Truth, Lies & Work

Episode 44 · 21 June 2023 · 1:09:08

Kevin Dahlstrom: How to Lead Fearlessly (7 Key Lessons)

Kevin Dahlstrom: How to Lead Fearlessly (7 Key Lessons)

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  1. Truth or Lie: Can You Spot a Liar?

    truth or lie#lying#deception#communication

  2. The Boomers vs Gen Z Headline

    other#boomers#gen-z#workplace

  3. Pride Month and H&M's Record-Breaking Drag Brunch

    other#pride-month#hm#drag-brunch

  4. Kevin's Story: The Genesis of Swell

    other#leadership#entrepreneurship#story

  5. Lesson 1: Values Are for Life, Not for Walls

    other#values#leadership#culture

  6. Lesson 2: The Way You Do Anything Is the Way You Do Everything

    other#leadership#consistency#habits

  7. Lesson 3: Never Bargain Shop for Talent

    other#talent#hiring#recruitment

  8. Lesson 4: Don't Chase a Misguided Definition of Success

    other#success#leadership#mindset

  9. Lesson 5: Culture Trumps Strategy, Every Time

    other#culture#strategy#leadership

  10. Lesson 6: You Don't Learn Anything When Things Are Going Well

    other#learning#failure#growth

  11. Lesson 7: Compounding Is Key

    other#compounding#leadership#long-term

  12. Recap and Final Words of Wisdom from Kevin

    other#leadership#recap#wisdom

Show notes

Leading Fearlessly: 7 Lessons from Kevin Dahlstrom, Founder & CEO of Swell

Episode 44 — In this month's Founder Series episode, Al and Leanne sit down with Kevin Dahlstrom, Founder and CEO of Swell, a disruptive FinTech on a mission to reduce credit card debt by a billion dollars.

Kevin has spent his career in financial services, serving as Chief Marketing Officer for Elevate, Mr. Cooper, and Central Pacific Bank. He's also a rock climber, a father, probably the fittest 50-year-old Al and Leanne have ever met, and the nicest guy on Twitter — which is probably why he's got about 40,000 followers.

What started as a founder story quickly became a masterclass in fearless leadership. Kevin shares seven essential lessons for growing cultures where people and businesses thrive — from why values are for life (not walls) to why compounding is the secret weapon nobody talks about.

🔥 Kevin's 7 Lessons for Fearless Leadership

1. Values are for life, not for walls

Too many companies print their values on a poster and call it a day. Kevin's approach? Values only matter if they show up in how you actually behave — especially when nobody's watching. Al and Leanne unpack what it means to live your values rather than just display them.

2. The way you do anything is the way you do everything

That famous quote from American poet Maya Angelou gets the full treatment. Kevin believes your habits — good and bad — travel with you. How you handle the small stuff predicts how you'll handle the big stuff. Leanne shares why this connects to bringing your whole self to work.

3. Never bargain shop for talent

The tweet that first made Al notice Kevin. Hiring cheap is the most expensive mistake you can make. Kevin's take: you get what you pay for, and the cost of a bad hire far outweighs the saving on a good one. This sparks a conversation about the "act your salary" phenomenon sweeping workplaces.

4. Don't chase a misguided definition of success

Kevin's definition of success? Not setting an alarm clock. He built a life he doesn't want to escape from — and that changes everything about how you lead. Al and Leanne reflect on their own definitions of success and why "doing cool shit with cool people" might be the real goal.

5. Culture trumps strategy, every time

Kevin draws on the story of Southwest Airlines — a company that came into a brutal commodity business and won through culture, not strategy. When your culture is right, strategy becomes execution. The hosts also explore the mismatch between employer brand and customer brand.

6. You don't learn anything when things are going well

Growth happens in the hard moments. Kevin shares why how you respond when things go poorly defines you as a leader — and why building in public (#BuildInPublic) is the ultimate learning tool.

7. Compounding is key

The final lesson is about the power of small, consistent actions over time. Whether it's fitness, relationships, or business, compounding beats intensity every time. Kevin's own podcast is literally named Compounding — and now you know why.

🧠 Truth or Lie: "You Can't Hide a Liar"

Al kicks off a new segment with a classic question: can you really tell when someone's lying? Leanne consulted Ryan Sherman from Hogan Assessment Systems (yes, that Ryan — the one who appears like Beetlejuice when you say "personality" three times) to get the science.

Spoiler: microexpressions are real, but they're nowhere near as reliable as TV would have you believe. The research says most people can recognise basic emotions — happy, angry, sad — but detecting deception? That's a lie.

💬 This Week in Work

  • Boomers vs Gen Z: A clickbaity headline claims Gen Z don't know they're born. Leanne digs into the survey behind the hype — and whether there's any actual truth in it.
  • Pride Month: H&M USA made history by breaking the Guinness World Record for the largest drag brunch. Amid more than 160 protests against drag events since early 2022, this joyful moment matters. Al and Leanne share why supporting the LGBTQ+ community is close to their hearts — their nephew is a drag queen, after all.

