The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 277: Tom Goodwin - Life Advice From The #1 Influencer On LinkedIn

Episode Date: September 30, 2018

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Episode #277: Tom Goodwin - Life Advice From The #1 Influencer On LinkedIn Show Notes: Commonalities of sustaining excellence: Confidence + Conviction Ability to make quick decisions with limited amounts of information Faith in their judgement "There is a feeling in the room when a quality leader walks in. A charisma, an energy, a presence." How does one develop charisma? "Introversion is more interesting to me.  Great presenters are introverts.  They are empathetic and think of the audience first." There is "cultural permission" when you're on stage.  The audience is rooting for you to succeed.  Use that energy and positive vibes The importance of a proper introduction Head of Innovation at Zenith.  What does that entail?  "An observer. Reading a lot.  Gain perspective through a lot of global travel. You learn more from countries outside of the U.S. where we have everything that we could want or need." How he became the #1 Influencer on LinkedIn? First, look for the differences in commonality vs causation.  There is a difference "I orchestrate a conversation on LinkedIn.  I facilitate it through my articles.  I don't claim to know everything." "I got quite irritated.  I got fired at my job for being outspoken.  I started sharing my beliefs and it caught on." "Because I wasn't filtered, it hit a nerve with people.  I am not careful with my words." How to gain support for your passion/side hustle while working at a big company "Encouraging this attracts great candidates and helps retain top talent." "Senior management needs to support and encourage it.  If they have envy or are insecure, then it won't work." "Large companies need to understand why they got big.  Those reasons may not be what gets them to the next level.  We need to rethink rigidity." "Life is about creating good problems." "We need to create a culture of progressive criticism." The Apple commercial: "It took 1,000 No's to get to a Yes" "We shouldn't worship busyness.  We should worship output." The reason for writing Digital Darwinism Life/Career Advice: "Don't worry.  Too many people spend their youth thinking their career would take a tidy path. It's not. My career has been quite messy, but it's worked out fine.  Be humble, thoughtful, and empathetic." Develop curiosity - "The UK education fuels curiosity, fuels interest.  That doesn't seem to happen in the States.  We need a breadth of the world. Like James Dyson or Elon Musk." Build a network - "Job postings. That's not how the world works and it won't in the future.  I want sparkly talent that has five other jobs.  Don't be afraid to nurture multiple talents." Have a sense of humor.  It helps ease the mood/tension and makes you more enjoyable to be around. Issue: "We're obsessed with being correct rather than being helpful.  That's not good." Why joining The Learning Leader Circle is a good idea Use the "Get To Know You Document" Social Media: Follow Tom on Twitter: @tomfgoodwin Read: Digital Darwinism Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12

We're obsessed with being correct rather than being helpful. And I think it's fascinating to me because quite often I do a tweet and it turns out I'm completely wrong. And the prevailing sort of tone of the debate is, ha ha, you're wrong. And I don't care. Like if I brought about a debate that people learn from and if, you know, I don't mean fake news. But if I put out a theory and it turns out that there's a lot of evidence to suggest that it was not right. That's a great discussion to have started. This episode is brought to by Leveraged Learning.

Leveraged learning is a great new book by best-selling author Danny Eni. It's no secret that universities and colleges are struggling to keep pace. It's sad but true. These institutions are leaving many of our individual and collective needs for learning and growth sorely unmet. This crisis is an opportunity for the experts and professionals who possess the knowledge and skills that are so sorely needed by so many. The solution is to package their expertise into leverage learning programs that creates transform, for the lifelong learners who need them and profit for the experts who create them. Danny Eni, a successful educator entrepreneur, has been leading the charge on this growing movement.

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It is Mindful Monday. Text learners to 44222 in order to join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world. Text learners to 442222. Now on tonight's featured leader and it's a great one, it's Tom Goodwin, the head of innovation for Zenith Media, which is a top three global billion-dollar agency. He speaks all over the world. He's a best-selling author, and he was recently ranked the number one influencer on LinkedIn for his thought-provoking post. He's so good.

A few of the topics we got into. How to create a culture of progressive criticism and why that's so helpful today. And then how introverted people can develop charisma and presence. Interesting part that may surprise you. And then at the end, he gives us three pieces of career. and life advice that I found to be quite helpful. Ladies and gentlemen, you will love this one. It's Tom Goodwin.

All right, Tom, a highly requested guest by fans of the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome, man. Thanks for having on the show, Ryan. I'm excited to have it as I dug into your story and everything that you've accomplished. There's so much to get to. But to get us started, I'm curious, you've spent a great portion of your life. surrounding yourself with people who have sustained excellence. You obviously are someone who has done that as well and we're going to get into that.

But I'm curious from your perspective, what have you found to be the commonalities among those people who sustain excellence? I actually think it's quick decision making and confidence in conviction. You know, the world is changing faster than ever and people get kind of paralyzed by indecision and paralyzed by uncertainty. And something that I see with these people is at first. faith in their own judgment and the determination to commit to things and to not worry about the consequences.

And the contrary to this is I see a lot of people in middle management that are scared to make decisions and they kind of did. So that for me is probably the single trait that I see most commonly in these people. Do you have some people or maybe you have a story about yourself where this comes into play where people have developed confidence and conviction in their decision making? they're able to make quick decisions and they have they've they've developed this faith and their judgment yeah it's more something that you you feel in a room you know I think there's a kind of dearth of strong leaders in the world and probably in one in 30 or 40 meetings you're just

aware that there's someone in that environment that is actually moving things along and shaping the agenda and quite often I think it correlates quite strongly with charisma actually so there'll just be someone that has a certain energy and a certain assuredness about themselves and a certain presence as a result. You know, it sounds quite like a sort of hippie-ish thing to say, but there's almost like an aura around these people where you're just aware that they get stuff done. I think there's something sort of magical in that where you're suddenly aware that a one-hour meeting suddenly becomes 20 minutes and actually you walk away with confidence and a sense of

direction and a sense of shape to what you need to do next. So that's the single thing that I'd say is, is both missing and is both vital for the future. When the word charisma and presence comes up, I immediately think about the introvert who's listening in their car on their commute to work thinking, I don't know if I have that. But they also think can or they're thinking rather, how can I develop that? Yeah. And so, Tom, I've watched you a lot on stage, and even in your writing, you could feel this. How have you developed charisma? How have you developed presence in a room? Because you read books about having this executive presence. And I've seen it. I felt it. And obviously you have too. But how does somebody who maybe doesn't feel like they have that naturally as part of their DNA? How can somebody develop that? I mean, that's a fascinating area to explore. And it's quite complex. I mean, to start with, I'd say introversion is interesting because I actually think the very best presenters in the world are actually the most introverted because great presentation is actually about empathizing with the audience and sort of reading them.

