The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 035: Dr. Catriona Wallace – How To Go Where The Money Is…

Episode Date: July 9, 2015

Episode 035: Dr. Catriona Wallace – How To Go Where The Money Is… This was a very interesting conversation with Dr. Catriona Wallace… Catriona has an extremely interesting story to tell about the multiple businesses she runs and how she does it.  She is based out of Australia but also spends a great amount of time in The United States to grow her businesses on a global scale. Catriona is the CEO of three Sydney-based companies, Fifth Quadrant, a Customer Experience Strategy, Design, Research & Analyst firm; Flamingo, a Customer Engagement & Analytics platform software company (www.flamingo.io) and ACA Research, a full service market research firm. In 2014 Catriona was inducted into the Australian Business Women's Hall of Fame, was selected as one of the top Australian female entrepreneurs by Springboard Enterprises and was a Finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Telstra Business Women's Awards. Catriona has a Phd in Organisational Behaviour: Leadership. She is a well published author and international public speaker on the topics of the Future of Customer Experience, Co-creation, Entrepreneurism and Innovation, Data Analytics, new models of Leadership and new models of Philanthropy. Catriona is also the mother of 5 kids. Episode 035: Dr. Catriona Wallace – How To Go Where The Money Is… Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The Learning Leader Show “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what brings you alive.” Some Questions I Ask: What are common characteristics of people who have achieved success? What do you feel obligated to? How do you ensure to always go where the money is? What is the importance of having the end game in mind? How do you manage to run 4 businesses at once? And be a single mother to 5 kids? Which individual leader has had the most influence on you? “Your business needs three things: Money, Sales, and Vision.”   In This Episode, You Will Learn: The importance of having a strong purpose That Catriona once worked with the police force (but that it was corrupt) The importance of focusing on the user experience (Facebook, Instagram) The 3 most important aspects of running a business (Money, Sales, Vision) Why we must be uncomfortable at all times to grow The need to take risks A learning leader is always listening to the market and finding the gap Continue Learning Read this LifeHacker article on Catriona: I'm Dr Catriona Wallace And This Is How I Work Read About Catriona being inducted in the Australian BusinessWomen’s Hall of Fame: Catriona Wallace - Hall Of Fame Follow Catriona on Twitter: @catrionawallace You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 002: How To Take Over And Set Bigger Goals With Chris Brogan Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts Did you enjoy the podcast? I love learning from people who bring a new idea to the table… That is what Catriona has done.  Catriona is an extremely interesting person. Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell   Bio From Dr. Catriona Wallace LinkedIn Catriona is the CEO of three Sydney-based companies, Fifth Quadrant, a Customer Experience Strategy, Design, Research & Analyst firm; Flamingo, a Customer Engagement & Analytics platform software company (www.flamingo.io) and ACA Research, a full service market research firm. In 2014 Catriona was inducted into the Australian Business Women's Hall of Fame, was selected as one of the top Australian female entrepreneurs by Springboard Enterprises and was a Finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Telstra Business Women's Awards. In 2013 Catriona led the Fifth Quadrant Group to win the Telstra Business Awards NSW Business of the Year & NSW Medium Business of the Year. Catriona has a Phd in Organisational Behaviour: Leadership. She is a well published author and international public speaker on the topics of the Future of Customer Experience, Co-creation, Entrepreneurism and Innovation, Data Analytics, new models of Leadership and new models of Philanthropy.   Catriona is also the founder of Philanthropic funds - Indigo Express Fund which funds Indigenous Literacy; Kids in Philanthropy which mobilizes children to have a broader social consciousness and fund children in need; and Out & Up an employment Program for Women Prisoners, Refugees and Asylum Seekers.

First and foremost, Ryan, throw this whole work-life balance thing out the door. And I really, really say this, and I know this goes against the grain. I do not see successful people having work-life balance. Not yet. Successful people are uncomfortable, and successful people are, you know, I don't have quite enough time with my kids. I don't have quite enough time with my work. We're uncomfortable about it, but we just keep going with it.

Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. And welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. This podcast allows me to do some really, really cool things and meet some incredible people. This episode is an example of that.