📚 More From Truth, Lies & Workplace Culture

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🔗 Connect With Kevin

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Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

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Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

Expand full transcript
Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform. Every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more. Nice.
Al ElliottCheck out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. If your why is that we want to make a bunch of money as a company, that's okay, but just own that, right? Because that's— that why will drive your behavior. In our case, it's a little bit bigger than— we truly want to help consumers build wealth and get rid of debt.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of people and create amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWe are. Remember last week when Leanne said that she was under the weather? Well, I've got it now.
Leanne ElliottBoo.
Al ElliottBoo. So, um, so I'm sorry, you're gonna have to put up with— so Leanne's gonna be leading a lot of this podcast even though I did the interview with Kevin and he was awesome. Um, so you'll have to put up with my snotty nose and croaky voice. Hopefully it makes me sound a little sexier.
Leanne ElliottOh, it's very sexy, darling.
Al ElliottHello.
Leanne ElliottVery Barry White. Yes, so today we have another founder episode for you. Uh, we're talking to the awesome Kevin Dahlstrom, who is founder and CEO of In Tech Swell. But we're doing a little bit of a different spin on this one, aren't we, Al?
Al ElliottYeah, I first came across Kevin on Twitter. I followed him, I've been following him for maybe about a year or something, and he seems to split his posts between ridiculous rock climbs, that he'll send a picture of him like half a mile up a cliff face with nothing but a piece of string, and then really solid leadership advice and stories. And so that's why I reached out to him— reached out to him, I'm not that guy— that's why I DM'd him.
Leanne ElliottYou slid into his DMs. And I said, hey, oh my God, what's, what's happened to me?
Al ElliottUm, and I basically said, look, dude, we need to talk to you because you sound like a really interesting guy. And he really was, wasn't he?
Leanne ElliottYeah, he really, really was. So if you haven't heard of Kevin, Kevin is a founder and CEO of Swell, a disruptive fintech that is on a mission to reduce credit card debt by $1 billion. He spent his career in financial services and has served as Chief Marketing Officer for Elevate, Mr. Cooper, and Central Pacific Bank. He's also a rock climber. He's a father. He's probably the fittest 50-year-old we've ever met, and also the nicest guy on Twitter, which is probably why he's got about 40,000 followers. We are very excited to welcome Kevin to the podcast.
Al ElliottSo what started off really as kind of a founder story, which is one we do once a month, just led into really all about leadership and leading fearlessly. And of course, we're using the fearless as the analogy of climbing up a rock face. And so Leanne's put this together, and she's, she's discovered that Kevin's basically got 7 essential lessons to overcome obstacles and inspire others. We will go into that in just a second. But before that, It's our favorite time of the week. It's the news roundup.
Leanne ElliottCue the jingle.
Al ElliottOkay, so we've got a new segment for our— this little portion of the show, which is called Truth or Lie. Dead on brand there, loving it. And the whole idea is that I will say to Leanne, is this truth? Is this psychological business I'm going to be talking about, is it a truth or is it a lie? And then Leanne will explain. Which one it is. So are you okay with that, Lee?
Leanne ElliottYeah, go for it. Lovely.
Al ElliottAll right, so the first question— well, this week's truth or lie is all about, have you ever seen that like quite cheesy series called Lie to Me? Yeah, I'm guessing that as a psychologist you're a bit like, meh. Yeah, yeah, it's fun. And it's basically, if you've not seen it, it's an English guy and I can't remember— Gary, you're gonna be shouting at me if you Remember his name, and he's basically the main protagonist, and he can read facial signals and he can read microexpressions. So he will say he will work with the FBI inexplicably every single week. He works with the FBI to solve this kind of mystery by basically looking at someone and going, are they lying? Yes, they are, because they twitched their left eye for half a millisecond. Is this a load of bollocks? Leah, is this a truth? Can microexpressions exist? Can people actually tell if you're lying by looking at you, looking at your face? Is it truth or is it a lie?
Leanne ElliottWell, microexpressions are a part of body language, and I've always been led to believe that when it comes to body language, we're pretty rubbish at reading it. And it always makes me smile when people say, I'm so good at reading body language. It's like, are you really? Um, unless it's really obvious, you know, like defensive people might have crumpled up their limbs, their arms and legs crossed, um, or you may see a very alpha male beating his chest. I have actually seen that once in a meeting. It was cringeworthy. Um, but in terms of using body language or facial expressions alone to detect Truth or lies, I'm not so sure that is a thing. Generally speaking, again, we can identify emotions, you know, typically if somebody is happy or sad or angry, but truth, I don't know. But to be fair, this isn't my area of expertise, so I actually called in some psychology backup, Al, in the shape of Ryan Sherman, Chief Science Officer at Hogan Assessment Systems, a friend of the show, I think we can say at this point.
Al ElliottI'm curious, what kind of light do you have to shine in the sky for Ryan to come To come like flying, you know, like in Batman.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYou have the, the bat. What would you have to do for it?
Leanne ElliottIt's like, you know, the Science of Personality podcast that, that Ryan hosts. I think it's got like a little brain in the middle.
Al ElliottJust project that in the sky and Ryan, Ryan will just drop in and say something.
Leanne ElliottJust appears. Yeah. It's like, it's more like Beetlejuice.
Al ElliottAll right.
Leanne ElliottLike you say, like personality, personality, personality. And then he—
Al ElliottDon't say it now.
Leanne ElliottRyan, how are you?
Al ElliottSorry. Back to bed, mate. It's midnight for you.
Leanne ElliottIt's early there.
Al ElliottAnyway, sorry, after my interjection, carry on.
Leanne ElliottSo yeah, so I asked Ryan, can we use facial expressions and/or body language to detect if somebody is lying? Can psychologists serve as a human lie detector test? Here's Ryan.
Al ElliottBut for the most part, many people can recognize when somebody's happy or when somebody's angry or when somebody's sad just by their facial expression. And so from that part of it, that is that I think that that's, uh, that's, that's all true psychology. And in terms of the lie stuff, there's actually quite a bit of research on lie detection and detecting just deception from a whole bunch of things. There's some really classic studies where they took like FBI investigators and they took regular police officers and they just took like normal ordinary citizens and they had them all like watch video clips of people who were either lying or not. And in this case, they set it up so that half of the time they were seeing a lie, half of the time they weren't. And what they found out was that the federal investigators were much better at catching liars who were lying. And the reason they were better at it is because they assumed everyone was lying. So they weren't better at— right, so they also were calling people liars who weren't lying too. So they actually weren't more accurate, right? But they're better at catching liars. So if you just say everybody's lying, then you're going to catch all the liars. But of course, you're going to accuse a lot of people of lying who aren't. So it turns out that, um, at least in that sort of sense, like, that there's no— doesn't seem to be any sort of trained skill, at least at that level, in detecting lies.