And, you know, you're actually more listening than you are speaking. So don't be afraid to think that introversion means that you won't be a great presenter because I actually think it means you're more likely to. I myself am quite introverted. Like when you look at clips of me speaking, it doesn't appear that way. but it's almost like a role that you go into. You know, you have to sort of pretend somehow that you're reading someone else's script and that it's not real.

So I don't think introversion should be a barrier. It needs to just be a challenge that you need to sort of get over. But actually, you know, I think if you were to look at charisma and extroversion versus introversion, you'd find that, you know, in the quadrant of extroverted and charismatic,

you'd probably get quite a lot of annoying people and quite a lot of people that people think of as slimy or that people are distrustful of. So I actually think this is quite a strong area for introversions to sort of develop because it's those kind of more congenial and sort of conversational charismatic types that are much more likely to be introverted. So don't think of it as a problem. Just think of it as a way to shape your sort of ideas and focus.

Yeah, I've done the personality test, all of them, or a lot of them, and come out very far on the spectrum towards the eye from an introers in perspective, yet you're regularly getting on stage. But I think part of the way that I've developed that is you've got to get the reps. And what I mean is just if that is uncomfortable or not natural, forcing yourself to prepare and then get up on stage and do it. And like you said, it's super authentic yet it's still a performance. And it's something my dad taught me early.

you said, right as you're going on stage, you have to think, I am the baddest dude in this room. And that's just part of kind of like the mental preparation to get ready to go up on stage as somebody who's not naturally wanting to do that. And so getting there, but doing that over and over and over before you notice, just like most things in life, if you do it a lot, you become more comfortable and better at it. Absolutely. A key thing for me, and it's an expression that one of my first bosses taught me was this idea of cultural permissible. So when you are on a stage and your sort of, you know, big faces plastered all over posters before an event, you know, you have been given permission to act in a certain way. And people want you to succeed in that role.

So I actually find speaking at a big event with 4,000 people, I'm incredibly comfortable. The moment I'm at someone else's event and I'm in the audience and they pass the microphone around and say, does anyone have any questions? I'm absolutely terrified because I don't have cultural permission to sort of take the mic or take the conscience and to sort of be another person. So it's kind of fascinating. Interesting. A key thing I think for leaders and general workers to understand in this is when you're in a meeting, the way that you are introduced is actually incredibly important because it either

gives people permission to behave in a way or not. So if you're ever in a meeting and no one else introduced you, I personally find that very challenging and I'll kind of sit in the corner and sort of shrink and not really say anything because somehow it doesn't feel appropriate for me to sort of be the person I want to be. I'm not right to do that. It's quite sort of pathetic and I need to work on that. But it's notable. How do you help people better introduce you? That's a good. Well, I mean, because like we all get, those who get up on stage, there's always a presenter. And I've had some that are very bad. And I've had others who are good. Usually what I say is I give them a script, but I'll say it's better if you can somehow speak from the

heart that you actually care. So I will coach them to spend some time to get to know this without having to just sit there and mindlessly read it because nobody wants to hear you just read a bio. And I think, and again, getting lifted to the stage or even in the meeting is important. I think in a meeting room, because you've all got the same size chair probably and you're probably all sitting in a sort of vaguely egalitarian way wearing sort of similar clothes. So that in a way is where it's more important to give people permission to act in a certain way. And also the specifics of their job.

Like somehow in this quite sort of millennial focus business culture, it seems a bit uncool to introduce each other. Or it seems a bit sort of pathetic to actually announce what your responsibility is. But it's very, very important for anyone in that meeting to sort of know why you're there and what your value that you're adding to the meeting is and what you have permission to discuss and what you have permission to make decisions about. I think at conferences it's slightly different. I mean, it might be wrong, but I think when you're on the big stage, you've kind of already been anointed with power.

Like you've already been given 20 minutes or an hour and the microphone, and therefore you've been given people's attention. So I feel like people expect you to be good and worth listening to. So that importance to sort of elevate you, I think is slightly reduced. Yeah. So, Tom, when you go to a dinner party and. And let's assume for the sake of this question that the majority of people do not know who you are at this dinner party. It's a reasonable assumption.

Reasonable. Okay. So the natural question that you receive is, hey, Tom, what do you do? How do you respond to that? Well, I respond to it very badly because I haven't figured out the best answer. Because I'm either too specific or too vague. The way I like to say is the world is changing very quickly. technology is changing people's expectations and behaviors and creating existential threats

and opportunities for business and I helped them navigate that landscape. That's my terrible but quite poetic answer that makes people very confused. Oh, I go really pragmatic and I say I work for a really big advertising agency and I have conversations with our clients about the future of retail, the future of money and the future of payments and I explore new ideas with them. But that sounds a bit boring. you're the head of innovation for Zenith media. Yes. Yeah. In the U.S. My role is U.S. based, and I get into trouble when I don't say that. But I travel around the world because quite honestly, if you want to

understand the future, you need to head to China or South Africa or Romania or Brazil, because that's where you see elements of this coming together. More so than in the States. Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing about the States, and sorry, if we're going off at a tangent here, is you've invested so early in every form of technology that often your ability to sort leapfrog to the next sort of paradigm of technology is somewhat reduced because you already have a system that's good enough. You know, so in the US, you have a fleet of, you know, 7-6-7s and 7-7s in your airlines, and you have a banking network that works and you have moles which work around the world.

