Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / The Advantages of Self-Doubt with Jamie Sylvian

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The Advantages of Self-Doubt with Jamie Sylvian · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

• 0:00
  Welcome to another episode of Founder Unfiltered.
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  The conversations that founders aren't having but need to be.
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  My name is Bradley Jacobs. I'm your host the the founder
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  and CEO of my Lance. Today I'm really excited to be
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  joined by Jamie Sylvian. Jamie is the founder of
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  Executive Nomad and the author of the Executive Nomad Operating
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  System. More than 25 years, he's worked
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  internationally as an independent communications
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  consultant with organizations including British Gas, global
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  publishing houses around the world and the British royal
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  family, all while living and working around the world.
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  Jamie is called 13 Countries Home.
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  He's built up a business that end up being sold for $200
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  million. He has had businesses shut down
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  in 2008. Kind of been through it all.
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  Jamie, welcome to the show. Bradley, nice to be here.
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  There's a million places we can start, but you've been through,
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  I'm going to call it the founder roller coaster.
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  The UPS, the down, the win, the challenges.
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  You know, you've been through so much.
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  What is maybe one of your biggest learnings about yourself
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  that has helped you navigate this?
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  Where you are today and you're still rolling, working hard,
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  making life work for you? I think one of the the most
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  important things I learned and nobody told me they're so just
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  kind of learning and so went along.
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  Bradley was, was that you, you always stick by your word.
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  If you say you're going to do something, you do it.
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  And the reason that I can, I can testify that that works is
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  because, you know, I've been in business for over 30 years and
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  I'm still friends with people. I was back in, in business with
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  BEC when I was in my very early 20s.
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  That's because I, I did what I said I would do.
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  You know, I just, I did, I did the right thing as far as I
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  could. It didn't always go my way, of
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  course, but I, I, I think that was really important is to speak
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  true to your word. And do you mean true to your
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  word with other people when you say, hey, I'm going to follow up
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  on this thing, I'm going to do this thing.
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  Do you mean with yourself when you make a promise to yourself
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  like I'm? In, in the context of, of the
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  conversation, I mean, with other people, but, but you're right,
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  it's a valid point with yourself as well, because you can get,
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  you can, you can get knocked down so many times and at the
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  wrong, just when you thought you were going to get there, well,
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  you know, something was going to work.
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  Something came out of the blue and it didn't work.
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  And, and you have to be able to be true to yourself in the, in
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  the, in the sense that say, well, all right, I'm going to
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  sulk for a day. I'm going to allow myself to,
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  to, you know, to wallow in my own self pity.
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  But then I've got to get back up and start again.
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  And I've done that, you know, I've done that more times than I
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  can, more times than I can tell you.
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  We've talked about this on the podcast before, where allowing
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  yourself to feel bad or pity or whatever the emotion is is
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  really important, right? Not to gaslight yourself or
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  just, OK, so you let yourself feel it.
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  How do you then? Because it can be so common to
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  just get knocked down, get frustrated, go into self doubt,
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  self blame, right? How do you actually get back
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  over and over and over and over and over again?
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  You got to allow yourself to, you know, to, to get beaten up
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  by this. You've got to allow because
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  you're learning. And that's, that's kind of a, a
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  thing that I was taught years ago that, you know, it doesn't
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  matter how bad it is, it's still a lesson.
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  It's still something that, that you know, that you, you'll
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  remember in the future. And that definitely has played
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  out, but I always do allow myself to to sort of work it out
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  and do nothing. I step away from the business.
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  I take no phone calls and that may be just for a day, maybe for
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  a few days. I take nothing so I can kind of
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  deal with things in my head. I was working on a huge deal, a
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  life changing deal about 3 years ago and I was one day away from
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  it closing and it all just fell apart when I'd already taken my
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  wife out to dinner to celebrate. We were actually at dinner when
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  I got the phone call. I finished dinner, I think she
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  knew, but I finished dinner and then I, we, we went home and
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  then I said, I just need to be on my own for a bit and, and the
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  deal fell apart. But what do you do?
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  Do you stop? You can't stop.
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  You've got to get up, you know, and I've, I've been through it
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  so many times. Anyone who's sort of at the
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  early stages of their career and they're going through this
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  stuff, every knockback and every failure you've got, you're not
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  the first. They'll feel like it, but you're
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  not the first. You know, I've been through this
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  stuff so many times. Big, big deals that, you know,
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  small, small deals, big deals. They all, they all hurt in
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  different ways, but you, you just got to stand up, get on
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  with it. Practically speaking, when you
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  take that time day you said could be two days more, what are
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  you actually doing? I, I tend to not try not to
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  think about the business because because I get very, very focused
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  on, on whatever it is I'm working on.
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  I get very focused and therefore sort of life around me may, may
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  sort of, you know, change and, and you know, big things going
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  on. So I take a step out of the
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  business and then I just so I look at the world around me and
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  then I sort of clear my head and I can get back into the
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  business. But quite physically, what I'm
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  doing is generally walking. I'm either in a city because I
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  travel around so much. If I'm in a city, I like being
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  in a city when, when it hits the fan because you there's so much
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  else going on. There's so many other things.