I got to speak with Dr. Katrina Wallace. She's actually from Australia. And in 2014, she was inducted into the Australian Women's Hall of Fame. Incredible. She currently runs four different businesses while also being a single mother of five children. We talked a lot about how she is able to do that. A couple other things we got into. The importance of continual improvement.

how she's able to kind of see things almost what's going to happen in the future in order to help create and grow businesses. Also, what her specific thoughts and very strong thoughts on what we call work-life balance. I enjoyed that part of the conversation because she's very, very determined when it comes to that. Also, characteristics of successful leaders that she has known and what she tries to do in her own leadership journey. I'm very, very excited for your. you guys to hear this one with Dr. Katrina Wallace. Okay Katrina so you spend and have spent a lot of time around a lot of very very successful people and successful leader specifically and I'm curious as to what is the one characteristic that all of those successful leaders seem to have in common

They definitely have a purpose that drives them, and it's an innate purpose or force within them. I have to say that, Ryan, and let me just quickly unpack what that means. They're driven, but they're driven for a reason, and the reason might be around just being commercially successful, but typically the leaders I know, and particularly the female leaders I know, are driven from a very strong, more social purpose. So when you say social purpose, that means like a sense of obligation to create something or to do something or where does that come from? Yeah, and it might not even be obligation. It might be just a sense to change something, to change something in a business, to change something in a world, change the condition of a certain group of people that they're interested in, but it's coming from

somewhere pretty deep, and typically I would see that it has a bit to do with their upbringing or something that they have experienced as a younger person. Do any come to mind off the top of your head of maybe trailblazers before you that you look up to or currently look up to? Yeah, well, I mean, it sounds a bit cliche, but if I think of the, the most, the most of the most inspiring leader or leaders, to me, would be people like Nelson Mandela. People have gone beyond what you think is possibly doable for the human condition and done it with grace and elegance and being a leader, had tremendous hardship and then come back and being a strong leader.

In my country, which is Australia, we have, we had a very strong, female leader, Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who was an incredibly difficult time, but rose through it with elegance and grace and will go on to being an incredible global leader. There's a woman Anne Summers, who's Australia's leading feminist, again, just on purpose, just driven and remain sort of with this elegance and commitment in the face of adversity. because where their power comes from is in such a deep personal place for them. Great examples. I love to hear that. And so let's get back a little bit to introducing you, Katrina, and what you're all about. So you're the CEO of three Sydney-based companies in 2014. So just last year,

you were inducted into the Australian Business Women's Hall of Fame, you know, incredible, incredible journey you've been on. So I'd love for you to take a moment to share a little bit about what that journey's been like and what you're all about and what you're currently doing. Yeah, thank you. All right. So I come from an entrepreneurial family, and this is why I think, you know, part of what I'm keen to talk about today is, and for your audience to reflect on is, you know, where they've come from and what's in their environment that's going to really drive them, that may be there that they haven't quite hooked into yet. So I came from an entrepreneurial family.

I came from a father who was very successful, came from a fairly standard working class background, but was very successful. I have two brothers and a sister. There was no difference in how the boys and the girls were treated growing up. We were both expected to do two things, probably to lead our own and create our own businesses, but secondly, to be what my father called, to be of service to the community. So he taught us that we were, given that we were born, and I'll just come out and say it straight away,

white middle class, that that came with tremendous obligation to be of service to community and particularly to minority communities that perhaps weren't just born with the privilege that we had. So that was very formative for me. So I grew up, went to school, actually wanted to be a farmer, strangely enough. That's all I did want to be.

I did a couple of years of agricultural economics, realized that people weren't becoming farmers, they were becoming merchant bankers. So I peeled off then and had my first moment of rebellion. So I was, you know, I didn't know, what I wanted to do, really didn't know purpose or vision then. So I joined the police force just as something that I knew would really annoy my parents. Wow, really?

Yeah. And be different to what my other mates were doing in there. I was 19 at the time. So I spent four years in the cops. And strangely enough, it was also very formative because it was at a time when the New South Wales Police in Australia was very corrupt. pre-royal commission, and I had to deal with a lot of stuff, you know, a lot of stuff on the criminal side, a lot of corruption. I ended up in the prosecuting branch, so I was 20 years of age, standing in court, trying to prosecute offenders against eternities and barristers.