Leanne ElliottUh, so no, lie.
Al ElliottIt's a lie. So basically I should stop watching this show and move on to something like House where it's a bit more realistic.
Leanne ElliottTouché. See, that's the thing. I'm sure there's many like doctors and like medical doctors and surgeons that can't watch things like House or Grey's Anatomy. I don't know, I'd continue to indulge a little bit. At the end of the day, I think what Ryan is making the point of it. It's taking 2 areas of psychology that are, are fact-based, are true, are a thing, and just combining them in a way that may not necessarily be accurate but is very entertaining.
Al ElliottInteresting. What else you got, Lee?
Leanne ElliottUm, so I came across a very clickbaity angry headline this week, so I'm going to tell you the headline: Boomers are more hardworking than Gen Z according to a survey in Australia.
Al ElliottAmen. Yeah, these bloody Gen Zs. Zeds, they don't know they're born.
Leanne ElliottThey don't.
Al ElliottI'm not boomer, by the way, I'm Gen X, just in case anyone's listening and thinking I'm boomer.
Leanne ElliottYeah, but well, according to this survey, apparently there may be some truth in it. So first of all, hello to our Aussie listeners. We know we have quite a few down under, so thank you very much for your support, and we'd love to hear your views on this as well. So an article in Indy100 shared the results of a recent survey undertaken by Immigration to Australia They asked more than 1,000 people in the country to evaluate their post-COVID work habits in a bid to understand how the pandemic has affected how people approach employment. Now, apparently, one-third of people between the ages of 18 and 30— so we're talking very much Gen Z and young millennials there— they said they are more relaxed about their jobs because unemployment rates in the country have dipped. Meanwhile, 77% said they have no intention of going back to working in the same way they did before lockdowns, which of course made remote and hybrid work possible. On the other side, Gen X and boomers, people born between 1955 and 1980, they were working just as hard as before the pandemic, and nearly 90% said they had a strong work ethic. So of course, part of the motivation for younger generations to adopt a more casual, casual approach is to avoid burnout. I think when we think about this logically, we are now working much longer into our lives. So that makes sense. We're looking about sustainability rather than necessarily intensity. Uh, so perhaps the flip argument could be, rather than them not being, uh, or rather than them being work-shy, Gen Z and Millennials are simply looking for ways to work smarter and not harder.
Al ElliottWhat else you got, Leah?
Leanne ElliottSo finally, it is Pride Month in the US and the UK at the moment. It's an annual event if you haven't heard about it. Uh, that celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community, and it does feel more important than ever given the regression of basic human rights that community has experienced, particularly in the US over the last few years. So I'm sure your newsfeed is full of important events and initiatives that raise awareness. I wanted to share one that quite simply not only filled me with pride but lots of joy.
Al ElliottOh, I love it when you're filled with joy. You've got such a lovely smile.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it was, it was joyful. So last week, H&M USA— that's the clothing brand— made history by breaking the Guinness World Records official title for the most people attending a drag brunch in honor of Pride Month and in support of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Al ElliottLovely. Do they call it a drunch?
Leanne ElliottA drunch?
Al ElliottOh, maybe drag brunch, drunch. Anyway, carry on.
Leanne ElliottSo yes, since early 2022, drag events have faced more than 160 protests and significant threats. Amid the growing controversy surrounding Pride, H&M have doubled down on its efforts, not only to its year-round commitment to inclusivity and creating safe spaces, but for the initiatives and celebrations it is having during Pride Month. So 412 people attended the drag brunch in Brooklyn, New York, and the event itself benefited one of the retailer's longtime collaborators and of course co-host of the event the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, which, if you're not aware, it's a national nonprofit dedicated to protecting and defending the human rights of Black transgender people. So in a shared press release, Carlos Duarte, who is president of the H&M Region Americas, had a really lovely way of celebrating it. I think he said Pride is supported 365 days a year, but our initiatives during June highlight this ongoing commitment. While we have moments like this to mark the importance of art and joy in our community, we will continue our consistent commitment to groups like the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, which provides vital services and empowerment to so many in need. Bravo!
Al ElliottWell done, well done. Absolutely. Regular listeners will know that we are huge supporters of that community there, with lots of friends and family who are part of it.
Leanne ElliottOur nephew is a drag queen.
Al ElliottYes, he is. A very, very good one too. Okay, so we are diving today into the 7 essential leadership lessons that our guest Kevin Dahlstrom has accumulated over more than 20 years in corporate and startup business. This advice is gold.
Leanne ElliottYes, and we will be working our way through 7 incredibly valuable lessons and sharing some of our thoughts, insights, and of course, the science along the way. But first, let's meet Kevin properly and hear more about his career and leadership experience to date.
Al ElliottIn some ways, Swell is the, like, the culmination of everything I've done in my career, and in some ways, my life's work. So I spent a long career mostly in financial services, sort of at the intersection of financial services and technology. I came out of college in the mid-'90s when the internet was just becoming a thing. And so, you know, it was pretty clear from the beginning it was going to be a big deal. And so I was attracted to internet businesses, but I was also always attracted to money as an industry. Right? Because I got my degrees in engineering and mathematics. I've always been a numbers guy. And I thought, you know, money is just the ultimate consumer product. Everybody knows what it is. Everybody wants it. It's all digital. It never perishes. And so I thought, you know, what a cool way to build a career is kind of dealing with money, but bringing it into the internet age. And so I spent my career, I've founded a number of companies. I've also Worked as a chief marketing officer for a number of larger companies, public companies. And, you know, over that long course of that career, I observed, which is, you know, something that's really obvious to anyone that has a bank account, which is banking is really broken. You know, banking and healthcare, the 2 massive industries, they're just horribly broken. You know, anywhere you look, it just doesn't work. