Authentic Achievements with Special Guest Greg Ellison
From Bestselling author currently writing the forthcoming book Authentic Achievements – The 7 Secrets to Building Brave Belief, Unstoppable Sales, and Turning Your Leaders Into Talent Magnets for Guaranteed Sustainable Growth, this show features interviews with industry leaders and shares advice, stories and inspiration to help you achieve exponential growth personally and for your business.
In this episode, I am delighted to be joined by my friend and ex-boss Greg Ellison as we discuss the lessons he has garnered from his career, including launching a bank. Greg was appointed CEO of Capital International Group in 2016. Earlier in his career, Greg was the Managing Director for Barclays Wealth and led over 1,000 staff across the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. He then spent five years with Boston Group as CEO, where he successfully spearheaded their development from a small CSP into a leading Multi-Family Office spread across three jurisdictions.
Greg has twice been recognised as one of the ‘Top 50 Most Influential’ in financial services by ePrivateClient.
Greg was also for 8 years a Non Exec Director and then Chairman of the board of Junior Achievement Isle of Man, standing down in late 2016.
Recognised as ‘Leader of the Year’ in 2021 by the Isle of Man Awards for Excellence. Greg is also a Practitioner, Master Practitioner and certified trainer of NLP as well as a former professional rugby player.
Find out more at https://www.capital-iom.com/team/greg-ellison
If you want to find out more check us out at www.authenticachievements.co.uk
If you enjoyed it, please check out our YouTube or our recent blog or subscribe to our Mastermindset Newsletter
Full Transcript
Authentic Achievements – Greg Ellison
Kim-Adele
00:00:08
Hello, and welcome to this episode of authentic achievements where I’ve got the absolute pleasure and privilege of being joined by old friend and my old boss, Greg Ellison. So Greg, welcome to the show.
Greg
00:00:22
Thank you, Kim. How are you?
Kim-Adele
00:00:24
I’m really good. Thank you. And we had a, a fabulous catch up didn’t we just the other week, when you were telling me about some of the amazing things that you’ve done, including setting up a bank during lockdown whilst also having a family or other, an addition to the family. So, I mean, when we talk about achievements, that’s, that’s quite a journey. Can you tell us a bit more about how you went about it and what some of your learnings were please?
Greg
00:00:52
Yeah, of course. I mean the, the journey to start setting up a bank began in January, 2017. I began my career with capital international group in July, 2016. And at the time it was a privately owned family owned, successful investment management firm. And the chairman brought me in because he wanted to give the management team a new lease of life and some new ideas. And I’d known the firm very well. I’d been a client of capitals for a few years, and I knew the chairman very well. We both sat on a, a not-for-profit board, junior achievement for eight to nine years together. So it was an easy move for me to make. And I spent the first six months of my time in the second half of 2016, just assessing where the business was, the things, it did great, the things that we needed to work on and, and pulled together a strategic plan, which I took to the board in early 2017.
Greg
00:01:54
And one of the things that we recognized was an opportunity was the possibility of setting up a new digital corporate bank in the LF man in the 10 years that had gone before the big banks had largely retreated from providing core operational banking accounts to corporate clients. And I’d been part of that. I was the managing director of Barclay’s wealth on the Alman Jersey in G see, that’s where we worked together. You know, the story and, and it left some great companies unable to access core transactional banking. So we knew it’d be a big undertaking. So I did a lot of research at the start of the journey. I did 65 meetings in eight different countries with existing clients or target clients, just to test some of my ideas about whether there was really an opportunity. And if so, what would be the things that we’d have to get right to, to go along that journey?
speaker 2
00:02:57
I could talk for two days about the journey, but in, in brief, it, it took us a couple of years to pull together the, the business plan. Obviously there was a lot of engagement with the regulator. We had to produce all sorts of financial models around how we would fund the bank, how we would manage the assets, the operational processes, the risk compliance, the governance, the people loads and loads of details, hundreds of pages. And by August, 2019, we, we achieved our first breakthrough, which was to get a provisional banking license. This meant that the is of man financial services authority had said, yep, that is a business plan. We support it. You can now go ahead and start building the, the bank. So it was a kind of two years to get the provisional license. But at that stage, you’ve just got a theoretical bank, you know, it’s a paper.