And so I learned early that I had to be confident. I learned to project myself as an older person, and I learned to talk on my feet and to take risks. So that was an interesting kind of sidebar. So also, you know, where I'm keen for people to understand too is that the best careers don't necessarily, they're not linear. They don't come because you've gone to school, you've gone to college or university, you've gone into a corporate job and then you've gone off to be an entrepreneur. I really like the people have just done like random things off the side of their careers. I just think that can be so powerful. Yeah, I could see that from a learning perspective to get multiple perspectives.

Like, I mean, I had no idea. That's incredible that you joined in police force at the age of 19. I got to believe that you took a number of learnings from there that have helped you later on in life. Well, definitely. So what was fascinating for me there was the system. So the system, which is like a sociology. So sociology is study of people and systems, and I was in this system. It was very corrupt at the time, and I had to work my way through it, and then chose after

four years not to be engaged with it because I didn't think it was the right place for me. So from there, I actually went on to do a master's degree. I went back to uni, finished a bachelor's degree, went and did a master's degree in sociology, went and worked for a management consulting company for a year, learned what they did, realized that they were charging me out $1,000 a day when I was 23 and giving me like a salary of, you know, $25,000 or something ridiculous. So at that stage I went, you know what, actually these people are charging me at $1,000 a day. I reckon I could have a go at doing this myself. So when I was about 24, I set up my first business, which was a management consulting firm.

I really had no idea what I was doing, but enough. I've been trained for a year and I've fronted up to one of the first clients I ever had, which was prudential insurance, and said to them, I charged, I told them I was a lot older than I was. I told them I was 30 and that I charged $800 a day, which in its day was like a huge amount of money. And they just, they took it. I had no idea what I was doing, but I thought I'd figure it out. And I worked there, I consulted there very successfully for the next two years. I built a management consulting practice around it. really not knowing too much about what I was doing, but knowing that I was probably a step ahead of my client.

And I think that's a real key thing for entrepreneurs is that you don't necessarily have to be the expert in the field, but you do have to be either slightly more intelligent than your clients or just a step ahead of them on the topic. And then if you can hold yourself and be confident, then you'll be successful. And I got to believe you, to be a step ahead of anybody or anything, you have to be on this path of continual learning and understanding and almost being able to potentially predict what's going to happen next. That's kind of what this show is about of is constantly striving to get better, constantly learning, being in the roles of leadership roles like you've been.

I got to believe that's part of it too. It's definitely part of it. So I really struggle with some entrepreneurs who come to me for mentoring advice and they're not from the field that they're going to go into. So they might be just, you know, in banking and they're thinking about something in the healthcare sector to do. And I go, look, you know, that's great and good luck with that. But I really do think you have to know, you have to know your field as an entrepreneur.

because what you need to do is you need to be listening to the market every day, reading, every day, tracking, most things that are going on it, you have to know you feel. Because if you look at how I define an entrepreneur, it's very simple. It's we understand a market, we see a gap, in that gap, there's typically some either poor customer experience or something that's not going well for one recipient of, a service or a process or a product. And then in the business side, there's inefficiency. So there's kind of fat in the business

and then a poor experience who was ever receiving it. And nobody is addressing this. And that's what the entrepreneur does. The entrepreneur sees that and then goes, particularly goes to where the money is. So it's, and other entrepreneurs, I think, are not successful and they go to, you know, I'm going to fix this customer problem.

But there's no money associated, with, there's no business money associated with it. So many of the entrepreneurs I see not doing well have great ideas for a consumer app or for something that someone can use that will just make their life better. Great. But unless there's some sort of money attached to it, it's very hard to make these things commercially successful. So I think back to your comment, yes,

you do need to be absolutely voraciously reading and talking, like the networking side of it, like reading articles, reading books, networking. This is the very best way that you will learn and learn. And what we're looking for is to be that one step ahead of the client, but we're learning to listen for where that gap is. That's a great point. I'm glad you want it there, Katrina.

