The Flexible Leadership

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Radio. This is Beyond Confidence with
your host Dvaparnk, do you want to

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live a more fulfilling life? Do
you want to live your legacy and achieve

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your personal, professional, and financial
goals? Well? Coming up on Dvaparnk's

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Beyond Confidence, you will hear real
stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers

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who have stepped into discomfort, shanner
their status quo, and are living the

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life they want. You will learn
how relationships are the key to achieving your

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aspirations and financial goals. Moving your
career business forward does not have to happen

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at the expense of your personal or
family life, or vice versa. Learn

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more at www of you Dance Giva
Parnk dot com and you can connect with

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div you ants contact at Giva park
dot com. This is beyond confidence and

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now here's your host, give you
a park. Good morning, listeners,

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It's Tuesday, and I'm so thrilled
to be here with you because this is

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a special time of the whole week
which I always look forward to. So

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I want to share a very quick
story with you. So someone from our

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audience reached out and shared their kind
of story with us. What they shared

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was like they saw in the neighbor's
yard some people working. It was very

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hot and as she observed, it
seemed like they had like they had water,

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but it was probably not cold.
The it didn't seem like they had

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a cooler. So what she did
was she took a big bucket of ice

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and some cold water and gave it
to them. And what Leslie shared,

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Leslie shared that the smiles on their
faces were just amazing. So, folks,

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when we talk about kindness, you
can perform kindness anywhere anyhow. You

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don't need money, you don't need
time, you don't need to spend energy.

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It can be little actions and every
little action counts. And thank you

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for each and everyone who has got
our books, especially Expert to Entrepreneurs,

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the Entrepreneur's Gotten and Expert to Influencer, because they are not only going to

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help you in your personal life,
they're going to accelerate your career and your

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business. And also the partial profits
from our book sales go to keyword dot

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org and we help entrepreneurs all across
the globe. So let's bring in our

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guest, James Burstall good to have
here. James, it's wonderful to be

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here with you in North Carolina,
and in fact, in the book that

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we're going to be talking about in
a moment, I have some wonderful interviewees

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from North Carolina, so I know
your state. Well, oh, that's

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fantastic. So do you remember,
even to this day any moment from your

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childhood that left a mark on you? Well, I mean, our childhoods

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are very very important. The way
we are brought up, where we brought

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up and by whom, of course
impact us for the rest of our lives.

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And I had many blessings when I
grew up. I grew up in

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London in the UK. You know, my mom and dad did work very

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hard to make sure that we had
riff over our heads and there was food

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on the table, and I had
a good education. But also, you

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know, our childhoods can be impactful. My dad had some emotion this years.

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My dad was an alcoholic and he
struggled with addiction and my mum was

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embroiled with that. And you know
what, I actually bless the complexity of

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that upbringing because it meant that I
had two and my two sisters and I

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have two older sisters, one in
New York and one in London. We

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all three had to grapple with complexity
from a very young age. And you

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know, some people that can make
very it can break you, it can

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be very damaging for a future life. But actually, in our instance,

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I think it really helped us to
see that there is much good in the

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world. The world is not perfect, but that when you are resilient and

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you focus on kindness and you do
work hard, and you surround yourself with

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good kind people and do a lot
of work. I've done a lot of

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work on myself, and then you
can come out a fit, a stronger

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person. So I do actually believe
that adversity is sent there as a gift

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to allow us to become stronger as
people. That is so powerful. And

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the point that you mean that complexities
of the adversities had an opposite effect on

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you, because so many people end
up blaming their parents, blaming their childhood,

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and then they continue that cycle and
that cycle is not broken. In

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your case, you all took it
in such a beautiful way and broke that

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cycle. So that's so powerful.
So as you grew up, where were

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your interests. Well, I was
always very good at foreign languages because I

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love communication and I know that for
you, emotional intelligence is such an important

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life skill. And I think now
back, why did I want to learn

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foreign languages? I speak French,
German, Spanish, Italian, of English

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obviously and a little bit of Mandarin. And I realized that I wanted to

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understand how other people think and how
other cultures work. Because you know,

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we who grew up in these very
cultural society is the UK, the US.

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We obviously are impacted by cultures from
all over the world, and I

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think that it is that blended DNA
that makes us so strong. So my

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grandfather was French, for example,
I have family from Scotland and from Northern

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Ireland, but also my sister now
lives in New York and her husband is

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from Armenia. They are an American
family with obviously very different roots from many

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parts of the world. And I
love this interchange of cultures because I think

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it is so enriching. So I
decided to learn foreign languages as a kid,

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and I realized now because I wanted
to learn about how different people think

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and work, because nobody has all
the right answers, and we are always

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students. I am constantly learning,
and I love it when I go to

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a different country and there's a different
way of thinking, a different belief system,

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a different way to show that you
care for somebody, a different way

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to show respect, and we have
to be mindful of other people's customs,

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and I love that. That's what
makes the world so rich. Hm.

