CB LIVE! Courage to Leap and Lead with Simon Haigh, Episode 90

Hello, everybody. It's Tuesday, and it is CB Bowman. How are you all today? Well, you know, it's a little cloudy here in Colorado, but you've got to love it. I mean, one day we have 71 degrees out, and the next day it snows. So you know what they say about Colorado? You have to carry your wardrobe in your car because if you're not happy with the weather, blink twice and it'll change. So hey, I want to just fill you in on a couple of things. I hope that you've had a chance to sign up for my newsletter. You know, the April— I have to look up to make sure it's April— the April edition is all about courage. It's So great. And of course, it's on LinkedIn. It's the LinkedIn newsletter. And my one coming up for May— it only comes out once a month now— is going to be spectacular. Oh my gosh, you have got to sign up. You have to join the other 2,500 people that already signed up, you know. And don't forget, you can hear this show On your favorite podcast and on YouTube, so I hope you'll subscribe and leave us comments. We want to be able to get back to you and talk to you, right? So what about today? We have a guest from outside the United States, like we did last week when we had somebody from South. Africa, Dr. Munghezi. If you missed it, please go to YouTube or podcast. It is a power-packed interview. Oh my gosh, even I was surprised. So Simon, you have some big steps to fill for this week.

No pressure, CB.

So I wonder if anyone can guess Simon's accent. If you can, send us a note. But Simon, reveal please, what country are you from?

Well, I live here in Ireland. I grew up in the UK, but I've also spent 10 years in Australia. I spent about a year in California, and I spent 6 months in Poland. So I'm kind of a— I'm a man of mystery, CB, but I'm currently here in Ireland, so I'm— I think some people hear a bit of an Irish lilt. I roll my Rs, but also a little bit of Englishness and a bit of Australian. So, man of international— man of mystery.

Well, the only thing we don't hear is California in there.

So California, that was one year.

We'll have to listen to some West Coast terms that you toss out.

Absolutely, absolutely. But it's, it's great to be here with you, CB, and you've got an amazing podcast and you've got great guests and you've got wonderful energy. So, and, and, and whenever you laugh, the whole world feels like laughing. I— it just makes me want to laugh. So it's great to be here.

Thank you, thank you. I'm so excited to find out all the latest. And, you know, um, first let's tackle a serious subject. How are you all doing as a result of the war in Ukraine?

Well, I mean, Ireland is a fair bit away. We're the other side of Europe. It's funny, you know, I read something recently about the 10 safest places in the world to live, and Ireland is just in number 10 because we're an island off an island off Europe. But we definitely have a lot of visibility because I think as of this week, we've had 21,000 refugees come to Ireland from Ukraine, and we already had a housing problem. So we've got some real issues about bringing them in. And, and, and of course we want to help, you know. But yeah, I mean, this is a— this is a Europe— this is not just a Ukraine war, this is a global situation. We all have to be concerned, and we all have to mind ourselves during these times, you know. It's, it's important.

Yes, that's why I asked. You know, I knew you weren't nearby, but, you know, any place in Europe and really in the United States too, we've gotten to such a flat society that any place that flares up affects all of us.

Absolutely.

I mean, we have seen, um, the price of oil, for example, or gasoline for your car Yeah. Oh my God. It's up to, in California, it's around $8, $9. Wow. I mean, a gallon. It's, we've never seen that before. I mean, California is always a bit, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, on the edge. Oh my gosh. I could never afford to live there.

No. As I said, I was there for a year. I was, I lived in Silicon Valley in 90, 2005, 2006. And it was like, it was surreal. It's kind of like, for me, it was like living in Stepford Wives. On the surface, on the surface, everything was beautiful and, and organized, and all the cars were wonderful and the houses were wonderful. But when you got to know some people, you realized they had exactly the same problem, probably magnified compared to the rest of us, you know. But you don't see that on the outside.

Yeah. Well, you're seeing it now with the homeless population. It's out of control. It's kind of scary.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I used to fly back and forth to California from New York, New Jersey all the time because I was in a different profession that required me to work out in the West Coast. And it was so spectacular, you know, walking along the wharf and And the food was incredible. And now when I went back so many years later, I thought to myself, this can't be the same place.

Yeah.

It, it, I must have dreamt it or something because there are buildings all over, parking meters all over, congested beyond belief.

Yeah.

the water. It's the, the crab legs that you loved are frozen.

It's—

what happened?

You know, the world moves on and moves on. It's like we're in a— we're in— we're on a freeway and we're on the slow lane, and the world is going zooming past down the long, like, the fast lane.

Don't you feel bad for people who didn't have a chance to experience what we experienced? You know, the young kids?

I kind of do, you know. I, you know, I look back to the, you know, the '80s, you know, when, when the Berlin Wall came down in '89, you know, and, and, and Clinton was in power. And they, they seem really positive days, much more— they seemed. Of course, we had all the same problems around race issues and around cultural issues and stuff, but generally the world just seemed more hopeful, right? I don't know.

Yes.

It just seemed more hopeful. You know, the last 2 years we've dealt with a pandemic, and now we've got a war, and we've got climate change, and we've got prices. Give me a break, CB. Like, it's just so many, so many bad things all the time, you know. And I have 2— I have 2 daughters, they're 21, 23, and I really, I really kind of worry for them a bit, you know, because if you're, if you're just absorbing all this negative news, how can you get happy? How do you get happy?

Well, I can tell you how, and it's pretty sad, right?

Yeah, it's sad.

You know, I'm, I'm at the age now when I look back and I think about— just thinking about Europe, you know. I was talking to somebody the other day, uh, we went back in 2018 for the Thinkers50 Awards.

Yeah.

And I was so excited because my husband hadn't been there, and I thought, wait till you see the Queen's Palace and all the little shops all around and how the unique streets and everything. When we went back, you could barely find it for the tall buildings.

Yeah.

And the little unique shops are all gone. And I was, I was so incredibly disappointed.

Yeah.

Um, and, and I miss all of that pomp and circumstance and—

Yeah.

Just beauty. Absolute Beauty.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, things are, things are changing. I guess we just have to, we have to grab what we have today, you know. I think gratitude is important, you know. I mean, things are changing and, you know, we can't live life the way we want it to be. We, we need to live life the way it is, you know. And yeah, we have to, we have to, you know. And you talk about courage, and courage is also about centering yourself in the day, you know, and, and, and and focusing on what you're grateful for, not worrying about what you've lost, you know. And so that's important, you know.