So let me challenge one of the things you just said a little bit when it comes to you have to go where the money is. So let me, let's use an example like Instagram. Is Instagram big in Australia or no? Yeah? I'm a huge fan. Okay, good. Okay, sorry, I just want to make sure.

Anyway, Instagram builds their business based on, and actually Facebook was like this at the beginning, right? It even was detailed in the movie, the social network, and in the books written about it. But their primary concern was creating a great customer experience. And their customers were just the users of Facebook or users of Instagram or even users of Google. And they said, as long as we create a great place that people want to go, we don't have to initially worry about money. Money will follow as long as we're focusing on creating a great experience for our user base, our customers, and then, you know, you could eventually monetize that, but not initially.

So when I say that, how does, what do you think of that strategy that some of those companies that are now billion-dollar companies have had. Yeah, look, and look, my background, my air of expertise and the companies I've built have all been around customer experience. So I get that, like I get it, and I love it. And I think they are monumental success stories. And that's really in what we call human-centered design, which again is my area of expertise, this is what we want to do.

We want to go and work with people and consumers and build something that makes their life better. I would still say, right, and this is where, you know, there's a lot of young entrepreneurs come to me, and they do think they have the next Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or Vine or whatever these great apps have been. And I don't discourage people from thinking and dreaming big. Absolutely not, because every entrepreneur should be thinking globally from the moment they come up, you know, with their idea. it's the minority of these businesses. Like you and I and the unicorn businesses like those, you know, billion dollar startups,

really we can knock them off on two hands, can't we? We've said half of them there. So I don't discourage young entrepreneurs for dreaming about those things, but if you want to hedge your chance of bringing successful, commercially successful as an entrepreneur, then I still think it needs to be in an area that you know, a gap that you've seen where there's a poor experience, but there's inefficiency and somebody's going to pay for it. Now, as you said, that might not be all happen at the one time.

That might be, okay, yeah, we'll go and solve this problem and then the money comes later. I get that. I get that. But, yeah, I'm still going to say. stick with that you need to look that there's money associated with it. The number of entrepreneurs that I have advised and consulted with or mentored who said, I've built this amazing platform app that solves this huge customer problem, but there was just no money. They couldn't get funding. They couldn't get revenue.

They couldn't get anyone to pay for it. That's the real challenge today. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I know the companies I'm mentioning are kind of the most famous ones out there. And so I thought it was just an interesting thought I just kind of had off the top of my head when I study those, you know, like there's books written on all of them on Google and all those types of type of companies of, you know, focusing on customer experience. But yeah, you certainly have to have an end game or a plan at some point to monetize it or you're not, you know, you're not going to be able to continue to do it. Yeah, and look, I'm going to say that, Ryan, because I know particularly with entrepreneurs, not all entrepreneurs are really commercially focused initially. And I have to say, I think that's like what we do, particularly younger entrepreneurs is have a dream, think of an amazing thing, want to solve a problem, want to improve the human condition. And that's great.

And that's that purpose I talked about. You can tap into that, get hold of that, and just don't let that go. That is, you know, 60% of being a successful entrepreneur. The other 40% comes from just being really commercially savvy about this, that the money doesn't necessarily just always come when you've got an idea. In fact, in most cases, in 9 and 10 cases, it doesn't come. So getting some discipline and understanding how the commercial aspects work of being an entrepreneur, being a startup is really, really important.

And I say as a CEO, and so now I've got actually, including the tech startup, I've got, there's now four businesses that I've founded that are running an all profitable and successful. But there are two things that I say, or three things I say I do as the CEO of a startup. One, it's all about money. And I don't, I'm not naturally oriented around money. I have to just call that out first, right? That is not what drives me, not at all.

What drives me is being able to build a successful commercial business, to raise some money, get some funds, have a level of influence so I can actually do a lot more social change. So fund some not-for-profit things that I want to do. That's my driver. But I don't bring that into my business. So as strongly as I've just, said there what I say as a CEO of a startup what I need to do is these three things it's all about

money and I had to train myself to think like this and even just say it to myself it's all about money I need to bring in capital so either bring in investors and I need to sell so the very best entrepreneurs are the ones that can actually sell and bring money into their business then the third thing is making sure the vision of the product and the team delivering that vision stays true and on you know on path to what what the founder and the entrepreneur wants so yeah I don't know it's interesting one this is such a journey for me that have been on and perhaps you know I'm in my 40s now so perhaps I wouldn't have thought like this when I was in my 20s but very much that commercial side of it has to come in and if it comes in earlier, the better I think.