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't work in favor of the consumer. It doesn't work the way it should work.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd so, that was the genesis for Swell. At the beginning of the pandemic, I wrote a white paper just about— I kind of followed the cue of a famous Jeff Bezos quote, your margin is my opportunity. I think this is a common theme. If you listen back to some of our previous founder stories, hello, Stella Smith from Perks, then generally, they look at something and they go, it doesn't exist, and I'm going to make it exist. And that's like a combination. I always say that opportunity is a combination of, I think, foresight and luck or something. Because this sort of thing, this, this, The Swell probably wouldn't have done well 15, 20 years ago. But since we've had films like The Big Short, we've had lots of films about banking scandals, documentaries about banking scandals, now the tide has turned. We, the public, think the bankers are the bad guys. And I think what's incredibly clever here is that Kevin has basically taken that swell, that groundswell of, of feeling, Yeah. And channeled it and gone, we can get the big guys back. And of course, he's got so much experience as well. So he's almost like the— what's that expression? The gamekeeper turned poacher or something, or poacher turned gamekeeper, where the idea is you used to work for them and now you work for the others and basically a Robin Hood. Not Robin Hood as in like the share company, because that's not a bad— that's a bad company from what I could hear. I was intrigued about this idea, your margin is my opportunity. So I asked Kevin to explain a little bit more about this. Banking is an industry that, you know, All the big banks make huge margin, huge profit margins, you know, hundreds of billions in profit, literally. Yet consumers don't feel like banks are working in their best interest. So that spells opportunity to me. And so I wrote this white paper about all the ways in which banking is broken, and it sort of went low-key viral within financial circles and made its way into the hands of one particular CEO of a bank, a public bank that happened to be based in Hawaii. And We got together, talked about some ideas, had a meeting of the minds. One thing led to another, and we ended up incubating what is now an independent company, Swell, inside of this bank. And, you know, the basic idea was, let's go do things better. And, you know, of course, that's the charter of most fintech companies. You know, Swell is what's called a fintech company. We decided to focus very specifically on what I believe is the consumer finance problem of our time, which is credit card debt. You know, credit card debt just reached an all-time high of nearly $1 trillion in the US. The APR, or the interest rate that people are paying on that debt, just reached an all-time high. More Americans than ever are just struggling to pay those bills. And so Swell is tackling that market head-on with a very simple strategy, which is lower prices. You know, and it's easy to say that. It's really hard to do, to pull together all the pieces that you need. in a heavily regulated industry to disrupt the credit card industry is very difficult. So it's taken us a little over a year to build the product. And actually, your timing is great because we just, we're literally launching the product this week. And so, you know, the basic idea is if you have credit card debt, you apply for an account with Swell, and if you're approved, you'll get a much lower rate, which for many of our customers saves them thousands of dollars in interest. So it's a very significant savings amount. So I think this is just US-based, but such a cool idea, and I can see it coming to the UK. I think I can see someone like Starling taking this up and just running with it.
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely. What was that film we were watching recently?
Al ElliottUh, the naughty one, the adult one.
Leanne ElliottNo! Are you medicated?
Al ElliottI've, I've, yeah, I've gone full-on wanker with my tea, honey, and lemon, and I think I've gone— I think I've had too much of it. Carry on. What was the film we watched recently?
Leanne ElliottThank You, Dave. That's the one.
Al ElliottThat was such a great film.
Leanne ElliottIt really was. If you, if you haven't watched it, definitely put it on your, on your list. I think it's on Netflix. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. I mean, Swell is not alone in pushing back against the big banks and ensuring the financial services industry and its customers that it doesn't have to be that way. I think that is also such a common theme that we see in— and I hate to use the word changemakers— leaders that are just trying to make things better. It doesn't have to be this way. And I think we have seen a lot of that since the financial crisis, which was in 2008. A lot of trust was lost in big financial institutions, and it has led to a rise in challenger banks and fintechs. I was reading something, it was saying something like there's around 150 challenger banks now that have a collective consumer base of 200 million.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottWhich, bearing in mind, is only at what, 15 years, just about, maybe. That's an incredible story of growth. So you might be thinking, Leah, why are you telling me this? Well, I guess it, it may seem commonplace now that challenger banks are a thing, like your Monza, like your Starlings, and that the disruptive fintechs are a thing. But until the financial crisis, the banking sector was a closed and elitist community. And going back to the Bank of Dave story, that was the, um, so a guy called Dave founded the Burnley Savings and loans that officially opened in September 2011. Um, after— but that was after Day of Fishwick had been awarded the first banking license to be issued in the UK for more than 100 years.
Al ElliottIncredible.
Leanne ElliottIt was unthinkable that the financial services and banking industry could be disrupted. It was the way things were, like the office and entrepreneurship and leadership. That's just how we do things. So my point is really that disruptive change, change that revolutionizes how things have been doing for hundreds of years is never actually really that far away. And I think we're seeing the start of that now in people and culture. We expect more from our working life. We expect more from our leaders. And it's early disruptors like Kevin Dahlstrom that have proven human-centered leadership not only works, it's the accelerator of success.
Al ElliottThere's lots of people out there who are disrupting things, who are amazing entrepreneurs, but not too many who are amazing entrepreneurs and great leaders. Sorry, Elon. So the first leadership lesson that Kevin's got to offer is that values and the values that he creates are for life and not for the walls. I love this. It's just the— that's one of your bugbears, isn't it, Leanne? When you walk into an office and it's got like— it's the equivalent of love, live, laugh.
Leanne ElliottThat's exactly what it is.