At the same time, it's funny that you said that because at the same time, I love technology. I am such a— I, I would love to spend my days just programming, loving, you know, learning how to program something.

Yeah.

You know, just spend all my time learning new apps and what they're for and using this system. It fascinates the heck out of me. And I say to myself, well, you know, consider yourself lucky. You saw the old and now you see the new. And aren't you lucky?

Yes. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And we're kind of blessed. We've kind of seen— we've come through. We've kind of come through. It's interesting. This is the first time in history, CB, that there are 5 generations in the workforce. There are baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, um, Z, and the millennials, you know. And, and that makes it fascinating. It does make it fascinating, you know.

Yeah, it's a real opportunity to learn. And as you said before, courage. So first, before we start talking about courage, I want to talk about you. Tell us the inside scoop about Simon. How were you raised? How did you get to where you are now? Don't give us the boring stuff that we can read. Give us the real scoop.

The real scoop. Well, I— it's gonna take a while. You know, I started life in the UK, and I went to school and college over there. And then I got married to my beloved wife, Margaret. She's from Dublin, Ireland. We moved here in 1991. And I was a lawyer. I started life as a lawyer, but pretty quickly, CB, I realized that— so I qualified as a lawyer in UK, Ireland, and Australia, but pretty quickly, within about 1 year of qualifying, I realized that I wasn't really interested in the law. I was interested in what made people tick and mindsets and leadership and all of those things. So I ended up To cut a long story short, I ended up jumping out of the pure law and I went and joined the US multinational Dell. I was the first legal counsel for Dell here in UK and Ireland. So I still had one foot in the legal camp, but it was while I was there— this was 2000 to 2004— I picked up knowledge about change management and people and processes and systems and entrepreneurial thinking. I worked for another US multinational after that for a couple of years called Xilinx. They make semiconductors. And then I guess this is the kind of an indicator of the kind of the person I am. I'm not afraid of taking risks, CB. So I'd been in the legal profession for 13 years, and one day I said to my wife, I'm done with this. We need to do something else. So to cut a long story short, I jacked in the legal career. I actually rolled in the back garden in my house wearing my suit in the mud, right, to mark the end of it. Not many people know that, so that's a bit of a scoop. And, uh, we, we ended up emigrating to Australia, and we, we left Ireland at a good time. We went over, we took our young— 2 young daughters over there, and, uh, we, we spent 10 years in Australia, and I had no idea what to do. I thought I was going to own an Italian restaurant, but then I realized all the Italians own the Italian restaurants or a cafe. I ended up doing an MBA. I ended up getting back to the office scene. But here was the big, really interesting thing. I had no idea about Indigenous Aboriginal affairs, right? I was a white guy from Europe, Polish-Irish background. And my one Aboriginal friend, Indigenous friend, um, a guy called Dave, said, there's a job going at BHP, one of the big— the biggest mining company in the world, um, managing Indigenous economic development and, you know, employment. I think you should go for this, Simon. And I thought to myself, I know nothing about this, I'm not interested. But I did. And you know when you— you know when you don't necessarily want something, you feel relaxed, and you end up getting it? And that's what happened.

Yes.

So that's what happened. I landed the job and it was a 1-year contract. And during that year, I helped Aboriginal indigenous businesses really accelerate their contracts with the big miner. Massive increase in KPIs and revenue and sales. And because of that, I was engaged permanently by the company. And then while I was there, Um, this American company from Alaska called NANA Development Corporation— stands for Northwest Arctic Native Association— came to Australia to see if they could collaborate with Australian Indigenous businesses. So this was an Alaskan Indigenous business, um, a $4 or $5 billion business from Alaska. They got to know me, they invited me to Alaska. I was still working for BHP. To cut a long story short, I ended up being the first CEO for Nana Australia. So you had a white guy from Europe in Australia working for an Inuit-run business, collaborating with Australian Aboriginals. How about that, CB?

Wow. Okay, I think you lost me on first base.

And so my point I'm making, from the time I rolled in the garden in my suit in 2006, none of my life has been planned. Okay? And so I was CEO for Nana for nearly 3 years. I think I would be right in saying I'm probably the first person in history to assign joint ventures between Northern Hemisphere Indigenous businesses and Southern Hemisphere Indigenous businesses. And it was a huge privilege, CB. I witnessed some amazing spiritual things with Aboriginal people in Australia and Canada and Alaska. I went to a male initiation ceremony. I witnessed things through the eyes of ancient people rather than marauding white people, right?

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, and it was funny, you know, when I, when I eventually left there and we moved to Ireland, I'll never forget, we, uh, this was 6 years ago we came back, and I took a payoff and I started my own business. And when I came back to Ireland one day, this thing came in the post, and it was, I, it was the shape of an ostrich and 2 baby ostriches made out of little bits of iron, right? It was made out of little bit— it was a little bit kind of higgledy-piggledy and handmade. And I thought, I had no idea where this was from, right? And then I started thinking, I work with a lot of indigenous people in Australia and I help them and help grow the businesses, but I wonder if this is a curse. I actually thought to myself, God, have I been cursed? You know, because I left and I moved back over here. Eventually I found out it was actually a gift. It was the opposite of that. It was a gift from the indigenous people in Ayers Rock, right in the center of Australia. It's called Uluru now, for thanking me for working with indigenous people and thinking and behaving. I had no idea.

So you didn't know?

No, I had no idea. No, I found out. It was a long story how I found out. So that's just an indication of the spiritual connection. And it's funny, I came back to Ireland 6 years ago. And I really missed that world, you know. I've really missed that world. And I, I witnessed some, some shocking things, you know. As a white guy, I saw racism from white senior executives against Australian Aboriginals. But I also saw begrudgery between Australian Aboriginals and Inuits coming to Australia saying, well, how dare you come to our country, you know, we're the local indigenous. And I, I saw, I saw the best and the worst of humankind, you know. And it's had a profound effect in my life. And since then, I've run my own business, coaching consulting business around growth. But I guess having had all those experiences and traveled around the world, the work I do today is help organizations try and achieve their intended purpose while at the same time help leaders try and achieve their authentic potential. Because you can't do one without the other. You can't have a great business without looking after the people. And if you don't look after the people, you're not going to have a sustainable business. So, and I guess I've learned all of that through the eyes not just of a white guy, but through the eyes of indigenous people across the world, you know. And when you think about it, I'll stop on this: the indigenous people of this world inhabit 40% of the landmass of this planet. And yet, do they really— do we really hear a voice from them? We don't really hear their voice, and yet they are so incredibly important given that we're going through this climate change time. So I guess I had a spiritual and emotional—

Are you connecting indigenous people with climate change?