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Absolutely, And it's just fascinating.
It's just fascinating to learn about other cultures

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because it's one thing is at the
core that binds all humans together, the

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desire to be happy, the desire
to give better to your kids, the

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desire to have that family, and
they're just different ways of doing that.

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So when we look at other cultures, it's not only it opens up our

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mind, but it also gives us
so many different perspectives to understand other people.

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So where did your career first take
you, James, Well, I

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went to university based in the UK, but as part of my degree I

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went to study in six months in
Munich in Germany, and then six months

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in Paris. Obviously, practics might
my French, which was at the time

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quite scarier because I was, you
know, seventeen and moving to a foreign

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country and thrown into this complete foreign
language environment where I basically had to sink

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or swim. So that was certainly
a good way to grow up pretty pretty

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fast, but I did. I
fell in love with both countries, but

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particularly Paris, and so when I
went back to my UK university for one

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more year to get my final degree, and then I was writing letters to

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everybody on the planet to see if
I could get a job. I thought

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I wanted to become a journalist because
I love storytelling. I've always been passionate

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about good stories. So I wrote
to lots of people, and this is

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one of my beliefs in life.
If you don't ask, you don't get,

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and you have to accept that you
will get many rejections. And I

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wrote probably several hundred letters and probably
got at least one hundred rejections, and

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many people didn't even respond to me. But one magazine in Paris is an

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American magazine called Paris Passion, a
little bit like Time Out Now. They

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walk back to me and said,
listen, we don't have very much money,

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but we'd love to take you on
as an editorial assistant. Will you

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move to Paris please, and we'll
pay you, you know, a couple

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of dollars a week. I mean, it's rtually no money, but that

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was okay. I got other jobs
on the side and bar staff and wait

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stuff and what have you. And
then on the back of that, I

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was very fortunate because I was in
Paris and young and willing, frankly to

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do anything. If they clicked their
fingers and said, will you go to

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Vienna thiss afternoon, I'd say,
of course, where's the plane. Then

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Tina Brown and Anna Winter and Harold
Evans, who are three amazing journalists,

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British journalists, all based in New
York. Tina Brown was running Vanity Fair

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and a Winter running Vogue, and
Harold Evans running Conde Last Traveler. They

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all started to employ me to write
stories and do research on different kinds of

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articles for them. So I was, you know, hopping all around Europe

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doing one minute an investigation into gorbe
Chie, the next minute a story about

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the Gypsy Kings, who are a
band that were just kind of breaking out

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the time. This is in the
early nineties. And I carried on working

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as a journalist for those amazing publications
for a few years between London, Paris

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and New York, but mostly based
in Paris. And then I came back

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to London after a little bit because
I wanted to be in the head office,

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worked for some newspapers and then I
thought, actually, you know what,

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I don't want to continue to work
in black and white. I'd like

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to move into visual sequences, working
in a team, working in color,

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working with music, and of course
that for me met and television. So

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I applied for a job and they
said, well, listen, there is

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this kind of cool new use network
on the BBC. It's based in Manchester,

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which at the time is a very
very hip city. We will cut

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your salary in half, but we'll
put you on but we'll put you on

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screen. So it's like, okay, so I'm going to move from Paris

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to London to Manchester, which I
didn't know much about it, and I'm

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going to cut my salary in half, but I'm going to be on TV,

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so there was a no brainer.
I said yes, of course,

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and from there on, you know, I've started a twenty five year career

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in the television and it was absolutely
the right move. But again I do

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think that you know, you have
to make bold decisions in your career.

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You have to be very flexible in
your thinking. You have to be willing,

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especially when you're young, and I
had no responsibilities. I had no

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family, I had no mortgage.
Obviously I was in my mid twenties at

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that point. But you have to
be willing to think outside the box,

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think laterally and when opportunities come your
way, obviously evaluate the landscape. But

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if it seems like this could open
incredible new doors, even if it means

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taking a giant cut in your salary, then you must do it. And

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I'm so grateful that I did.
It was the right decision. You bring

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up such a great point, and
of course your premise is flexible leadership anyway,

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so you're talking about taking leadership even
in your personal life, and when

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you lean yourself two or three things
that are standing out for me from your

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story is one, you are definitely
not afraid of rejection. So anyone regardless

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whether they're an entrepreneur, or youngsters
or even people who are transitioning out,

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it's super important to face rejections and
be able because so many clients who will

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be like, oh, I need
to negotiate salary, I'm not going to

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take that opportunity. I need twenty
percent jump and they lose out on so

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many different opportunities just because of money. So what would you tell them?