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  You're walking in a, in a forest or on a beach.
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  It's lovely, but then it's then you're just in your own head.
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  The city sort of for me is, is a real, you know, it's a real sort
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  of takes you out yourself and you can see other, other things
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  in life going on and just lots of coffee and people watching.
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  And I just kind of let it I I kind of re ground myself.
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  I think that's a good way of putting it.
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  I'm loving this perspective because I know for me, when I
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  get knocked down in my business, I want to figure out what
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  happened. I want to figure out the
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  learning. I want to understand, you know,
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  there's such a almost hyper awareness and a hyper fixation
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  on what happened and I'm hearing you do the opposite.
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  You're like, I'm not going to think about the music.
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  How do you do that? I'm like, I can't imagine having
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  this big issue and then dropping it for a day or two or three.
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  Because it's my insanity, because to me, the the way I
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  think about it, because I heard what you just said.
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  But the problem I see with that for me personally is that if you
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  dive into try and analyse, you're still dealing with all of
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  the all of the stuff that went wrong.
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  You're not putting any, any distance between you and the
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  problem. You and the be a person, be a
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  software, be a financial saying, whatever the reason is, if you
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  don't put distance between you, you're, you're still, you know,
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  seeing, not seeing the wood for the trees and all that kind of
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  stuff. Whereas if you take that, that
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  literal physical step away and say, I'm not going to my office,
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  I'm not being where I am. I'm going to step aside and I'm
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  just going to let the world kind of gravitate to me.
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  And then I'll start to clear my head and I'll clear my head of
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  the anger or the OR the disappointment or all that
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  stuff. And then I'll start to get into
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  it. And I just think clearer.
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  I think it, I've done it for a long time and, and I, you know,
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  very often when I was living in Spain, as an example, anything
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  that'd go wrong, I would jump on a bus and go down to Gibraltar
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  because Gibraltar is one of my favorite places.
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  And it's also like, it's like going back in time when you go
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  there. So it was in a completely, a
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  completely different headspace. I used to really find that was
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  really cathartic to me to sort of just kind of settle down and,
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  and as I said, put some distance between me and whatever the
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  whatever the problem was. Amazing, something I get to try.
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  Even now, just just on that every Wednesday, I have a very
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  firm role and I've had it for 20 plus years on a Wednesday.
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  I don't go to my office and I don't pick up the phones or
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  anything, but like family calls my wife or whatever I have, I
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  have what's I call remarkable Wednesday.
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  It's just outside of the business completely and I shut
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  down And what the reason it's called a remarkable Wednesday is
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  because I own a, this is like one of those digital notepads,
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  the remarkable it's called. And so that's all I take.
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  It's a, it's basically a really expensive notepad.
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  Actually, that's all it is. That's all it is.
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  But what it does is it again, it kind of gives you that distance
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  between all the stuff that's going on in your business and
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  I'm building your business now the, the executive Nomad brand.
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  And I just know that for me, I need that time to step aside.
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  So I think it doesn't going back to your question about, you
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  know, if there is problems, I don't just give myself space and
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  distance when I've got a problem.
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  I give myself space and distance anyway because I think it's
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  really important to just take yourself out so you so you can
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  just kind of recalibrate your brain a bit.
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  That remarkable Wednesday. So you don't work on the
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  business or you just don't take calls?
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  Oh no, I do work on the business.
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  It's for working on the business, but it's not taking
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  calls because if you take, you take a call, it's not the two
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  minutes you're on the phone, is it?
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  It's the two hours dealing with whatever that phone call was
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  just about. So I don't read emails for
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  exactly the same reason. I don't take the phone calls for
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  that. I have, you know, I do lots and
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  lots of podcasts. I do lots and lots of group
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  calls and that kind of stuff, but never on a Wednesday.
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  My, my diary is, is, is blocked out and I get up in the morning
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  and I'll go and have a coffee wherever I am.
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  I'll just, I'll meet you around the town.
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  I've got my remark all and then I'll start to get ideas.
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  You know, it's just in Malta for the the whole of the winter
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  because I where I'm where my base is really, it was really
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  cold and I had an I wanted, I still had my Wednesdays and I
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  wrote my book and I, I just had this plan.
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  But Wednesdays was even my wife didn't call me on the
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  Wednesdays. That's that's how, that's how
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  sacred it is to me. She says she sent me a note.
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  She said I won't call you today. It's your remarkable Wednesday.
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  That's funny. So what I'm hearing you share is
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  you find these different mechanisms that work for you,
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  whether it's Remarkable Wednesday or dealing with a deal
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  that didn't go through and you kind of you create these
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  structures for yourself. You know, one of the structures
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  obviously is being able to travel around the world, work
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  from wherever you want. And that's something that you've
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  been doing for a long time now. Talk to me about the executive
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  Nomad. Like what?
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  What does that really mean? It's a new term for me and I'm
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  sure our audience as well. Everyone's heard of digital
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  nomads, but digital nomads spend their life running around Bali
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  looking for free Wi-Fi, right? So the executive, the executive
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  nomad is basically, it's for people who love the idea of the
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  digital nomad, you know, that, that freedom, that flexibility
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  and all that stuff. But they've kind of been around
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  long enough and earned enough money to not be looking for the
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  cheapest place to stay in Bali or, or Malta or wherever they
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  are. You know, you go with the
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  intention of having, of having an actual experience.
