Colouring Outside The Lines & How to Be a Positive Disruptor #18

After all, all art is experience. Hello and welcome to The Company Doctor with me, George Clooge, and The Company Doctor, Gary Gamp. Coming up on this episode, we discuss the ways in which we've all been conditioned by the modern world and how breaking free from that conditioning and becoming a responsible renegade can create the sort of disruptive environment in which good business thrives. If you're looking to become a positive disruptor but aren't sure where to start, this is definitely the episode for you. But that's enough from me. Gary, how are you doing?

I am excellent, thank you very much. Although I have noticed that it's dark when I get up and it's dark when I go to bed. Have you found that?

I have found that. How does it make you feel?

Dark. No, it makes me feel great. I love the dark.

Yeah, the darkness.

Who doesn't? Who doesn't, right?

Yeah, there's certainly been a shift, hasn't there? And it's slightly harder to remain that sort of optimistic, fantastic person that you are. But no, I'm sure you're hanging in.

I'm hanging in because I know we've got the kind of, uh, the festive period coming. Oh yeah. And you know, very timely for this episode, which is Coloring Outside the Lines and How to Be a Positive Disruptor, which I like.

Is the title you like?

Yeah, yeah.

I like a lot. And I had a question immediately, if I can. You go for it. Because I wouldn't say that I'm fully in the know of what exactly a disruptor is. How do you define what a disruptor is?

Oh, I like that question. And I've got a lot of stuff during the episode to talk about it in more detail and give examples. But in essence, it's the reason it's called Color Outside the Lines. It's literally that, which is to push the boundaries a little bit, maybe be a little bit maverick, but without getting fired.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Pushing it to the limits.

But it's just to move away from— yeah, we're conditioned and we'll talk about it, but it's to move away from that conditioning and and just, yeah, just pushing the boundaries a little bit without getting fired.

Okay. And the coloring outside the lines, that's a reference to the fact that I guess as a goody two shoes, I was always very much trying to stay within the lines as a kid, whereas actually sometimes you need to break outside of that in order to, to make a difference and get what you want.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, again, we're not, we're not trying to make people complete disruptors and create anarchy, but certainly sometimes you do, you do need to color outside the lines and it's okay even though Some people don't like coloring outside the lines because it makes them feel uncomfortable, but it's okay. So as usual, we've got 3 topics within the episode, and the first topic is controversial, but it's to ignore the real world. That's my topic.

Okay, that sounds like quite a difficult thing to do.

And a difficult thing to say as well.

Yeah, what do you mean? What do you mean by that?

Well, you know, I'm going to say this carefully. So for those of you listening, and you may disagree with me, and it's okay, But a lot of us are conditioned from a very young age, either good things or bad things. We're conditioned to be polite and to be respectful, and they're really good things. And we're also conditioned to finish our dinner, speak when we're spoken to. There's a whole bunch of stuff that goes on, right? And that makes us what we are today. Now, most of our— the way we are comes from the, you know, uh, the association and from parents. And it's always really good. So you can always tell a good person, it's normally their parents that made them good. But the other side of that is we, you know, sometimes they wrap us up in cotton wool and we get conditioned.

Yeah, certainly.

And the reason I want to do this episode— with the pandemic, I think it's accelerated this challenge of conditioning because we've been forced into a lockdown in most countries that people are listening, and that's given us rules and boundaries, probably more so. And you know, some people are really upset about that, and some people actually feel quite nice about it. It's like, yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do, and But when we came out of lockdown, and I noticed a lot of people I'm close to were like, oh, I don't know what to do now.

Am I allowed to? Yeah, but yeah, someone needs to tell me what to do. Yeah, no, for sure. And I know a few people similarly who definitely appreciated just having those lines set out for them and were quite nervous about them being removed.