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I think at the heart, you
really have to know that you have a

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voice, that you have a value. But you merit the place that you

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inhabit on the earth, and nobody
can take that away from you. And

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we all suffer rejection, and we
all have people who don't agree with us,

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or people who don't like us,
or people who are not prepared to

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value us, whether it's in our
professional or our personal world. And that

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can be painful. You know,
life at times can be painful. That's

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just part of the course. Unfortunately, that is that is what it is

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to be human, a human being. But if we can always hold on

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to the fact that you know,
I'm a good person. I've got a

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clear conscience. I believe in good
and wrong, actually in good and bad.

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I do have strong sense of justice. I have a strong sense of

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fairness, and I do have very
good self esteem. I know, I

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mean, I do believe. I
do believe in God. But that is

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something that has come and gone over
the years, I have to say.

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But I do believe that there is
a higher power in the universe, and

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that we are put here for a
reason. And I believe that I was

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dealt a set of cards when I
was born, and that those sets of

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cards are to be the best son
and brother and friend that I possibly can

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be. I don't have children,
but I have six nephews and nieces,

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and I have four god children.
And I tried to be the best uncle

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that I possibly can be. And
I tried to be a role model in

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my business. You know, the
kind of behaviors that we model, they

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matter. Leadership comes from the top. So I do believe strongly that we

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can influence the world that we live
in, albeit the small world. You

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know, I can't influence the whole
world, but my legal world, I

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can try to offer a place where
people are valued, where talent is looked

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after. I set up my company
twenty years ago. Leopard Films was my

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first company because I wanted people to
know that they would come to a work

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environment where their creativity was going to
be nurtured and looked after, not bullied.

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I have worked for bullying bosses and
bullying bosses who made me feel bad

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because they were driving the bottom line
that they wanted. They thought that by

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kind of whipping me and my colleagues, they thought they would maybe get more

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out of us. Perhaps I don't
know, weird mentality so not how I

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think. So when I set up
my company, I knew I wanted to

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create a very positive, inclusive culture. Adversity, inclusiveness, kindness are absolutely

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at the heart of our DNA.
It's absolutely critical. So what does the

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impact have, Well, of course, it makes it a happier working environment.

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In my opinion, makes people do
better work because we empower people to

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do their best work. And there
is compelling evidence from the Harvard Business Review.

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The happy culture means a happy team. It has a direct impact on

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your bottom line. You make more
money and you know, my business is

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successful. We have great team of
people. We have many people who stay

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with us for many, many years, and we have new people coming in

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all the time as well. It's
a good mix and we make good money,

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so it's kind of win win.
So tell us about the transition.

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You mentioned that you started a company
and what made you decide going and starting

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your company rather than going and working
for someone else. Well, I did

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work for ten different companies from the
ages of twenty five the ages of thirty

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five, and I had some incredible
experiences. You know, I was producing

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and directing television documentaries and investigative programming
and going all over the world. For

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example, I traveled all over Africa, I traveled all over Southeast Asia,

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I traveled a lot in the United
States, all over continental Europe. And

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you know that was amazing, and
I was being paid to do that,

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so what of an incredible privilege.
But you know, I got to me

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on mid thirty and I thought,
I don't particularly want to live any longer

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out of a suitcase. I do
want to have a life partnership with I'd

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like to have a home, So
that became very important to me, and

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I did then go to work in
the office developing and selling programs for two

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different companies. My dog is making
a bit of a squeaking noise. Is

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that a problem? Sorry, my
dog's getting a bit excited in the background.

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I'm trying to calm head down.
Oh, you can bring your dog

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in the show as well. Like
everyone's welcome, this is this is many

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a part, that is okay.
I have two coccuspanuels. So so I

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went to work for two different companies, one who were very big in the

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United States and I wanted to do
more business in the US, and the

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other who were very good at producing
documentaries and I wanted to do more documentary

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work. And I learned on both
occasions that I was able to develop ideas

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and sell them. So I was
a good producer, creator, and salesperson

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on both occasions. After a year, I was able to say to my

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bosses, listen, I brought in
a million dollars of business in my first

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year working for you. Now,
can you give me some stock in your

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company? And on both occasions they
said to me no, in maybe three

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or four years time, and I
said, well, listen, I'm thirty

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five. And then the next time
I was thirty six, I said,

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I can't wait three or four years. I'm going to be knocking forty.

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So you know, i'd prove what
I can do, and I want to

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do more and I want to do
it for you, but you do need

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to make me a partner in some
even just a small way in your business.

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And I did have to be tough
and I said, well, if

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you don't do this, I will
have to leave. And on both occasions

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they stood their ground. They said, no, we're not going to do

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this, not now, maybe in
the future, in some unspecified timeframe.

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So I left and I had to
leave. And again, you know,

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I would say this to everybody.
You know, you give people a chance,

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and you give him a second chance
and a third chance, and you

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talk fairly and openly and you have
a dialogue. If at the end of

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the day the people are talking to
and will not listen, that's their choice.

