that I used to hear and didn't understand until later it's never about the money if people want to make money they should go into finance or investment or something like that they will make good money it's about your own personal growth and who you are as an individual and what matters to you if somebody likes to be a great practitioner a great creative practitioner they should continue to be that.

24:05And if somebody feels that what excites them is shaping, building, architecting, growing, driving, they should explore into leading teams. I see a lot of times people that actually like to be close to the work and that's their passion. They're put into leadership positions and they fail because that's really not what they enjoy. nor what they will ever enjoy because of who they are and what matters to them. So I think that more than the how is the keeping oneself in check along the way. How to do it if they feel like, oh my God, I want to be on something like that. Curiosity, leveraging opportunity, building your own opportunities.

24:57okay so it's um if you're an editor don't just be an editor be an editor that does something that is different where you're innovating when you're bringing something to the table that that nobody else is doing if you're a producer think about what do you really what does really producing mean and it's not just about the craft it's showing the clients that you're bringing value or that you're doing something that nobody else can do on what you bring on board how you manage

25:23Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:your money how you like so what do you think you did from going from a ceo that say did like the craft change to being able to do a multi-country transformation what did you what did you have to do extra to be seen in that role i could never afford the teams that i wanted and um and that led me to look for different ways to look for money to get the team that i wanted it right and that's where i looked at what are the things that we can do quickly what are the opportunities that we can do so i can get funding to fund better people or new people or people that do a number of things and that is the moment that i can find that it was transformation on my team and that was the difference between um i don't want to come up as like i don't know like an asshole.

26:16But it's like, that was the moment where I can, I can see now looking back was the difference between the way I did it and the way other people in the industry did it. There were some people that got stuck in, um, victimizing themselves saying, I cannot get funding for my team. I cannot get this. I never get paid, uh, for the things that I need. Clients are not paying and stuff. And people like that follow the approach that is like, okay, if that's the way, if that's going to be how can i do some things that are different how can i bring some things that will

26:52Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:create money so we can invest that's a really clear strategy you know that in all that stuff and yes be be owner be owner of your destiny is that yeah i think that that's and i think that that's it is like not take no for an answer not take no for an answer if you have a clear vision and you know exactly what you need to do well. And yes, do what it takes to make it happen. Just find a way. Yes, find a way. I think it's really interesting. There's also many different types of people, but that two types are different leader. You say the ones that feel stuck because of external situations, feels like, right, I can't do anything, versus the one that goes, yeah, accept that this is the way it is.

27:29Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:What can I do? That is a different transformational way of thinking. And I talk a lot about if you want to change your results, you've got to change the way you think. Because your thinking is going to massively impact the way you feel about something. And the way you feel about something is going to impact your actions and behaviors. Is there any other sort of just tips or insights into other things where you go, yeah, I saw that I did that a little bit different, which enabled me to do this? I think it was just not taking anything for granted or that everything was said. Remember when you and I were working together and we brought together the studio and the production team together, which was very disruptive back then in the industry.

28:09And the reason for that was we needed to afford some roles that we couldn't afford. And that's how we hired some people that led us to be the most awarded creative agency in town. I mean, like, those were the people, if you look at the crates of the people that did that work. So, and at that point, it was very controversial, if you remember. It's like, how are we changing this? Like, this is set. This is how the industry has worked for decades. I don't understand it. I could not wrap my head. And that's the thing. It's like not taking anything for, not taking anything for granted. And it's the combination of everything's out for crap.

28:43Just build it, build it from scratch or reshape it from scratch. And just take no, don't take no for answer until you, until you get that. That's what it's going to take there.

28:53Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:So what's your mindset around failure? Because obviously there's a lot of things you've needed to done that have maybe never been done before. or a lot of the, you know, there's very few people who have done the level of transformation you've done within the industry. What's your mindset? Because I think the fear of failure keeps a lot of people stuck. What's your view on failure? How have you navigated that? Well, first you separate failure from negligence, which is something that we used to say, meaning there is smart failure, which is when you do something that you learn something from and you have companies like NVIDIA that can have great case studies on that.

29:28and then there is negligence and sometimes people think that oh um a culture of it's it's okay to fail means that we don't need to get the basics right or we can or we can miss things that are that are um that we should know how to do and usually when we fail on those things there's nothing to be learned so i always say like you cannot fail on things where there are no lessons right you have to be on time you have to be on budget you have to be nice with your clients you You have to be good with your team. The staff is, you cannot fail on that, or there has to be a good reason to fail on that.