How do you do this? I know you're also a mother of five, a single mother of five children, and you have four businesses that you're running. I know you travel globally as well. How do you do all this? Right. And this is a great thing to talk about. Okay. So I see. think there's a couple of things happening at the moment. One, there is a whole rise in this whole notion of women now being entrepreneurs and women actually being having in some ways better skills than our male entrepreneurs in the sense that we, this is what we call the rise of the feminine archetype at the moment. And what that means is that businesses are looking and good startups are those that are well socialised, that are able to multitask,

that are able to collaborate and do things that are traditionally associated with the female archetype. If we look at what the male archetype or the masculine archetype is, these are things such as task, rostering, scheduling, results focus, all of these things typically now able to be subsumed by computers or machines. So we're seeing that there is a platform now of businesses and particularly entrepreneurial businesses and even investors looking for that strong feminine archetype. Now that might not actually mean female or woman. It might actually just mean the characteristics that are typically associated with the feminine. So I think particularly for all the women that are listening to your podcast around, it's a really good time and time for them to feel confident because things are definitely changing.

and there is great opportunity for us as women leaders. So I've been riding that wave at the moment, and we know that investors who have capital are looking to invest in women-led businesses, businesses are looking to buy from women-led businesses. So women should feel very confident. It's never been a better time for us than now. That being said, our numbers are still so low,

less than 20% really of anything. in the startup world. So one of the things is that I'm confident as a woman, I'm confident that I have very good and marketable and commercially desirable skills as a woman leader. Second thing is with my children that from the moment they were born, I have conditioned them that I am an entrepreneur, their mother is an entrepreneur,

and I'm a woman leader, and I'm going to need to do certain things that perhaps a traditional mom might not do. So I will travel, I will build businesses, and I will perhaps not be at all the reading groups and the sport events and the Christmas concerts that I would like to be, but I want them to understand why that is. So my kids are brought up also with a very strong social consciousness. They're all philanthropically involved and they all know the reason I do what I do is to make money so that our families. family can be okay and so that we can give to other people. And they're brought up doing exactly the same thing from the day they're born. And they know that if I go away and I'm away from that moment for two and half weeks,

I spend two thirds of my time in the US and only a third of my time in Australia. They come with me on some trips, some trips on away like this one for many weeks from them. But they understand. So I think as far as being a mother, a really strong message I want is to say that it does not, you can still do it as a mother, as a young mother or a more mature mother, you can still do it as a single mother and be an entrepreneur that's running or scaling a global business. Yeah, I read a recent article in the New York Times. Adam Grant, he writes a lot about women leaders. and he actually, I think, tweeted this out where basically stating initially I think mothers were potentially had some fear that if they were full-time, you know, career-type women,

that that could have a detriment to their kids. And actually the science is proving from studies that have been done that it has a positive effect on children when they see their mother working on. all the time. I mean, it's really cool to read. And they go in depth in this article, New York Times, you could look it up, but where they really speak to that fact that it teaches kids to grow up, to think of, especially females, to be empowered to go and do great things in the world. And it even says it's helpful, too, for them to see a male, you know, cleaning, doing laundry, doing all of those things. That's things that I've tried to incorporate with my

daughters is to is to be doing making sure I do those things around the house because it maybe you flip the script a little bit to show that their their mother works hard and does a lot of great things and the dad and mom split the chores around the house in order to show the kids that you're not you're not destined to grow up and be a housewife you're destined to grow up and lead people and to do great things and that's what we try to do and it's awesome that you're doing the same thing yeah look I think so and then the key thing around that for the working or the entrepreneurial mother is the support system. And that's being able to ask for help and know that your children, if they're being cared