And then you go to China or to Estonia or. or to countries that are smaller like Australia. And there you'll see airlines that are buying 7-8-7s because they don't have this legacy of airlines before that. There you'll see e-commerce going through the roof because if you're in China, you don't have a shopping mall to be replaced. You've never had one before. If you're in Kenya, you have mobile payments

because you don't actually have a working sort of banking infrastructure. So it's fascinating to see when companies sort of embrace a new technology for the first time now, they actually invest in the next system. rather than the current system. Interesting. Okay. So there's a lot, there's a lot to your story. And one of the ways, one of the reasons that I know you became such a requested guest is

because you've been called a top 10 voice on LinkedIn. In fact, even ranked number one as an influencer for your, for, I think the, your post as far as what you write about, what you say. And I think maybe even more importantly, how you say. it and what you're willing to do. And I'm curious, how does one go from a guy who's obviously good at his job, but not famous, to then become, I mean, I say that as a compliment, but then become the number one influencer on a gigantic platform full of very famous people.

How does one go about doing that? Well, a couple of things. One is, I can tell you what happened to me, but that doesn't mean it's the recipe for success. I'm very aware of survivorship. bias in the world where, you know, you presume that if you grew up in the 1970s and you had a garage in Silicon Valley, you're destined to be a sort of billionaire. And I just think that's a commonality rather than sort of causation. And the other thing is I'm a bit uncomfortable with this idea of thought leadership because I don't really think I lead the thought. I think that I

orchestrate other people leading the thoughts. You know, I don't go on LinkedIn and say, this is the future of blockchain, aren't I clever? I go, I'm not really that sure about blockchain. Like, this seems like a problem. And then much more intelligent, expert, talent will then comment on that. So it's the kind of debate that I'm lucky to bring about, which leads to the thought leadership rather than myself. But anyway, with that out of the way, I got quite irritated, to be honest. I was working for quite a big advertising agency in New York. And our roles were very much about understanding change in the world and advising our clients on how to best take advantage. and I got fired because I was quite provocative and punchy.

So I was sitting at home and I was just quite angry with the lack of change that was happening in our environment. And I found in particular it frustrating that advertising agencies are very smug about themselves being innovative. They're very smug about how creative they were. And actually, in the entire world of advertising, I don't think is creative. We haven't made any brand new advertising formats since about the 1950s. our business models are actually extremely archaic. So I got really angry and I got really punchy and I didn't have a job and I didn't have a kind of corporate PR department that was going to sit on top

and sort of monitor what I was saying. So I just started writing for publications with beliefs that I had. So I think the very first notable piece I wrote was, you know, why content marketing isn't for you. And it was taking on the kind of current, well, the trend of the time for everyone putting all their money in content marketing. And I think because I didn't really care and because I didn't have to be filtered, it really sort of hit a nerve with people.

So every time I would write something, there would be lots of people that would say, you know, this isn't genius. It's what we're all thinking, but I'm glad that someone said it. And that kind of tonality of taking on prevailing wisdom and being quite direct. I'm not provocative for the sake of it, but at the same time not being careful of my words, that has kind of led to me being considered to be interesting and provocative and thoughtful and sort of furthering the debate. So it just went on from that. So I'd get asked to write for bigger publications and I'd be asked to write to attend conferences and to speak on the stage.

And just, you know, bit by bit, it got bigger and bigger and bigger. When did that start? I think about 2013, 14, something like that. So you got five. fired, you started writing for publications. And then how did that lead to this big job called Head of Innovation? How does that happen? So I was in, I actually moved back to London because my visa ran out. So I was living with my sister. And I was just writing more and more.

It's like going to the gym where, you know, the more you do it, the easier it is to do it. So I'd be writing about, you know, what does the Apple Watch mean for advertising when that was invented? And I got a phone call from Havas Media, which is. one of our small arrivals saying, we're not really sure what you do, but there's something interesting here. Please can you come along and sort of meet us? So I had a few meetings with them, and I was given a job of Havas to lead innovation for that agency. And then in all of this time, you know, my writing has found a bigger audience. You know, the way that social media works and the algorithms sort of propel people, like slowly you become bigger and bigger. It's a very, very gentle,

but slightly sort of parabolic curve. And then as it became more notable, as then it sort of got in touch with me. I mean, poach is the wrong word, but it was a bigger agency offering me a bigger job. And by that point, they knew more what they were dealing with. By that point,

it was more clear the value I could add, and it was also more clear the value that I couldn't add, and they sort of brought me on as a result of that. So how did they feel? I mean, I guess I assume they like it, but I'm still curious to get your thoughts. we have a lot of people listening, Tom, who they do something on the side. And obviously, you don't do things on the side, but you are kind of Tom.

Goodwin is a brand in itself as far as speaking and writing a book and publishing work out there that Tom Goodwin alone could be the brand outside of who you work for. And so I think this could relate a little bit to people who have a side hustle. So how does it work between the. company and then you as a brand when you're up on stage speaking, um, kind of representing yourself in a way from what I've seen. How does, how does that work?

What's the relationship like, um, with the company as well as you? No, I mean, it's a, it's a fantastic question. I think,

um, I've been very, very lucky both with Habas and with Zenith in their ability to get comfortable what is, with what is actually quite an uncomfortable situation. You know, the reality is that it's not, kind of ideal that there's someone with their own opinions that are not necessarily 100% aligned

with the opinions that the parent entity has. And to kind of know when those opinions are both very different and unhelpful and to know when those opinions are quite different and sort of rather benign and to know when they're very useful when they align. To know that is quite difficult. Like I've been very, very lucky and I think they're very intelligent with what they let me do. They very rarely tell me what not to do. And at the same time, I think I've slowly learned over the years what are good things to me to comment on and what are not particularly helpful things for me to comment on. So we've kind of learned to sort of make it work, but it's not being particularly easy for both sides. I mean, in a way, the more important thing is that companies

will need to get to grips with this, because, you know, if you're a medium-sized, you know, healthcare company in Ohio and you want to get the very best coders in the world. The reality is that it's going to be very, very, very hard for you to get the very best talent in the world because the very best talent in the world probably wants to live in San Francisco and work for Facebook or Google, whatever. So knowing how to attract and retain the very best talent in the world will come down a lot in part to how do you orchestrate these slightly more progressive, contemporary, flexible working relationships like this, especially in creative industries. I think if you're an accountant,

you know, you don't really tend to sort of moonlight as a world-class accountant on the side, at least as far as I'm aware. But if you're a kind of creative or if you're a graphic designer, or if you edit film, or if you're a photographer, you know, there's something very useful in letting a world-class photographer both be working for your agency. but also going off to the serengeti and taking photographs of giraffes or whatever. You know, to find a way for these roles to work together, I think is a key thing for the future. And I don't think it's going to be easy. It's interesting.