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But you can't just sit around and
be treated like a second class citizen,

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or we feel undervalued. You know, my self esteem wouldn't permit that

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of me. And also my business
career. You know, I couldn't just

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keep working for other people and not
getting the benefit forever. So really,

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having done it twice, I thought
I can't do it a third time.

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Now I really do have to set
up on my own. So I touted

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around the industry in the UK and
the US looking for partners. I always

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worked fifty percent the UK US in
my television career, and there was a

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company who said this and we will
back you in your own business. And

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that was That was really the beginning, and I never looked back. But

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you know that that DNA at the
heart of my business, which is value

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people, look after them, make
them feel precious, because the people are

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the lifeblood of any company. I
made my people feel feel valued, and

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I myself you know know that that
is what works and as a result,

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you know, do have a very
successful international business congress relations. So one

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of the things I want to ask
you is that since you experienced both in

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the journalism and TV shows, what
would you say were the five critical lessons

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that you brought with you that helped
you in your business. Well, funny

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enough, I've tried to outline them
in my book Here we Go a little

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plug Flexible Method, The Flexible Method, which is published in the US and

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the UK. It's available Amazon and
The Flexible Method. I wrote it coming

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out of COVID because I wanted to
put down in writing a number of lessons,

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and there is sixteen lessons in this
book about how to survive any crisis

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and come out on top. Because
my company, like all of us and

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so many of your listeners today,
will know just how painful it was.

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We all have our war wounds.
COVID was really, really brutal and really

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challenged us and pushed us to the
limit. But also there are many incredible

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people around the world, leaders,
running teams, running businesses, some of

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them in multinationals, some of them
in SMEs. There are people all around

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the world who demonstrated tremendous courage and
thoughtful, flexible thinking. And I wanted

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to put it in writing so that
when the next generation comes along and they

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have the next big crisis, they
can turn to this book, and I

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hope it will be a useful tool. I certainly at the beginning of COVID

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felt like that, how are we
going to get through this? What are

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the solutions? What? It's a
methodology. But I hope now and there

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will be others that there is at
least one book, my book, the

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Flexible method, people can reach and
go, you know what, this this

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this generation, my generation, we
did it. We came out with our

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war wounds, but nonetheless we survived, so maybe we can do it again

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in the future. In terms of
the single most if I had to pick

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five, well, certainly putting your
people first is absolutely critical. Emotion,

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intelligence, relationships, Compassion for your
people is at the heart of any business.

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So people, people, people,
that would be my absolute top one.

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My next is lead with calm purpose. It is very important that we

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model calmness and confidence. I believe
in being authentic. As a leader,

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you have to be authentic. So
in the middle of COVID, I didn't

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tell my people, oh, it's
all going to be fine, there won't

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be any problems. I was honest. I said, we don't have all

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the answers, and you know,
there are people getting sick and some of

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my nobody actually in my team,
but some of their loved ones did die.

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You know. We had to be
honest about that. It was really

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brutal, but at the same time
we were able to say the management team

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have got your back, we are
here for you, we will find a

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solution together. To hang in there, don't do anything rash. If you're

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worried, We've got support for you
to reach out. We will get through

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this, and of course we did
get through it. So lead with calm

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purpose is absolutely essential. And next, I think would be gather your generals.

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You cannot do this on your own. This is a sign of weakness,

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in my opinion, if you think
you can do all this on your

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own, reaching out and saying I
don't have all the answers. Yeah,

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I'm sitting in the chief executive seat. I'm human. I don't have all

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the answers. But surrounding me are
some incredibly brilliant people who have sometimes ideas

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which are the same as mine,
and sometimes ideas which are fundamentally different,

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and they will challenge me. So
when you gather your generals. And I

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set up a group emergency team at
the beginning of COVID where I had five

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people, a small team, but
from different parts of the organization operations,

319
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HR, commercial, et cetera.
And these people are not yes people.

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These are people who tell me the
truth, and sometimes it's the truth I

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do not want to hear, and
that can be tough because it would say

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to me things, you know,
James, this is really painful. You're

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not going to want to hear this. But actually I think X or Y

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or Z and I would go away
and think about it, and sometimes I'd

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go, yeah, maybe, but
maybe we can just soften that a bit.