for by your parents, your sister or a brother, or in child care or a nanny, that they are actually okay. A lot of what we deal with, the guilt that we deal with as entrepreneurs are really pretty significant first world problems. You know, if you look, I do a lot with Indigenous communities, so Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia. And if you look at how their children were traditionally brought up, they were not brought up just by the mother

or just by the biological mother and father. They were brought up by the aunts, the uncles, the grandparents, and the community. And we could get back to doing, you know, in the entrepreneurial community, we need to do a lot more along those lines. So just on that note, Ryan, just hopefully, of interest. So I've just set up another business. in Australia called the Ventura, which is a women's co-working space in Sydney. And what we've done is we've set up all the things that we think stop women

being able to set out on their own to be entrepreneurs and to be successful. And we've created a workspace that caters for that. So part of the workspace we've got a kids area, which is not a childcare centre, but is where women who might need to come in and do a pitch or go and do a client presentation can just bring their kids in. The kids can play in the room. But the other women entrepreneurs in the centre will watch over the children. So there's nothing paid for.

There are kids running around all the time. And it's like a much more natural community environment. So I say for women entrepreneurs, and also for the guys, this doesn't need to be exclusively women. we need to have our children more integrated into our work, and then when we have to go away and travel, we've had more time with them. So this whole, for entrepreneurs, the division between that's my home life and that's my work life, I don't think it can be divided. I think it needs to all mash up. That's their best way to learn, because kids follow what you do more than what you say.

I know that's been proven as well. And so we can try to share messages, but they're going to watch what you do. They're going to see how you act, how you treat people, how you work hard to lead and to learn and to get better. And they're going to follow that more so than anything that we're going to tell them. Right. So I've got a great story for you on this one very quickly. So I was with a client in Orange County three weeks ago, and I had my two youngest, Indigo's 13, Saxon, is 11, travel. What are their names?

Indigo and Saxon. Those are sweet names. Okay. Sorry, go ahead. Thank you. Anyway, we'd been in, another colleague of mine, we'd been in, we've done a three-hour video, so filming of what we call a customer co-creation session. So in all the work we do in designing our product for our clients, we have real-life customers

and real-life employees in a meeting, and we get them to talk about what each other respectively want. Anyway, film this for three hours. And then we came back and the CEO said, oh, hey, I'd really like a 15 minute excerpt of the filming. I went, okay, yeah, yeah, great, great, we'll do that. And he said, you know, I really like it tomorrow. I went, okay, great, we'll do that for you. Anyway, Adam, my colleague and I, sitting in our hotel room, we're going, I don't know how to cut this video down from three hours to 15 minutes and top and tail it and put it and put it on there and put some out.

I don't know how to do that? And I said, Adam, how are we going to do this? He goes, I don't know. It's going to cost us. This is cost us $20,000 to get someone to format it, and we're certainly not going to get it by tomorrow. So Saxon piped up and said, oh, I'll do it. And I said, what do you mean you do it?

He said, I'll cut that three-hour video down to 15 minutes, and I'll put some titles on the front and back. I'll do some animation. I'll do the credits. I'll run some music on it. And I said, oh, he seriously? He goes, yeah, I'll do it. And I said, okay.

And he said, but I'll charge you for it. I said, oh, okay. how much? He goes, I think it's $10? And I said, oh, that's a lot of money. I don't know. And then anyway, he negotiated it all the way through.

Put animation, he goes, that's $2 extra, that's $3. So we got it up to $15. And then he discounted me to $13 because I was going to be a frequent customer. Anyway, cut this video, right? Cut this video. It was excellent. It was commercial grade.

I gave it to the client. They didn't even question for one second that it was produced by an 11. year old. But then what Saxon did, so that was excellent. I got out of that for 13 bucks. When I got home, Saxon goes, okay, well, I'm now going to set up a photoshopping and editing business. And I said, okay, you can do that. And so that's what he's done. He's now got a little YouTube site and he's starting to do videos and cut videos and do photoshopping around games at the moment. So that experience has set something off for him now to do his own little business at 11 years of age. 11 years old? How did he learn to do that stuff? Because it's what these kids do,

right? This is their world. That's crazy. This is what's natural to him. Yeah. This is, and this is why the future is so, in such good hands. And what I think is we, you know, more mature leaders just need to move. We just need to create the opportunity, move out of the way and let these young people come through. And that's my whole purpose as a leader. It's just to, you know, the younger people are much more suited to leading this world than I think we are. I'm a Gen X. We just need to move over and let them come through. I've been reading a lot about Elon Musk.