30:03The other one is failure on exploration, where you can learn, when you can learn things. I think that you have to be able to plan very quickly and answer a number of questions. How is this going to contribute to the bigger picture? Is this something that I want to make? What is it going to bring to the organization? What's it going to do to my team? and will I be able, how do I know that this thing is working and how quickly can I invest on that to accelerate or invest on that to get out of it? And that's how you get into failure and I failed many, many times building.

30:41Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:Give us one of them. Where's the story? A short story where you go, you won't believe that happened. I remember when I believed that the future was going to be like the keyboard emojis and we didn't like keyboard emojis But, you know, we spent 10, 15 ,000 pounds. It was, and we had a lot of internal resources and we did it. And one client bought it and that was it. I really thought that people wanted to express themselves more. Like remember when keyboards were a thing or what we're trying to, sometimes where some ideas are great. When I learned that some things are great in PowerPoint, but then the people that you need don't exist.

31:17Right? Like you're looking for these unicorns. It's like, hang on, have somebody that understands film and digital and this, and they're like fantastically outspoken and they can be with a client and they can, and then you realize that those people don't exist. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of stories like that. And do you, so when it doesn't work, do you bounce back pretty quick or do you just, do

31:40Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:you kind of just need to process it? Do you, do you do any self beating up or what's your process? I used to do more than I do now. again like age age helps and and experience helps and and knowing i know what we're doing and having some some framework helps with with stuff a lot of times there is beating up when when sometimes i had to make decisions or i had to make calls so it was clearly my decision and then it fails is i feel that i let people down or and it goes in it goes in cycles yeah has it ever been hard because I you know I've not been a CEO but kind of sitting there as a CEO and you've got to make and I'm guessing now you're making much decisions much faster than you had to so you probably haven't been able to do the due diligence or the data to really back up the decisions there's a lot more risk and unknowns part of it one of the things I find and this is personally for me as well we tend to find as humans quite difficult to navigate uncertainty and the unknown and I'm now know that you've got a lot of that having your time lunch like shrunk right down you're having to make decisions a lot faster how do you keep showing up in uncertainty but keep needing to make decisions and keep moving what's been your strategy to do that you have to look for you look you have to look for the things that are grounded we talk at the beginning you need to look at what is what does the what does that do to the financial performance right so you always need to look at how is that gonna damage or or contribute to that what if What if you don't know?

33:11Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:Because it's so uncertain, it's never been done. What if you don't know what's going to happen? You make assumptions. You always make assumptions or you look at points around it. You trust your knowledge to date. You trust, you make some assumptions on, okay, if we do this, how many people could be interested on this and how many people do we need to do it? And sometimes it's just, you make some assumptions in what it would look like. How long is it going to take to put it into place? are we leveraging some of the things that we have or do we build it from the ground up so you start like asking yourself questions very very very quickly at the end that's part of the job as a CEO you have to make decisions I mean remember that it was you know the destination which is the financially you know but then as a CEO you have to build a journey around it you have to set up the vision you set up the the values of the company and then you have to give direction so there is no option to not make that decision and sometimes you learn to do it faster though by knowing what is the minimum amount of information that you need to make that decision or what are the things combined with what are the things that are non-negotiable and what are the things that are up for are up for crap just a quick reminder if you haven't already to please hit the like button and subscribe to the channel it's a small action that makes a big difference you'll be the first to know when new episodes drop and your support helps us create meaningful content for leaders like you.

34:35Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:I'd also love to hear from you. So if you have any thoughts, questions or ideas, pop them into the comments. And if you're curious about how my leadership coaching or training could support you or your team, just drop me a DM and we'll set up a call. Thanks so much. Now let's get back to the episode. And something that I know like Brenny Brown's done a lot of research in terms of what it's going to take for the future of leadership. And one thing she talks about is systems thinking and how we're not talking about systems thinking enough and how that is now vital for the world we're in now. How have you applied systems thinking and the interconnectedness of all the changes that are happening in multiple places at the same time?

35:13Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:How have you approached that?