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And other times I would go,
you know what, You're right,

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we do have to do that,
and thank you for holding up a mirror,

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because people to hold up a mirror. So, James, before we

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continue on the next lessons, let
me ask you this. So many of

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my clients would come and say,
let we see what's obvious, what's wrong

331
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with the system. And yet when
we go on a project executive team and

332
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this is in awesome CPO CFOs or
even LEPs and directors, they're not open

333
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to listening. And I'm not saying
that's the case for our companies, there

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are quite a few. What can
leaders do when you're leadership doesn't leadership team

335
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doesn't listen, how can they present
any tips of tricks? Well, gosh,

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working with a brick wall is impossible. You can't stick around. I

337
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mean I have worked for brick walls
in my life, and I have friends

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and recently my nephew. I'm very
close to working for a brick wall that

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comes to point where you just have
to leave. That's obviously, that's the

340
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end point. We don't want to
go there too often. Listening is again

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one of the single most important leadership
skills, and I think one of the

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one of the things perhaps to hold
in our mind is that this idea of

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a sort of supreme macho leader and
that could be a man or all of

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them, is I think completely not
fit for purpose because expecting one individual to

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just give top down directives, it's
totally unrealistic. One can have all the

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answers for a big, complex ecosystem, which is a business, especially buffeting

347
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in the winds that we now live
in. We live now in the time

348
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of perma crisis, whether it's inflation
or interest rates going sky high, or

349
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the threat of recession, or the
Ukraine or COVID or all the other things

350
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that the crisis that we've lived in
the last twenty years, and there will

351
00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:45.480
be other climate change. Can this
mean all of these threats and now coming

352
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at us, left, right,
and center, not one that asks the

353
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other, but simultaneously. To expect
one person to have all the answers to

354
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all of that, it's just crazy. So I think one of the things

355
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that we have to do, and
I've definitely done that in my business and

356
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increasing I do see this in the
means and other businesses too. The idea

357
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of a kind of mcismo top down
leader is really not fit for purpose.

358
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So I think we need to foster
within the culture of our businesses a sense

359
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that positive constructive feedback is built into
the DNA. So you've put systems in

360
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place where there is that opportunity for
feedback and also an opportunity for people to

361
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be able to share different ideas which
may not be necessarily that are currently in

362
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the business plan. If you like
to maybe create opportunities, maybees once a

363
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:38.160
month, once every six months,
kind of blue sky opportunities where groups can

364
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get together and say we're doing things
this way, but how about if we

365
00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:48.519
try it that way. Another important
opportunity is when new people start, especially

366
00:27:48.599 --> 00:27:52.720
new people in big jobs. The
first hundred days of that person being in

367
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that new role, they will be
bringing all of the experience and expertise from

368
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their previous company, and many of
the things from that previous company will be

369
00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:03.000
helpful. Some of them may be
new. So it behooves us to make

370
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sure that when somebody new arrives,
we give them an opportunity to share with

371
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us the systems that they were used
to working with in their previous employment environment,

372
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so they can bring them to us
and we can then review them.

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Think, well, actually that is
a good idea. We don't do that,

374
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Why don't we try it to give
it an opportunity to be tested out.

375
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So, yeah, listening is absolutely
critical and if and if we don't

376
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listen, we missed so many opportunities
and our businesses are much much weaker as

377
00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:41.799
a result. Some really good solid
points there. So going back to your

378
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.880
company, do share like what your
company does and how you've implemented all these

379
00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:52.359
leadership principles in europe culture. Yeah, So I run an independent media production

380
00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:57.440
group. We produce shows, and
we produce shows for all the different platforms,

381
00:28:57.480 --> 00:29:04.759
whether it's Netflix, Amazon, Snapchat, Discovery, NAT, GEO,

382
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:10.720
History Channel, HDTV, many many
networks all over the US. Also in

383
00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:14.920
the UK the BBC, ITV,
Channel four, Channel five, Sky,

384
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:18.880
etc. So we produce content across
all the genres. So we produce short

385
00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:25.960
form entertainment content. For Snapchat,
we produced long form documentaries with David Atoner,

386
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:32.200
for example about mammoths and ancient history
and the natural world. We produce

387
00:29:32.279 --> 00:29:36.839
investigations, so we do investigative work
with the New York Times, primarily looking

388
00:29:36.839 --> 00:29:41.440
out miscreants and criminals, and we've
done quite quite a lot. We've exposed

389
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:48.079
quite a lot of criminal behavior.
We do very joyful reality programming such as

390
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:52.240
House Unt's International, which is on
HGTV almost every night. It's a very

391
00:29:52.279 --> 00:29:59.599
warm, engaging property show traveling around
the world. We do shows about space.

392
00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:03.000
Strip The Cosmos is a huge show. We do shows about engineering.

393
00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:07.960
Mistress of the Abandoned is the top
show on Discovery Science. And we produced

394
00:30:07.079 --> 00:30:12.400
entertainment shows such as The Mass Singer. You may see the iteration on Fox.

395
00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:18.759
We produce it for the UK TV. It's a big celebrity entertainment seeing

396
00:30:18.799 --> 00:30:23.039
show on a Saturday night. And
we also do scripted comedy. So we've

397
00:30:23.079 --> 00:30:30.079
recently just got a show on Netflix
called Hard Sell with a very engaging British

398
00:30:30.119 --> 00:30:34.240
comedian called Katherine Tate, set in
a women's prison. That's like Orange is

399
00:30:34.279 --> 00:30:40.160
the New Black, but very funny. I'll definitely able to check it out.