speaker 2
00:03:59
And then it took us a couple more years to build all the operational infrastructure, huge technology development, hire the people, hire the external independent directors and, and make it a reality. Now that second half of the journey kind of coincided with the start of lockdown and, and everything that went with it. So it added a few layers of complexity, but I’d assembled a team that was so invested in the journey that we were on. And the ask of them was incredible and unfair at times, but no matter the challenge, and there were hundreds of challenges, some of which seemed at times didn’t have an answer, but they always found a way. And on the 27th of May, 2021, we, we got our banking license and opened our doors the next day. So that’s the, the short version of the journey,
speaker 1
00:05:05
What an amazing achievement for you and for the team. And what I love about the story when we chat about it at the, the other week is it really was a joint purpose. Wasn’t it? You, you, everyone was invested in the vision and bringing it to life. And, and therefore when obstacles came up, the belief was greater than the obstacle. So the belief that it could happen, the belief that it could be done and that, you know, that’s the culture that you built with that team and, and the vision that you created, the story that, that you did, how did you go about kind of creating that, that team, that, that, that kind of sense of purpose, that sense of vision?
speaker 2
00:05:48
I think the story in itself was so compelling that I didn’t have to sell it too hard to them. You know, there was a great deal of authenticity about it. I hired people who were very experienced in theirselves, but recognized that this was a career defining opportunity for them. And there were times that particularly in tough times that I’d say to people just remember, you know, when you hang up few books in however many years, for some people, it might be five years for others, it might be 25 years. This is something you’ll tell your grandkids around and tell your grandkids about, and you can work in financial services for 40 years and then look back and think, what did I actually do? You know, you came into work, you had lots of meetings and, but this, this is a, a landmark achievement and a, a, a tangible legacy for, for your career’s work.
speaker 2
00:06:46
And the first time I remember thinking, I need to do something a lot more meaningful than I had done to date was when I was in Dubai in probably probably 2013 ish around then. And I used to travel out there a lot with my former company on business development. And, and we set for business there and I’d done lots of things, setting up businesses and running big businesses like Barclays. And, but I, I was having a beer with one of my school friends. Who’s a structured engineer and he builds skyscrapers, you know, and that, that particular day I’d been in meetings with lawyers and accountants and family offices and private equity people. And we were talking over a beer. It was a Thursday evening, the end of the working week in Dubai. It was at the time. And that very day he’d been at the top of the Burch Khalifa doing a risk assessment for red bull to do some base diving off the top.
speaker 2
00:07:52
And he, he showed me a selfie with him standing on the top of the Spire at the top of the Khalifa. And I realized at that very point that for that moment in time, he was the highest person in the world on a manmade structure. Wow. And, and he built and contributed to buildings, hotels, skyscrapers in New York, in Dublin, in London, in India, in Dubai. And it just occurred to me. He has so much tangible evidence of his career and the contribution he’s made. And I flew home that after that trip. And I thought, what, what am I actually doing? You know, I need to do something that’s gonna make a difference. And I guess a few years later, the opportunity came for the bank. And I realized that was my chance.
speaker 1
00:08:39
Oh, I love that. And I love that whole cuz we, we are all leaving a legacy. Aren’t we? So it’s about what it’s about owning that legacy and saying, is it what I’m gonna be proud of? Is it gonna be something that, you know, when I tell my kids about like, it’s gonna make them, it’s gonna make them proud as well, I’m gonna go, oh, that’s why you, that’s why you worked as many as many hours as you worked, but you’ve always had that kind of like sense of belief haven’t you and then doing your best and trying. Cause I mean, you’ve had, you’ve had quite a varied career. You had obviously banking at, which is where we met, but you were also a sportsman weren’t you?
speaker 2
00:09:17
Yeah. Back in the early days. So I went to school at Braford grammar school in the late eighties, early nineties. And at the time rugby was everything to me. I mean, it was a, a brilliant school academically, but it was the best school in, in England at rugby. And we won the daily male schools cup in 19, 19 92 93. And I was fortunate to be surrounded by a great group of guys and a brilliant coach. And I got selected for the England under eighteens and we taught New Zealand and I got a rugby scholarship to Swane university to study business studies. And as rugby turned professional, I played with Swanzi and a couple of teams. And I, I learned and took so much from my rugby career around goal setting and resilience and getting up when it hurts and teamwork and communication and all those things. And, and they have absolutely built the person that I’ve become.