35:24Everything was around creativity and rock and roll. That's the world that we came from. So mythology was something, methodology or frameworks or systems was something that was uncalled for. So the way that we've done it or the way that I've done it is by hacking the system and making sure that we use the right words, right? So when we talk about, we don't talk about process, we talk about ways of working. We don't talk about interconnectivity of systems. We take a look about framework. So we talk about freedom within the framework a lot. Like this is the framework that we have. This is where people, because remember that I have a lot of leaders underneath in my operations, so they need to have their own freedom within the framework, which is a way of saying there are some systems that are interconnected.

36:12I mean, my technology team, my operations team, my production team, what is going on as a group, group-wide products, group-wide financial process, a lot of things that are interconnected. but instead of telling people we have an interconnected system so like okay you have freedom within the framework there's a framework there are things that there's a scaffolding here to build and then you have there's a number of things that you can do where you have the ability to do it and other things that are not so it's there but it feels a bit a little bit more invisible versus yeah no too restrictive if you it's a very um creative industries are very sensitive industries sorry not very sensitive very emotional industries for all the right reasons and that's a reality and that's the reality of it meaning it's not i'm not saying that it's right or wrong or good or bad that's what makes it wonderful you have people that are emotional creative that respond on on that and they and they set an allergic reaction to a certain number of things that have to be invisible yeah i don't need to know how my wi-fi works.

37:20I just want it to work. So this is exactly the same thing, right? Like everybody just wants to have their freedom. They want to be able to be creative when there is a framework underneath.

37:28Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:You mentioned there that you've got your leaders all underneath you. I'm going to start actually, because I say I work a lot with leadership teams. What's been the hardest thing for you in trying to get a leadership team like that to work really well together? What's been some of the challenges? Diversity on the leadership team. What you need, especially in multicultural environments, what is seen as a successful leader and the culture of successful leadership in the United States is totally different than the culture of successful leadership in Europe or in Asia-Pacific or in India. So when you're trying to create a leadership culture or putting together a leadership team that work together and collaborate when they have like different metrics.

38:17And it's very difficult to rewire or wire that. That's a big thing. It's difficult to build a team or to have the team perform when you put it together for the things that you need or want to do tomorrow, when you know that they're going to have to go through a period of six months of doing things that are difficult and they might not be well equipped to do but are necessary to be able to get that right to do the we need to do the transformation to get to the next to the next phase i hired some people because they're excellent at the next phase but have to stay close to them during that moment of of transition those

38:56Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:are the things that are that are usually difficult they're tough what about in terms of how have you built trust between them all so they work well together considering they've got different metrics different cultures and benchmarks how where have you built trust between them you i build moments of encounter amongst all of them where and be able to create some things that again like back to freedom within the framework there are times of the year when we get together there are times of the year where we pitch together there are times of the year where we like every week we have our monday monday meeting where we all connect and everybody shares and they said trying to create the feeling of transparency and sharing and for people to understand that everybody's succeeding and everybody also has challenges, right?

39:40And for everybody else to see everybody's ups and downs. And just be clear, when people are talking about things, what is the direction of the company and be able to give feedback in front of everybody, which is not easy because sometimes people feel, people that come from a background where there is one market where you constantly have to show that you're winning, right? And if you're not winning, it's embarrassing. And having to have to give people feedback about or direction on that, sometimes people feel it's too tough for people. And then you have to pick them up and say, first of all, listen to the conversation.

40:18It wasn't about you. It was about what we're doing. It's never about the players, it's about the play. And it's only by getting feedback and focusing about how we're playing that we'll be a winning team. and it's just constantly reinforcing that and and help people get into that and then you quickly see in a matter of weeks months how everything starts it starts to come together and everybody starts having the feeling of being on one team and that collaboration and have you noticed your has your

40:44Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:style of leadership evolved in terms of have you found to build that trust and bear in your mind you don't see them that often have you had to be more vulnerable yourself like share some of the challenges you've got and so people actually feel quite connected to you even though they don't get probably loads of time with you. What's that to change? Yeah, I could write a book on that. Oh, okay. Give me some insights. No, I mean, as an individual going up, I used to be a lot more emotional, you know, on this. Now I'm a little bit, I take a beat before answering, which actually impulse control, the ability to make fast decisions, was something that was always a strength, but that leads to sometimes overreacting or explaining.

41:24That's something that I had to work on. As far as the team goes, like how the management style has changed, it's a lot about, when you talk about vulnerability, it's about having transparency and fairness without getting into that world, which I see some people going into, which is yes, overcompensating or just showing over-vulnerability that doesn't apply. Yeah.