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  You don't go for a week, you go for a month, two months, three
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  months, four months, whatever it is.
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  That's the nomad side of it. The executive side of it is, is
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  within 30 minutes of me arriving at my Airbnb in, in Malta as as
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  an example, I was, I was on course.
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  I was in exactly this environment that we're in now
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  and I was still doing the work. And the reason is simply this.
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  Now with all the technology that we have, when people are paying
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  me for, for my services, they're not paying me to sit in their
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  office because that's pointless. They're paying me for what I
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  know, for my experiences, for my pattern recognition of 30 years
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  in, in business. They're paying me for that
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  stuff. They're paying me to, to help
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  them with their wins, with their losses, with their lessons that
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  they're going through as business that because I've been
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  through them, it's an advantage. You have, you know, you've got
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  all of these new people into business, new founders of new
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  business and so on. They, you know, they're smart
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  people, but they don't have pattern recognition because they
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  just haven't lived long enough. So there's a value for people
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  who have reached, you know, 40. It used to be just 50.
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  Now we're seeing it and people are calling me up who are 40
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  now. And, you know, but it's that bit
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  of your career where you think I know stuff and that stuff has a,
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  has a value. And for me, the point was, and
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  it's been the point for a long, long time, it's that, well, I
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  don't have to be sitting in, in Bradley's office to, to explain
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  this stuff to him. You know, I'm, I'm in a ski
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  resort because it's ski season, so I can do my work and then and
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  you know, or do my meeting in the evening as I am with you.
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  That's what executive Nomad is all about.
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  So I structured my life and structured my business.
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  And this is nothing new. The name is relatively new, you
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  know, the, the title of an executive nomad.
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  But I've been living this lifestyle, as I said, since I
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  read a book, get this, I read a book in 1992 because I was, I
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  was just a kid and I found it in a serviced office in, in the UK,
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  in Exeter. I was running my very first
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  business, I just after I'd left college and it was, it was a
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  book called Perpetual Traveller and it was the precursor to
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  digital nomad. And honestly, they were talking
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  about you can live somewhere else because you can just fax
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  other companies in other, other parts of the world.
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  It was so archaic the, the, the, the tech that they were using,
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  but it, it put something in my brain and I started doing it and
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  eventually, you know, now everything's everything's fine.
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  It doesn't matter where you are. But yeah, I've been doing, I've
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  been doing the executive nomad stuff for a long time.
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  Wow, I love a story. I could fax anywhere you ask.
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  That's great. There's a very big distinction
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  in what you're doing. I would say is you're an author
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  of your life. You are creating what you want,
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  You are making things work for you.
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  You can live wherever you want, work wherever you want, share
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  your knowledge, and you find companies and situations where
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  this works. And the opposite that I hear so
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  often is more of a victim mindset of, oh, I have to do
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  this and it has to be this way. And this is the circumstance and
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  I am a victim to my circumstances, more or less.
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  And it feels like you're either an author or you're a victim.
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  Like there's kind of no in between.
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  How have you found when you are in this author place, when you
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  are dictating terms like how do you actually make that your
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  reality versus being a victim to what companies want from me or
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  just circumstances? You just have to be ready to say
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  no. I have rules.
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  I've done a lot of work for publishing companies all around
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  the world. And any time that they wanted me
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  to be there in their room with their team, I would often say,
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  well, I that's, that's just not how I work.
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  You've got to be ready. This, this living this lifestyle
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  is so important to me. Having that freedom is so
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  important to me that I'm ready to say, well, it's not going to
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  work. We're not, we're not going to be
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  able to work together and be, and be comfortable with that
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  and, and know that that may, you know, affect other contracts and
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  all the rest of it. I don't think I've lost that
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  many. I know I've lost a few for sure.
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  And actually the reason I lose them is not, is not about the,
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  the, the framework of the business that I'm, you know, I'm
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  involved in. It's normally that people get
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  just a little bit less now, but just a little bit fed up.
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  But, you know, I'm looking outside their window and it's
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  pouring down with rain and I'm near a beach in, in Greece or
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  in, you know, in Thailand or wherever I am.
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  So there was a lot of that very less.
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  So since COVID, the mindset has shifted so much that actually
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  people don't even really ask where I am anymore.
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  So, you know, I, I'll tell them if I want to be having
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  conversations, but I'm just, I'm just here, I'm here virtually
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  with them. And that's enough.
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  You gotta be, you gotta be ready to say no.
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  That's a short answer. So many people struggle to say
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  no, myself included. I mean, it's just it can be
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  challenging because of what you said is you don't know what's
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  going to be the reaction on the other side.
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  Maybe most of the time it's fine and some of the time it's not
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  fine and it feels like you get to be OK with whatever their
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  reaction is. But what is the layer underneath
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  that? If you're willing to entertain
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  me for a second of like, I'm well, you, you, you say it was
• 14:45
  such conviction, Jamie, of like, I, I'm just willing to say no,
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  this is so important to me. Like what's how do you get to
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  that place where you're just with that kind of conviction?