speaker 2
01:10:14
And I’m just very grateful for the opportunities that I took from sport and, and, and what it gave me. And actually I had a tough decision to make when I graduated because rugby only just turned professional. It was in its infancy. And so there was a little bit of money flying around, but not enough, really to, for me to consider a professional career. And I was probably a better school boy than I was in the adult grade rugby. I was, I was decent, but I don’t think I would’ve been playing international level in the senior game. So I took the decision to go into work and that became financial advice, financial services banking, but I always had in the back of my mind that I never wanted to get, I never wanted to be that guy at 35 propping up a bar somewhere saying I could have been, I could have done this at rugby. If I was gonna go the, the business route, I had to throw myself in fully fudged. And, and I played, I dropped like six divisions and played a bit of sociable rugby for seven Oak rugby club for a few years, which was great fun. But my priority was absolutely my, my business career. And, and it is a decision I’ve never regretted. It was the right call to make. And, and I’m pleased with how it’s turned out.
speaker 1
01:11:37
I love that. I love that. Actually, it was a very conscious decision and it was that piece of saying, no, this is choice. This is a choice that I’m making and I’m making it, knowing that I’m not gonna allow myself to regret it later because I’m making it consciously and I’m gonna take the best bits into my future career. You know, all the things that we can learn from sports about team spirit, about camaraderie, about communication, about common purpose and common goal. Yeah. And, and you’ve brought those to life so beautifully in doing what you’ve done with the bank and showing what it’s like. You know, when you are in a team, you are in a team, you were all heading to that goal. Yeah. You’re all gonna do whatever you can do to, to help the team to be successful. And I think we can learn so much from sports in business. Can’t we that around how we do that, because they’re often the skills that we unfortunately don’t invest in nothing in businesses.
speaker 2
01:12:33
Yeah. It, it’s a really interesting point, Kim, because in the last year or so, we’ve hired a professional coach here at capital. Who’s an ex role Marine and he’s been doing resilience and mindset training with our, our staff, you know, times are tough, whether it was the coronavirus and lockdown and the physical and mental challenges that provided for people or now, you know, the uncertainty out in the global markets and the war in Ukraine and the impact on rising costs and the cost of living crisis. It’s, it’s tough times for, for people. And you can’t do anything about interest rates or what’s going on in Ukraine or, or many things. All you can deal with is yourself and how you, you tackle these challenges. And I think more than ever, we’re investing in support for our people to develop their mental resilience, their physical resilience. And, you know, we’ve got people waking up, having cold showers every morning and doing breathing exercises and going for a dip in the sea, in the olive man, which is not
speaker 1
01:13:47
Remember, well,
speaker 2
01:13:48
We’re not talking the soul, you know, French Riviera here, we’re talking the Irish C, but it what’s interesting is these are skills that people can develop. And when you develop your physical resilience, your mentor resilience often follows in line with that. And it’s something that I think has paid dividends for us and is something we’ll keep investing in because you know, you’ve gotta help people and you there’s many ways you can do it, but if you can help people help themselves, that’s a powerful way to do.
speaker 1
01:14:22
I love that. And you know, it’s, it’s one of those things, isn’t it. If when we win here, we win everywhere else. If we can get our mind in, in the right place. I remember watching a, a video. I think it was a, an American football team at school. That’s this guy was like, I can’t do anymore. And he had to bear crawl with his, one of his teammates on his back. And he was like, no, you’ve just got to do a hundred. You just gotta do a hundred yards and this guy’s going, I’m broken I’m down. I can’t do it. And this coach going, you can do it. You can do it. You can get, but he, he actually does the entire pitch with this guy in his back because he had got his, his coach had got him into the mental space of saying he can do it when he’d got stood up and turned around.