I'm not sure if he's a guy you follow, but he has been pretty vocal about the fact that I don't know if he's entirely happy that the most recent creation. are of things that are just like, you know, online clicking stuff like Facebook and Instagram. And he wanted to actually create stuff or, and this, he's obviously that does a lot more than just this, but he wanted to create lasting products for people, things like a car that, you know, is powered all by electric like Tesla or a rocket ship that could fly up to Mars and come back for a fraction of the cost that all others have done, things that are meaningful that can last on forever that would change, you know, our livelihoods forever. And I just think it's really interesting the way he thinks and that it's someone that I

personally love studying. Absolutely. And he's such a good leader and so inspiring. And I think the other thing we're moving from is if we think about the history of where business and commerce has come from, you know, the two most significant events that have happen that have influenced how business is today is the industrial revolution and really different wars that have occurred. And if we look at where management theory that's still relevant today has come out of studying the industrial revolution and military, and that's

where we've got all the language that we've got today of customers being in pipelines and in segments and being targeted and branded and given terms and conditions and businesses is structured in military structures with executive offices and targets and executing things and heads of divisions and departments and the like, right? So this is, and in that world where things were manufactured, they were manufactured not to last because that was commercially viable for the business. There was no concept of value creation for multiple parties. It was all around value creation for the army.

that was being activated or for the business that was part of the industrial world. So we've moved now into a different place where this notion of co-creation or shared value creation. So I do something that's good for me, but it's good for you. And it's good for at least a third party. It's good for our community. We're now seeing this movement very, very strongly coming in to business. So I think there will be, and there is already a shift from those disposable.

You know, I buy an appliance and it should only last for a year and then I have to get rid of it because it won't work or I buy a car and it'll only last for three years and I have to get rid of it. All of that will start to change more towards these quality good for, they make a value, they create a meaningful value in my life. And my life not as a consumer, which is just a terrible term or concept for a person, my life as a human being on this planet, these are the things that are going to start to come through. I love that stuff. I could talk about this all day.

I got a couple more questions for you, though, because I know you're on a tight schedule there. while they're there, but one of them is in regards to leading, in regards to your comfort zone and the fact that it feels to me like you've done a fantastic job of getting outside of your comfort zone. And for everyone listening, what are some tactics, actually like action takeaways that they could implement right now as they're listening to help focus on getting. outside of your comfort zone. Since it's a zone that we're all, well, we're all comfortable there. We're all used to being there. We like being there. But we know to grow, you've got to

do these types of activities. What are some takeaways that people could do right now that maybe you have done? Okay. And let me stop by just acknowledging what you've said and then I'll do that. So absolutely for the entrepreneur, you must be uncomfortable all of the time. So when I recruit people, I say to them, you're going to come into this business. I'm going to pay you slightly, well, I'm going to pay you slightly less than what you should be paid and you're going to be uncomfortable about it. But know that I'm paying you slightly more than I want to and I'm going to be uncomfortable about that. Every day you come in here, I'm going to give you things and it's going to make you uncomfortable and you will need to embrace and be completely at terms

and comfortable with being uncomfortable because you will be uncomfortable whilst you work with me every day. But you get fit to being uncomfortable. uncomfortable. Very soon, if you become comfortable, you won't be comfortable. So I think for entrepreneurs, it is this thing about being uncomfortable. It's being a slight level of stress every day. So let's first and foremost run, throw this whole work-life balance thing out the door. And I really really say this, and I know this goes against the grain. I do not see successful people having work-life balance. Not yet. Successful people are uncomfortable and successful people I don't have quite enough time with my kids.

I don't have quite enough time with my work. We're uncomfortable about it, but we just keep going with it. So you must be uncomfortable. Your staff must be uncomfortable, and you must need to come to terms with that. So then it's about you're uncomfortable because you're taking risk.