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  I think I grew into it because you know, when you're young and
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  you just want every, you, you never want to say no because you
• 15:00
  want all the business and you never know where it's going.
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  And I, so I think, I think as you mature and you get older,
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  then, then you have that advantage.
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  I've always known that if you know something doesn't work,
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  something will work. And that's, that goes back to
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  what we were saying about, you know, give yourself a day and
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  then get back up again once you're knocked down.
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  You've got to be confident in yourself and that so both of
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  them fit together. For me to say no to a company
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  that wanted to work with me is, I'm happy to say it because I
• 15:23
  know it's not going to be the end of it for me.
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  And I've just stood by my principles now, to be, to be
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  fair, I always tell them, you know, before we're like putting
• 15:32
  a deal together, I'll always explain.
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  I say, well, I'm not in wherever it is you are.
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  And now if they, if they want to know why I say I'm a, you know,
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  I work globally. I can't be everywhere.
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  I work with companies in America.
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  I put companies in, in Bangkok, in, in Hong Kong, in London and
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  so on. I can't be everywhere.
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  So that's a really great out for me.
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  And if they still don't accept they are, well, we like our
• 15:51
  teams in one place. That's well, that, you know,
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  that's, that's just not how I, how I operate.
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  So, you know, I always give them the opportunity for some
• 15:58
  particularly good deals in well, I did a lot of work with the in
• 16:01
  the gaming industry in Gibraltar.
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  And a couple of times I really wanted that client just because
• 16:06
  I liked the brand and I went back a few times.
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  But then I would do the days in their office.
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  They were great fun. I, you know, I didn't mind doing
• 16:14
  it at all. But then the sort of the
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  offshoots, the, the mentoring that I did for some of their
• 16:18
  people, the coaching I did for some of their people.
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  I was actually living in Kosamui in Thailand at the time.
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  So I would go a long way to make sure that deal lasted me a few
• 16:27
  years. I mean, they paid all the
• 16:28
  expenses, so that was great. But but I would go back to
• 16:32
  Thailand and live the way I wanted to live and I would be on
• 16:35
  the on calls with them and then they were paying me.
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  They were basically paying for my time in, in Thailand.
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  So I thought that was fair that, you know, fair that I would, I'd
• 16:42
  step up and, and be there for them when they needed me.
• 16:45
  So, you know, it's a mix and match and it's confidence as
• 16:47
  well. And I'm going to venture to say
• 16:50
  that every one of us has some self doubt, imposter thoughts of
• 16:55
  right, lack of confidence, at least at times, maybe when we
• 16:58
  were either younger, haven't done as much work or just in
• 17:01
  general, like we all have it right.
• 17:03
  And so I guess I'm curious, have you had those moments when you
• 17:08
  because you kind of said, I get to have confidence that there's
• 17:10
  another deal, right? Like I will figure this out even
• 17:13
  if this company says no, that it's a deal breaker.
• 17:16
  Have you struggled, at least now or earlier in your life, with
• 17:20
  the self-confidence, with that you know, that inner knowing of
• 17:23
  like it's going to be? That's a good question because
• 17:25
  it's, I really have and really recently it's not a normal place
• 17:30
  for me to be to worry like that. But as I'm building out the
• 17:33
  executive Nomad brand, I've been an executive Nomad for three
• 17:37
  decades, right? But I did, it didn't have a
• 17:38
  name. I didn't walk around with that
• 17:40
  on my business card. And I only I 2 1/2 years ago, I
• 17:45
  met a guy purely by accident. I was doing a deal when I was
• 17:48
  living in, I was staying in a place called Naemamaris in
• 17:51
  Greece. It was a very little harbour
• 17:54
  town in Greece and there's nobody there.
• 17:56
  But I was in a cafe doing my thing on the phone.
• 17:58
  There was a guy and his wife sitting beside me or sitting
• 18:00
  behind me. Turns out they were English.
• 18:02
  And when I'd finished working on the phone he'd kind of just
• 18:06
  leant over and we had a conversation.
• 18:08
  He'd been made redundant. He was 54.
• 18:10
  He was in. He was very well paid to.
• 18:12
  He'd got a good old good chunk of money when he was leaving,
• 18:14
  but he was lost. He didn't know what to do.
• 18:16
  Now he was 54, so he's actually struggling to get a job. 2
• 18:19
  bottles of wine later and we'd actually worked out what he
• 18:22
  could, what, what he could do That's it was on that day that I
• 18:26
  thought about, you know, I've just taught this guy.
• 18:29
  I've just given all this guy stuff that I didn't even know
• 18:31
  was valuable to people, as in me teaching a framework.
• 18:34
  I just told him how I did things.
• 18:35
  And that's where Executive Nomad was born.
• 18:38
  And since then, as I built it out, I focused on buying in the
• 18:41
  domain. So I've, you know, so I owned
• 18:42
  thebrand.com was already taken. I eventually bought that and
• 18:48
  that gave me the impetus. But once I'd gone, I'd focused
• 18:51
  all on that. I thought, what if nobody
• 18:53
  actually, I know I own all of these domains, this brand and
• 18:56
  also thought, what if nobody wants to do this but me?