No, what, what I'm saying is that, that, um, you know, indigenous people occupy 40% of the planet, right? And And I think the mainstream world should be looking at the indigenous people as guardians of that land. We should, we should be learning from them. We should learn from them, you know. And so I— so that's been the journey. It's been a mixed journey. I've had some real privileges working with amazing people. And so that's where I am today. I help organizations and leaders grow. But I just wanted to give that background. I haven't done this through reading books. I've actually lived I've worked around the world and I've seen things through the perspectives of different people, and it's been a wonderful journey, CB.

So I want to go back to— thank you, Simon. I want to go back to the comment about Indigenous people and land protection. How are you relating the two? Are you saying that where Indigenous people live, the land prospers, and so therefore there's an opportunity to learn from them?

That's kind of what I'm saying. I'm also saying that I, I think, you know, for example, let's take the Amazon, right? I mean, in this modern day and age, it's all about growth and economics. And so, you know, forests are getting destroyed, right? Because we need to— because we're this constant journey of growth, right, that we— that the, the Western world has brought, right? Um, but I think, I think we need to, we need to figure out a different way of of sustaining this planet. You know, there's, there's a whole concept called— I don't know whether you've heard of it, but it's called doughnut economics, right? So we can grow and prosper on this planet, but we need to think about how we manage our land better, how we interact better, how we— you know, we don't have to destroy everything. You know, we can, we can, we can protect certain things. We— I'm not saying that we stop growth. Of course we've got to grow, but I think we have to respect that You know, indigenous people lived on these, have lived on these lands for millennia, right? And they haven't destroyed the lands, right? And, and, and, and people in the West and the East used to live on land, and we didn't have to destroy everything. And I think, you know, we have to be really careful. We do. You know, my, my daughters are very worried about the future of the planet, and I think indigenous people regard themselves as— for them, the land is their mother. That's the point. It's their mother, right? Whereas I think in the Western world, we just see the land as a resource to rape and pillage. And I think we need to think much more holistically about this, this planet. It's a beautiful place, but we don't want to destroy it, you know?

So I want to, you know, I want to talk about courage, but I also am now curious to ask you, what do you think about controlled burns? I don't know why that popped into my head. But as we're talking about preserving land, and I see that the scary increase in forest fires, and they're saying that it's due to the fact that we're not— first of all, we're cutting down the protective barrier. Second of all, the gases that are being built up on the floor are not being exposed properly, and therefore we have to have controlled burn. But if in my memory, if I think back into the indigenous population land, I don't remember forest fires getting out of— am I wrong?

Yeah, no, I think you're right. So I can talk from the perspective of Australia. So, um, you're right. I mean, these massive forest fires are happening. A couple of years ago, you had huge forest fires, and you have them in California and Oregon and Um, traditionally the indigenous people would use controlled burning, right? They would do that to, to maintain windbreaks, to, to also replenish the land, right? To get rid of the stuff that would burn very easily, you know, if there were lightning strikes. So it sounds ironic, they were creating smoke and they were creating fires, but they were doing it in a very controlled way because they knew how to live with the land, they knew how to manage the land. They, they kind of, they kind of cohabited with the land. And, um, whereas we have no idea, you know, white people from, white people from Europe have no idea how to live with the land. We just, we just traveled the world and raped and pillaged, you know, um, humans and land. So, you know, that controlled burn, that indigenous way of being, worked for millennia, for millennia, you know. And it's interesting, it's really interesting.

So, okay, yeah, it is something I hadn't thought about. That's why I have fantastic guests on like you. I have sparkles in my head going on. Now, Simon, uh, I sent you a bunch of questions about coverage and you picked out 3.

Yeah.

The one, the one that stands out that I really want to talk to you about, given your Uh, history of being a nomad, actually.

Nomad.

Yeah. Um, what— let's talk about some of the things that people might define as failure that you were able to look at and identify success and use that knowledge to propel you forward to Complete successes.

You know, that's, that's interesting. And, and it's interesting because we all, you know, we all have— we, we have— back to the work of the great Eckhart Tolle. You know, Eckhart Tolle wrote the book The Power of Now, and he said for everything that happens to us in our lives, everything that happens, we have— we only have 3 choices. We can either accept, amend, or avoid. Accept, amend, or avoid. So when something difficult happens in your life, there's not really any point in whinging about it. You either accept it and you say, this is what's meant to be happening, or you try and change it, or you avoid it, which means leaving your job if you hate your job, right? But there's no point in staying in a place if you hate it. And I guess so I start with that because for me, this whole thing around Um, you know, the fine line between success and failure is mindset. It really is mindset. And, you know, I've, I've experienced some challenging times in my life. My, my mother passed away at an early age, and, um, I've had a business failure in Australia. And, um, but what I found, CB, is that— and I didn't really, really know what this thing called resilience is until a couple of years ago, really. And Uh, I, you know, like you, I know Marshall Goldsmith. He's been like an angel to me. He wrote the foreword to a couple of books, and, um, and I had a really amazing conversation with him 2 years, 1 month ago, and I was talking about where my life is heading, and, uh, and, and he came up with this statement, and he said, Simon, you need to match your confidence with your capability, right? And, and I know that resonates with a lot of people, so I always knew that I had a reasonable brain, right? But I never really had enough confidence in me, in my abilities to survive and to pick myself up. And then having had that conversation, I thought, wow. I looked back over my life and I thought, wow, every time somebody slapped Simon down, he always got up, right? I always got up, right? I don't know, to be honest with you, CB, I'm never going to retire. I'm just going to die one day, right? I don't know what giving up is. And so, for example, I mentioned that company in Australia. I had a watch company in Australia 6 years ago. It was very successful for a short period of time, and then it went belly up because there were personality differences, and I lost the most amount of money. And we moved back to Ireland in 2017. I could quite easily have just given up. I could quite easily have fallen into depression or done crazy things. But there's always been a deep drive in me that says, Simon, yes, I've got to process the emotion. Yes, it was sad. Yes, I felt really angry and fearful. But you only have one chance at life and you have to keep going. And so for me, it's about that inner grit, that resilience, that drive, that motivation. And you have it as well. I mean, we've had this conversation. It— I, I, I— would you say that— is that courage?