speaker 1
01:15:01
They were like, oh my goodness, I can’t believe that’s how far we’ve come. And I think you’re right. When we, when we can help people to develop that for themselves to develop that mental resilience and that physical resilience that allows us to deal with the plot twists life throws at us, cuz it throws so many and, and not all of them are one, you know, to your point that we can do anything with, there might not be something that we can control, but we can learn to control how we respond and how we react calm.
speaker 2
01:15:31
One of the things we talked about there, Kim was belief and you’ll know in the is of man, there’s an event every summer called the parish walk. It’s an 84 mile walk around the, the circumference of the island. And it’s incredibly challenging. And my deputy chief executive Verna Alberts really started roping people in to do this event a few years ago and now, and Verna had finished it six or eight times. And, and now we have about 20 people take part every year. And, and their goal might be to go to peel, which is 32 miles or to finish the whole event or, or somewhere in between. But every year now we’re getting half a dozen people that are finishing it. And this year we had for the second year running the winner, Paul Atherton, our finance director, Liam Venables came second in the women’s race in about sixth overall.
speaker 2
01:16:29
And every year we’re getting people finishing it for the first time. And I think that’s because they believe they can do it. Cuz they’ve got that positive example from the likes of Verna and Paul and Leanne, they’re going out there and, and smashing it. And they’re seeing that if you do the training and you have the right mindset and you prepare properly, then you can go out and achieve it. And there’s so much in there about belief and role models. And eventually you’ve just gotta get up and do it. And, and lots of our folk are. So I think belief is a huge thing.
speaker 1
01:17:02
Oh, I, I love it. And, and actually it’s one of the things, yeah, we we’re chatting briefly before we came on here. That yeah. One of the things I I’ve learned more about leadership is being a mum than I ever learned beforehand. But one of the biggest things I’ve learned about is belief. You know, if you, if I said to you in the morning, you’re gonna wake up, you’re gonna have to learn how to walk or talk or run or jump or skip. You’d be overwhelmed. We’d all be overwhelmed. And yet our most vulnerable, we learn to do it. Our kids learn to do it and I was watching them and it’s like, how have they done that? And we have, I think it comes down to three things. They wanna be like, you, you can walk. They want to walk. They don’t have to say no.
speaker 1
01:17:37
And really mean it. Cause even toddler tantrums do run out steam, but the third and perhaps the most important is I’ve yet to see a child learning to walk that doesn’t have at least one adult nearby, go, come on, you’ve got this. We quite literally give them our belief. Yeah. And I think about kind of some of the great leaders that I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside like yourself. They share that belief. They create that belief. They give the belief to their teams. And so you can borrow it until you find your own. You kind of buy into a bit of theirs and you you’ve done that so beautifully with, with what you’ve done with a number of your teams. It’s that create that belief for people. Isn’t it?
speaker 2
01:18:17
I, and conversely, I think at some level in life, you learn to give up. So I’ve got four kids ranging from 17 to 11 months and Eliza, my 11 month old is walking around furniture. She’s days away from taking her first steps, but the world would crawl if you didn’t have that ability to keep getting up again. And she falls over a hundred times a day, but she gets up again every time. And at some level we learn, I dunno what age is, but it must be probably sometime before your 10th birthday, we learn to start giving up. And if you just try it again and try it again and try it again, sometimes you’re so close to achieving. So I think belief’s important. But just having that determination to try again, like your American football example, you know, you just do it, you know? So we, we learn from good leaders and follow them and we can believe, but also you’ve got to learn not to give up because hard things and good things. Aren’t easy. And, and you’ve got to keep going and find a way.
speaker 1
01:19:34
I love that. And, and find a way was one of the things we we chatted about before whistle is that you, when you come up against obstacle, it’s like, we’ll just find a way this gotta be way. And it is that, that combination of belief in the goal and the determination to get there, the, the piece that says, you know, it doesn’t matter how many times to get knocked down. I’m going, I’m gonna get up. I might get up a bit slower, but I’m getting up. I’m not staying there because that’s gonna be how I, the only time you’re ever gonna really fail is when you give up. Yeah. Cause then you can’t possibly achieve it. Whereas if you keep getting up, if you keep trying, if you, you, you keep rising, then you, you still have hope that you can achieve it, don’t you?