Al ElliottJust bullshit. Not for Kevin. Let's listen. Let's hear from Kevin. Yeah, no, I'm a big proponent of having clear values. You know, of course, like Most companies do have values. They end up being something that gets posted into the break room and then forgotten about. And, you know, my belief is, if you're going to bother to create values, then you need to live them. And the way you live them is like, they should be a litmus test for literally everything you do. And so, you know, we have 4 core values at Swell. I can get into the details of them if you want, but I'll just list them out quickly. You know, one is that the why matters. So, you know, we're a very mission-driven company. So, um, you know, if your why is that we want to make a bunch of money as a company, that's okay, but just own that, right? Because that's— that why will drive your behavior. In our case, it's a little bit bigger than— we truly want to help consumers build wealth and get rid of debt. Um, so why you're doing things matters. The second one is best idea You know, as a startup, we're a disruptor, we're an innovator. And so, and I've always believed that, you know, I don't have all the ideas as the founder and CEO, neither does my executive team. Great ideas can come from anywhere. So this idea of sort of a flat hierarchy, and that, you know, it's not rank that decides which ideas win, it's the merits of the idea itself. So that's the second value. The third one is the way you do anything is the way you do everything. We would rather do a few things really well than try to do too much and do an okay or a poor job. And I think you've seen that reflected in our sort of our website and our product is that there's a lot of things we could attack in banking. We are attacking a very specific niche within consumer credit. That's where we start. And that niche happens to be really huge, but focus is really important. And then the craftsmanship and attention to detail is critical. And then the last one is always working, always playing. You know, the way work has evolved, and COVID really was an inflection point and accelerated this, is that, you know, we're a remote-first company. And there are pros to that and there are cons to that. One of the pros is that you have lots of flexibility. And the way— the nature of knowledge work is, it's not like factory work where you just sort of work in a linear fashion for fixed hours. You know, Inspiration comes in fits and spurts. And so, we work in a very flexible style. We're extremely results-oriented. And rather than like— I'm not a big fan of the term work-life balance. I think of it more as an integration where just throughout your day, you're doing some work, you're doing some personal stuff, you're having some fun. So, kind of always working, always playing is the vibe we're striving for. How you do something is how you do anything. We've been saying that for years. And it's just one of my favorite, favorite things. Now, Kevin also made it really clear that as leaders, we need to live our values and we need to reflect our values in our behaviors and our ways of working. Your podcast is sort of about culture. And I think, you know, a lot of culture obviously starts at the top is, you know, does the person at the top, does the CEO or the founder live their values? And certainly one of my values is to be accessible. I have always had this policy on Twitter that I respond to every single DM that I get. And as my account has grown, it's gotten more and more difficult. It's actually become a significant part of my day, but I consider that just to be part of my job. And I enjoy the interactions that I have.
Leanne ElliottKevin just gave a really simple example there of how to live your values. One of my values, as the leader Kevin says, is I'm accessible. If people need to ask me a question, I am there. And he's extended that to his, his connections, his community on social media, and he spends a proportion of his day answering DMs. It's as simple as that. And that's congruence. We like that. You're, you're doing what you say you will do. You're living by your values.
Al ElliottAbsolutely. And values— we had the amazing PJ Brady on talking about brave, smart, kind, and his trifecta of Values. And I think that maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, values was just something that happened in the boardroom. Oh, we've created some new values. And now almost everyone is saying, no, this needs to be— everyone needs to be able to recite the values. They need to know them. They need to live by them. And I just think it's a great revolution.
Leanne ElliottIt really is. So that is our first leadership lesson from Kevin: values are for life, not for walls. Kevin's second leadership lesson takes this idea one step further by saying, the way you do anything is the way you do everything.
Al ElliottThe way you do anything is the way you do everything is a famous quote from an American poet that I really like named Annie Dillard. And, you know, there's lots of ways you can go with that quote. Sorry to kind of go on a tangent here, but, you know, even when it comes to hiring, when I interview people, I will often ask more questions about their personal life than their work history because of this idea that the way you do anything is the way you do everything. It's often more telling to understand how someone thinks about their personal life because we're not, you know, we don't become one person in our personal life and then a completely different person at work. It all works together. We are who we are. And so, I think there's a lot of ways. That's a great pearl of wisdom. There's a lot of ways to apply it in business. So, what I really like about this is this idea that you look at how someone lives their life and then work is part of that life. Because let's be honest, we've all been to an interview where we've kind of said the things that we think that the other person wants to hear. Or we do this LinkedIn profile or this fake persona on LinkedIn going, oh my God, I'm so— do you know what gets on my tits? Are people who say, I'm so grateful that I've been nominated for this award. Shut up!
Leanne ElliottI think the worst ones are like when it's actually like humble brag alert. It's like, don't be— you know what, just brag. If you have achieved that thing that you've worked really hard for, You shout from the rooftops and you tell the world. Don't be— there's not a place to be humble there. Either don't say anything or brag.
Al ElliottExactly. And so, I think what annoys me, and possibly you, about that sort of thing is that you feel that if they're going to be like that on LinkedIn, then either they're really fake and they're being like that on LinkedIn, or that's actually how they are in real life. Either way, they're not someone I want to knock about with, to be honest. So I think what I really like is the idea of saying, okay, so what is it about your personal life? Let's learn a bit more about you, and that will help me to make a decision about what you're— how you're going to approach work. So Kevin went on to explain that doing the right thing under all circumstances doesn't come easy, but this authentic leadership approach can be incredibly powerful. At the end of the day, doing the right thing is a really powerful thing. Like, you know, there's, there's a lot of people in business and just in life who will do the right thing when it's convenient or when it serves their purpose. There's actually not that many people who will do the right thing when it's inconvenient or when it comes with a sacrifice. And I've made a policy for a long time of doing the right thing under all circumstances. And it turns out that that sort of mindset is somewhat selfish because it repays over time. It's kind of playing the long game. The example you're talking about is our head of design, actually. Her father ended up stumbling into my account on Twitter, And became a follower and reached out and said, hey, my daughter says great things. But yeah, I mean, it's, you know, look, I've been in the corporate world for a long time. It's surprising how few, especially at the top levels, you know, are fundamentally just like good people that do the right thing under all circumstances. You know, I think somewhere along the way, they— it gets beaten out of them. You know, the system beats it out of them, or I don't know what happens, but But yeah, it all starts like, look, at the end of the day, we're all just living life, right? And, you know, work is a big part of our life. Why wouldn't you want to make that a positive experience for everybody?
