From Science to Strategy: Leading at the Edge of Uncertainty with Graham Wood

You're listening to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most with Outfluencer, Dr. Wayne Pernell. Welcome to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most. I'm Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, your host, your guide, and your coach on this journey. Today we're joined by a man who spent over 2 decades shaping the science behind clinical pharmacology. Essentially, he creates what becomes medicine, leading more than 350 first-in-human clinical trials and thousands more studies that determine what works, what doesn't, and what's next. Graham Wood brings a beautiful blend of science rigor, operational leadership, and commercial instinct. He not only has a firm grasp on the science, he knows how to move it forward. From neurology to biotech to private equity-backed leadership, he's built a career on seeing what's possible, then making it real. Welcome, to the program, Graham. Graham Wood, thank you for being here.

Thank you so much, Wayne. Yes, I mean, I love talking about science, so this is great. If we could weave in a little Star Wars and Star Trek, it'll be the best interview ever.

There's always room for— there's always room for Star Wars and Star Trek, two different paths, and I love them both. Um, I also love one of the last things that you said to me on a previous call was that sales is such a rush that you, you love to convince scientists that, that they can design a better study and that that is sort of like sales and then bringing what they do to market. I'll tell you what, let's start there because that was, that was something that just stuck with me. And I'd love to, I'd love to have you talk a little bit about about what you do and how you convince scientists to like take it to the next stage.

Yeah, no, I'm definitely happy to jump in. I mean, to back up, I guess a little bit, it's a bit strange for, for a scientist to, to be focused on sales and think, think it's important. So when I was finishing up grad school, I knew I wanted to go into, into clinical research, but I had no idea I would end up in sales. And that was— I spent my first about 8 years in the industry focused on sales, which is a fantastic experience. But I had many times— I think I told you this story— that first year or two, I'd be coming back from a sales trip as the plane's landing, looking out the window like, how did I get here? And like, here I am, an introverted scientist who's now going out and selling science. Again, a way, like when, even when you're in grad school, like you're, you're constantly selling, you're selling either trying to get that next grant, selling your, when you give a presentation at, at the meetings. So really for me it was kind of just a progression of that. And yeah, I've always been an adrenaline junkie and really had to learn that it's, it is, it's a rush to, to go into that that meeting where you have to— sometimes you have to be delivering bad news that the design of that clinical study is just not going to work. It needs to be changed tremendously. Or sometimes even worse news, the drug is not— it's just not working. But using kind of what I learned through years on the selling side, it really, really has helped me. But yeah, it's a great— it feels so good when you leave those meetings. They're equivalent to mountain biking down a hill and hopefully not hitting any trees. You get in the same type of flow and you get the same type of rush after.

That's amazing. The whole— I have never— I will say this, I've never equated scientific studies with the rush of mountain biking. You know, you— it's— and it is, it's, uh, so here's your first Star Trek reference, is to— there you go— is to go where no person's gone before. And, uh, right, you're going on uncharted territory. Now, when you're on a mountain bike, you're going down and you're keeping your eye on the path ahead. When you're doing clinical trials, you're doing the same thing, and you hope that there aren't pits or or roots sticking out that are going to block your way. What— let's talk about some of the studies that you've done. I think it's amazing, you know, to be able to talk to a scientist and clinical pharmacologist and to have you kind of make it human. Scientists are, you noted, being kind of introverted in general because it's a very solitary kind of path when you're exploring, you know, this works, this chemical fits with this, this has the— these two combined, these 3, 4, 6 combined has this effect. Or we hope it does, it should, and you're projecting forward. Um, so talk a little bit about how you do trials. Um, do you start with a typical null hypothesis and try and prove it wrong? Do you start with, we think these, because they work in a certain way, should have this effect? What's your What's the path of exploration for you?