That, that—

I think it is.

I think courage and resilience go hand in hand. However, however, I will say this: you are incredibly courageous. And the, the, the problem is, is— by the way, Carolyn, my dear friend Carolyn, just wrote in and said, CB and Simon, really enjoying your conversation. Thank you, Carolyn. I think the problem is that we do not— in fact, I know the problem is we do not define courage so that it's obtainable by the masses. We define it so that it's obtainable by the few. And that's wrong.

Yeah.

It's so wrong. And it's incredibly important that we stop this given what we're going through as a world.

Yeah.

So the fact that you were able to leave your really nice-paying sweet spot job.

Yeah.

And go home and roll in the dirt and say, I'm done.

Yep.

Oh my God, that's incredible courage. What are you talking about? The fact that you go and you open a watch company, the fact that you accept a position dealing with the, uh, people that you have no relationship to.

Yeah.

That you've never done this kind of job before and make it so that you become so successful. You become the first CEO in this space. And that again is courageous. I mean, you sort of wrote the book on being courageous.

But you know what, CB, at the time I didn't think of it as courage.

That's the problem that I want to resolve, is that people are not stopping and thinking that this is courageous. Because we have to. We need, we need that joy. We're facing so much negative. Now, resilience, on the other hand, can be the ability to do something again and again and again. Courage, on the other hand, can be that, but it's more about trying something new.

Yeah.

And being aware of it, or fixing something old. It's about making the change. Resilience can be repetitive, Courage is change.

I, I love that. I actually really— I never thought of it like that. And because I was going to talk about, for me, I talk a lot about— I, I help people with their growth mindset, and I talk about, um, you have one chance at this unless you're a Buddhist and you believe in many lives. And I know Marshall believes in the Buddhist faith practices, but, but let's— I, I say that this is my life, right? And And so I've got to live it to the max. Yes, I'm going to have bad days and difficult days. We all do. We're human beings. But life— nobody's out there is going to save any of us, right? We have to navigate intentionally our own lives. That's what I say anyway. And so I have to make the best out of it. And, uh, and so I've never really been afraid. I mean, I haven't taken mad risks, right? I mean, taking my family to Australia with a ton of cash from a sold house Wasn't really, really dangerous, right? Like we weren't moving to a dangerous part of the world with no money, right? So I still take calculated risks, okay? But I talk about the growth zone, right? I talk about the growth zone, and so many people—and I think this is what you're alluding to—and maybe social, maybe it's conditioning, maybe it's society, maybe social media is keeping people in their place. But so many people live in what. I call the comfort zone. They feel safe. They're kind of deluded by feeling they're in control. They're not really in control. They're being manipulated, right? But for me, I've always been interested in how I get out of that comfort zone. I don't want to be in comfort zone too long. I want to be able to push through what I call the fear zone, because when I'm in the fear zone, I feel like I'm being challenged, right? I feel like I'm pushing myself and Yes, it feels like I lack self-confidence, and sometimes I'll find excuses, but I know I'm growing. And then from the fear zone, I go into the learning zone where I'm acquiring new skills and I'm extending my comfort zone. I'm not just lying in it, I'm extending it. And then that results then finally in being in the growth zone where I'm setting new goals and I'm finding a purpose. Right. And I've had this chat a lot lately with people about Imagine if you had a life without a purpose. It would be so dull, wouldn't it? I mean, you have a strong purpose. Your purpose is to talk about and to encourage people to think about and live by the whole area of courage. And I mean, that's massive, CB. I mean, it's massive. I mean, there are so many reasons for people to be courageous, you know. Off the top of my head, you know, we have inequality, we have racism, we have climate change, we have All of these things, all of them require courage, right? Because human beings are inherently lazy. We'll only do things when the power of not doing it exceeds the power of doing it, unless we have somebody courageous who breaks that and says, enough, let's, let's divert this now, you know. So that's what I think. It's— I don't want to live in that comfort zone. I'll never be like that.

So I want to challenge you on a couple of things that you said. The The one about laziness, people being lazy, and also your move from one country to another. You had a nice pocket of cash and you had a family and you didn't see that as courageous. It's incredibly courageous.

It is, but it wasn't foolhardy. It wasn't foolhardy. It was courageous.

2 different zones.

Yeah, yeah.

Very different zones, right? A lot of people who have a lot of money and a family Remain status quo because they're afraid. You see, as we age, fear becomes like fine wine. We sit back and we sip it and we think it's okay because it goes down smooth, right?

Yeah.

There's no interruptions. I should really say it's like fine scotch, right? But what we don't realize, with every sip, we're cutting out opportunities.

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

So I'm not sure it's laziness as much as it's fear. When we look at babies just drop down on the floor, I mean, there's no fear that they're going to break a bone, that they won't be able to get back up. They don't care. Try dropping down to the floor when you're 60 years old, 70, 80, 50 years old.

Yeah.

Yeah. Some fear about that, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So this, uh, this aged Scotch— we think we've made it, we think we're comfortable, and then all of a sudden something comes along and it's like somebody squeezes a lemon. In the scotch. And whoa, what happened? Right now, do we throw away the scotch? No, it must be me. I might be coming down with a cold. Let me continue to sip. Right? Instead of realizing, no, it's time to empty that glass.

Right.

Wash it out and pour yourself an energizing Drink, right? Let's get going. Come on now. You know, my husband's favorite expression to me is, where are we going? I always say to him, don't ask, let's go. Yeah, he's much more cautious than I am. I am outrageous in, in leaping first and then figuring out where I'm gonna land.