• 18:58
  And that fella that I met in that I met in Greece, I never
• 19:02
  gave myself the opportunity to think it was going to go.
• 19:04
  It wouldn't go my way until I sat back and went, Jesus, what
• 19:08
  if nobody wants this? So you, you do have those
• 19:11
  feelings. And as I was building out the,
• 19:13
  you know, writing the book and saying I'm writing a book that
• 19:16
  nobody might ever read. And so I, I've definitely had
• 19:19
  those. I think it's healthy to have
• 19:21
  those because it made, it did make me, it made me stop and
• 19:23
  think, well, what do I need to do to make sure I'm on the right
• 19:25
  track here? So that was a learning curve for
• 19:28
  me. So, and I was looking at AI and
• 19:30
  how that was changing everything.
• 19:31
  As I was working, it was changing everything.
• 19:33
  My first thoughts were great. It's going to write my, you
• 19:36
  know, it'll rise up and kill us one day, but until then, it'll
• 19:38
  write my e-mail. So all good.
• 19:39
  And then I thought, well, hold on a second, you know, is that,
• 19:42
  does that mean what I'm doing is, doesn't, is not even going
• 19:44
  to exist in a couple of years? So you kind of went through all
• 19:47
  of that stuff. And then I, I looked into it and
• 19:49
  I took a couple of courses to learn it just so in my head I
• 19:51
  understood it. It's brilliant in the, you know,
• 19:53
  what I do is I work with people who are, who want to leave the
• 19:56
  corporate world. So they're, they're middle
• 19:58
  managers and above right up to CEO of C-Suite.
• 20:01
  And then I say to them, you, you can take your experiences,
• 20:05
  extract them from your career, turn them into a coaching,
• 20:07
  consulting, mentoring, workshop, non executive director role.
• 20:11
  You can do all of that stuff. And you don't have to commute to
• 20:14
  get there to do it. You can live on a beach.
• 20:16
  So do what you can do whatever you want.
• 20:17
  That's kind of the whole the whole vibe of what I'm what I'm
• 20:19
  doing. It just struck me that I
• 20:21
  thought, well, I love it, but doesn't mean it doesn't mean
• 20:24
  everybody else does. So I really had to go through
• 20:26
  that stuff of learning, making sure that AI wasn't going to
• 20:29
  kill it before it started, making sure that there was a
• 20:31
  market, understanding what the pains of the market were, which
• 20:34
  is ageism is huge. You know, once you reach age of
• 20:37
  50, ages and burnout, all of that stuff is I'd never even
• 20:41
  looked at it. I've never been in a world where
• 20:42
  I needed to look at it. Once I look at it, I see what
• 20:44
  what a big problem it was. So I think self doubt is really,
• 20:48
  I think it's important and I think it I think not having it
• 20:51
  can lead you into problems because you just think you know
• 20:53
  everything. You know, you think you think
• 20:55
  you're right with everything. You need that self doubt or
• 20:57
  somebody besides you to say you might be going wrong there
• 21:00
  sunshine, you know. I love the the perspective you
• 21:03
  have on it is so powerful and I really want to double click on
• 21:07
  it because we can often frame self doubt as this bad thing
• 21:11
  that you need to overcome, right?
• 21:13
  It's like, Nope, like you got to have confidence.
• 21:15
  You got It's like, and it's no self doubt is productive and
• 21:19
  helpful when you frame it like you did of let me use myself
• 21:24
  doubt and the questions I have to answer questions that help
• 21:27
  make me more confident or a certain angle that like, OK,
• 21:32
  there's actually a need in the market for this.
• 21:34
  And like, let me go do proper research and proper thinking
• 21:37
  about it, learning about AI, whatever it is, and use it to
• 21:41
  make the business have a better chance to succeed versus this
• 21:45
  thing that holds me back of, Oh my God, I don't know if I can do
• 21:48
  this or I don't know if there's a market for this.
• 21:51
  Well, a great example of that, right, is that you know about
• 21:53
  the AI stuff is that I started to dive into it and say more
• 21:56
  than just, you know, I was going to chat to BT a question.
• 21:59
  I started to learn how I took some courses and what and how
• 22:02
  that ended up. I ended, I started with self
• 22:04
  doubt, thinking this is just going to take all that
• 22:06
  consulting and coaching away. It's just, you know, it's going
• 22:09
  to be done by robots to actually inputting my own experiences
• 22:13
  into a little piece of AI that now the my clients can tap in
• 22:17
  their career wins, losses and lessons and it'll spit out some
• 22:21
  things that they could actually turn into consulting.
• 22:23
  I've gone from worrying about AI to using AI and, and more to the
• 22:27
  point is that the people I'm talking to, their age group,
• 22:30
  they're scared of AI without even meaning to.
• 22:32
  I'm saying don't be scared of it.