So, I mean, a lot of the studies we do, I mean, and through my career, but definitely the past 5 years have been at Nucleus Network, are true first-in-human studies. So drug has never been given to a human before. And the goal is really just to make sure— primary goal is make sure it's safe. It's safe and tolerable for the people. The truth is, is there's an element of it which is a bit, a bit cookie cutter. First-in-human studies, they're not powered for anything. They're just really there to show in a small number of people, some, usually it's just 6 people receiving active drug, that it's safe in them. And you start at a very low dose and then slowly, slowly bring your dose up. So the basic, like I said, is the cookie cutter. The fun part is then when you're expanding on the basic, you're trying to bring in a biomarker to maybe show just early sign that the drug is working. I mean, for your statins, be very easy, your cholesterol is going down. For some of the allergy medications, you maybe look at the IgE is going down, or even you can look at symptoms. We did this really cool study where, so we first established it was safe, and then we brought in people who are allergic to ragweed. We exposed them to ragweed. Then we have this thing, it's called acoustic rhinometer. It literally sends sound waves up your nasal cavity and measures how much you are inflamed. And then we could tell if the drug was working, obviously people wouldn't get inflamed even though they're allergic to ragweed. If the drug's not working, then their sinuses come fully inflamed, their nose is running, they're sneezing. So that's where it gets really exciting, is when you're really going beyond just the safety into that first look as, is this drug actually going to help people?

That's amazing. And how do you find 6 people with ragweed allergies? I mean, do you— you don't advertise, you know?

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. Oh, do you really?

Yeah. So I mean, there's 2 different types of there's populations where it's just out there. So I mean, a great allergy is a great example, or celiac. We've done studies with people with celiac. I mean, celiac is a great example because there's no treatment that currently is approved. So people who have it are very interested when they see that there's a clinical study being conducted, even though it's an— because they're early studies, the chance you're going to get like a true effect of benefit, one, it's totally unknown. And we're generally not treating long enough. But people see that out there and they're interested because they know they have celiac. If no one with celiac signs up for these studies, then there won't be new treatments. So, I mean, we were able to recruit fairly, fairly well for that and bring in people with celiac to test the new drug or the allergy one. And social media is, that's the way to go. I mean, that's how back in the day we used to do radio ads or sometimes TV. Everything's now moved to social media and there's some fantastic AI built into it too. So where you can, the AI, it's called the lookalike. So after about 100 people have qualified, so you ask them a little bit of a questionnaire, the AI then goes, looks for people who are similar to them because we all know Google knows everything about us, so it can then go look. And it's not necessarily basic celiac, it's just what is their profile. And it's not just because some of the questions we ask them, like, are you available to come in for like 6 weeks once a week for, for testing? So that's the other thing. It kind of, it knows the AI is looking for people who do have that kind of flexibility. So it works really, really well for finding these things that are prevalent out there in the population. If it was like an orphan disease or something really rare, then you need to find a doctor who can refer their patient base. So there's kind of that— those two different strategies you can use.

That's amazing. That's awesome. Um, you're based in Canada, so a little different than US or even Europe. Um, any hurdles you have to pass that way? And are you funded through the government?

No. So yeah, we're a private company. Actually, the Nucleus Network is based down in Australia. I am employee one in Canada. I am the only one up here. But I mean, the companies we work for, I mean, we call them the sponsors. They're literally all over the world. So I travel to the US, to Europe. I go to Australia quite often, going out meeting our sponsors. We have a lot in Asia these days. China is a huge market. It's probably the biggest, fastest growing biotech market in the world right now. So yeah, it really doesn't— being in Canada, I mean, it's, in a way, doesn't matter because I have to go all over the world anyway to visit with our different sponsors.

Awesome. It's really great. Uh, to, to— I'm trying to find a Star Wars reference that we could use. You're—

you get— it'll come to mind.

Parsecs away. I, I don't know.

Yeah, that's not bad.

Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, that's, that's incredible. So how did— like, you've been, you've been in science, you've been in sales, you've been in leadership. I want you to talk a little bit about the leadership roles you've had and then talk a little bit about how learning to sell the science has changed the way you, one, approach your leadership, and two, think about innovating.