41:54Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:It's not putting your laundry out, but it's just saying if you're not having a great day that it's okay to share that to give permission for others. And just give it back to people. So yeah, I think that's the right. And be very careful with the words that people use. So for example, instead of saying that's right or that's wrong, I can say I think that's the way we want to go or I'm aligned with that. Because words actually matter to people. Hugely. It's not about a changing from value to direction. And I think that that was a big thing. And it's not about my ability to judge what is right or what's wrong.

42:30It's reinforcing my responsibility to actually give direction. And that is an important thing. Same thing that I was saying about focus on the player and not the player.

42:39Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:And you don't know if that direction is necessarily the right one or not, but it is your responsibility to set it and follow it as much as you feel you can. Responding. I'm aligned. I think we should look at it more. I believe that there's direction where we should go versus less they could be and re-evaluate that. So pressure is the word that's coming up at the moment because I would say this comes with a suitcase, if not more, of pressure to do these sort of roles. And when we're under pressure, that's when all our icky behaviours come out and our impatience, our frustrations and stuff come out, which is very normal as a human being.

43:15Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:When that happens to you, when the pressure maybe does get too much, how do you how do you how do you self-manage yourself i had to learn how to manage myself a lot because i had a lot of trades that didn't perform well and the pressure and um or actually i would put it differently it wasn't necessarily the pressure is when i felt cornered or when i felt things that were against my value like fairness for example because pressure like everything can be there's good pressure right like good pressure that deals to adrenaline and movement and stuff, then there's a feeling of corner or unfairness.

43:55When, when moments that I felt that I was meant to deliver some results, but people weren't aligned with my plan. I didn't have the tools to do it. Or I was being asked things that I couldn't do and stuff. And, uh, and my tendencies, and I see not people, I use sometimes I would go really quiet or withdraw or wanted to just run away or just wanted to be very vocal about my frustration or uh or be very short or even express very much how i was feeling at that at that moment and and it took a bit to actually be aware of those of those things and that's when i was when i was talking about separate who i am and actually the leader that i'm that i owe to be to to my people at my clients and say, and just take a beat and say, one, I have to show up professionally to the team.

44:48It's not about me. It's about the figure of the CEO. If I show up stressed and ruffled at work, everybody worries. Everybody is concerned about that. The way that I express myself to the team is I'm opening the door for people to feel that that's acceptable to the rest of the team. and so on.

45:12Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:So where has courage played a part in enabling you to do what you do today? That's a very good question. I think that courage has kept me going for doing things that it made me really uncomfortable. Things that got me out of my comfort zone. Things that sometimes in my world were very cool or got me out of my of my tribe and I had to join another another tribe. Um, I don't know if courage to provide for my family, I like where, where at some point as the sole provider had to, had to do things. I don't know if I would have been able to do it without, without a level of, without a level of courage.

45:55Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:Yeah. And if I said to you now, where do you feel you continue doing what you're doing? Cause your journey's not over in all the changes you're making. Where do you feel you as a leader still need to grow in courage? Where would you like to be more courageous? The more one knows, by the time you've done this for 30 years, and I started when I was 16, more than 30 years, it's very difficult to start afresh every day. and a lot of times like now I find myself keeping myself in check and being courageous about walking a path that I walked in the past and didn't work and walk it again in a different way because maybe what failed wasn't, the path was the way that it was walked and that is and I think that that's the thing that right now is a big thing for me is looking back and not just say that failed that failed 12 years ago therefore it will never work we did that that was that was fantastic let's do it let's do it again it's keeping that keeping that a check requires when it's exceeded it's easier i guess because it feels like a formula is when it didn't work but i know that everything my god tells me that that's the right thing to do that is the scary that is the scary thing and that's what it takes so is that to be so to be willing to maybe look at it again and just look at it in a different way but not give up on it yeah yeah and knowing that it's failed once that you could fail again look at it again and something that is a hundred times bigger with everybody looking at you when you have when you don't want to disappoint to the lovers you don't want to give ammunition to the haters and there's always haters so with all the um with all the experience you've got what are the if you look back now hindsight in terms of what you maybe would do differently or if you're about to now start a new one again or any tips tips for people to take away practical things what are say maybe one to five of those that you people could take away from this conversation i think the first one is i mean it's very easy to say on on hindsight i think the other thing that i would say to everybody is one spend some time trying to get to know yourself and what's important to you?