Yeah, so what I want to do is, with all this in mind, again, I'm not just throwing things out the window because I think we should. I think we need to accelerate it's kind of slowed everyone down. It's made us a little bit— we've lost our mojos a little bit. So what I mean by ignore the real world, ignore, you know, forget what you know from before. And it can be quite exciting to kind of stand back from, from what you know and maybe tread new waters, you know, be a bit of a Madonna and reinvent yourself a bit. Yeah. And accelerate. And, and the way to do that is to think about what would you do if there was no constraints now? Are you doing the career that you want to do? Are you getting where you want to get at work? Are you getting things done in the way you want them to get done, or are you just happy to just kind of let it roll on? So what would you do if there were no constraints? Would you do anything differently? That's my starting point.

Yeah. And you sort of ask that question a lot, don't you, as a person? You have moments of maybe sort of dissatisfaction with the job that you're in, and then you therefore start thinking, right, maybe I should be doing something else. You know, maybe I should sort of chuck it all in and focus on something which I'm passionate about. But the problem is, I guess, maintaining that fire and not letting it die out and think, oh, well, you know, that was just because I was angry and I'll just crack on and just get on with my, with the real world stuff.

Yeah, no, definitely. And I'm not suggesting that people go and find another job, actually, just even within the job that we're in, we're kind of putting up with stuff because it's kind of more comfortable. Yeah. And interestingly enough that, you know, if you had the chance to think about it, maybe you would go to a different place. So if you design the end state of where you want to go, internally where you are now instead of kind of, you know, we kind of put our heads down and we think, you know what, here's what it is, it's not going to change, so therefore I give up. And actually, I don't agree with that.

You think we should make a change?

Yeah, absolutely. Because if it's going to be, it's up to me.

Which, yeah, I keep— I'm saying that more and more, but it's true.

Yeah, you have to initiate change, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you need to dedicate time to to sort of finding out what that is.

Yeah, I'll tell you why, because I think we owe an explanation. The problem is that people pursue security, and the pursuit of security equals complacency. It's a bit like a warm blanket. Yeah, it feels nice, it feels good, and it's okay. There's nothing wrong. I'm not saying we should throw everything up in the air, but, you know, the pursuit of security equals complacency. So if you want to have innovation, that's why, you know, people talk about entrepreneurs take more risk. I'm not saying we should throw away and take lots of risks, but innovation comes from taking risks. Yeah. Therefore, if you want to move forward or change what you're doing, you've got to change what you're doing.

Yeah, I really like that. The pursuit of security equals complacency. Equals complacency. T-shirt? T-shirt, potentially. Yeah, I think so. Or at the very least, a sort of inspirational Instagram quote.

God, don't go there.

No, it's great. I like it.

Yeah, so ignore the real world, which tells you what you have to do. A good example for me is I went to Japan, and it was a fascinating place, and people are lovely. It was great. And the employment rate is very high, so most people have a job. And because they have a job, they, they're in charge of a certain thing, and basically they build rules around the thing they're responsible for because they're proud of it, and, you know, they've got good self-esteem for doing it. But that creates bureaucracy, right? Because this is, you know, when you, when you come this way, you have to do this in that way. So, and that's what's happened in I think in working life, people have just got stuck in a bit of a rut, and this is the way we do things, and therefore I just carry on doing them. So my first one is ignore the real world and accelerate. My second one is get yourself out of the way.

Get yourself out of the way.

Yeah.

Of what?

Just get out of the way, George.

Yeah, just get out of my way.

Just you get out of the way. Yeah, because what happens is we kind of trip over ourselves. We're literally in the way. If we were standing back from ourselves, we would see we've put ourselves in the way of progress. Because we're so worried about what people think and what happens if it goes wrong.

Yeah. It's the sort of difference between the advice that you give someone and the advice and how you sort of behave yourself, I guess, isn't it?

Yeah. Be— again, I'll be controversial. Be a disruptor. Dare to dream. 'Yeah, why not? Why not?' Maybe sometimes you, you do something a little bit different. I'm going to talk about conditioning in a minute, but maybe people say if you want to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs. Sometimes you've got to do something that people are a bit surprised about.