Okay. So, I mean, the selling part, um, when I first started, like, in a true sales role, I mean, I think I, I told you this, but I literally went and bought myself a pair of golf clubs. Um, I'd probably at that point played 4 or 5 games of golf in my life, but to me, just salespeople, they play golf. That's how, what you do. And I just thought I needed to go into this role and my, my mentor at the time who taught me so, so much, he, he was like, oh, these are the certain things you need to do, like give your, give your sponsors tickets to plays and take them to plays, and tried to mold me into being a salesperson, uh, like he was, which works unbelievably well for him. And still, he's still in the industry doing great, great stuff, but it just didn't It just wasn't me. Um, my, my pride was whenever they would send me to a golf tournament, they would give me our golf balls with our logo on it, which was good because I would use them for myself because I would lose so many. Um, versus I never got a chance to give them out because they were all in like in the woods, in the water. Um, but once I learned just to do it, try to do it my way, and my way was very a collaborative sale, is working with working with my clients, understanding their science, helping them design their studies. Uh, I used to— India used to be my region early on. I used to go there 2 or 3 times a year. Um, I, I would offer to do lectures on pharmacokinetics and just different ways to engage, bring in their scientists and engage them on a, on a scientific level. Once I made my own style, which was based on the science, that's when it started to really, really click and, and go well. I was no longer trying to be something that I just— I wasn't. And to this day, I'm still not a golfer.

What you are is service-oriented, and it's great because that is a theme that I do see woven throughout, uh, great leaders and great salespeople. And recognizing that when you're of service to somebody Um, you know, it was Zig Ziglar who said— I think it was Zig who said, when you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want. And it's like, in what you said was, I learned to do it my way. And your way is of service. Your way is stepping in, going, well, let me show you like, you're trying to put this study together, let me help you design it. And I think that's very unique because we haven't had a scientist on my show, I don't think, ever. And so to have you step up and go, this is my way, like, what I do is I help people to design their studies so that they go great, right? That's really, that's really good. That's really good. And, and when— so I want to bring you to the leadership place also. Um, who are you leading? Who do you think you are, right? You don't have a— I don't know if you have a full team or how big your team is. Who else are you leading? Do you have a team? What does that look like? What is your leadership style?

Uh, so yeah, I have, I have a team of So the quality assurance department reports into me. And then I also lead off— or we have a division called CRO Services. That's more like the medical writing, data management, biostats. And then kind of more in the matrix style is leading on the science. I mean, as chief scientific officer, I mean, it's important that I need to be out there looking what's the forefront, what's the next area we need to be. I'd rather not be reactive. I'd rather try to get there, go there first, and then we can build it, and then we can be ready. So it's a mixture of having to influence others through the matrix as well as the direct leadership. What is my style? That's always a tough one to answer. It's, I mean, definitely, I, one thing I've always dealing with people is they're, they're people. They're not, there's frustrations with it. And I've had, I've had opportunities where the roles had changed and I was not going to have anyone left reporting to me. And I swear at the time it was like, oh wow, this is going to be, this is going to be great. All those human resource things are just gone. I can just deal with the science. I hated it. I love working with the team, leading, mentoring people, coaching. But so I like to be fairly involved, but really is to really help develop people and build on their skills. And that's, so yeah, it comes with baggage for dealing with humans. But I mean, even AI, I mean, I have Claude speak, back to me all the time telling me he's right and I'm wrong. So I guess we are— we always gonna have a bit of that.

That's great. So it's, uh, it's interactive, it sounds like it's collaborative, um, and you've been doing it long enough that you have a bit of mentorship style, I assume, as well, where It's kind of like, let me show you.

Exactly. I mean, my goal is to help bring up the people who report to me. One thing I learned early in my career is never— a successful leader can walk away and nothing falls apart. That's success. And there's a lot of leaders I find that get— that scares them because it does. You're basically, you're working to make yourself redundant in a way. And not needed, but it's, I mean, you see people who go on vacation and their entire department falls apart. That's not a leader. Right.

That's an important point.

That's right. Yeah, it's someone to, and it's a tough one. And I've had a few people report to me where I was trying to instill that into them and I could tell how much it scared them. And literally to the point of people saying, but then, I'm not needed. In a way, kind of, that's the point. Make yourself so your team— because you, one, you need succession planning, but that's how you have a really strong, robust team where it's not just dependent on the one person. It's everyone's driving because then it allows a leader to go. You can be more strategic. You can be more looking ahead when your team, you know, they've got your back. When you spend that day focused on the future, nothing's falling apart while you're doing that.

This is amazing. There are so many leaders that actually do operate in terms of, ooh, if I leave and my team does OK, then I'm not needed. To those of us that have seen great leadership, that is the sign of great leadership. For those that are in it and go, oh, but I can't leave because I'm, you know, I have to be needed. That's the sign of ego. That's the sign of a lack of confidence. And I mean, that's where coaching comes in.