I would be, I would be very— I would be like you, CB. You know, it's funny because I look back at my life. You know, I've written books. I've been CEO in Australia for an indigenous business. I've been a CEO here. I I've got a radio show. I do lots of things like you do, and and it's funny. You know, I I I can't imagine a life without pushing myself and doing all those things because I I remember when I was working in London, right, as a lawyer, and. I remember thinking, I am so bored with this, right? I did it for 13 years. I commuted to the office 2 hours, I worked in an office for like 15 hours, I commuted home, and I would look at these invariably pasty white faces of middle-aged people commuting to and from work in London thinking, I'm never ever going to end my days like that. I just knew it, CB, that I, I had a journey to undertake, right? And I'm, I'm still on that journey, right? I have no idea where this is going to go, but I don't, I don't want that predictability. And it can be scary at times. Like, I mean, as you know, when you set up a business, there's no guarantee of revenue. For me, it took a year or two for things to settle down. But you know you're living your purpose when everything aligns, when, when you're doing the work that suits your character, that feeds your soul, that, that gets results, then gets gets noticed and helps people. And that's what I'm doing today. It's taken 55 years, but I love it. I just love it.

You know, you were an overnight success.

No, it didn't happen overnight.

And, uh, it was like an overnight success to me.

You know, and it's funny, you know, we haven't even mentioned the, the couple of words that really interest me, and they are potential and opportunity. And I think there's courage linking the two of them. So when you think about it, I do a lot of work looking at this stuff, and I help people try and map a journey between their potential and opportunity. When you think about it, unless you're living in North Korea or somewhere like that, right, most of us have unlimited potential, right? We can do most things. You could, you could learn to become a chef or an actress or a newsreader or a coach or consultant. There's nothing really, really stopping you. Of course, there are factors. So there's limitless potential, near enough, and there's also limitless opportunity. There really is. Like, I mean, there's so much opportunity. And, and yet, I don't know about you, but nobody ever told me what my potential was. No teacher, no boss. And nobody ever showed me, like, opening a stage and said, there you go, Simon, there's the opportunities. So We have to be courageous and try and connect potential with opportunity. And that's— I'm obsessed with thinking about this nowadays, CB. What do you think about that?

So I have a lot to say about that. You know, the fact is that white people are offered more opportunity. Absolutely. People of color, Indigenous population. And yet people will argue with me and say, you have the same opportunity. The problem is we may have the same opportunity, but the struggle to get there, the path to get there is quite different.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I've seen that through the eyes of Indigenous people in Australia. I have a visceral experience of that, CB. I've experienced it through their eyes, and it's 100% right.

Yeah. So what we tend to experience, and I can't speak for every person of color, is the opposite— being pointed out that you don't have the opportunity. The opportunity is not yours to grab. It's somebody— it's for somebody else to grab. Somebody else.

Yeah, yeah.

And so first you have to work at proving that it is yours to grab, and then you have to work at grabbing it. So that step of proving is very different than the step of proving for the white male or woman. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And to give you a great, great example, I have a colleague and dear friend who's Portuguese. And she is training to be a TED speaker. So she's literally going to a program. She flies from Arizona to New York to take this program. And she said to me the other day— and this is what I love about foreigners, because they feel no apprehension about asking a person of color for clarification on their race and things that happen in their race.

Yeah.

Here, the white person is very nervous about doing this.

Yeah.

So she said to me, CB, I want to ask you something. I've observed, and I had this conversation with people of color in my class, that when they speak, because you have to get up and you have to speak, right, that the criticism that they get is I don't think the person was themselves. I don't think that they're authentic. Now, this is white people talking about Black people who are on stage speaking.

Yeah.

And she said, I'm hearing it a lot about Black people, and my Black friends are also hearing it, and we don't know what to make of it. Do you have a response? And I started laughing, and I said, You're asking me if I have a response? Of course I have a response, right? And I said, here's what's happening in a lot of cases. The expectation about how a Black person should act is being called into question.

Yeah.

We are supposed to be non-educated, We're not supposed to be a specialist on any particular subject. We're supposed to clown around. We're supposed to fumble. We are expected not to do well. And when a Black person or a person of color gets up and takes the stage and mesmerizes the audience, the response inside is, Well, that wasn't supposed to happen. Yeah, they're Black, and so therefore they must not be authentic. Yeah, I said that's the issue that you have to watch out for.

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

Oh my God, I, I never thought that. And I said, well, you're not supposed to. It's an inner— it's an inner thing that surfaces to the top.

Yeah.

And we have to be very mindful. The extra job that we have is we have to figure out when we get feedback, what's the truth in that feedback? Where is that feedback coming from? Is it real or is it fake news?

Yeah, no, I agree. You know, I mean, what you've mentioned, this whole— I mean, it almost makes it trivial to label it unconscious bias, but unconscious bias is so, so powerful. And, you know, I actually work with a company over here called Inclusio.

Unconscious humanism. It's not just bias, it's humanism.

Absolutely. And it happens automatically, right? It happens automatically, and it's triggered by our brain makes quick judgments and assessments of people in situations. And that's fine, right? Unfortunately, as you know, those quick judgments and assessments have been shaped over hundreds of years through different cultures, right? And so it's very hard to break those things. So that's what you're saying, CB, that those innate prejudices and biases, they're really real. I mean, they're really real, right? And I don't know what it's like to live life as a person of color. I don't. But I definitely— I've experienced as an English guy living in Ireland, I won't go into the details, but I'm a white guy, but I had some pushback about being an English guy in Ireland, right? So I do know what it's like And I felt really embarrassed. I actually feel embarrassed about being English in Ireland because the English have had a bad history, right?

Yes.

So I feel awkward. So I have those feelings, but I'll never know what it's like to be a person of color, right? But I do know that what you say, these biases are very, very real. And we are at a bit of an inflection point in the world because I mean, the younger generations, I don't know, my daughters, they don't see things through color. They, they see things through the quality of the person and how they're thinking. And they think, they think things differently.

Time out. Let me just say, I'm, I'm just gonna inform you that when people say, when white people say That is considered an insult.

I know that. I know that. I know that.

And, and the reason is we want you to see our color.

Yeah.

We want you to see our difference.

Yeah.

And we want you to accept and respect our gifts differing.

Yeah, let me just say, CB, I didn't say that. I, I used a shorthand for the younger generation and I was wrong. They don't see the difference as much as my generation did. That's my sense.