Yeah, yeah. And I guess ruffle some feathers along the way.

Yeah. And again, I'm not trying to get people to go to be Mavericks at work, but sometimes the coloring outside the lines bit is the classic one for me, is when people put all the bins out on a Sunday night or whatever day it is, and you have to put them in the little compartments. And I respect, you know, that we, we need to do that. You know, we've got to separate our stuff and we don't throw it all away together. But sometimes I put the bins out and I've got a bag that needs to go in the recycling, and it's wet and it's cold, and I put it in the other bin. Just between you and I, hopefully no one notices while we're talking, and it's okay. But some people I know would be Devastated by that. You should be. I'm not saying you shouldn't recycle, but it's okay. I'm not going to die from it. It was a one-off thing. I didn't want to get wet. Sure.

It's okay. So the odd rule break.

I think rules are made to be broken a little bit, aren't they?

Yeah, I completely agree.

Just a little bit.

But what happens if you come up against some sort of friction or, you know, you want to sort of be slightly outside the lines, but someone keeps trying to sort of put you back in that box? How do you deal with that?

You kill them with kindness.

Okay, I'm glad you said the last bit of that.

You kill them with kindness or kill them. Kill them with kindness. Because I'm not saying, you know, I don't want to paint the picture of I'm a maverick and I'm just going to say no and break all the rules. But just saying sometimes that's why color outside the lines is a great way to describe it, because mainly it's inside the lines, but every now and then it's okay to go outside. And if you do it, you do it politely and constructively and you're trying to bring people with you anyway. But here's an example for me. There's a great book called The Maverick. It's by a guy called Richard Sempler, and he's got a company called Semco. And I really highly recommend the book. And it was written in '98, I think it was. And within a company, he's broken all the rules. He took over the business from his father. It was a very successful business, but he made it more successful because he decided that his role was to be a catalyst. Right. Interestingly enough, so, you know, basically he doesn't want silos and he doesn't want too many rules. He wants to give people empowerment, give people— people are smart, treat them smartly. And I looked at his results. I just looked at his numbers and how the business is going because it was 1998. Yeah, they've had a 46% average rate of return every year since that time. So there's something working. Yeah.

Yeah.

In what he's doing. And, and actually you do need to be a disruptor without being fired. So again, I'm not trying to make people go go above and beyond. But, but there's lots of disruption going on. I mean, a good example for me is Uber.

Yeah, I was going to ask who's doing it well.

Well, I don't know about well, but this is the point. Uber was a disruptor of taxis, of black cabs in the UK. 20,000 drivers, 40,000 drivers, probably 100,000 drivers now. But Uber got disrupted. Yeah. So someone disrupted the disruptor. So it's like the principle of disruption is it's a continual problem, right? So Bolt came into London. There was Capsule. Ola, there's a whole bunch of them. And then there was, during the pandemic, it was a complete change. Now they have to kind of pay people like their employees. Now, I don't know if you found it, we can't get an Uber now, but anyway, that's a different story. Now people are going back to black cabs because at least they turn up. Yeah, but that whole disruption is disrupting the disruptor. It's a continual problem, right?

Yeah, it's almost as you say, like the black cabs have disrupted Uber now and it's all just some like a long cycle. Of disruption.

Yeah, no, it is. And I wanted to explain the situation. I mean, my third point is around sort of getting started and because getting started is half done, but I just wanted to talk about conditioning. Right. Because I think it would bring to life this whole topic. There's a story, some people will know this story, but I'll tell it anyway because I can and I'm in charge here. Sure. There's a story about the, it's called the elephant's rope. And the principle was that this guy noticed that in the circus, the elephant was tied up overnight. But with a really thin rope. It wasn't with a chain. His front leg was connected by a rope, that was all. And the guy asked this, you know, the circle— what do you call the person in charge of a circus?

Ringmaster.