And it benefits the— I mean, you think of when you're rising up in a company. And I've seen that. I've seen leaders who they want to go to the next level, but their team's not ready for them to. If you want to move up, you need to make sure your team's ready for you to go and to do something else. If you're constantly, and that's me, like I constantly want to do new things. So 100%, it's like not self-preservation, but it's, it's, it's just, it helps me as well. Because then I know that I can move on to something else. I can move up.

It's great. So data meets decision meets the human element. How would you approach this? Like you're guiding a team and you're enabling them, you're supporting them to act decisively even when the data or the science is still uncertain? How do you help them make decisive moves? Because I think this translates to life in general, actually, which is why I ask questions like this. It's like, you know, when you've got such a blended background, I think it's really helpful. How do you help people to make really quick, strong, decisive— how do you take decisive action even within an uncertain future?

I mean, it's all about risk mitigation, is understanding what the risks are. Now, are you doing everything you possibly can to lower those risks? And then there is there is always going to be a bit of uncertainty when you're testing new medication. But if you're controlling for all the risks, then you're going to— hopefully there'll be no issue, or you're going to see you have the measures in place to see if an issue is starting up.

Are you excited? Are you excited by the uncertainty, or are you sort of trepidatious? Like, are you waiting to see what happens next, or are you like, oh, let's see what happens next?

I'm 100% excited. But it's the kind of thing, if you don't have that worry in you though, that's probably a bad thing. Because that's— and there's always a battle. Like, I have a colleague I work with who's I mean, in a way, he's like, we're like yin and yang. I'm a bit more on the optimist. It's gonna work. We're okay. While he's much more like focused on all like the issue, but that's great. Like that's, that's really good to have. And this is, I mean, back to like your team having a well-rounded, if you have a bunch of clones, you're not getting the full perspective, having people who view life a very different way. And I have, so I have that in my quality team as well, where I have, and I've literally openly talked to her about us being yin and yang in terms of our approach. But that's so good to have that counterpoint that can, so back to the design is looking at the, the risk, figuring out what, how we're going to deal with the risk, but making sure you have someone who's— you, you're seeing everything out there, you're not just seeing your perspective, and really listening. And then, yeah, you— it's, it's good to feel a bit worried when you go ahead because then you know you're taken care.

So this is good. This is, uh, you know, one of the things that I like to talk about and explore is how you get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. And that's what you've just described is like, we have to go forward not knowing everything. It's what we do. You know, if we knew everything, it wouldn't be a trial. It wouldn't be a clinical trial. We'd go, this works here, plug it in, done. You know, uh, so just the, the discomfort, right?

So, um, and, and it's been back to the being, being adrenaline junkie, that discomfort is, it's a high. I mean, standing on the top of a crazy mountain bike run or a snowboard run, that's what pushing myself and that is always what has given me enjoyment. And but you're again, you're controlling for the risk even when you're doing that. You're always wearing my helmets. I can't even get on my bike these days and go 10 feet and not feel uncomfortable without a helmet. It's all about what are the risk mitigations you're putting in place. But then you still feel great when you do it and you've accomplished it.

It's true. It's great. I have a hard time picturing you going, whoop!

So yes, I am not incredibly expressive. And I have to say, this is the one biggest feedback I get from my team is they find it very hard to read me. They're never really sure. And it's, yeah, I'm not super, super expressive, so I can, I can see it gets hard. But you'll see a big smile on my face when I come down the bottom of a mountain bike run. I guarantee you that. Nice. Maybe not hands up in the air. That's more my wife. I'm more the calmer. I'm just like talking, like my hands are hardly moving. She just sent me a picture. She was presenting yesterday at a conference in Boston, and every picture she has from a conference, her hand's like up in the air because her hands are never just down.

But that's right. How many of you have— and here's where we've got— yeah, that's awesome.

But that's just— yeah, that's just not me. I'm a little more the staid scientist, I guess.

Okay, so you've worked in academia, pharma, private equity, biotech. This is a passion place for me, what I'm gonna ask you, blending all those things. Because, you know, I step in when companies scale so fast that there's complexity, right? And complexity leads to sometimes leaders going in different directions or sometimes an implosion and culture or trust erodes. So my question is, what— when you've worked in all these areas, what blind spots do you see that leaders miss as they scale?