Let me, let me say it this way, if I may. They see the difference and they accept and embrace the difference.

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

Yeah, yeah. So, uh, and I, I understand what you're saying because I it with young people here. It's, you know, I might have a sister or a brother that's a different color, but we are— when you cut through the skin, it's still blood.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

And so I'm going to learn from my sisters and brothers, and I'm going to be that much Better off.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that, that, that is well, that's deep awareness. That's deep self-honesty, and it is courage. I mean, it is courage. Uh, uh, and, and the world needs more of this, and the world needs more C.B. Bowmans. I mean, yeah, your LinkedIn profile, your LinkedIn profile. stands out, right? You're not, you're not hiding, CB, right? I mean, you are proud of who you are, what you're saying, and the direction you're going. And we all need to be proud. We all need to be doing that, you know. And, and, and so I think there's a real— are you, are you an optimist or, or not? Do you think things will improve?

That's a difficult question.

It is.

And the truth is, I don't know. Yeah. You know, I saw the death of Martin Luther King. I saw the death of Malcolm X. I see the death of Colin Powell.

Yeah.

We have lost some great, great leaders.

Yeah.

All of which hoped to see a difference in their lifetime. Who am I to expect to see a difference in a lifetime?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

It's what I see are temporary, or even— let me just go back and say short-term bursts of the way it could be with people caring for people.

Yeah.

Sadly, it dissipates. It's like they say a woman has— I just saw this weird thing happen on my computer. Ah, okay. Carolyn. She says—

She says, I have hope.

Yes. She's younger than I am.

I'm glad. I'm gonna mention hope a bit later on, but I, I won't interrupt you because hope is so important.

Yes. And so is the knowledge of disappointment.

No, I agree. I agree. You need some balance.

Yeah. And so when, when I see the killing of Floyd and everybody becomes on the bandwagon to solve, and then it disappears now and we've replaced it with the focus on mental health. That makes me sad. That decreases my hope.

So do you think it's been— attention has been diverted very quickly? Is that what you're saying? It's been—

It's a short-term burst of energy to make things right. Now, I think that those short-term bursts of energy are lasting a little longer.

Yeah.

That's due to media. Yeah, right. So my hope is that they last longer and longer.

They get longer and longer. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's— for me, living in Europe, and I think most Europeans would say this, when we look to the States, America just seems to be for me, it seems to be more divided than ever, right? I mean, uh, and, and I, you know, I, I'm a white guy, so I didn't have a deep knowledge of, of, of what was happening in civil rights in the past. I'm aware of it, but, but today I look at the States and it just seems to be 50/50 split politically. It seems to be, it seems to be so divided. And, and I Here in Europe, when we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, we're not so much talking about the color of people's skins. We're talking about how comfortable people from different cultures feel working together. Right. And so there is a difference. There's a nuanced difference in that whole area. But in the States, I don't know. I don't get a big sense that it's gone massively forward. I don't get that feeling. And I'm, I'm a very— I'm an optimist and I'm a very hopeful person, but I don't know, it just seemed to got stuck. It seems like it's got stuck. What do you think, CB?

Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing. It's short-term. Yeah, yeah, stuck versus short-term, it's, it's really the same word in this case. Yeah, and part of it now, right now, I could speak to now is that we have so much going on. It's like, which, which low-hanging fruit should we pick to attach our cause and beliefs to, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And right now, the United States is in very challenging political dimensions.

Yeah.

It has been for Going on 12 years now.

Definitely. Yeah.

And so that is a poison that doesn't allow us to heal in other areas that we need to heal.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

You see it in the streets. I mean, I have never seen so much anger in the streets related to mental health.

Yeah.

Every day, it's— the shootings are becoming massive.

Yeah.

It's not just, you know, I'm killing one person because they cheated on me. That's bad enough. Yeah, but now it's the world is making me angry, and so let me go out and kill as many people as I can.

Yeah, I agree. As I said, I'm an optimist, but I'm looking at the state of the— not, not just the States, but I'm looking at the world right now. I mean, you look at what's happening with, with Russia and Ukraine and And something like 25 or 40 countries didn't, didn't, uh, vote against Russia, right? So, uh, and whether that's fear or lack of courage or, um, there's just so much confusion in the world. And, and then over the top of it, you have this thing called fake news. I never used to believe in fake news. I thought that was for stupid people. But now I'm starting to think Now when I hear news, I'm starting to question it. I'm starting to think, is that real or not? You know, and so I think we're in really slippery times, really slippery times, you know. And, and I think the opportunity there is for courageous and hopeful and resilient people to say, this is the way to go forward, right? This is the way to go forward. Because otherwise, I I'm an optimist, but I do think there are some dark shadows over the world right now, right? Whether it's— it's not all coming from the East, but there's that. It's coming from the West as well. And I do think— I don't believe we're at Judgment Day point here. I don't believe that. I hope I'm wrong. But I do think good people need to stand up. And I don't know about you, but how many great political leaders are there in the world right now? I can't name many. I mean, Jacinda Ardern from New Zealand would be one, um, but I can— can you name many? There aren't many great examples of open-minded, willing, honest, forward-thinking, courageous leaders, are there?

Well, one of the things that's happening is that we don't allow great leaders to come forth.

Yeah, I agree.

With the cancel culture, and I talk about this a lot, we tend to kill off thinking.

Yeah.

We kill off dialogue. We don't have the days where When I was younger, you would sit in a coffee shop in France or in the Lower East Side of New York and sit and debate and debate and debate and have arguments back and forth and walk away feeling satisfied mentally and physically.

Exactly.

Not necessarily in agreement.

Yeah.

We have lost the art of debate.

Yeah.

Which is, I believe, a lifesaver. Yeah. People don't have time to debate. It's either my way or the highway.

Yeah, it is. It's, it's very dangerous, you know. And I mean, I'm not an expert in this whole space, but I'm, I'm starting to— I'm hearing more and more about now this whole movement around the trans, the trans movement, right? And And I, I haven't really been watching it, but, but I'm increasingly listening to this, and I'm hearing it from the perspective of women. And I don't, I don't know whether it's a big issue in the States, but over in Europe, there's a huge conversation right now about, you know, trans rights. And, uh, and a lot of women in Europe say—

Transgender rights?