Thank you. The ringmaster. You know, why has he not tried to get away? I mean, it's not that hard, right? Yeah, like for an elephant. And he said, well, because when we bring the elephants in, we bring them in at a really young age and we condition them to believe that they can't. And so because they believe they can't, they don't even try.

Even though that they definitely could.

They could definitely get away from it. Gosh. And I'm sorry, I think people are exactly the same. We get conditioned that, you know, basically we need to finish all our food, or yeah, yeah, you know, that we just get conditioned by it and we get, and we get stuck in our ways, and then we lose that creativity. I'm not saying all the time, but just, you know, sometimes you maybe should stop and say, am I conditioned? I'll give you some other examples, George, can I, of conditioning that people will relate to.

Yeah, please.

And then it's a bit of an eye-opener because they're obvious in one level. The first one is the tone of a phone is soothing to someone if they actually switch their phone on anymore, even the vibrate, because you're thinking, oh, there's a message. So the conditioning is, oh, I've got a message. It's a bit like opening the front door and looking outside every 10 minutes, to be honest. Anyway, it's another story. Yeah. The second example is celebrities in advertising makes people feel like they know them. They're conditioned to that celebrity and therefore they feel they like them. Yeah. The third one is restaurant aromas. And people talk about in houses about having coffee and bread, freshly cooked bread when you sell your house. It makes you feel like it's going to be nice. Yeah, yeah. It may not be, but I've been to some restaurants that aren't. Yeah. Fear of dogs. You know, my sister got jumped on by a dog when she was really younger and she still— when she sees a dog, she fears the dog. Yeah. Even if they're a cute little puppy. Yeah. You know, so things like that. If you've ever had food poisoning, there's certain foods you won't eat. If you've ever been to a party and you got drunk on whiskey, you can't drink whiskey anymore. Yeah, yeah, it's only psychological. Yeah, for sure. Exam anxiety— if you're really nervous, then you perpetuate nervousness. And at Christmas, and even in October when they're playing Christmas music, you're conditioned to think, 'Oh, it's Christmas, it's lovely.' Yeah, I feel that way now. Yeah, exactly. So that's a subtle conditioning. So we've got all this conditioning going on and then we conform to that and I just feel we're losing out.

Yeah, but then how do you break out of that? I mean, I know you're probably going to talk about it, but—

No, no, go on.

What's the— because you're right, we're all conditioned to within an inch of our lives. And, you know, you were talking about the phone thing and, you know, if I hear my alarm tone, if someone happens to be playing it for whatever reason, I'm suddenly panicked because that's— I'm just conditioned to know that that's what my alarm sounds like. Yeah, but I mean, that's obviously just one example. But how do you sort of step outside of the matrix, as it were? You know, how do you sort of take a step back and think, okay, this is all being sort of programmed into me, I need to readdress it all and sort of start again almost with fresh eyes?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think, you know, again, I'm not trying to make people do it with everything in their lives, but if you rewind, there's some things that are more important to us than others. So it could be a hobby or a project or a family thing. It could be a task at work. It could be about getting another job or even a job within, you know, whatever it is. It's like all these things, you know, we'll talk about it all the time, but you have to plan. So the starting point is what are the 1 or 2 things that you really want to be doing? And the putting them off thing is the conditioning. Yeah, because I might fail, and if I fail, I look bad and people think badly of me. It's conditioning. So start with what you want. And it might be— I say it might be something small, it might be something big. And then design the end state, like put it on paper what it would look like, because there's a way to create an emotional state. So if you design what the end state would look like and design what people would be saying about it, and that sounds a bit odd, but you write headlines about if you were successful doing it, what it would be like. You've taken yourself on an emotional journey and then you might connect better to it. So you have an idea, you write it down, you write what good looks like if you're successful doing it. And then you're on the pursuit. You're on the pursuit of that plan rather than the pursuit of security.