400
00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:42.400
Yeah, So that's what we do, and our headquarters is in London

401
00:30:42.440 --> 00:30:47.559
and we have offices in New York, Los Angeles and Liverpool and Glasgow.

402
00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:53.559
So it sounds like you must have
quite a few employees, and what would

403
00:30:53.559 --> 00:31:00.720
you say is your culture like if
you were to describe it in few sentences,

404
00:31:00.279 --> 00:31:03.440
And well, definitely people first.
We are known to be a very

405
00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:07.160
holistic business where emotional intelligence is at
the heart of what we do. We're

406
00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:12.559
creative business. People are putting their
heart on their sleeve when they reveal themselves

407
00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:18.359
in the creative endeavor. It's tough
and something. Sometimes things are a huge

408
00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:22.759
hit and they win an oscar,
and sometimes things absolutely bomb and it's devastating,

409
00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:26.119
you know, that's the nature of
the creative endeavor. So we have

410
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:30.960
to care for our people and also
the people who support them, the financiers

411
00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:37.279
and the commercial people, and the
computer programmers and the technicians and the lighting

412
00:31:37.319 --> 00:31:41.599
and you know, people from the
whole spectrum we employ. We employ astronomers

413
00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:44.720
in our programming. We don't just
employ creatives, you know, we do

414
00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:51.599
have an extraordinary broad range of people
working with us. So we make sure

415
00:31:51.640 --> 00:31:56.839
that people are really well looked after. And then we make sure that we

416
00:31:56.960 --> 00:32:02.039
run a very tight management structure,
because within the creative endeavor, it's very

417
00:32:02.079 --> 00:32:09.119
easy to lose money. So you
have to combine creativity with really tight operational

418
00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:14.799
management. So for example, every
single month, at the end of every

419
00:32:14.839 --> 00:32:19.480
month, I work closely with my
chief operating officer and my finance director and

420
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:24.160
various people across the organization to get
every single last detail of everything that's happening

421
00:32:24.200 --> 00:32:30.519
in the business into a giant board
pack and honestly, it's like a bible.

422
00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:34.160
So at the end of every month
we have our board meeting and I

423
00:32:34.200 --> 00:32:37.680
can open that book at any page
and I know exactly where There are nine

424
00:32:37.680 --> 00:32:40.000
companies in the Argon Group. I
know exactly where each of them is.

425
00:32:40.519 --> 00:32:45.319
And because I know the detail,
I'm not worried about it. And the

426
00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:49.799
people who are running their individual businesses
they can see very clearly. Are they

427
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:53.839
where they wanted to be, a
schedule with their budgets. Are there things

428
00:32:53.880 --> 00:32:57.960
go wrong, we need to nip
something in the bud quickly and try something

429
00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:04.200
different. But by having that y
which is excellent management, structure and detail,

430
00:33:04.759 --> 00:33:07.680
we can do our best work.
So it is that interesting juxtaposition.

431
00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:13.160
And I talk about this in the
Flexible Method that you need to be flexible

432
00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:16.720
and agile in your thinking. So
absolutely embrace that left side of your brain,

433
00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:22.960
but also you must engage the right
side. You must make tough,

434
00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:29.079
detailed decisions, and when you've made
those decisions, you must follow them through

435
00:33:29.240 --> 00:33:32.920
with fierce resolve and make them happen. When you've made a decision, you

436
00:33:34.079 --> 00:33:37.359
go for it and you make it
happen. So you have to combine those

437
00:33:37.400 --> 00:33:44.160
two. So tell us more about
your book. What went into a book?

438
00:33:44.200 --> 00:33:46.880
You know, what did you write? And you mentioned that there are

439
00:33:46.920 --> 00:33:52.440
people from North Carolina, so give
us the whole school. Well, yes,

440
00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:55.119
I wrote the book to be useful
because there we were coming out of

441
00:33:55.160 --> 00:33:59.599
COVID in twenty twenty one. That's
your friend of mine said to me,

442
00:33:59.720 --> 00:34:02.039
listen, James. You know you
and Argon on my business have been managing

443
00:34:02.079 --> 00:34:06.799
to battle your way through these tough
times. I think it could be really

444
00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:08.960
useful. So that gave me the
thought. So I wrote three chapters,

445
00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:13.639
got an agent, and the agent
said you need to write a different chapter.

446
00:34:13.760 --> 00:34:15.199
As I was like, oh no, I've still got no guarantees.