This happened to me, Tom. So when I started this, I was working full time as a leader in an organization. And having these regular conversations with people far smarter than me who have lived more than me, who have great experience and wisdom for me to learn from made me so much better at my job. And I had an immense amount of support up until a certain point when there was some changes in leadership made. And that support for what I do, this show went away, went away. And that's a shame because it, I think, was a big advantage to have that.

It was actually a recruiting tool. I heard about it every single time I interviewed somebody, somebody would, they obviously Google me. would bring it up and they would talk specifics and I think it was attractive to outsiders who were thinking of coming in and and instead it was viewed differently from people who worked a little bit higher up and and I think I think like what you're saying is very true is I not only would I be okay with it but I would promote that I would I would empower people to do it I think that is the future I'm curious because you're you're you look at the future a lot

yeah if you're the CEO of a big multi-billion dollar internet international corporation. And you have people in various roles. Like you said, I don't know if an accountant is going to moonlight as a world-class accountant somewhere else. But like you said, and more potential creative roles or leadership roles, like in my case, what structure would you set up to not only allow this, but to maybe help people do it?

Well, I mean, I think you, the key dynamic is something that you just expressed, which is you have to have senior management, which is supportive of this. And they have to understand that this kind of arrangement causes a lot of quite significant problems. But those problems are actually quite good problems to have. You know, if the problem is that someone wants you to speak at the World Economic Forum, but you're also supposed to be, you know, in a kind of monthly status meeting, you know, that is a problem, but that's a great problem to have. There are other problems. I mean, I don't think I feel it that much here, but there's a degree of envy that I think you get from other people, you know.

How is it that they're able to fly first class to Japan to look around the Huawei factory when we have to sort of stay here and do his work for him? So I think it's probably important for people who are managing these situations to write down all of the problems that are likely to occur, then to write down all the good things that happen or the bad things that happen and probably create a sort of framework or strategy around it where, you know, I would like to think, this sounds quite pretentious, But I would like to think that the fact that I've done this and the fact that Zenith

that have been supportive of this provides quite a lot of hope and a degree of sort of excitement for other people around me that can actually see that this kind of thing is possible. And it may mean that they speak at a local event in New York one afternoon and they write a piece for the 13th most popular advertising magazine next week. But this can sort of elevate to become something more significant. Yeah. I think it's an important topic. and I hope.

Yes. And I will say, I've worked for some incredible leaders who were unbelievably supportive of this. So I think actually the majority of them, at least in my experience, are. And they're good people and they're secure in themselves. But sometimes you find the insecure one who may, as you said, have some of that envy a bit and then it could go south. I think security is the key word. People that are confident in their, the value that they add are much more likely to be happy around other people adding value in quite extraordinary but sort of asymmetric ways.

I mean, maybe we're going off topic here, but, you know, large companies need to understand that a lot of the ways that they worked in the past, a lot of their assets

and a lot of their processes have been very, very useful for making them big in the kind of industrial age. But increasingly, if you look at the positives of that, they're no longer as helpful as they used to be. And smaller, more agile,

more sort of dynamic companies are actually able to sort of take them on in quite new ways. And as part of that, you know, big companies really need to think a lot of, rethink a lot of the rigidity that they have. So whether it's the software that they force people to use, whether it's the way that they force people to work within the office from set times, whether it's the vacation policy, whether it's the promotion structure. You know, like I don't like talking about the word millennials because I think it's quite a vague grouping of people. But the reality is that we're going to have people who have created an app that sold it for $5 million and are now 24 and they realize they want to work in a big

company. And the way that large companies are able to both recruit that talent and nurture that talent and work around that talent is going to be key to the success. Because otherwise, you know, large companies are only going to have the most relaxed, most compliant, leased in control of their own destiny people working for them. and all of these superstars will be setting up their own things and working from we work and stuff. So how companies are able to change processes and software and structures and policy to fit around these people. It's going to be a key challenge, I think, for the future.

I'm curious, Tom, what does a day in the life of you look like? I imagine most of them are different, but what is a typical day like in what you do? Because I think head of innovation can be a term that people say, well, what does that mean? What do you actually do? No, I mean, more than any other job on the planet, it's probably extremely hard to both describe or give any useful sort of day in the life of. As cliche as it sounds, I mean, this sounds like a horrible expression,

but literally no two days are the same. So if you were to sort of pick random dates from the last six months, you would find that there was very, very little in common. The things that are in common are that I spend an enormous amount of time, I'm reading, like many, many hours per day. You know, most evenings, most sort of weekends, I'm sort of on Twitter and just looking at various different articles that my Twitter feed sort of gives me. I have quite a lot of conversations with people that are kind of on the periphery of our

industry. Like, I think I can learn more from a sort of an architect about the design process or I can learn a lot about the economics of shopping by speaking to someone with a small store. So I have a lot of conversations with people and I do a lot of observing as well I mean it sounds quite sort of pretentious but I'll sit myself on a kind of bus in Bogota and just kind of look at how people are on their phone

I'll see what they're using or you know I'll try and I'll try and sort of hang out around different demographics and you know I'll go to you know towns in the north of England that have had their main street ripped out and that sort of seem quite lost and hopeless and I'll just try and sort of take it all in somehow. Are you meeting with leaders of other businesses a decent amount? Not really.

I mean, again, as part of my sort of more introversion than people would expect, I'm quite shy when it comes to asking people for their time. So it would be very smart for me to do that. I should start doing that more. But I mean, I get quite a lot of requests for my time, and it's quite difficult to sort of deal with. So I tried to be quite sympathizing. towards the fact that a CEO of a medium-sized company probably has a lot of demand on his time.