speaker 2
02:20:13
Yeah. And you know, you’ve got to apply intelligence to that as well. If you’ve, you’ve got to read the cues, if you are doing the wrong thing and that’s why it’s not working, you’ve got to recognize that you can’t, you know, if a fly flies into a window a hundred times, it can fly in a thousand times, it’s not gonna get through the window. Right. It just isn’t gonna happen. So you can’t just keep going, keep going, keep going. You’ve got to recognize whether actually you’re going in the right direction or whether you need to tap the till of five degrees and, and slightly change course. But I, I, I do believe that that resilience and determination is hugely important if, if, if you’re tackling difficult challenges and, and ambitious projects. And, and, and I wonder if we recognize that enough sometimes, you know, there’s, there’s quite a cultural piece in society where, when things are tough, you know, everyone needs supporting and you know, we’ve got to jump in and at ease off every, sometimes it’s hard and you just have to push on through. And that’s just a fact of life.
Kim-Adele
02:21:35
Yeah. And then some of, some of our toughest challenges that we face in life, you, when you do just keep up and keep going and, and you, right. You know, you do have to add in some intelligence to that that says, you know, reflect and refocus. Sometimes you, you still head towards the goal, but how you get there might be different, cuz the way you’re going, isn’t working. So you might need to, to your point, you know, tap the tiller and, and just kind of repurpose where you’re going. But actually when you get, when you look back, you suddenly realize how far you’ve come. Because I think, you know, one of the things that, that I learned when, you know, when times were tough was what’s the, what’s the one thing that I know how to do right now do that. I just know how to do it.
speaker 1
02:22:20
So I’ll do that. And if I keep just doing the thing, I know how to do, or I know I can do then before you know, it, you’ve got through whatever the obstacle was. Yeah. Maybe not in the way that you thought you were going to get through it, but you’ve got through it. And then you can, you can look back and see how far you’ve come. And I think when we allow our teams to do that, when we allow them that opportunity to not fear failure, cuz I think that’s often one of the things that causes people, isn’t it to, to give up is we’ve got such a massive fear of failing.
speaker 2
02:22:53
Yeah. Where did that come from?
speaker 1
02:22:56
I dunno, I was changed story about this yesterday and I said, it’s fascinating that, you know, the only thing greater than fear is hope. And yet both of them are imagined. Whatever we hope for is something we imagined. We created, whatever we’re fearful of is something we imagined. We created it. Neither one’s happened yet. So why do we choose to put our focus on the thing we don’t like makes a,
speaker 2
02:23:23
When it’s funny, cuz it’s what people do. Right? But when you have a fear of failure and so that kind of dominates your mind, all you’re focusing on is failure, fail, you fail you failure. And what you focus on is kind of what you do. And then it tends to manifest itself. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I’ve seen it before with examples where people are scared of losing their job and they work to try and protect the job and they’re, they’re doing the wrong things. And then they’re doing the job badly and they end up losing the job. They’ve manifested that outcome instead of actually reorientating themselves to the things they need to do to do better and do differently and then be successful at the job. And it’s funny when you’re so scared of failing, you actually create the thing that you’re most scared of instead of getting energized about the thing that you’re trying to achieve. It’s, it’s one of those human nature, things that I’ve not quite figured out, but it happens all the time. But I guess the thing is being able to identify it in yourself and others, Kim, I guess that’s the, the, the, not the secret, but the, the key to unlocking it. Right?
speaker 1
02:24:39
Yeah. It’s so true. So when you catch yourself, you know, it’s, it’s one of the things I’m, I’m kind of helping people at the minute is how do you swap judgment for curiosity? So when you find yourself saying, well, I think that’s wrong. I think this is wrong. I think that’s right. Instead being curious, oh, I’ve never thought of it like that way before. Tell me how you got there. I wonder why I’m so convinced. I’m right. And there wrong. I wonder, but you know, just open your mind because actually when we make it such a statement, we switch off, we switch off our subconscious brain from helping us find a way through. We create, we create a piece that says, cause our, our subconscious brain doesn’t know the difference between help and harm. So if we tell it we’re bad at something, it thinks that that’s important to us.