Leanne ElliottLiving authentically, or being able to bring our whole selves to work, really is linked to high levels of wellbeing. So when Kevin was speaking before about understanding the whole person, that really will make a difference to an individual experience. experienced during that recruitment process. Being authentic implies acting in congruence, alignment, or consistency with our true selves, and this means being consistent with our inner experiences. If we're not, it can feel like we're living a double life or a secret life, being a pretender, being an imposter to yourself. And sooner or later, this lack of authenticity causes dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, loneliness, and at times despair. But by leading with authenticity and sincerity, Kevin is allowing others to be their whole selves at work, which means his employees will experience the highest levels of positive wellbeing. And when it comes to consistency, we know that as humans, we like that. We see inconsistency as a threat. That threat triggers our fight or flight response, our brain chemistry changes, our stress levels go up, and we begin to withdraw into ourselves. If your one thing as a leader Be consistent.
Al ElliottSo, Kevin's 3rd leadership lesson is don't bargain shop for talent. Now, the tweet that first made me notice Kevin was about this story about how he got a guy who worked in a bike shop and how he basically offered him a job, but it wasn't what you think. I'm going to leave Kevin to explain. This was probably, I don't know, almost 10 years ago now. Yeah, it's one of my favorite stories about hiring. I'll tell it real quickly if you want me to. But, uh, yeah, it speaks a lot to, to hiring and, and culture. Um, but, but basically, uh, and that I posted it online, that might have been where you saw it, and it kind of went viral because I think it really resonates with people, um, in terms of the way hiring should be approached. But this was years ago. I was the CMO of this growth technology company, and I was looking to hire a junior-level digital marketing position. And I had met this— I was a pretty avid cyclist at the time. I rode my bike a lot, and I'd gotten to know this guy who worked at a bike shop. His name was John, and we had a lot of conversations, just talked over conversations with bikes and when he was fixing my bike. And I knew that he wanted to kind of pivot his career. He wanted to do something. He wanted more than just to be a bike mechanic. And I, you know, I noticed over time he was a really sharp guy, had kind of an engineer's mindset. And so I mentioned to him, hey, you know, if you're looking to get into a different industry, I've got an opportunity to become a, you know, start off like entry-level position in digital marketing, which is completely different. You're gonna have to learn on the fly and so on. He was really interested. He interviewed at our company and the interview went really well. And so I texted him and I said, hey, interviews went well. Give me a ring because we need to talk about compensation. Right? And so he calls me up and I could tell he was a little bit nervous to have this discussion. And I said, well, John, tell me, what kind of compensation do you think you need for this to come on board with us? What would you need to kind of make this make sense for you? And I could tell he'd prepared for this. He said, well, you know, I've got a young family and I'm about to have another child. And for me to make this move, I would really need to make $50,000 a year. And at the time, you know, 10 years ago, that was a significant salary for an entry-level position. And so I paused for a moment. I said, you know, John, the, you know, we're gonna have to train you on this. You know, this, I'm kind of taking a chance on you here. We're gonna have to provide training. You're somewhat of an unknown quantity. So, I don't think I can do $50,000. How about $60,000? And it was like dumbfounded silence. And I could tell he was choking up on— I still get goosebumps when I talk about it. I could tell he was choking up on the other end. And the point being like, look, you know, when you hire someone, go all in with them, right? You want them to be over-the-top happy about their position. And I knew this was a life-changing opportunity for John. And I will tell you that the benefit of that $10,000 was repaid, you know, tenfold, if not a hundredfold over time. He ended up staying with the company a long time. He ended up growing into running digital marketing. And I'm pretty sure if it came down to it, John would've taken a bullet for me. That's how he— that's how grateful he was about the opportunity. So it's a great story just to say, like, look, you know, when you hire people, hire great people. And go all in on them. Don't bargain shop for talent.
Leanne ElliottIt's funny, there's a phenomenon in the workplace right now called act your salary. I almost included it as a word of the week. Basically means that rather than going above and beyond, just act your salary, do the work that you are salaried to do. Some say it's another Gen Z misstep to not strive to be at your very best. Others say it's a matter of principle and protest to ensure employers are, are paying people for the work that they do. I guess my question would be to employees who do barter down a couple of grand on each new hire's expectations: what are you actually getting from that? Like, in the grand scheme of things, what difference does a couple of grand make if you hire somebody for, say, 50 grand a year in a role that you hope to have in your business for 5 years? That's a quarter of a million pound investment, and your bartering may have saved you 10K on that. Yeah, as we've heard from Kevin, the ROI on his very slightly inflated investment was almost immeasurable in terms of the dedication and the commitment and the raw effort that person gave him. Kevin's ROI was exponential.
Al ElliottI think we probably, if we don't have the story ourselves, we might've heard stories from our friends of someone who's gone above and beyond for their, like, as a boss, gone above and beyond for their employees. And they've just earned the trust forever and ever and ever. I just think that's so, so cool.
Leanne ElliottI agree. And that is our 3rd leadership lesson from Kevin. Never bargain shop for talent.