And you sort of want to be excited about it, don't you? You want to whip yourself up into a state of excitement rather than be nervous and think, oh, what if it fails? You want to sort of— you almost want it to be the first thing you think about when you wake up and, you know, not take over your life, but you know what I mean? Like, you want to be pumped about it.

Exactly. So if there's a thing, it's a goal or it's something you want to be doing or a task, it can be quite a small thing. That's one thing. And then the other type of activity where I want people to think about coloring outside the lines is when there's instant things that happen and your immediate reaction is not to do it. So it could be something like there was some rule about you have to go around the back of the restaurant, you can't go around the front of it. You know what? It doesn't matter. You do what you want. Yeah. I'm not saying give up and everything. It's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It won't kill you. Yeah. If you want to go through the front and you don't want to walk around the back, you just go through the front. It's fine. You know, if someone says you've got to read all the rules before you come into the room, you don't have to do it.

It's okay. Yeah, exactly. So obviously exercise judgment, but yes, but like you don't have to just do everything that you're told all the time.

I just feel quite good when I'm not breaking rules all over the place, but I just feel good when I don't have to conform to someone's idea. Someone's put my favorite— someone puts up a laminated card about where I can put my bins or where I can park my car. I just absolutely ignore that. Yeah.

Yeah, well, there are so many experiments on there where people, because something's laminated or because someone's wearing a particular high-vis vest, people just conform and do what they're told.

Yeah. In fact, when you see lamination, do the opposite. Here's my— actually, not if it's a life or death thing. That's not good advice, is it? If you're on an airplane, don't do it. Oh yeah, definitely. So I think that's the one place to start. Yeah. And then, you know, the other place is I said getting started is half done. I think you don't have to wait for all the lights to be green. Okay. So if you're trying to pursue something and you don't have all the bits, just get started anyway, you know?

That's interesting because I've spoken to other people about this and they've, you know, the approach is very much like, you know, we'll get all of our ducks in a row and only then will we move forward with whatever it is. But what you're suggesting is actually, you know what, just go charging in.

Yeah.

What's the worst thing that can happen?

Yeah. And it's the fear of failure that stops people doing things. But when you get started, it's quite exciting and motivating because you feel you got started. Yeah. Your mind is telling you never start and never finish anything. When I— not you personally, or maybe. But when I left corporate life and I worked for myself, I forced myself into it. Yeah. Because I knew that I would make excuses. So I went and got my— I set up a bank account and a company and I went to find some work before I left. And that forced me into it. Otherwise I would have gone, well, if I get some work, I've got to set up a company, set up a website. Yeah. And I would never have done it.

So the first step was getting that done and then you're able to just—

Yeah, because you're telling your mind I'm actually doing it this time.

Yeah. Yeah. If I can ask, did it take you a few attempts? Were there sort of a few moments where you thought, right, this is it, but it didn't end up happening for whatever reason?

Yeah, it was about 25 years.

Oh really? Gosh.

I procrastinated for about 25 years. And what was interesting though, when the most exciting moment for me was I paid £80 to set up a company. It doesn't cost very much. And when I got the registration back, I was so excited. It was like a proper company now. Yeah, but you have to open up a bank account to get a company. So I'd had a bank account and a company. It cost me £100 or something. And I was like, I'm a real businessman now. Yeah, I've got no business, but I felt pretty good about it.

Yeah. Okay, that's interesting.

And then the other thing, and I say this carefully, is tell some close people what you're planning. But what's going to happen if you do this, and I'm doing this for a reason, is they'll try and put you off, right? I tell you, it won't work and you'll die from it. As I've told you that now, if you're listening to this, tell some close people you're going to do it, but don't be influenced by their response because they're going to be— they might be negative. I want you to tell them because you verbalized it and now you put yourself out there. Yeah. You put your head above the parapet. I think sometimes you need to do that if you're committed to it, obviously.

Because also you're sort of setting yourself up for every time you see that person next, they'll say, oh, how's things going with that thing that you told us about? And it's sort of going to end up cajoling you into doing it, isn't it?