Transgender rights, yeah. And a lot of women in Europe are saying, this is putting pressure on us. We're almost being pushed aside, you know. And And so that's a whole new dynamic that wasn't discussed when I was young, you know. And so, and, and again, it's like a cancel culture thing. If you, if you, you're not allowed to have an argument back to say, this is what I think, you're shut down, you know. And that is very dangerous. That is very dangerous.

And that's exactly what I'm saying. And, you know, we have some incredible thinkers in our time.

Yeah.

And they are monitoring what they're saying because they don't want to be part of the cancel culture. Yeah. And so then therefore these thinkers are not given permission to become leaders. It's a vicious cycle.

Yeah, it is. You know, it's interesting you said that because, you know, for leaders, really for organizations and for countries to grow You need to differentiate, and to differentiate you need to innovate. To innovate you need diversity, and for diversity you need inclusion, right? And and and you need to have inclusive thinking, and you need to have inclusive behaviors, and you need to have you need to have open conversation. That that's what I'm talking about. If you're not allowing for open conversation, you're not being inclusive, right? You're being controlling, and and and you know leaders need to be transparent. They need to be honorable. They need to deliver through obscurity. They need to steady the ship, and they need to provide a bridge to the future, right? And if you're not allowing for inclusive, truly inclusive leadership which allows for conversation, how can you expect the leaders of the future to find a bridge to the future? It's worrying, CB. It is worrying. Cancel culture is going to stop leaders building that bridge to the future.

Well, it's going to intellectual growth and intellectual stimuli.

Yeah.

Even more than inclusiveness. You know, I'm— it's gonna sound weird if I say I'm okay with lack of inclusiveness, but I want to know the reason why. I want to intellectually understand it. And so if I can't have that dialogue with somebody who believes different than I do, Then I'm stuck. They're stuck.

Yeah, you're stuck there.

Anger starts to creep into the picture. The resentment starts to creep in. They may have a really valid reason. Now, I am not going to agree with them, but I can listen to them. I can appreciate their point of view if I think it's valid. If I don't think it's valid, I want to be able to say that, and I want to be able to say why. And let's have a conversation about it. We may come to a middle ground.

Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, what you've just described there is— it's interesting. I posted on LinkedIn about 8 months ago. I showed a little chart of why people give up, right? There were 12 images of why people give up, and it had about 150,000 views, the most Most views I ever had of anything. And, and I— this conversation is making me think about this because if I remember rightly, some of the reasons are, you know, uh, fearing the future, fearing failure, um, feeling that you have things to lose, feeling that you're giving up your power. And what you've just discussed there in the cancel culture makes people feel those things, you know.

Absolutely.

It's dangerous. It's very dangerous.

You know, here in the United States, there's discussion going on about teaching children who are younger than their teenage years about transgender. Many of the parents are saying this is going too far.

Yeah.

The he, she, them, whatever pronoun you want to use, teaching people— children Particularly about transgender. You know, I don't know how I feel about it. I would love to be able to debate it with somebody. I'd love to have conversation. I don't know because I don't have children that age.

Yeah.

I don't know what effects the parents feel will happen. What are they afraid of? What do they fear for their children? I'd like to hear that. And then I'd like to hear the other side of the picture. Yeah. I mean, to me, knowledge is powerful, and this is preventing knowledge. But I, I'm open to hearing from others. What do they think about it? Because I want to broaden my knowledge of the situation.

And you're so right, because, you know, when you think this through, To live a fulfilling life, you need to, you need to stretch yourself. And, you know, if you're not asking these questions, if you're not, you know, interacting, if you're not, then you're not forming— how can you be confident of your decision-making? How can you be confident of it if you're not exercising the muscle of debate? Exactly, exactly. That's the danger, you know. So I, I can't believe an hour has gone by already. See?

No way. Well, we started. What is wrong with the clock? Let's debate that.

We're in a time warp. It's been a great conversation.

It's been a great conversation. It's taken us beyond where we thought we would go. I wanted to talk to you about your books. Simon, just quickly, do you have a couple of your books that you could pop in front of the camera?

I've got one there behind me. It's called Deal Making— I'm pointing to it. It's called Deal Making for Corporate Growth. Deal Making for Corporate Growth. And then the one above it there, the white one with a green stripe, is called How to Be a Better Deal Closer. And both of those books, the foreword is from Marshall Goldsmith, my wonderful friend Marshall Goldsmith. And How to Be a Better Deal Closer came out in 2019. And it sounds like a boring book about sales and deals, but my intention when I wrote the book was to— you know that wardrobe in Narnia, Into Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the children walk into a wardrobe and they go into Magical Kingdom movies. That's the whole point of that book. So you read it thinking this is a book telling you how to sell and how to close deals, but when you read it, you start to realize this is actually telling me how to live, how to be more assertive, how to be more influential, how to, how to be more resilient, how to have a better awareness, how to communicate better, how to connect better. They're all the skills of deal closers. But they're all the skills of, as you said, confident, courageous, open-minded people. And yet, so I guess in my own way, I'm trying to give a bit of a blueprint to help people grow themselves and don't be afraid of asking questions. So they will be 2 of my books there. There's a 3rd one up there, which is a law book a long time ago, but they're the 2 main books.

Well, Simon, I'm kind of sad that it doesn't tell you how to close a deal because I would love for you to coach me. I am so bad at sales.

Oh, it does. There's a chapter on closing the deal, right? But there's a process. Yeah.

I want you to send me a copy autographed.

I'll send you a copy. I'll send you a copy.

I want it autographed, though.

I'll do that. I've got the number of copies there. I'll send you one. Don't worry. We've got plenty of witnesses to this.

That's right. That's why I ask for what I want on the show. I'm terrible.

I'll send you, I'll send you a soft copy as well, but I'll send you an autographed one.

So yeah, great, great. Okay, and then you have to coach me on the art of selling, the art of closing the deal.