Al ElliottNow on to number 4. There is a misguided definition of success. When I started, when I started building businesses back when I was about 23, 24, I thought success was big house, big car, horses, yachts, helicopters, all that kind of bullshit. Let's be honest. And then, as I got older, I realized that that is completely not what success is. It is for some people because some people play the game and that's the way that they see the compensation of the game. That's why if you go to Saudi Arabia, if you go to Abu Dhabi, for example, then, you know, a lot of people are playing the game to go, I want to go and now get a gold-plated Rolls-Royce because the standard £500,000 Rolls-Royce is no good for me. Okay, fine. You're playing a game. But success to us— Leanne and I were talking about it the other day.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSuccess to us is not setting an alarm clock. And that's basically it. And so, we didn't— we haven't set an alarm clock for years and years apart from a flight or something or a train. We haven't set it for years and years and years. And that to us is our definition of success. Lesson number 4 is don't chase a misguided definition of success. And I think a lot of it comes down to your definition of success. You know, I spent a lot of my career chasing, frankly, a misguided definition of success. I was defining— I was allowing society to define success for me. And of course, we all know what that looks like, right? All the glitz and glamour, big titles, money, cars, big houses, whatever. And what I realized, and for me, unfortunately, this didn't happen until midlife. I was in my 40s and kind of had a classic midlife crisis, if you will, and realized that The life I had built was not me. It was some other guy. I was playing the role of some other guy, and it looked really great on paper, right? Checked all the boxes of success, but I was not that happy. I was pretty miserable. And so, I did, in my mid-40s, I did a major reboot, relocated my family, walked away from an absurd amount of money to basically have the life that I want. And I haven't looked back.
Leanne ElliottWow.
Al Elliottover 5 years ago now. And I have to pinch myself now because I've been able to construct a life that I don't want to break. I don't even— like, I was telling— I was joking with my wife the other day that I actually get grumpy on weekends and holidays because, you know, my day-to-day life is exactly the life I want. And I get sort of frustrated when it gets disrupted by a weekend. So, I'm sort of the opposite of everybody else who looks forward to the Yeah. Lives for the weekends or holidays. So, yeah, I mean, that was a big change in my life. But it feels good to, like, you know, Carl Jung, the philosopher, says that over a lifetime, we accumulate these masks. We wear these masks, and these masks are not a bad thing because they allow us to survive and thrive in society. But over time, if you accumulate too many masks, you sort of lose sight of who you really are on the inside. And eventually, those masks will come off. And for me, it kind of happened all at once. And I made a bunch of changes in my life and am in a much, much better place now. It's these masks. That's just such a great way to describe it, pretending that this brand-new car makes you happy because it doesn't. It doesn't. It might make you happy for about 10 minutes when you drive it over. There's always someone with a bigger car, isn't there? Maybe that's euphemistically speaking as well. So, I asked Kevin what his biggest high has been as a business leader and the point at which he really knew that he'd made it. So, he went on to explain that money and financial gains are fleeting, but it's the relationships and experiences that really matter. Because the obvious answer would be, look at this big financial win that I have, or the company went public, or Look at these sales numbers or revenue growth. But if you believe, as I do, that really all that matters in life are the relationships and experiences that you collect along the way, then the things I think about as the high points are just rad experiences, just really amazing experiences. I think you alluded to one earlier. Where, you know, I got to participate in a multi-billion-dollar deal with the SoftBank, legendary SoftBank Vision Fund, and Masa Son, the legendary chairman of SoftBank. And it was a very baller experience. That was like, it was like playing business chess at the absolute highest level. That experience was sort of a bucket list, once in a lifetime experience. And I've had a few of those over time. And actually, the irony is that deal didn't work out. We ended up doing a different deal. So there's no financial win to even point to out of that deal. It was just an amazing, amazing experience. And so, you know, I've collected— because, you know, I guess if I have any claim to fame, it's that, you know, I've— my career's now been going on for 30-plus years, and I think I've run harder than most for longer than most. So I've collected just a ridiculous number of experiences. And so inevitably, if you just do that many things, you're going to have some cool things happen to you. And more importantly, you'll meet some great people along the way. And that's really where, where the real value is. Um, one of my friends, uh, he's a real estate private equity guy named Richard Fertig. Um, he has this saying that basically, like, the ultimate litmus test in life is just Do cool shit with cool people, period. And that really does say it all, right? Because it provides a framework for deciding what you do and don't do, but also it's just a great way to live. Because if you're doing things that you're excited about with people that you like being around, there's no losing. The company might go out of business, but you haven't lost anything because you were still doing cool shit with cool people. So, so anyway, that's a, that's a kind of a mantra that I like to live my life by.
Leanne ElliottDoing cool shit with cool people.
Al ElliottLove it.
Leanne ElliottDo you know what? Since we've started this podcast, I, I, there are times where, because it takes up quite a big part of our working week now, and because of that, we have had to scale down some of the, the consultancy work that we've done. And that's now that, you know, we're finding our feet with it, we're starting to scale that back up again. And there are times that I miss it. You know, I'm a psychologist, I want to be working with organizations driving this type of change. But then on the other hand, I'm like, wait a minute, I've just spent the last 6, 8 months doing cool shit with really cool people. Nothing's wasted. It's all just— that's the— isn't that just the— if you can wake up every day and just do cool shit with cool people.
Al ElliottI love it. I love it. And are you saying I'm cool? Is that what you're saying? You met more of our guests, didn't you?
Leanne ElliottSo we've also, you know, we've talked about—
Al ElliottVery good.
Leanne ElliottOf course you're cool. Of course you are. But no, I mean, in terms of what Kevin's saying there as well with relationships, we've talked about the Harvard Study of Happiness before on the podcast. To remind you, the early 1980s, researchers at Harvard started a longitudinal study— that's a multi-year study— to find out what makes us happy in life. And after 85 years of following its participants and their families, they conclude it's not career achievement, it's not money, it's not exercise or healthy diet. The most consistent finding was that positive relationships keep us happier Healthier, and help us live longer.