Exactly. Where some people will say, well, you shouldn't tell people because they'll try and put you off. They will try and put you off, but you've got to be committed to the cause and therefore you kind of put yourself, the cat amongst the pigeons a little bit, so to speak. Yeah. So, so I think it's good to do that. You know, back to the elephant, right?

You don't want to be the elephant, but most of us are that elephant.

We've, we're just conditioned to think we can't do it, we're not able to it. I'm not that kind of guy. There's some people call it imposter syndrome on certain things. I'm not talking about starting a business, it's just everything that we do. Yeah, yeah. No, I, I work with all sorts of people and companies around the world, and most people are so worried about their jobs they don't do anything because they don't want to get fired or into trouble or it's not going to happen. And to be honest, if it does, then that's not the place for you to be.

Yeah. Yeah. And it sort of harkens back to, in a way, to, I remember a long time ago when I was going for a job interview and you said, and we say it in this podcast as well, that it's an adult-to-adult conversation. I think that sort of stems into once you have the job, you're all just adults in a room still having a conversation. And if something that you're doing is a little bit out there, if it's going to get you fired because you've taken a risk, then as you say, you're not supposed, you're not in the right place anyway. Yeah.

And I'm not suggesting that you go and be, you know, an annoying maverick. You should still use your people skills and there's a nice way of doing things, but don't have to accept mediocrity. You don't have to accept, as long as you do it constructively and privately or whatever, you can have a chat with your boss or someone you work with and say, I know you want me to do this, but I've had some ideas. What do you think about this?

And on the whole, the people that I've spoken to would absolutely welcome that. And, you know, on the whole, they'll either say, that's not right for right now. You know, we can't do that at the moment. Or That's brilliant. Love the fact that you're bringing that to us. So those are the only two outcomes really, I think.

Exactly. So what's the worst thing that can happen? That's exactly the way to look at it. So if you, you know, if you remember what I said at the beginning, what would you do if there was no constraints? You know, I was with a group of managers yesterday doing training course actually, and I asked them a question. I said, knowing what you know now, if you went back and did your job again, you started your job again, what would you do differently in the first 30 days. And there were some amazing things coming out. And I said, you know what, you could do that now. You don't have to start a new job to do that. Why don't you do it now? Because the problem is we put constraints in the way. We go, yeah, well, if I do that, that's not going to work and the company won't let me do that and I won't be allowed to do that. But you've just kind of stopped yourself doing anything. I mean, if you say that, you're probably right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If that's your attitude, then it's probably, it's probably right. But there are so many instances of people who, you know, they have their first bestselling novel published in their late 60s.

Yeah, absolutely. Ray Kroc, he was 55 when he got his first McDonald's. Really? Yeah. So he was even younger than me, little devil. But yeah, I just wanted to have this conversation now because it's that time of year where people are going to get to the end of the year, they're going to get a bit of thinking time. And the problem is that people make New Year's resolutions, what I'm not a big fan of. 'cause I think you should think of this time all the time. And then, you know, what happens is health clubs get really busy in February and then they get empty in March. People don't stick to it. I want people to think about this as part of their DNA. When they've got some downtime, to have a look, you know, to take some time out and think about the things that they want to do. But also in everyday life when things come up, not to go for the path of least resistance, I guess is where I'm trying to get. Yeah.

Well, the good thing is people can listen to this at any time of the year. But it's coming out now and it's timely because people are going to have a bit more time on their hands. And you're right, at the end of, you know, the end of the year brings with it a sort of looking back on where you're at currently. And if there's ever a time to sort of reassess, it's now.