And, you know, I might not be the most fascinating thing that happens to him that week. What do you, who's demanding your time and what do they typically ask for? Other than a podcast called The Learning Leader Show, who wants to record with you. I mean, I do believe that life is about creating good problems. And when you have these problems, you have to be very thankful that they exist. So I'm very lucky. But I think I've got like 600 and something thousand followers on LinkedIn. So I just, I get a lot of, I mean, my main problem is people that don't really express what they want or they're quite sort of misleading with them what they want.

So I get a lot of like, oh, hey, I'm in New York, you know, can I pick your brains? No, don't. I just had an episode about that. Don't say that. Never say that. Be specific. Heidi Grant and I talked, have a whole book about this. Okay, go ahead.

Sorry. Pick your brains is one. I mean, the other one is, again, I'm being sort of unpleasant here, but people will say, hey, I've got this new company, you know, can I buy you a cocktail and get some advice on you from you? And I find this idea of like, oh, I'm buying you a cocktail, so it's fine. You know, somehow it's turning what was quite a friendly request for help where you've been quite honest about your intentions into some sort of form of very badly paid employment. So I would like people to just be a bit more clear and a bit more sort of empathetic in what they're saying. you know, be direct about favours that you're asking for rather than sort of obfuscate them around friendliness.

But if I'm honest, I find it quite stressful because, I mean, I don't know what it's like to be Bill Gates and to get a million emails a day asking for money, but I get about 100 emails a day asking for my time. And I find it quite difficult because you don't even know whether to reply to people or how to reply to people, how to prioritize these things. And you end up feeling either like overstretched or that you're being really miserable to people. What did you think when you got an email from a guy with an email address at learning leader.com asking you, I'm serious like asking you to come on a podcast. What was your initial thought? Well, I get probably 10 requests a day to go on podcasts. So it's very important for me to establish very early on. You know, one, does this person seem interesting and nice and fun?

Two, what does their podcast do? is it full of people who are interesting and having good conversations and three, and if I'm honest, this is quite a key part of it, you know, do they have a decent listener base? Yeah. Because, you know, there is a sort of long tale of podcasts

of people with a dream and a cupboard and a microphone and maybe 10 listeners. And, you know, like, I'm not quite as, people probably see, right, if people see that I exist and they see my face, they probably presume I'm this sort of self. promotional person that wants to be on every conference stage and wants to, you know, be on TV or every podcast. And actually, I don't really want to do that. I just want to have a few good

conversations with people that I learn from and that hopefully listeners learn from. So I'm quite select with what I do these days. What made you say yes? The combination of you clearly being interested in really good listener base and you having great people on your show and just like an energy that I got about you. Oh, cool. Thank you. That was more of a selfish question than anything else. But I like to learn too why people say yes, why people say no. I think part of, I think, sustaining excellence is being a conscious competent. This is another thing. My dad told me a conscious competent is somebody who has figured something out or somebody who is good at a particular skill and they know why. And the only way to know why is to ask that exact question of you. Well, what made you say yes? I want other thoughtful, wise people to say yes. And so one of the ways I learned is. just directly asking why.

And I think that can be helpful. It's a great question. I mean, it takes a degree of sort of balls to ask it. Well, people kind of presume that you're almost asking for them to sort of praise you. I find feedback a very interesting thing actually because I don't think I'm a particularly sort of natural speaker at conferences because that's not really how I feel, you know, why I feel like I was put on this planet. And when you ask the feedback, people invariably tell you lots or lots of wonderful

things. And that's really nice. And the first few times I spoke, it was very reassuring. And then now, you know, I get paid quite a lot of money to do it and I do it quite often. So I know that I'm not terrible. And I really want people to be sort of cutthroat and ruthless and unfair in their criticism of me and tell me all sorts of horrible things about how I looked like an idiot and I had a stain on my T-shirt and my hair was crap and they couldn't hear what I was saying. And you very, very rarely get negative feedback. And that's actually extremely. me unkind of people, you know, like people presume they're being nice to you by telling you wonderful things. It's, it's far, far more helpful and kind and useful to have people tell you

what you've done wrong. I completely agree. And as much as I want to disagree with certain parts, because I know we talked about that pre-show that I wasn't going to always just agree with you. But in this case, this is one area, though, that I would even double down on because the most, the people that I want, I just, it's funny, I just, I just, hosted a big workshop and it was a big deal Tom like we we put a lot of work into it my team and it and i really wanted it to go well uh but i had one particular person that was a part of the workshop and their one goal was to take notes on me and how i conducted myself and how i you know from the second they walked in the door to the second they got home you know the whole experience

and i said and i don't want you to purposely be hard of me but i but i want you to have no fear and and and we went out and afterwards, we had a three-hour meeting and he just tore me apart. And I, and I, but I've never been more grateful for something, though. Now, he obviously said some good things too, but I mean, but he was very direct. And it was one of the best gifts I could receive. I couldn't even put a dollar amount. It was, it was a, it was a free consultation. But, but my point is, I think people, if you're, if you're looking to, to continue to improve, to grow, to get better, you've got to purposely place people in your life who are one. They're smart.

They're intelligent. They can actually provide really good feedback. And two, you're willing and able to take it. And you want it. You want it. I think you want it because, like you said, when you get done a speaking, I learned this after initially, like you said, I thought I was really good. I'm like, oh, I must be really good because everybody says how good I did on stage.

But that's not really true. People do that naturally because they're nice people, right? They want you to feel good. Oh, and they know it's hard to get up on stage. But I don't, I mean, it's great. Don't get me wrong. I like it. But I treasure even more when you get done and they say, hey, this part, this part and this part,

here's a way we could make it better. And here's a part where you messed up. And I think that's what I value more now than, oh, that was awesome. That was killer. You know what I mean? No, totally. I mean, I think it depends on the level that you're operating at and how much experience you've had.