I mean, I think one is definitely You can have a person who's very, very good at their job. I mean, one can be— I mean, we see this. This happens a lot in science. Someone's technically great. They can be a great statistician. They can be a great pharmacokineticist. But that doesn't mean they're a great leader of statisticians and pharm. So that's— I would say that's one, kind of more base. But even company size. I mean, even referring back to, I mean, you're talking to leadership days when I was CEO, we were buying up small clinical research sites and putting them together. But someone who's excelled at working in a business that's a single site isn't necessarily the person who's going to excel at now merging all these sites together, harmonizing all the processes. It's a different area of expertise. So I think it's important just to be on the lookout for that and make sure that as you're promoting the people up, that they're ready for that next challenge, that company's growing and growing and adding sites because it adds complexity. And then like now in a global company, and you have, we have a site in London and Minneapolis and Australia and dealing with clients all over the world. Like you need people who kind of enjoy that. It's a bit of mayhem. Global companies is, it's a bit of mayhem because everyone wants to do it a different way. Everyone, I mean, our sites are most like youngest site is 20 years old. So when they come to the table and they're like, I've been doing this for 20 years this way and it's been fine. Another site's been doing it, say our London site, 32 years. They're like, I've been doing it for 30 years and it's fine, but they're both doing it different ways. Is figuring, making sure you can have people who can then cut through that to put it all together because maybe they're better off just focused on the, focused on the one site and that's their career path versus other people are good at bringing everything together.

How do you know? Like how, What's your role in getting people ready? Because you said as you promote people, be sure they're ready for the next level. What's your role in, you know, they've operated at this level and now you're growing and you're like, hmm, you've been at this level for a long time, come on.

I mean, sadly, it's something that, I mean, we're never always going to be right with. One thing I would say is generally 3 to 6 months in, go with your gut. And I mean, I've seen so many times where it's, you're just like, ah, just another month. They're like, I'm not mentoring her enough. I'm not. And sometimes, like, there are 100%, sometimes things fall on the leader. You don't have enough time at that point. You can't, you're not able to, I mean, I've been very big into situational leadership since I think my very first job. They took us through the training, um, is making sure you're going down to S1 when you need to, um, when— and helping people out of D2 is a huge, a huge part.

But so, so I'm gonna pause for a second for those that aren't familiar, and, and I did have this conversation with your wife, um, because she's, she's a big proponent of situational leadership. For those that aren't familiar with 4 Grids, as Graham talks about S1, it's Situation 1, where somebody's very enthusiastic but may not have the skill set. And so sort of like a teenager that wants to drive a car but has never been taught. That's the analogy I use where, you know, they're like, it looks easy enough. Let me behind the wheel. I could do this. And then they you know, get in and drive over the mailbox and, you know, they're on the lawn. Um, what they need from a leader is guidance, very specific guidance and support at, at the Situation 1 level. When they're D2, um, or Situation 2, basically the, the direction, the, uh, guidance that's given from a supervisor is to is to show them, just show them, like, right?

So, and give, and give the support. Don't, don't worry. And your example was great. You've now in the neighbor's lawn run over the trash can. And that doesn't mean you give up driving, that you give them support.

Yeah, right.

You, so next time, brake a little sooner. But don't give up, keep going. So that's a big part of when people are in D2.

Yeah.

Is making them see there is light at the end of the tunnel. You're getting there. You're not in 1 anymore. You're in 2 now.

And what happens? Yeah, what happens at that level? Just as long as we're doing situational leadership, what happens at that level is when you hit a wall for the very first time, you feel like you're bad at everything. Well, I'm bad at driving. That means I shouldn't even go out of the house. And there's this Like, no, no, you're good at going out of the house. You put on your seatbelt and you looked around and, you know, you just hit your— you hit the gas and you didn't hit the brake just that soon enough, right? So a little bit of guidance goes a long way with Level 2. So without turning this into a situational leadership training per se, I think it's fascinating and I love that you're founded or grounded there and I just I wanted to back it up since you're going S1, D2. I want to kind of point out what that is. Level 3, by the way, is where you go, look, you're good, you've got skills, just go do those skills. And your confidence will build from the competence, you'll see it. And level 4 is dang, you're good enough, you should go out and teach this stuff. So, um, that's in a nutshell what this all is. This is, this is really great. So, um, wow, I have two questions and I think we have time for them. One is, when someone shifts their thinking, like, I'm just going back to where we started, the whole idea of, of helping scientists and the rush of selling and helping scientists to design better studies. What does it look like for you when someone shifts their thinking? Like, oh, they got it. Like, that's the aha for them.