Yeah, no, I agree. I was thinking about this the other day because when, you know, generally I've been in jobs where I deal with a lot of complexity. I kind of like complexity. And a lot of people will say you can't do that or it doesn't work. There's a lot of people who say no, but when people say no to me, it makes me think, well, there must be a way. I mean, I'm stupidly optimistic, I guess, but I'm always thinking, well, there's got to be a way, isn't it? Yeah, there must be a way to do this. So I'm always looking for the way to do something, and I think you're wired the same way, George. So it's like, there is always an answer, isn't there? I mean, we're not— this is not rocket science. Yeah, yeah. If someone says no, say how. Or another t-shirt. Yeah, if they say no, say how. Don't let people say no to you. Be polite, but there's a way to do anything that you want to do.

Yeah, it can't just end with a no, can it? It needs to— there needs to be a conversation. Yeah.

It's quite interesting actually, in corporate life now, people will know this who are listening, that a lot of project management has changed. There's something called Agile. Oh yeah. Which is a different way of managing projects. So instead of having something on a start and end and different milestones along the way, you break up into little packages, little trains, and basically the team work together to decide on what we're doing, how long it's going to take, and not deciding on everything in one go, in parallel, you can have a number of things going. And so for some projects, it's much more efficient. That is a disruptor.

That way of thinking.

That way of thinking. It's a disruptive way of managing projects.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it's already going on in business life. And, you know, for people that are more old school, they feel uncomfortable with that because in that kind of project, you don't get a start and an end. So when's it going to finish and when will you be done?

Well, I don't know.

We haven't decided yet. —in an agile group.

Yeah, I can completely understand why that might ruffle a few old-school feathers, definitely, because you say, well, when's the deadline? You know, what will the end results be? What are the KPIs or whatever? But I mean, it harkens back to Will Perkins's when he was talking about the Deliveroo product. You know, they're very much a similar sort of company in that they'll say, we will do things incrementally and it's better to get something out, then we'll fix it as we go along rather than just hanging around to wait for this final unicorn of a product.

Well, actually, it's a good example. I think they call it MVP, but the principle is the product doesn't have to be 100%, it can be 70%, and therefore let's just get it out there. Otherwise you wait for all the lights to be green again. Yeah. So maybe that's a way of people thinking about this, you know, being a kind of an agile disruptor in your business of some sort, but in a good way. You know, just this is all wholesome stuff. This is not difficult stuff. This is just good stuff. And I think we're at the time of life, we've had the pandemic, people have been at home and they've reflected about that and then what it means for their careers and their lives. Do something different, do it differently anyway. The height of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Do something different. And it gets a bit more exciting if you do that. So I think we're at the time. We are. For takeaways.

The top 3 takeaways. The top 3 takeaways.

Number 1, Mr. George, be a positive disruptor. Definitely be a disruptor. I think, yeah, think every day about, can I disrupt this in a good way? A positive disruptor. Can I change the way I do it? Is there another way to bring people with me? Can I just say yes instead of no? Number 2, be self-aware by thinking, am I being conditioned? Is it the pursuit of security, that warm blanket? Because if it is, you're being complacent. And then number 3, which is one I use a lot. Action cures fear. The worst thing is to sit and think about stuff and what might happen and second-guess, because all you're doing is giving up. Action cures fear. Do something. Be MVP. Move it forward a bit. What's the worst thing that can happen? As long as you're constructive and polite and you don't get fired because you are disrespectful, don't worry about losing your job in anything. If you do things the right way, people will promote you, not fire you. Yeah.

I'd rather have you on my team. We've advocated that sort of polite disrupting rather than aggressive, mean disrupting. Definitely. Great. And action cures fear. I love as well. I think that could be the t-shirt. Could be the t-shirt. Yeah. Yeah. I'll go away and think about it. Gary, thank you very much. Fascinating as always. Thank you, George. See you next time, everybody. Happy disrupting.

Go and break some eggs.

Yeah, go break those eggs. Go and break eggs.

Have a good day. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening. If you want some more bright, cheery advice on these dark, dreary nights, head to thecompanydoctor.com to have a listen back through previous episodes of me, Gary, and various excellent guests having a blast and discussing important topics for the modern business listener.