Right. But yeah, I mean, you know, I'm kind of like a semi-professional speaker now. So, you know, no one needs to tell me that I did a nice job of walking up to the microphone and I didn't trip over. You know, that's kind of a hygiene factor. It would be fascinating to think, how do we create a culture of, you know, progressive criticism? Because I don't really think we get enough of it in the corporate world from what I see. And that covers everything from the way that people are doing their jobs and the way that people behave,

all the way through to the quality of work that we're putting out there. My very favorite video stroke commercial I ever saw was actually this Apple commercial where it says, it takes a thousand nose for a single yes. And I think that ability to reduce down and to simplify and to get rid of the crap and the distractions, I actually think that's going to be a really key element for people's success in the future. I definitely don't see that much of it, especially in America, there's a culture in America of worshipping busyness rather than output.

And if you're really, really to focus on output, then you actually say no to, you know, 19 meetings out of 20 and you have the confidence to not turning up to 10 meetings, you know, telling them beforehand, but to not turn up to 10 meetings that normal people in your role would have done. And you say when ideas are not good and you're not afraid to kill things that are at a late stage of development where you've got sunk costs. And that kind of confidence, I think is a really, really, really key way to succeed in the future. You decided to write a book. and digital Darwinism.

Yeah. And in the book, you say that it's kind of surprising. You never expected to do this. And I'm curious then why, I guess part of why, and I'm in the process of this too, just finished the 27,000 word proposal. And it's one of the hardest things I ever done, and I'm not even done with the whole book yet.

And I think part of why, though, it's been such a good process, almost like therapy, because I've had somebody help me put it together and we have to talk through a lot of things. But I think the reason why almost everybody, especially in leadership capacity, should do something like this is because there is a lot of value in spending time to document your beliefs. And that's what a book is. And so I'm curious that you decided to sit down and document your beliefs, at least for now, because obviously we evolve and we change, we grow. Yeah.

But you decided to do that. I'm curious, what was it? the deciding point and what did you learn through the process of doing it? Those are great questions. I mean, I'm kind of, I'm going to give you a disappointing answer to this because I wrote a book for all of the wrong reasons. I should probably sort of lie and sort of merchandise. No, I appreciate the authenticity.

It's something about real real quick aside, Tom. So there's something about the accent that people just, maybe it's just Americans or at least maybe it's just Americans. We just love it. I just love it. I could listen to it all day. You don't use filler words. You have the accent. Everything about it is pleasant. And then on top of it, it's useful as well. So anyway, I'll let you get back to your answer that's that you're about to let me down, which is fine. But go for it. So I mean, I started writing for small places because those are the only places that were published me. And then I wrote for bigger places because they saw that there was something in my writing. And then I wrote more and more and more. And I'd written about 300 articles and a sort of literary agency. literary agent approached me and said you should write a book. And I presumed it was some sort of scam. Like I presumed it was a little bit like people that go around shopping malls and say that, you know,

to 15 year old girls that they should be a model. And then they sort of take photographs of them for $3,000 and then they sort of disappear. I presume someone was sort of flattering my ego and that this person wasn't real. So I had a phone call with them. And it turned out that they were a proper literary agent and that they really did think that there was something in my ability to write. and my viewpoint it was interesting to publishers. At the same time for the year running up to it,

people had routinely told me that I should write a book and I had routinely laughed at them because I had no interest in writing a book whatsoever. So the agent asked me to put together a kind of outline, I think, of about 10... He asked me to write the first three chapters, which in a nice way I kind of refused to do because I've got quite a busy job

and writing is quite hard for me. So I refuse to. to do that and then he said, well, why don't you just write an outline, you know, just cover the kind of territory that you want to explore in this book and let me see if I can do something with that. So I cobbled together, sort of old articles that I'd written and a sort of overarching narrative and I sent that to him. And I expected that to be the end of it really, but it turned out that a few publishers were interested. So I got a book deal and I did it that way. And if I'm, if I'm honest, that's the only way that I would have ever written this book. You know, by having a kind of

publisher that's chasing me, that's helping me significantly organize my thoughts, that's providing me with an editor to help make sense of them. Without that process, I don't think I would have done this. Maybe it's a sort of personality type, but I'm aware that asking for people's time is really challenging. So I wanted to make sure that every moment that people spent reading this book was something that they felt was giving them something. So I wanted to make it kind of bursting full of ideas and I wanted to make it sort of powerful and interesting and persuasive. So I set quite a high bar for myself in terms of the quality of the output that I want to make sure this book had. And therefore it's mentally exhausting. And also, I don't know, you feel,

you know, I'm only 39. So there is a degree to which you think, well, who am I to think these things? You know, like you feel like, you know, most authors are sort of deeply wise, old people that actually have a lot of knowledge, which is sort of certain and correct. And my book felt a little bit more like some person in a pub just like spouting out beliefs they had. But I guess by now I've got a certain degree of credibility. So I felt very vulnerable in the process. So to get the early books back and to have people say nice things about them and to have people

that I trust who would be brutally honest with me if it was crap, to have them to have them tell me it was good was a very sort of key moment for me. Well, I think the process of basically the market told you what it wanted in a way. Yeah. And then you responded to that. I think that is the way I would prefer to draw it up, really. I know personally it's the same way you get off stage and you probably the same thing happened where someone says, hey, I just went on Amazon and you don't have a book. This has said to me, where is it? Where is it?

And this gets told you enough times to where you say, they're right. They're right. Yeah, I should. And obviously it's a good feeling. So then it's like, all right, now we have to do the work. It's time to do time to do the work. And that's not necessarily easy. It's very, very hard.

It's extraordinarily hard. I mean, another, this is slightly interesting, but I wrote my book in quite an unusual way. And I think most people, they have all this stuff in their head. They write a book. it's 80,000 words. They then take articles from that and spread them around the internet, and then that draws people into the book. And then you do tweets to get people to those articles.

I actually, a key part of this book was, you know, I've probably done 10,000 tweets in my life. And there are some of those that performed very well. And when they do well, I think, there's something in this idea. Maybe I should write an article about it. So a lot of the articles I've written have actually been prompted by tweets that I felt hit a nerve.

and then to some extent this book was quite shaped by those articles that had performed well. So there's almost this weird sort of diamond construct where it's tweets that was turned into articles that were turned into books, and turned into the book, which is now turned into articles which are now tweeted about. So there's a kind of, you know, I don't think it's a recipe for success. And I don't think it's a kind of weird piece of genius. It comes full circle, Tom. Yeah, that's a beautiful shape. I know you mentioned that you're still quite young. You feel a bit of imposter syndrome at times, which I've also found to be a commonality among people who sustain excellence as they have this humility about them.