Oh, it's, it's, it's a fantastic feeling. Uh, um, yeah, it's, it's a huge part of what kind of, I guess, drives me forward. Um, I mean, it actually happened about 2 weeks ago. I was meeting with a colleague with a drug regulator. We won't say which one. And we were trying to get them to understand where, in first-in-human studies, where the risk comes from. And in the, I think we had a full hour, maybe 45 minutes, the aha moment came to them probably about 10 minutes to go where they they, they agreed with us. Like, yeah, you're, you're, you're right. That is where the risk is. We're, we're focused on these other parts is really what we should be focused on. This third one, it's, it's not as— it's definitely not as important, but we've been treating it way too high. So those types of moments are just— are, are definitely fantastic. I don't know if that's ever going to lead to any big change.. But just to, in that meeting, to be able to convince them. But we actually, when we left, my colleague was like, oh, I didn't— I think she was expecting like the whole world would change. I was just super excited that they saw it, just them, because that's the first step is they're seeing where the true risk is. And then as they're thinking going forward, they're going to focus on, hopefully on that. Going forward. And that's— yeah, it sounds like a small win, but that's, that's a big win.

That's huge. It really is. That's huge when someone shifts thinking like that. Uh, for me, I have an analogy. Again, I sort of think in analogies. It's like when a, uh, a crawling infant pulls themselves up and they let go and they're standing for the first time by themselves. They have pulled up and they're standing. It's like, oh my gosh, right? The world is about to change for this little thing and it doesn't know it yet. And right, so you're standing back going, wow, they got this aha and it's a little aha, but that little aha opens the door to so much and it's great.

Not that funny.

Yeah, I, so I like to, for me, because I interview people who are in very specific niches, like, the whole point of what I do with this is to say, look, this is very generalizable. Doesn't matter what role you're in, you can generalize those concepts to your own personal life. Like, you get a little aha, that is the seed that grows into this mighty oak tree. Like, it is huge. So be open to those little, little moments that are potentially life-changing.

That's right.

Yeah. So let's wrap with a couple of things. You've talked about what's exciting in drug development. Where do you see the industry? What's now being underestimated and where do you think the industry is going in terms of pharmacology and drugs and treatment that will affect the general population? Where do you think— what are we missing and where do you think it's going?

I mean, it's definitely— it's changed a lot in the last 10 years. I mean, the drugs that we're testing now are so much better targeted at their— and specific for their target. So I mean, your, your side effect profile is much more focused on its on-target effects, not off-target, versus like the old small molecules like your, I mean, your ibuprofen and your aspirin and stuff hit all over the place. So it's very hard to then predict exactly what's going to happen. And in a way, they're— I don't want to say they're dirty drugs, but They're hit. And sometimes, I mean, that's, that's great. Something like, I mean, something aspirin has multitude of effects. So, I mean, it can help with your, your inflammation. They can like all these different things. I mean, it acts as a blood thinner. But the new medications now, like especially things like small inhibitor RNA or different, they are so, so targeted. Even the monoclonal antibodies, they're just binding one thing. And it's definitely changing. It's making it— and it's streamlining things a bit because we don't— the worry about those off-target effects goes way down. Even worry about drug-drug interaction doesn't fully, fully 100% go away, but it's certainly reduced because it's just so targeted. I mean, you think of an RA, it's It's got to have the exact same sequence for it to bind. That's it. That's all it's going to bind. And there's nothing else that's going to interfere with it.

So would you say it's targeted versus systemic?

Yeah, yeah.

Am I using systemic wrong?