speaker 1
02:25:21
So it goes and gets us every example of when we’ve been bad at it. Cuz he go, yeah, you’re right. Yeah. You are spot on. You’re hopeless at this. Whereas if instead we ask ourselves, have I ever been good at it? It will go and get us all the examples of when we are good at it. So you’re right. The secret is to spot it in ourselves and in others catching the language often that we use or the other people use where you’re like, okay, it’s interesting that you’ve chosen that word. Yeah. What are you telling yourself about this right now? What have you made it mean? Because that’s what we respond to. Isn’t it is we respond to what we’re making it mean not what’s actually happening. Yeah. And, and when we can pull that back, then we can unlock our potential.
speaker 2
02:26:01
Do you know what I, you said something earlier that I couldn’t agree more with that. Sometimes people start with an notion and then they look for evidence to, to assure themselves of that notion to confirm it. And the point about having an open mind that you said, I think that’s one of the most important things when you are running a team or a business or, or an organization of some description because you start with a hypothesis, but there’ll be views that are in support of it, views against it. And, and you can actually with an open mind, find yourself going in and entirely different direction, but it’s an easy trap to fall into that. You start with a hypothesis and you only listen to any evidence or people that reinforce that position that you want to take. And you might not, you might as well not have talked to anyone at all because if you’re just gonna start with that position and stay with that position, you might as well get on with it and hope for the best.
speaker 2
02:27:06
So I think the point you made there about having an open mind is so important. And I think it goes further. I, I always found immense value in having great people around me. They, they might be colleagues, but often there were clients in the business I’ve worked over many years. I’ve dealt with a lot of wealthy, successful entrepreneurs. And I I’ve learned so much from them because you’re talking to people that have achieved, but have probably failed more than others as well. And there’s always so many incredible lessons that you’ve had from their journeys. I, I find great inspiration from that and it’s always helped me test some of my ideas with, with clients past present and, and other people who are really look up to. I think if you’ve prepared to listen, you, you get incredible value from people.
speaker 1
02:28:01
I love that. It’s such great advice. I mean, I I’ve believe I live the most blessed life cuz I get to do this for a living. I get to interview people and, and who can share their journey, who can share their lessons, what they’ve learned, what mistakes they made. The fact that actually, you know, we only look these days at the, at the outcome, we have these overnight successes, but actually they weren’t overnight. People have worked for years behind the scenes to get everything in place for that to happen. And actually if we surround ourselves by people that have done the thing we want to do and we listen to them, we open, we open our mind, we stop being wedded to being right. And it’s like, and instead get wedded to the right thing being done. Then it’s amazing what we can, what we can achieve. Isn’t it. And I think that’s the, the beauty of kind of what you’ve, what you’ve done is you’ve been open to learning as well as open to teaching. So keep creating that environment where you are, you are gonna keep learning, but you are also gonna add back the value by teaching others and creating that space where that becomes part of the DNA.
speaker 2
02:29:10
Yeah. It it’s really interesting. And one of the things with the entrepreneurs that I talked about, they, they had such a clear idea of what had made them different. What made them successful, where they wanted to go in the future, where they played and where they chose not to play. But every single one of them also felt a little bit lucky. And, and I do as well because you talked about the people that I brought on board in the early days of, of setting up the bank, there was a series of situations where exactly the right people became available at the right time. And I can’t control that. Yeah. From Verna, my chief operating officer to the finance director, to the ops director, to the chief technology officer, to the risk and compliance director, all of them were dream hires and all of them just happened to come available around the time.
speaker 2
03:30:09
And back in my twenties, late twenties, I was really into Tony Robbins and neurolinguistic programming. And I had this mindset of, you know, you set a goal, you break it down into chunks, you clarify the actions that you want to take and you get on and do it and you’ll achieve your goal. And I still think there’s a lot of merit in that, but I guess I was gonna say a bit older, a fair bit older now and hopefully a little bit wiser. I’m kind of 75% there now I think, yeah, you can do that. And that will get you 75% of the way, but sometimes you just need the world to work in your favor for the other 25%. And sometimes it works for you and sometimes it works against you, but there’s a weird, that was my look in this bit, the, the planning and the detail and all that that was done. But the look was the people turning up at the time they did and being absolutely right and available to get on board. That was my look in, in the journey.