So I think that's one of those signals and markers for achievement, which is backwards, but I get it now that I've seen it so much. The people who are the opposite of the ones I'm scared about, right? the ones who already have all the answers and think they think to know it right. Yeah. I like the ones who have all the questions. So I'm curious, though, I would imagine that you are a guy, whether it's within your company or outside of it, that gets approached by people probably earlier in their career. Maybe college kids are just coming out. And they say, Tom, you've created this really interesting life for yourself.

Yeah. A remarkable career where you do a number of things. you've probably had jobs created based on what you've written. In fact, I mean, right, head of innovation, which sometimes are terms that you're not sure, right, what the person does. And so I would imagine that people ask you for advice, for career advice, for life advice. I know this is broad, but I've also, I'm just curious personally, what are some thoughts or words of wisdom that you would give to somebody maybe a bit earlier in their career? to whether it's to create the kind of life for themselves or the career for themselves or both that they could potentially use that that could help impact them in a positive way

wow i feel i feel a lot of pressure to say something wise as i'm just teeing it up to force you to think of something profound so good luck good luck thank you i think um one is is not to worry I know that sounds a little bit unhelpful, but a lot of my youth was spent on the presumption that my career would take a somewhat tidy path. And I remember I'd be offered certain jobs and I'd be tortured about whether or not to say yes or no to them. I remember when I chose my degree at university thinking it was a big decision. And it was sort of predicated on the idea that somehow life was going to be this system of red gates and blue kids. gates and that happiness lay at the end of this path of the perfect choice of gates and that somehow if I made one bad move that everything would be ruined. And I know that sounds quite dramatic,

but when you're quite young, you think that everything's very dramatic. And I realize in a retrospect that actually I probably could have chosen any one of those routes. You know, I probably could have done 25 different degrees and I'd still be in a somewhat similar position and that there would have jobs that I could have done and actually I would have left and it would have been fine because my career has been extremely messy. I mean, I've done all sorts of terrible jobs. I've made crappy decisions. I've taken massive pay cuts. I've trusted people I shouldn't have trusted. And it's all worked out fine. So I think, you know, it sounds too good to be true and it sounds unlikely, but I think just just have faith that if you're a good person and you, you

humble and you're thoughtful and you're empathetic, that probably things will work out. out in a great way and don't get bogged down with too many decisions and too much heaviness. So that would be number one. Number two is curiosity. Like I think I don't like talking about U.S. and UK and other global differences that much because it sounds a bit smug. But there is something about the UK education system, which is kind of somewhat about fueling curiosity and fueling a wits of interest.

And I think increasingly is the internet means that. that knowledge is available to everyone. I think having to hand a kind of a breadth of the world and sort of knowing how things connect, it sounds very sort of ethereal, but when you actually look at a lot of the people that have made breakthroughs, they've often been people from tangential areas. You know,

so Watson and Crick in discovering the structure of DNA were actually some of the worst geneticists ever, but they were useful at other things around that field. sort of James Dyson, you know, sort of comes into the vacuum cleaner market with no understanding of vacuum cleaners whatsoever and he does a good job. And you look at sort of Elon Musk's weird brain and his ability to sort of bring in external information from different fields is really what helps him. So I think, I think that kind of deep curiosity is, is probably the second thing to sort of nurture. I think the third thing, I know building a network probably. I think this idea,

somehow that jobs are posted on a job board and that people are selected according to these narrow criteria, I think that way of working is probably going to change. Like if I, if I was to sort of set up a company tomorrow, you know, I wouldn't want to go through this process of finding neat cogs to fit into a factory production line. And I mean that sort of metaphorically, obviously. I'd want to just find sort of sparky talent that maybe has five other jobs. and, you know, is maybe a sort of famous DJ, but they also love drawing or something. Like, I'd want to get these people that are quite odd in their shape. And I don't think right now the world is in love with these people who are awkward and weird and strange shapes.

But I think increasingly the world will look for people like that. So don't be afraid to kind of nurture talents, which make you appear to be unhelpful to your main career. hopefully there was some good stuff. Did you just kind of come up with that on the fly? The second one about curiosity comes from an article that I wrote about the future of education. But the other stuff was just, yeah, it just came up. Well, it's helpful. And the number one question I try to ask before I decide to publish anything, whether it's writing or a podcast, is, is this useful?

Is it useful for the listeners? I want it to be entertaining. I want it to be engaging. I want all those things. But there are a list of priorities and the first ones is being useful. And you obviously have delivered big time in that regard, Tom. Just one tiny thing on that, I see.

I think we're obsessed with being correct rather than being helpful. And I think it's fascinating to me because quite often I do a tweet and it turns out I'm completely wrong. And the prevailing sort of tone of the debate is, ha, ha, you're wrong. And I don't care.

Like if I brought about a debate that people learn from. And if, you know, I don't mean fake news, but if I put out a theory and it turns out that there's a lot of evidence to suggest that it was not right, that's a great discussion to have started. So even if my career advice then wasn't, quote, unquote, correct, I think those thoughts are quite useful and helpful for what's to have. There's so much power in facilitating conversation.

And that's what you do. I mean, I think that's, and if your end goal is just to kind of figure out what it is that's most useful, most helpful versus. being the guy to come up with the idea. It's just, and it's also, I always like to like try to break things down. And one of the recent breakdowns of why is this,

this person so likable? So side tangent real quick, but I, because I get this sense from you too of why you're a likable guy. Why is this person so likable? And then you start breaking down all the qualities of that person and the way they interact with people and what they say and what they do. And you find that,

that they, that they do a few things. they spread positive gossip. They speak positively about others behind their back when they're not around. That's one reason why somebody's likeable. Two, is that they don't care who gets the credit, but they do like facilitating interesting conversations. They like being a part of those.