447
00:34:16.199 --> 00:34:20.760
But I did write the other chapter, which broadened it out to include nine

448
00:34:20.840 --> 00:34:24.719
eleven and Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, and the wildfires of California and the

449
00:34:24.760 --> 00:34:30.440
icelandic ash clouds, the volcanic ash
cloud and many and the credit crunch and

450
00:34:30.639 --> 00:34:35.199
other recessions and so on, looking
at the whole of the last twenty years

451
00:34:35.239 --> 00:34:38.679
really and the multiple crises that we
have faced, and I decided that I

452
00:34:38.719 --> 00:34:43.920
would I sign my dog. She's
squeaking at the sounds of the terrible crisis,

453
00:34:43.960 --> 00:34:46.559
I think. I then decided that
I would go in interview some people

454
00:34:46.599 --> 00:34:52.679
in different industries because I wanted the
book to be as broad based as possible.

455
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:55.360
I didn't want to just write it
to the media industry. I wanted

456
00:34:55.360 --> 00:34:59.559
to write it for a broad audience. So I went out and I interviewed

457
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:05.480
of the most incredible politicians actually in
the US is a mayor of Oklahoma City.

458
00:35:05.800 --> 00:35:09.719
He's forty. He is the youngest
mayor in the US, and he

459
00:35:09.800 --> 00:35:15.159
is the first Native American mayor.
He is a Republican. He was obviously

460
00:35:15.159 --> 00:35:20.679
in the state of Oklahoma, which
was a Republican and where the governor frankly

461
00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:25.519
didn't really believe in COVID, so
had a particular approach to COVID. David

462
00:35:25.599 --> 00:35:30.719
Hold, which is his name,
the mayor's name, felt fundamentally differently.

463
00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:34.519
He's got quite a diverse community in
Oklahoma City. He's got a very strong

464
00:35:34.599 --> 00:35:37.639
social conscience. He cares for his
people profoundly, and he decides to put

465
00:35:37.719 --> 00:35:42.559
quite stringent measures in place to protect
his people. So he did bring about

466
00:35:42.559 --> 00:35:45.239
lockdowns, he did shut down bars, he did put in shelter at home

467
00:35:45.599 --> 00:35:54.800
to meet distance six feet distance and
what have you. And well, it's

468
00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:59.320
kind of weird to say, but
the proof is in the pudding. The

469
00:35:59.360 --> 00:36:04.719
fatality rates in Oklahoma City were amongst
the lowest in the United States. Why

470
00:36:04.840 --> 00:36:08.719
is that? Because he was brave, he spoke his authentic self, He

471
00:36:08.840 --> 00:36:14.599
put his people first. He put
quite stringent measures in place and followed them

472
00:36:14.639 --> 00:36:19.280
through with fierce resolve. And he
had a low death rate in Oklahoma City.

473
00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.239
And I mean that to me.
That to me says a lot.

474
00:36:22.599 --> 00:36:25.760
So he was very inspiring. So
he's in the boom. Another really inspiring

475
00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:30.280
stories actually in North Carolina, where
of course you have many hurricanes. And

476
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:35.639
I reached out to the pork farming
community because I wanted to have agriculture in

477
00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:42.440
the book. And I met the
pork farming community and realized that one thing

478
00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:47.840
they did that really started about twenty
years ago, was whereas historically they worked

479
00:36:47.960 --> 00:36:52.559
very independently of each other, these
big farms, and they weren't really talking

480
00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:55.719
and there was kind of quite a
lot of competitiveness, and therefore when giants

481
00:36:55.719 --> 00:36:59.840
storms came along, they were not
prepared. Sometimes the animals would die.

482
00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:02.760
They do a lot of money,
and they could cause quite a lot of

483
00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:07.760
damage sometimes because they would have giant
floods and things would happen. So what

484
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:14.599
did they do. They decided to
really pull together as a community. And

485
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:20.320
this again is one of the chapter
Collaborate connect. When you reach out to

486
00:37:20.360 --> 00:37:24.519
your community and you collaborate with others
rather than working in competition, you can

487
00:37:24.559 --> 00:37:27.880
come up with systems that are going
to be good for all of you.

488
00:37:28.719 --> 00:37:32.480
So what the port farming community did
in the Carolinas was they decided that different

489
00:37:32.559 --> 00:37:37.960
parts of the port farming industry would
do different things that certain certain of them

490
00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:42.320
would look after livestock, some of
them would look after the food, some

491
00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:47.280
of them would look after helicopters and
emergency rescue. They also put in systems

492
00:37:47.320 --> 00:37:53.000
in place whereby they could predict heavy
storms much much earlier and therefore act more

493
00:37:53.079 --> 00:37:59.599
quickly and then limit the damage.
So by now working together in this very

494
00:37:59.599 --> 00:38:04.400
collaborative way, changing breaking down all
of those boundaries, breaking down that separation

495
00:38:04.440 --> 00:38:07.320
and the competitiveness, but actually coming
together as a community and working and coming

496
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:12.920
up with a plan, being much
better prepared well in advance. They have

497
00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:17.360
now mitigated against the giant risks and
the giant billions, all the losses that

498
00:38:17.360 --> 00:38:21.679
they used to suffer. And I
just love that because I thought, well,