• 22:34
  This is brilliant. What AI can never do is that the
• 22:37
  pattern recognition that I've got when I'm in a, in, in a, in
• 22:41
  a situation where I'm having a conversation with a client and
• 22:43
  he says, look, we've got this problem and it's this, this and
• 22:45
  this. AI is clever, but there's no way
• 22:47
  it's going to remember what Jamie did like 12 1/2 years ago
• 22:50
  working on a mergers and acquisitions.
• 22:52
  There's the value because I can say to my client, this is what
• 22:56
  this is what happened, this is the problem, This is why they
• 22:59
  lost £2,000,000, although we made £100 million or whatever it
• 23:01
  was. Then I'll step back and say,
• 23:03
  right, in order for us to manage that through, we can use AI to
• 23:06
  make sure if we're faster, we're better, we're more informed.
• 23:10
  So it's definitely a, a, an advantage for me to having that,
• 23:13
  that self doubt saying I need to learn this stuff.
• 23:16
  I need to understand what this, what this is going to mean to
• 23:18
  us, you know, to, to, to my age group, but also to, you know,
• 23:22
  people coming up behind us. Are they, is there even going to
• 23:25
  be a place for them to go? Well, in my opinion now, yes.
• 23:28
  And it's actually more fun because it gets done, it gets
• 23:31
  done quicker. And I don't charge by the day.
• 23:32
  I charge by the project. Might be the title of this
• 23:35
  episode of the The Advantages of Self.
• 23:37
  Doubt. Yeah, Why not?
• 23:38
  Because it's just I feel. Like it's not talked about and
• 23:41
  it's such an amazing point. But I also think you've got to
• 23:45
  have had enough self doubt and enough failures and you in that,
• 23:48
  that life experience, and I know your, your, your audience is, is
• 23:51
  younger than I am. Once you've gone through it
• 23:53
  enough and you survive it, you kind of you, you kind of you do
• 23:56
  that thing though, all right, that's screwed up.
• 23:59
  Now what? And that's an advantage of age
• 24:01
  that you can only get there one way, hopefully, right.
• 24:03
  So I do think that's an advantage.
• 24:05
  But the other side of that is hearing somebody who's been
• 24:07
  through it and say, you know, I've, I've, I've had colossal
• 24:09
  screw ups, but I've got up. One of the things that led to
• 24:13
  keeping on the subjects of self doubt is that when you have a
• 24:15
  screw up like that, you immediately think, mate, you
• 24:18
  know what, maybe that was me. Maybe it's screwed up because I
• 24:22
  was involved in it and then you've got to analyse it.
• 24:25
  Then you've got to take your day out and have a remarkable
• 24:27
  Wednesday and think these things through and say, well, hold on.
• 24:30
  And, and also be, be very aware, Bradley, that it could have been
• 24:34
  me, you know, and accept that I could have been the scrub
• 24:37
  because, you know, I, I work brilliantly in some places and
• 24:40
  terribly in others in, in different environments.
• 24:42
  So you've got to be ready to say, do you know what?
• 24:44
  Maybe I just bit off a little bit more than I could chew.
• 24:46
  And I've definitely done that. So there's, there's a few things
• 24:49
  I'm hearing you say that are really powerful.
• 24:50
  The first one being that, and you said this was very specific
• 24:54
  in your language. You say like, I didn't fail,
• 24:56
  that thing failed and I am not that thing, right.
• 25:00
  So, so there's not this whole like questioning my identity if
• 25:04
  my business fails because it's, it's that thing.
• 25:07
  It's not me. They're two separate things and
• 25:09
  I am not my business. And the second one that I heard
• 25:13
  you say is there's something in me that may have led to the
• 25:17
  failure of the business and it's worthwhile to go look honestly,
• 25:21
  objectively, not in like this shame way.
• 25:23
  And just where am I contributing or did I right?
• 25:27
  And that is a really healthy way to look at yourself in your
• 25:31
  quote, UN quote failure versus like, Oh my God, I'm a failure.
• 25:35
  Yeah, and also you're absolutely right.
• 25:37
  And, and, but, but you've got to be, you've got to look at it
• 25:39
  from both angles because it could definitely be you.
• 25:42
  It could definitely be me. Something I did, my personality
• 25:44
  wasn't right. You know, if, if I have a
• 25:46
  personality clash with somebody I'm working on a project with
• 25:49
  now, I, I, I spot it and I'll step away very, very quickly.
• 25:53
  But I haven't done that always. That's, that's always been a
• 25:56
  thing. I, I kind of take on the
• 25:57
  challenge. I say, you know, I can, I can, I
• 25:59
  can manage him or her or whatever.
• 26:01
  And sometimes you just can't. And it may be just because
• 26:03
  they're a stronger personality. It may, you know, they might
• 26:06
  just be a lot smarter than me. There's all these different
• 26:09
  ways. So you've just got to sort of,
• 26:10
  you've got to be objective when when this stuff happens, you've
• 26:13
  got to say, I accept it wasn't me, but I also accept if it was
• 26:17
  me. And then I've just got to move
• 26:19
  on from it. I've just got to take that thing
• 26:20
  and go, OK, let's try not to do that again.
• 26:23
  Doesn't mean I haven't done it again, Bradley, let's be clear.