speaker 1
03:31:14
I love that. And I think you’re right. You know, we all have an element of needing the universe to, to work with us. But I think if we’ve got the goal, if we’ve got the direction, if we know where we’re going, it’s much easier for it to know what what’s needed and therefore we’re ready. Should that look, come along to actually take, take advantage of it. Aren’t we to, to grab hold of that, look and get that’s exactly what I needed.
speaker 2
03:31:39
I’m not a big believer in the law of attraction. I think people are making a lot of money out of selling this stuff. But having said that it kind of worked for me in that instance, you know, I did my stuff and then these guys just popped up. So I dunno, maybe there is some,
speaker 1
03:31:56
I don’t think this, there is a part of, from a neuroscientific point of view where our subconscious brain filters out, loads of things, filters out things that it think aren’t interesting to us. So you may have you, if you’re going buy a new car and you know which car you’re gonna buy and all of a sudden, the only thing you see on the, on the road is the car you want. Right. And it’s not because all of a sudden there’s loads more of those cars. It’s because your subconscious brain now knows it’s important to you. So it’s looking for them. Yeah. So it goes, oh look, here’s, here’s one, here’s one the same. The kind of, I guess the same is true when we’ve got a goal and we know what it is. Our subconscious brain is open to be looking for the chance that the right thing might be in your grasp.
speaker 1
03:32:38
That can go, oh, talk to this person, go there. And that’s when you end up almost with that kind of look piece, it’s just because you’re no longer filtering it out. Yeah. As opposed to necessarily you’re you are attracting something in, I think there’s, it’s hard, isn’t it? Cuz it, cuz we see these, we, we see look as something that’s unobtainable, but I think often the difference between people that are being really successful and the ones that aren’t is some people wait for the look first and then do the planning. Yeah. Whereas for the people that are really successful, they do the planning first and are grateful when the look comes along to help them do, do that extra bit. Would that be a fair reflection?
speaker 2
03:33:18
I think it’s a good perception on it. And I think you’ve articulated it a lot better than I did. So every days in school day,
speaker 1
03:33:27
I love that my, my Nan used to say that every day’s a school day and my granddad used to say live each day, if it should last in one day, you’ll be right. And I think somewhere between that, there’s great way of living your life. Isn’t that?
speaker 2
03:33:39
Exactly?
speaker 1
03:33:40
Oh, you’ve shared so much value already. Could I just ask one last favor? If you could go back and give your younger self some advice, what would it be
speaker 2
03:33:50
By Bitcoin? No, Bitcoin probably didn’t exist when I was that young, but what would it be? I think it would just be try as soon as possible to get clear on what you want and then just go after it and, and don’t hold back with any regret. I, I met a guy at a pub in Devon when I was about 19 or 20 and I was down there for a few days on a break and I’d never met this guy before we got chatting and he’d just buried his son that week, who was about my age. And I was I so moved by the conversation and he told me on, on his son’s tombstone, he used the phrase, he, he wrote the phrase, don’t let your fears stand in the way of your dreams. And it just resonated with me hugely. And I was really moved and, but that was 30 years ago.
speaker 2
03:35:01
And that phrase in that moment has stuck with me ever since. And it’s become a kind of Maxim that I’ve tried to believe in. I’ve never used it with my people or my teams or anything. It’s just been a kind of personal motto. Don’t let your fear stand in the way of your dreams. And I think if I had the opportunity to speak to my 18 year old self, that would be the message I’d give them. And I was fortunate I guess, to get that message directly from someone else who it had huge significance for. So yeah, I’d go with that.
speaker 1
03:35:34
I love that. And thank you for sharing that. You shared that with me last time. And I literally have written here on, on my desk. I have that phrase and it has to be the title of your book.
speaker 2
03:35:44
OK. Yes. When I finished my book, absolutely.
speaker 1
03:35:50
Oh, we would love to have you on and I can’t wait to read the book. So that is a definite definite deal. Greg, it’s been an absolute joy as always. I look forward to next time and in the interim. Thank you again.
speaker 2
03:36:02
It’s a pleasure. It’s been fun. Thank you, Kim.