A bit, yes. It's, it's targeted versus, I mean, back in the day, I mean, drug discovery was, it was really serendipity. And you think a lot of it's, throw, I mean, combinational chemistry, just all these. And now it's, I mean, this is the other one is the AI-driven drug development. That is something that's definitely, does it mean that we can then just everything can just go in, it's going to work right away? No, we're not there. And maybe, maybe we'll get there. I don't, I don't know. But it's speeding up bringing drugs to to the clinic, that's for sure. And it's making them so they are, like I said, I mean, cleaner is not the best word, but it's, yeah, they're not just hitting everything out there. It's much, much more targeted.

Amazing. It's cool. What, okay, so the geek outside of me is like, I could see it. Like, this is exciting. So it's great. What, uh, what haven't I asked you? What are you hoping to share with our viewers that I didn't get to? And, um, and if people wanted to reach out to you, what's the best way of doing that?

I guess, I mean, through my LinkedIn is— it would definitely, I would say, would be the best. What haven't I— I've still been trying to think of a way to weave in some Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Things, but I haven't. The only way I could think of for— so when, if you remember back when Luke was training with Yoda, um, those first days of training, that was very S1, very, very focused. And then if you remember, Luke definitely had those periods of doubt. That's when Luke was in D2. And when he got to the third, that's when Yoda was more in his head and just kind of that voice at the back of going forward. I'm not sure what the D4 would be. Maybe that's when he no longer needs Yoda in the back of his head, he can just do it. That's the best I could come up with weaving in some good Star Wars.

That's very good. That's very good. Exciting this is. That's awesome. I actually haven't Hadn't thought of, uh, the Star Wars, you know, Luke being trained as a, as the Situational Leadership Model overlay. That's, that's great. I've, I've used it for the hero's journey, right? So you get this, you get this reluctant hero who doesn't want it and doesn't— it's like it's too big to take on. And then, you know, finds a mentor and then has to enter, literally in this, in this case, has to enter the cave of his greatest fears. And where— what's he find in there but himself? And then he becomes— he over— he overcomes that and, uh, and triumphs and saves the galaxy, or whatever he saves. That's awesome. Um, good, Grim, thank you.

This is—

it's fun, you know. I never know I, I kind of entered— I, I enter every podcast with the same kind of like excitement and, um, you know, doing enough research where I've mitigated risks of, of going, well, what should we talk about? Um, right. And, and so I never know where it's going to go, even, even though I have ideas and I have some questions in mind that I want to, send, you know, put out there. And it's always exciting, it's always, it's always fun. And it's a pleasure to have you here, it's a pleasure to get to know you. And, um, yeah, I'll just say that. So, um, thank you for being here.

All right, thank you so much for having me. It's been, uh, definitely been tons of fun. Um, and I believe you're, you're speaking with, with my wife in a couple of days.

Yeah, we've had— so the reference is Deslin Wood. Deslin has been on the podcast and yeah, we'll be following up. We've got some follow-up meetings. I've got a follow-up meeting with you tomorrow as we speak and I've got a follow-up meeting with Deslin in a couple of days. So really great, really great. I'm looking forward to staying in touch with both of you. You've got such different paths and you're such different humans, um, that to see you kind of figure out how your worlds get together, it's like, that's, that's amazing and, and, and fun as well. So yeah, yeah. All right, well, uh, for our audience, if you want to learn more about what Graham is up to, um, and if you want to look up, uh, Nucleus Network, which is based in Australia and around the world. That's where Graham can be found, Nucleus Network, but also on LinkedIn, Graham Wood. I think you're the only Graham Wood on LinkedIn.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of us. So I think if you Graham Wood Nucleus, you'll find— just the other day, someone told me There's too many Graham Woods.

Um, oh, that's funny.

Okay, there's a lot of us out there.

All right, uh, well, uh, look around, you'll find Graham Wood based in Canada with Nucleus Network.

Exactly.

Very good. All right, Graham, thank you for being here. So, so good. So good. Uh, appreciate you very much. This is, this is a one sharp sword cutting through two What matters most. My guest today, Graham Wood, and I am Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, your host, your guide, and your coach on this journey. We will see you here again next time. Thank you. Uh, give it a like, give it a share, and, uh, tell your friends. All right, thanks for being here. Thanks for listening to One Sharp Sword. Cutting through to what matters most with Outfluencer Dr. Wayne Pernell. For more information, please go to onesharpsword.com.