499
00:38:21.880 --> 00:38:25.079
even in farming, there is this
lateral outside the box thinking and there's

500
00:38:25.119 --> 00:38:30.599
collaborative spirit. So Janet Archer is
my interview in the book, and she

501
00:38:30.760 --> 00:38:36.519
just really inspired me. Wow.
I love that so definitely. I'm looking

502
00:38:36.519 --> 00:38:40.239
forward to getting your book and reading
it, and I'm sure listeners are going

503
00:38:40.280 --> 00:38:46.119
to get your book as well,
because it definitely sounds that it's packed with

504
00:38:47.480 --> 00:38:53.199
valuable nuggets, a lot of wisdom, insight and real life examples. And

505
00:38:53.280 --> 00:39:00.079
that's the key that if somebody else
has done it, you can do it.

506
00:39:00.280 --> 00:39:07.960
So absolutely, Yep, as we
come close to our show, people

507
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:13.800
you can find where can people find
you, James if they want to connect

508
00:39:13.800 --> 00:39:15.840
with you? Okay, Well,
first of all, the book is available

509
00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:19.159
on Amazon dot com and I would
love you to buy it. It's also

510
00:39:19.199 --> 00:39:22.320
available in good Reads and through local
bookstores, and I would love to get

511
00:39:22.360 --> 00:39:27.960
feedback because I hope you've kind of
heard now and can feel that. I'm

512
00:39:28.119 --> 00:39:31.760
very collaborative and I wrote the book
as as it's my first book, and

513
00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:36.159
I want to hear feedback because I
want to improve the book and we're all

514
00:39:36.159 --> 00:39:38.639
in this together and we can make
the world a better place when we collaborate.

515
00:39:39.920 --> 00:39:43.639
A good place to connect is LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn

516
00:39:43.719 --> 00:39:46.599
and just reach out and connect.
And I do a lot of public speaking.

517
00:39:47.119 --> 00:39:52.239
I'm very accessible. I love to
hear from interesting, smart people who've

518
00:39:52.280 --> 00:39:57.559
got ideas, So LinkedIn is probably
a good place to reach out. Absolutely,

519
00:39:57.559 --> 00:40:02.760
And you can also find James that
www. The Flexible method dot com.

520
00:40:04.480 --> 00:40:08.320
So, James is as a pleasure
having you on the show. Is

521
00:40:08.360 --> 00:40:15.920
there any last words that you'd like
to tell our class? Well, just

522
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:17.920
I'm thrilled to have been invited on
the show. Thank you so much.

523
00:40:19.800 --> 00:40:23.760
And I think perhaps start or at
the rather end where we started, which

524
00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:30.079
is kindness is everything. If you
have kindness for people around you, people

525
00:40:30.119 --> 00:40:35.559
you work with, and people in
your life, then you can produce remarkable

526
00:40:35.639 --> 00:40:40.000
change. And something I try to
do every day is a small random act

527
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:45.960
of kindness. It could be something
very small or something big, and you

528
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:49.800
don't need credit for it. You
don't need people to know that you've done

529
00:40:49.800 --> 00:40:53.320
it, but just by doing one
random act of kindness for somebody you may

530
00:40:53.679 --> 00:40:57.679
have never met, you may never
see again, or somebody who you love,

531
00:40:58.440 --> 00:41:06.639
but that goes a long way.
I completely agree about that. And

532
00:41:06.800 --> 00:41:14.280
thank you for joining us and sharing
your wisdom and tests openly. And thank

533
00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:17.400
you listeners for being with us because
without you the show would not be possible.

534
00:41:19.079 --> 00:41:22.559
And thank you one for all the
technical support. Be well and take

535
00:41:22.599 --> 00:41:28.519
care. I'll see you next Tuesday. Thank you for being part of Beyond

536
00:41:28.559 --> 00:41:31.039
Confidence. With your host Dvia Park, we hope you have learned more about

537
00:41:31.079 --> 00:41:35.800
how to start living the life you
want. Each week on Beyond Confidence,

538
00:41:35.880 --> 00:41:39.559
you hear stories of real people who've
experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building

539
00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:45.440
meaningful relationships. During Beyond Confidence,
Diva, Park shares what happened to her

540
00:41:45.559 --> 00:41:49.239
when she stepped out of her comfort
zone to work directly with people across the

541
00:41:49.239 --> 00:41:52.320
globe. She not only coaches people
how to form hard connections, but also

542
00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:58.760
transform relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as
they strive to live the life they want.

543
00:41:59.159 --> 00:42:01.400
If you are ready to live the
life you want and leverage your strengths.

544
00:42:01.559 --> 00:42:07.840
Learn more at www dot dvapark dot
com and you can connect with Diva

545
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:12.800
at contact at dvapark dot com.
We look forward to you joining us next week