And they're not overly worried about it. And so there's a lot of humility there, a lot of empathy there, a lot of curiosity there. And then before you know, you're like, wow, I really like that person. They're smart. They are caring. They're thoughtful. they kind of they realize that

they might not have all the answers but they're definitely seeking out ways to get there and I just think that's an interesting breakdown I'm glad you brought up that last point of instead of being obsessed with being correct let's just try to be helpful

let's just try to create dialogue that leads to something that's useful and helpful I mean I love that but one other thing is a sense of humor as well and there's something about corporate culture in 2018 where there's a heaviness that goes around

and is quite pervasive. And it's easy to sound obnoxious here because I need to be aware that I'm privileged. I'm white, I'm straight, I'm a guy, I've got blonde hair. Like, I couldn't be playing life. You have great hair, by the way. I'm envious. I couldn't

be, I'm quite tall. I'm not especially fat. Like, I couldn't really be playing life on any easier mode. So I don't want to take away from that privilege and be like, life's amazing. It's great for everyone. Because there are some people, well, many, many people who face existential struggles. But at the same time, like a sense of humor, you know, I've got in my little office,

I've got a picture of Kermit the Frog riding off a bicycle saying, you know, there's no evidence that life has to be serious. And I think just a sense of humor can be amazing. It's amazing in disarming people. It's amazing in forming bonds with people. It's amazing with taking tension out of a room in a serious meeting. It's a great way to allow creativity to flow. So again, without wanting to sound like someone that eats granola and hugs rainbows,

you know, like, given the choice, like, let's not be too serious about stuff. I love it, man. Well, Tom, I do, man. It's great. And I completely agree as much as I wanted to disagree with you. It's hard. I told you, though, it's got to be authentic, though. It's got to be real.

There are times, like I said, I had a recent conversation about why we should or shouldn't go to college. And there was some levels of disagreement there with a guest. And it was very good and useful. But it's got to be real. Next time we'll do that. Let's do it. We'll like outline topics that we disagree on and we can do it again. But I really appreciate it, man.

Thank you so much for being here. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? I've got a website like tomfgoodwin.com. But actually, LinkedIn. I mean, LinkedIn is useful. I think I'm Tom F. Goodwin on LinkedIn. And my Twitter feed, I think it's also Tom F. Goodwin, actually. Or the Moosey man, I'm not sure.

But I'll probably come up in a search result. Yeah. Yeah. it is Thomas good one. Okay. All right, man. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Yeah. This is a lot of fun. I'm happy that you've impacted so many, including many listeners. My buddy, good friend Josh, who's in my leadership circle, recommended you first and foremost, and then others have it well. And I'm going to have to send him a big thank you for putting you on my radar a while ago. And now we get a chance to chat, man. So I definitely want to continue this dialogue as we both. progress man sounds great thanks very much for me on run all right thanks Tom

all right wasn't that one pleasant to listen to useful helpful I've read a lot of Tom's work online and it was so much fun to get a chance to converse with him directly I found him to be simply a great person and I enjoy speaking with people who are smarter than me and also humble and You can just tell our good people. And Tom's one of those. I hope you enjoyed it.

If so, I would love it. If you would write a review, subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcast. That's write a review, subscribe and rate the show. Hopefully five stars if you're doing it in iTunes. But wherever you listen to podcast, it really helps spread the message worldwide and continues to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And I'm so grateful for that. Thank you so much. I love this.

See you next week. Can't wait. This episode is brought to you by Leveraged Learning. Leveraged Learning is a great new book by best-selling author Danny Eni. It's no secret that universities and colleges are struggling to keep pace. It's sad but true. These institutions are leaving many of our individual and collective needs for learning and growth sorely unmet. This crisis is an opportunity for the experts and professionals who possess the knowledge and skills,

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for navigating and thriving in this new world, both as a lifelong learner and as an expert with something to teach. Go to Amazon. and buy leverage learning the age of opportunity for lifelong learners and experts with something to teach and buy it today. That's great. All right. Thank you, man.

That was really good. I truly was looking for things to not just fully agree. But I think the way it just kind of happened naturally, I didn't know where it was going to go wide ranging. And I appreciate you being willing and able to just go with it. I was fascinated by the talk, man. I could have gone for hours, so I really appreciate it. Yeah, me too, actually.

It's weird, because I do this quite often. And there are times when you feel like the person is not getting the most out of you. But you are clearly very good at this because I absolutely loved that. And I felt like I got good stuff out. So thank you very much for that. Thank you. I appreciate that. It means a lot coming from you, man.

So I appreciate it. I will, well, yeah, I'll get it edited. Won't really edit it. We'll just put on an intro and outro type thing. And then we'll shoot it out. And I'll make sure to send you a note. when it goes live. Yeah, just let me know when it goes live, but you don't need to send me a copy to review

or anything. And if you need to access other people, like if there are particular types of people that you want to get on your show, then let me know as well. Cool. I will seriously think about that based on people. And if there are others that you have in mind to say, hey, this person's really good, thoughtful. Like you said, the type of qualities that we like.

There's a guy called, the only person that strikes me to mind right now, and I know your focus is not sort of advertising per se, but there's a guy from the UK called Gav Thompson. Okay. And he's particularly interesting because he's done quite all of innovation, very big companies. So he used to work for Telefonica, which is, I think, in the world's fourth largest mobile network. And he set up sort of various different ideas within their company. And he's just a very sort of charismatic, likable, honest, sort of highly successful, sort of funny guy. Um, so he would be a good person.

You said GAV Thompson? Gave Thompson, yeah. GAV? Yeah. Okay. He's based in the UK, but obviously that doesn't matter for this. Okay. No, it doesn't.

I'll look them up. That would be cool. Yeah, if there's others that come to mind, let me know. I mean, the, the, the best way to get quality guest obviously is, is friends of, of other really interesting people. So, and that's, that's, that's, fortunately for me happened a good, a good bit for this show. Perfect. Well, if I can ever help out again, whether it's coming on the show or off

other people or anything, let me know. Okay, awesome, man. I'll be following up with you here soon. Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it, man. All right. Have a good on. Bye.

Bye.