• 26:25
  But usually I'm all right. Usually I usually I can spot it.
• 26:29
  And usually, very often my wife will say, remember what
• 26:31
  happened. Then she's got better pattern
• 26:34
  recognition for me than I have. I love that.
• 26:36
  I mean, there's such power. And the nuance I do think is
• 26:39
  incredibly important because we've all been around that
• 26:42
  person who looks at themselves in the mirror and draw these
• 26:46
  really tough conclusions about who they are and then what they
• 26:50
  do next. They almost like bring the
• 26:53
  baggage with them. It's 1 route to do that and it's
• 26:56
  another route to be empowered from what you learned about
• 26:59
  yourself of like, OK, this is a weak part of me as an
• 27:02
  entrepreneur maybe. So I'm going to go either build
• 27:05
  that out or I'm going to know my blind spot and hire someone else
• 27:08
  that's. Exactly it.
• 27:09
  In the executive Nomad, you talk about teaching people to close
• 27:13
  $1,000,000 deals from the beach. I'm curious if you're willing to
• 27:16
  let us in what it that you talked about who your audience
• 27:20
  is, right? Those executives that are
• 27:22
  leaving their their full time jobs and they're going out on
• 27:25
  their own in some way, shape or form, consulting, coaching,
• 27:29
  whatever it is. What are the top one or two keys
• 27:33
  that you've seen for the successful people that actually
• 27:35
  can close those 6-7 figure deals from the beach?
• 27:38
  Network. What makes them successful?
• 27:40
  So what happens, and it's really fascinating, this and this, and
• 27:44
  I hope your, your audience will sort of recognize it, bro.
• 27:46
  So what happens is I've, I've sat in a room or I've sat in
• 27:51
  this environment with really, really top level executives and
• 27:57
  they are the smartest people you've ever met.
• 28:01
  But the, but there's a problem. There's a chink in that armour
• 28:04
  is they're, they're living behind their success, their
• 28:07
  badge, the corporate badge. They have relevance while
• 28:10
  they're in that, in that space. They know exactly what they do.
• 28:13
  They've got their power, their, their power place.
• 28:15
  They've got everything going on. Take them outside of that.
• 28:18
  And it's fascinating to see them when you, when you have a
• 28:21
  conversation and they kind of, and you breakthrough that sort
• 28:23
  of, you know, they, they, they, they've reached that point in
• 28:26
  their career. They, you know, they take no
• 28:28
  prisoners. And yeah, after it doesn't take
• 28:30
  that long of a conversation for them to open up a bit more and
• 28:33
  say, actually, I'm feeling really lost.
• 28:36
  I no longer have that. You know, relevance is really
• 28:39
  the, the, the best descriptive word I can use.
• 28:41
  They don't have relevance anymore because they don't have
• 28:43
  their title, they don't have that corner office, they don't
• 28:47
  have that team of people that just like, you know, just have
• 28:51
  all of this, you know, this adoration for them.
• 28:53
  They don't have anything. So they kind of step outside.
• 28:55
  So usually it's not financial. It's very, very rarely a
• 28:58
  financial thing. They're usually very well paid
• 29:00
  and they've got assets and all the rest of it.
• 29:02
  But losing relevance is really hard for them.
• 29:04
  So here's what happens is they they kind of go from that height
• 29:08
  to that low to a conversation that I say, Tom, I let's talk
• 29:11
  about your career. Let's you know, let's go through
• 29:12
  this. I feel I'm a little bit like a
• 29:14
  psychiatrist at that point. They've done so many good
• 29:16
  things, but what they don't have the ability to do is because
• 29:20
  they're not of an, from an entrepreneurial background, they
• 29:24
  don't have that ability to sort of dive into their career for
• 29:27
  their wins, their losses and their lessons and actually
• 29:29
  extract that stuff of which you can create a business out of it.
• 29:33
  But as soon as you pull that out and you say, well, what happened
• 29:35
  is that, oh, there's a, we were bought out by a competitor.
• 29:38
  I was a COO, you know, I was on 300 grand a year, but they
• 29:41
  brought their own, what guy along from the other company and
• 29:43
  I had no job. So they paid me off.
• 29:45
  And here I am and I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
• 29:47
  You say, OK, we'll go back into your career.
• 29:49
  What did you do before that? You know, he said, well, there
• 29:52
  was another M&A and we bought another company and I did this
• 29:55
  and it saved the company $1,000,000 or whatever it was.
• 29:58
  You know, it's just something and I say, well, let's, let's
• 30:01
  look at that deeper. Let's you know, because
• 30:02
  somewhere in there is a service somewhere you can go to other
• 30:05
  logistics companies and offer that as a service.
• 30:08
  When they get back this, this curve goes from like from the
• 30:12
  running the big business. They're out there doing their
• 30:13
  thing. They just disappear down this
• 30:15
  hole and say, I've got no relevance.
• 30:16
  You know, I'm only 50 years of age.
• 30:18
  What am I going to do? And then they come say, oh,
• 30:20
  right, there is something I could do.