48:19What do you really want from life? What gives you joy? What is the kind of life that you want to have? And be honest with that. That would be the first thing. The second one is understanding that nothing is forever, or that we can change things in a in a frequent way. And the third thing is, with those things in mind, trying to understand how do they want to portray themselves or what does that do to their own story? In the same way that we're saying that the foundation for our company is the financials and then the house is what we build on top of that. I think that there needs to be an equal exercise of an individual, which is, where do I think that I want to get as an individual?

49:12not not financially but if i look at 30 years on the line who do i want to who do i want to be therefore and what are my values how you know like what is that what is that journey what are the things that i'm aligned or not to to be and then how do these steps build into what i build into what i want to be those are like the three things that i would tell everybody before maybe to step into the sort of role that you're doing before getting distracted by an agency or a company that has immediate needs and is putting a lot of money on the table when you know that it's not aligned with your values you're going to be doing something that you don't want to do and or before jumping into a role uh because of ego because feeling that is your time to run a team even though you're terrified of people you don't like making tough decisions you don't want to be hated and you don't want to be and you don't want to be hated that's what i mean okay because

50:02Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:what is it i'd love to know what does it cost your ambition and drive and getting to where you are today what's been the cost of that so if someone is sitting here going oh I wonder if this is for me or not or a ceo is maybe about to be given this opportunity to go global and do these changes and they're questioning it what's the cost that comes with taking on these sort of big roles you have to learn a lot of things you have to do a lot of things when when I coach people or I mentor people and say like what what are the things that in my life there are like eight things that have to do in any given time.

50:35From, yes, I need to run a P &L, I need to build a team, I need to set the strategy, I need to PR the company, I need to be able to set the quality of the work. You know, like there's a number of, and we counted eight. That's not for everybody. You know, like some people just don't like to be out there. Some people don't like to speak in public. Some people don't like to...

50:57Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:You'll be willing to do that and willing to keep learning. So you have to be willing to do that. You need to be willing to make decisions that sometimes are difficult or unpopular or painful and be able to say it with honesty. You have to be able to face conversations because it will never always go great. And there's going to be meetings when one is going to be celebrated and recognized. and there are times where people are going to tell you that you're not going in the way that you need to go, that the company is not doing well enough and you cannot just fall apart. And it's a game. I don't know a single sports person that has always scored, always won, always done well.

51:44It's the same thing and everything that comes with that.

51:48Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:What about your time? Because I know the hours you've worked to get where you are today. would you say that is part of it if you want to be doing this sort of level of transformation be willing the fact that this isn't going to be a nine-to-five this is going to be quite a bigger commitment as one as one grows

52:09time the relationship with time changes you go through a very very difficult time which is senior management where you don't own your time because you're sandwiched between your team and the needs of the leadership team. And that is the most difficult time to actually manage time and have a work-life balance. And I see it all the time in teams around me. Once you go past that layer, you start having some control over time. Again, like depends on the individual and depends on what it is. You can also delegate more. But you never switch off because a lot of the things that we do are more strategic and cerebral.

52:49It's very difficult. So it's very difficult to do in a big company where there's always things to think about and things to do to say, oh, it's five in the, or six or seven in the evening. I'm going to stop thinking about what my competition is doing. I'm going to stop thinking about the pitch or I'm going to stop thinking about that employee that yes. So it's less about actively replying to emails or doing things, whatever, whatever people do in the day to day life. and that has a different that has a different toll and it's difficult to sometimes be able to be present in uh in personal time on on and other things is there anything i've not asked you that if you were a few years ago and were curious about how have you done what

53:35Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:you've done what have i maybe not asked you that ceos are going he hasn't quite given us that yet What is it he hasn't told us that we need to know? It's very difficult, I say it on people around me, for people that reach that level. I think one of the most difficult things, not just as a CEO, but in leadership, for people to recognize that they open a door to a place where they don't want to be. And I see that. I haven't seen it with myself yet, but at some times I've questioned that. But one of the most difficult things is for people, because you have ego getting in the way, compensation gets in the way.

54:14You have a lot of things that are very real. But there's a few times in my career where I've been having conversations with people in my teams where it's clear that that wasn't for them. And how do you go from there? Because it's very difficult in this world to say, this is not for me. I want to do something without this, this, that. and I need to go back or I need to do something that is, that I think is the most difficult, difficult things and usually not spoken about. And that is a lot of the, a lot of the books, a lot of the literature, a lot of the things about is how you go up, up, up, up, up.