And the definition of a startup, and particularly a lean startup, is that we work in the world of extreme uncertainty. So it's just being okay that you've got no idea really what you're doing. You've got some sensible plans that you think will get you to a desired outcome. And that's what we need. We throw out all the strategy that you've been taught at your business school. And I taught on the MBA program in Australia at our leading business school for 10 years.

And most of it I'd just throw out now for entrepreneurs. You need to be able to have a desired outcome you want to get to. Know that you're going to have a lot of uncertainty and risk between now and getting to that desired outcome and that you will be uncomfortable all the way long and your staff need to be uncomfortable. Now what that uncomfortableness is is that you need to take risk. It's all about risk. It's making decisions that you don't have enough evidence to back.

It's about I'm too tired. I can't go to that networking event. and really like I just need to go home watch TV or be with my partner or something. No, don't do that. Be uncomfortable, be exhausted. Go to the networking event because guaranteed you're going to meet someone that's just going to push you a step closer to being at that desired outcome that you want. So the things that people can do is just forget the work-life balance.

You have to manage your family and your friends around it. But if you're going to be a successful entrepreneur, then you're driven and you're doing big days, you're thinking about this, you're dreaming about this every minute of the day, and you need to surround yourself with people who are like that because that makes it easier. So that's one of the things you do being uncomfortable. Get out and it's got to be reading things, meeting people and taking risks. These are the things that you must be doing, even when you're exhausted. You must be doing these things.

take risks and pitch to people that you think, oh, this guy's going to think I'm a loser or this guy's not going to think I'm, you know, I'm not ready to be pitching and then just pitch, just know how to ask for money in a way where you really want to scratch your skin off. I've got to put all of that pride and perhaps way you've been brought up to be, you know,

polite and presentable. Put it aside and just know that you have to take risk and ask for things. where you wouldn't normally do that. Those are great. I love it. And thank you for sharing that. So I'm a firm believer that.

And that's part of what this podcast is about. It's about going outside of my comfort zone of being a natural introvert and meeting great, great leaders like yourself and learning and being able to have it recorded so I can, you know, have this forever. And it's really, really cool. And that's why I really, really appreciate you being here, Katrina. So my last question is in regards to exactly why this show exists. The topics that I'm most passionate about are leadership and constant improvement, constant

learning. So that's why it's called The Learning Leader Show. So if you had to define what a great learning leader is, what would you say? So let's look at a leader. and in its most simplest way, let's make sure we understand that leader and manager are completely different things. And a leader is a person who is able to influence people

to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do themselves. Let's go simple as that. That's my definition of leadership. And they're leading them towards a desired outcome. Then the learning leader is someone who, and let's tie this entrepreneurial thing in with it, is constantly listening. I'm going to take learning into listening,

constantly listening to the market and for the gap, listening for when is the gap, where is the gap and when is the gap? Because I'm going to take and create the desired outcome, and I'm going to put it in that gap, and I'm going to lead people to that. So they would be my things, Ryan. That's a great answer.

I really, I think it's awesome. I appreciate it. For the people listening who do not know you, where can they go to learn more about you? Sure. Well, LinkedIn is a good place. So it's Dr. Katrina Wallace and Katrina's spelled C-A-T-R-I-O-N-A-W Wallace. Twitter is also good at Katrina Wallace, Facebook. I'm really everywhere social media and I love it and I'm very responsive.

So we'd love people to connect with me. The business that I have, the startup business is Flamingia. and it's Flamingo.io. And this is my love at the moment. You know, I have a deep love for my children. I have a deep love for my family and friends. And I have a massively deep love for this startup. And, you know, I hope to be able to share more stories with you going forward,

Ryan, about how we've taken this startup in less than a year and flipped it into an American company and now scaling it globally out of Silicon Valley. I love to share some more stories with your audience as we go forward. I would absolutely love that and I promise I will be taking you up on that all for Katrina. So thank you again so much for being here and I cannot, I can't wait to see your success and your journey moving forward. And we'll definitely be talking. Fantastic. Thanks, John.

Thanks, Katrina. Okay. Bye. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.