It's interesting, I talk about the 7 Ps. There's a 7P process. There's principles. You need to understand who you are, your power, how do you communicate, all these kind of things. Then we go into planning. You need to plan. Right? You have to plan. Then I talk about power, right? We all have a power scenario between us, right? I'm not talking bad, unethical power. I'm talking about connection and communication and influence and how you become assertive. And then I talk about the players involved in negotiation, the mindsets and how we communicate and engage. Then you get onto the actual deal, which is the performance. And then we talk about the payout or the postmortem, which is you've either done the deal or you haven't. And so there's a process to evolve. And I like to make seemingly complicated things simple. I break them down. And Marshall, he liked that because I think so many thought leaders want to try and bamboozle people and confuse them. Nothing is as complicated as people make out. We need to make things simple for people because we're humans, you know, we're not gods, right? There's a process to everything and just break it down and make things simple.

I'm smiling because my tagline for Courageous is simple solutions to complex problems.

That's perfect.

We are on the same page. We're gonna have to get on stage together. That's it. I want to be on stage with Absolutely, absolutely.

We should do that in Europe somewhere. That'd be great. That would be great one day.

All right, Simon, it's been such a pleasure to have you on this show. I can't believe it's taken so long. My gosh. So let's not have that happen again. No. Hey guys, I— hmm, hey, you know what? I want to run a little bit long. I want to ask you one Final question.

Fire away.

Of the things, and you have to be very succinct, that one might consider that you experienced as failure, what are the— give me 3 successes of that failure that you've taken away and able to apply.

That's easy because it was the hardest thing I ever went through was that failed watch company, right? And I lost a lot of money. I, I I, I really questioned my judgment about a business partner, um, and it really dented my ego. So that was the failure. 3 successes were, number one, it's very true, CB, I never believed this until it happened, but you often— people say you learn most from failure. And I learned a huge—

Yeah.

I learned a huge amount about my resilience levels, my, my ability to recover. Um, and my— there's a lot of other things I want to say, but resilience, ability to recover. And I guess I've learned about trust, right? So, um, trust is a wonderful thing, but you need to be careful with trust. You need to be careful. I was really naive, CB, because, you know, I came from a family where I didn't really see a lot of issues. And, and so I just genuinely believed that everybody was good, right? Until I was about 30, really, right? And so I'm not saying become distrustful of everybody, but I like the Chinese way of trust. So in the West, the presumption is we trust people until they prove us wrong. In the East, in China— and I've worked in China— they think the opposite. You prove that they can trust you before they trust you. And, and so I don't say go to that extreme, but I've learned I've learned to be careful with trust.

Simon, you were cut off on talking to us about the Chinese. What do the Chinese say?

The Chinese, they have this concept called guangxi, guangxi, which means, um, you need to earn my trust. And so when, when Chinese people are looking at particularly white people from the West, they basically don't trust us until we can prove that they should trust us, which is kind of the opposite in the West. In the West, we tend to trust people until they do something wrong. In China, they need you to prove that they trust— that they can trust you. And once they trust you, you're a friend for life, you know. And, and so I, I guess I'm living my life in the middle ground. I'm not as naive as I used to be, and I'm not as judgmental, but I'm cautious. And I guess that was one of the— and that caution Has increased my levels of awareness, and, um, that's been really important. That's been really important.

Tell us quickly, how were you naive in trust?

I honestly, honestly, until about the age of 30, I, even though I'd witnessed some negative things in my family Maybe I was so busy with my own life. Maybe I just didn't. I was. I hadn't opened my eyes to the reality of the world, but I never really, really. I didn't come from a privileged background or anything like that, but I nothing really, really bad had happened to me until about the age of thirty, and and so I just assumed that looking back, I was extremely naive. I just. I, I didn't question the life. Life just happened and things just went on. And so I had no real reason to really distrust people, right? And that was just the life I had. And then boom, I had a failed first marriage and, and that left me in a bad place. Luckily I had no children and I, I completely misjudged the person, right? And, and that kind of dislocated my sense of self-judgment. And at the time, it was really tough, CB, at the age of 30. But it made me grow up pretty quickly. And, um, I lost my mother. She was young. And so I guess I kind of— you know, when you're maybe going through difficult times, you, as a coping mechanism, you kind of switch off. So there's a lot of my childhood and early life I don't remember, right? And so I think that was a coping mechanism. And so I didn't allow myself not to trust. I just was coping. You know that? I guess that's a way to answer the question. Um, and that's not really existing. I mean, you're kind of— you need to be aware. You need to have an awareness of others and yourself and situations. And, and so the experiences in the, you know, the last 25 years have allowed me just to be a lot more open, open-eyed and open-minded and willing and honest as well. Open-mindedness, willingness, and honesty are really, really important traits.

I wish we had more time because I'd like to add, do you feel like you've become more paranoid, or—

No, no, I, no, I don't. I, I, I feel— no, I definitely don't. I feel that I've become more aware, um, and There is a dark force in this world and there's a light force. There's good and there's evil. We all have the power to love and to hate. All human beings do. And I'm just more acutely aware of that. And, and it's interesting when you, when you ask the question, I haven't— this is really close— I haven't fallen out with one other human being in, in exactly 24 months. 2 years ago— and I'm talking even small falling out, right? business partners and stuff. And I think the reason I'm not doing that anymore is that I've accepted me. I've become a lot more aware. I read the room a lot better, and I'm not paranoid, right? I just, I have a better sense of my intuition and my instinct about people. And life is a lot easier when you don't fall out with people.

Yes, it is a lot easier. Yeah. Oh my gosh, this is a whole different conversation. I I'm so upset we can't continue.

We'll do it again. We'll do it again. Forever.

My goodness. It does take me back to my days of the coffee shops. I love it. It's wonderful. We have to say goodbye to Simon. Boo-hoo. Simon, when are you coming back? Oh dear, he froze. But I'll get that answer and I'll let you know. Hey, it's been a pleasure. Simon?

I'm still here.

I asked you when you're coming back.

Oh, my, my line went down. I can come back whenever I'm invited back.

Okay, okay, we're gonna work on that then. Um, look, I— everybody, I— this is just— I'm speechless. This has been so great.

Yeah, it's been great.

Please join us next Tuesday for another great— I have to keep upping the ante. This is getting hard here.

No pressure.

No pressure at all. I look forward to seeing you next Tuesday. Carolyn, thank you so much for chiming in. And I hope you will take a look at the LinkedIn newsletter for CB Bowman. This is CB signing out with Simon, my very special guest. I will see you next Tuesday. We have a date. Don't tell my husband. Bye.

See ya.