54:50You rarely get something about how do you stay or how do you find something which is right for you.

54:57Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:I know a wonderful CEO that took his, it was a founder, he took his company to, I think it was 15 million. And had this honest reflection. And I think for me, it takes a lot of courage to put a mirror up to go, I'm not the CEO that takes it beyond 15 million and recognize that. And you had loads of people around, you go, no, no, you can, you can, you can. It's like, no, I know I'm not that person. And I think that honesty with yourself to know, I knew I never wanted to be a CEO. I knew that wasn't my thing to sit there and go, is this really what you want to do? Or is it ego driven? and then I would say have you found being able to ask for help building your network that you can't do this solo, this is so big these transformations, has your network played a big part in supporting you to keep going?

55:43It's the network and the team I realised there were things about being a CEO that I didn't like, but then I built a team that had people that they liked about that what I think that I bring to the table as a CEO is I have the ability of connected dots. I like seeing into the future. I like strategy and I like building teams. There are parts of the business where I have a great chief business officer, which looks into real estate, which looks into contracts, which looks into a number of things. And he's excellent at that. I have a fantastic CFO that helps me see the numbers in a way that I can look at it and pointing at the things that I care about.

56:29I know that he takes a lot about things, like cash flow, where he's doing 80 % of that. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, surround yourself with people. You build a team and understand. But one has to get to a point where one is comfortable saying, this is what I do very well. This is what I do. And it's okay. But if I put these people, then we'll kick ass.

56:51Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:I'd say that's probably the biggest takeout I'm taking from this conversation in listening to the whole thing to go, how much you've prioritized talent and team and i must remember i remember again when we worked together the hours you would spend looking for the right people speaking to the recruiters interviewing you invested so much energy in the right people and i think that's where you talk about where you get then your leverage um and as you said that honesty to go i can do this i can't do this and get the people that can help i don't know i'm taking away a lot of this conversation how important the people and the talent you have in having a chance of making this possible.

57:29Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:Because yes, you can have the vision. You do need to know where you're going to go. If you're not going to build the team that can get you there, what's that point in that vision in a way? So that's a big outtake that I think I'm taking from this is how important people are. And the team is a broader thing. Like I've learned how to seek mentors outside the workplace, to get coaches. I like coaches are very important. what is the support group so it's building the team without that leadership is a very lonely it's a very lonely place and very very scary place and i can imagine i can't i don't know how you do your job i really don't know how you do it's beautiful it's a great it's a great job like it's so big when when we look at the work that we do like we just had i don't know i've worked like the last adidas campaign that that came out that everybody's talking about and it's beautiful and it's been celebrated or we or we build things or the things that we've been doing for nissan And like, we do things that, and that is like great.

58:22Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:And you see the outcome, all that hard work. You see the outcome, it's great. When you go to places where all of a sudden you're hiring people and you see that moving to better offices. I mean, remember when you and I worked together, our office was in a basement of a parking lot. And now our office is, we have four floors in great buildings in London with windows. People have like daylight and people can see. And that is great, being able to provide an environment like that for people is fantastic. I think, yeah, that support network. And I think something that kept you and I going with all the change we went through, I think it was like every other morning, we just did a 15 minute walk to get a coffee and a check in at how you're doing, you're all right.

58:56Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:So I think it is the mentor, the coaches, building the right talent around you and having some friends at work. I think that friendship at work as well, just again, just keeps you grounded. Oh, that's super important. I mean, you can imagine in the executive meetings, everybody looks like they're doing amazing. It's great. And it's weird when you go to those meetings, oh my God, everybody seems to be just kicking us and I'm here, especially when you're having a bad month or a bad quarter. And it's only when you start building relationships with them on the side or with other people that you realise like, okay, we're all humans, we're all going through our own time.

59:29Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:We've all got fears, we're all worried and scared and stuff like that. Brilliant. Sergio, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your amazing wisdom. And it's been exciting to be on the sidelines watching your journey. So thank you so much for coming back on the show. And thank you to everyone listening or watching and we'll see you next week. If you've been enjoying the Courageous Leaders podcast, we'd love it if you'd subscribe to our YouTube channel. Your support helps us keep creating quality content and reaching more leaders like you who are ready to grow and make a real impact. We fund this podcast ourselves, so every subscription truly makes a difference and allows us to support courageous leaders like you.

1:00:06Courageous Leaders Podcast Host:Thank you for being part of the journey.