• 30:22
  They go, that's what I could. Oh, and this and this and this
• 30:25
  and then and that. Really, that just opens up a
• 30:27
  title and by the time you finish the conversation there, no,
• 30:30
  there's 20 things that they could offer as a coach and
• 30:32
  consultant and they're working with their peers.
• 30:35
  And this is, you know, this is an answer to your question.
• 30:37
  They can go back into the marketplace, to that network
• 30:40
  they've had on LinkedIn or they've had over the years to
• 30:42
  suppliers, to competitors, to everything.
• 30:44
  And they've immediately got credibility because they're the
• 30:48
  guy who was also ACEO of logistics company.
• 30:50
  Oh, right. And this I'll be working on
• 30:52
  this. Do do you guys experience that
• 30:54
  problem? Yeah, we do actually.
• 30:55
  We have that problem. That's exactly what I do now.
• 30:58
  And so they have that. It doesn't last forever though.
• 31:01
  They've got to, they've got to do it within a year as my
• 31:03
  estimation. Like, you know, I can't give you
• 31:05
  specific figures, but they've got, they've got to maintain,
• 31:07
  they've got to go. They can take that dip, but
• 31:09
  they've got to come back out of it and come out, you know, come
• 31:11
  out swinging, obviously so. Come out swinging I love it it's
• 31:15
  because and what I've experienced with people like
• 31:17
  that or even similar like want to start a business or early on
• 31:21
  in my business and have some customers, but they're they're
• 31:23
  they're scared and they play small and and that doesn't get
• 31:28
  anybody anywhere and even if you swing big and you miss who
• 31:32
  cares, right You learn something from it you figure it out
• 31:35
  whatever, but it's so challenging sometimes when
• 31:38
  you've been behind a big brand and you have your name's not on
• 31:41
  the line your whatever's not on the line and you go out on your
• 31:44
  own and you're like oh shit now it's just me with.
• 31:47
  Me start small. You can you can protect that.
• 31:50
  There is a way to do that. You can, you know, if you know
• 31:52
  the end of the corporate things coming to an end and you've got
• 31:55
  a, a six month window, you can do a few things.
• 31:58
  You can set up a sector group of other logistics people or
• 32:00
  whatever it is and just talk to them.
• 32:02
  Say guys, I'm going to I'm going to be running this thing on on
• 32:04
  Wednesday. It's all online, it's all on
• 32:06
  Zoom. You know, I'm going to show you
• 32:08
  how to do this. I learnt this at ABC
• 32:10
  Corporation. You can start sport and then you
• 32:13
  can see you can feed your way. If it, if it was a shock, if all
• 32:16
  of a sudden you had a job and then you didn't, it is a bit
• 32:18
  harder because you've got to deal with the emotional side of
• 32:20
  things as well. Well, once you're beyond that,
• 32:23
  you say, OK, you know, now I have to do it.
• 32:25
  Now I have to step back in. Now I have to go swimming.
• 32:27
  But you can do it in a small way.
• 32:28
  You know, I'm, I'm, I'm going to be a workshop.
• 32:31
  And they don't have to charge anyone a penny for it because it
• 32:33
  costs next to nothing to, to make it happen.
• 32:36
  And then you get, you start to build up your credibility and
• 32:38
  you can go back to the people who came to your workshop that
• 32:40
  you answered this challenge that we've all had in the industry,
• 32:42
  whatever it might be. And say, look, what do you think
• 32:45
  I'm thinking of, you know, being doing this for a living and
• 32:47
  consulting. As you know, I'm out, I'm out of
• 32:49
  ABC Corporation. I'm thinking of this, you've
• 32:52
  already got things going that's network.
• 32:54
  So anyone younger now, you know, if you're a younger audience to
• 32:57
  say focus on network. It's so critically important
• 33:00
  because they're the people who can give you that leg up
• 33:03
  regardless of what happens. You know, shit happens, as you
• 33:06
  said, but as you're going through to be able to have
• 33:09
  people you can actually call on, which brings me right back to my
• 33:12
  very first thing when you asked me about, you know, about what
• 33:14
  was important. It's I've always stuck by my
• 33:16
  word. If I can't do something or
• 33:18
  suddenly screwed up, I'll, I'll hands up.
• 33:19
  That's the reason 30 years later, I can still call on
• 33:22
  people from, you know, way back in the day.
• 33:23
  I'm sure there's people that can't as well, by the way, it
• 33:26
  hasn't, hasn't been. I'm sure there's some people who
• 33:29
  who won't, who wouldn't take my call if if if my life depended
• 33:32
  on it. Jamie, I can ask you a million
• 33:34
  more questions, but we're we're about out of time.
• 33:36
  You've shared about what your work is right now.
• 33:40
  If people listening interested in working with you or even just
• 33:44
  looking up your stuff, you know what's the easiest way for them
• 33:46
  to get in touch or. Finding nomad.com easy to like.
• 33:48
  Everything about me over there and stays over there.
• 33:51
  Amazing. Well, and we'll, we'll include
• 33:53
  that in the show notes so everyone can find it easily.
• 33:55
  Jamie, I know it's late where you are.
• 33:57
  I know it's been a long day, so really appreciate your time,
• 34:00
  energy, insights, sharing with us.
• 34:02
  Hope your health.