Al ElliottSo, number 5, Kevin's 5th lesson is culture trumps strategy every time. When I asked Kevin about this, he drew on his own experience from case studies from other industries, and he explained that if you look at the greatest companies in the world through the ups and downs of the market and product cycles, it is the culture that sustains them. Yeah, I've got a pretty unique perspective and maybe a little bit of authority on this issue simply because of the variety of my experience. I think I'm the only living chief marketing officer who has done a rebrand at 3 public companies. So I've come into existing companies with hundreds or thousands of employees and done a rebrand where we had to kind of turn the culture around. And I've also been a founder of several startups where it's a little bit easier in that case because you get to start with a blank canvas, right? And you can decide, What you value. You can decide who you hire and handpick every single person and so on. And so I've had a unique purview to like, how do you— what are the kind of ingredients for good culture, bad culture, and how do you shift culture? And, you know, it's— there's a saying that, you know, culture trumps strategy every time. And it really is true. Like, if you look at the greatest companies in the world, Through the ups and downs of the market, through different product cycles, it's the culture that sustains them. So it's really important. And, you know, I come to believe over time that it's something that most companies dramatically underinvest in, is really like at a basic level, like understanding like, who are we really? I think a lot of companies can state who they'd like to be, but like, it's really important to take a hard look in the mirror and say like, Who are— like, what do we really value? Who are we? And then how do we leverage those strengths, right? And, you know, I believe like culture happens from both the top down and the bottom up because at the top level, it's got to be— if your culture and your values aren't a reflection of your leadership and who they really are, then it's not going to— it just doesn't work because they're not going to live those values and that culture. But at the same time, you can't just drive culture completely top down through the organization. So obviously, Kevin's a big fan of culture. also pointed out that a consumer brand must align with the employer brand, because they're basically two sides of the same culture coin. What's sad is when you see companies that have great culture, and then it gets diluted over time, because a lot of times what happens is, you'll have founders who come in who are, who build a great culture. And sometimes it's so great that the company can become worth billions or hundreds of billions of dollars, Before it, you know, on the back of that culture. But then inevitably, it starts, you know, the founders leave, it's death through 1,000 cuts. And so I think the example I like to talk about a lot these days is one where they had done— they had basically a company who had done the impossible, and then they eroded an incredible brand, incredible culture over time. And the example I'm talking about is Southwest Airlines.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottSo, Southwest Airlines came into a commodity business, a very difficult commodity business, which is short-haul air travel. And their founder, Herb Kelleher, did the impossible, which is he built a brand that people loved in a crappy industry, basically, where it's really hard to differentiate. And he did a lot of things to differentiate, but a lot of it was just service. It was the culture. It was the attitude. of the employees and the fact that they were, they were like, they really cared about getting the planes out on time and delivering service with a smile and so on. And that, that resulted in Southwest outperforming its peers for decades. But then what happened is Southwest, you know, Herb Kelleher left and even his successors left. And then of course, you know, the bean counters, the accountants started taking over a little bit. They started merging with other companies. And you saw there was— during Christmas, there was a huge fiasco. I don't know if you followed it here in the States, where Southwest's entire system basically broke down because they hadn't been investing in it in years. They'd been trying to focus on cost control above all else. And what happened is they had reached a breaking point where they had done so much to erode the brand that And it eventually just cratered. And it's one of those things like, you know, for a strong brand, the degradation of it happens slowly at first, but then all at once. At some point, the dam breaks. And so, you know, it kind of cuts both ways. If you're not continually investing in culture, then eventually you pay a price for it. Culture can sustain a company for a long time. You know, if you look at the other great examples, it's some of the obvious ones, right? So like you think about Google, or Apple, you know, their culture of innovation or focus on speed and simplicity and things like that, design, those are things that endure across products, right? So like the great example, of course, with Apple being, you know, Steve Jobs is long gone, rest in peace. But, you know, you still know what to expect when Apple launches a product, right? And I'm an unabashed Apple fanboy myself. So like if Apple launches the next product, I have a heavy bias to just buy it because I know the way they approach product design. And it resonates with me. And so that's, that's incredible power, right? When you've, when you've got that kind of loyalty to a brand, which ultimately is a culture, and such that people are predisposed to follow you whatever you do.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast—that's us, by the way—and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral. And we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode. And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Seamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottI cheated on Al a couple of weeks ago and was on another podcast called The Map Room.
Al ElliottHmm, I want to talk to you about that.
Leanne ElliottYeah, but we talked quite a lot about this actually, the, the mismatch between employer brand and customer brand and how that incongruence can really drive us nuts. And I talk about— we talk about incongruence a lot. So I mean, in terms of psychology, incongruence is a theory and it goes back to the time of Carl Rogers and He observed that when there is a discrepancy between our perceived self and our ideal self, we experience unpleasant feelings. So now, in organizational psychology, it's been extended to describe a situation where organizations and employees have different perceptions and expectations, or a break in the psychological contract. So when a psychological contract is broken, commitment, performance, productivity all drop. So does morale. And if the incongruence is experienced repeatedly or consistently over time, employees will start to vocalize this violation in a psychological contract, often in some sort of protest. You may have seen the protest by Amazon workers recently in terms of the, uh, call back to the office, the open letter that we mentioned a few episodes ago from employees at Starbucks. You know, this is the type of backlash we can see as leaders if we break the psychological contract. And, you know, in that scenario, insisting to your customers that your brand puts people first will be laughable. Really, and I think that's what Kevin's saying there. You know, culture can erode over time, and if it does so to a point where it's not stopped and rescued, it not only has a massive impact on our employees, but a massive impact on the commercial success of our business too.
Al Elliott100%. Cannot add anything to that because you've just, you've nailed it. Absolutely nailed it. Okay, so we're on to lesson number 6: you don't learn anything when things are going well.
Leanne ElliottLove this.
Al ElliottYou are defined by how you conduct yourself and how you respond when things are going poorly. So, you know, I've definitely had situ— I've had companies fail, right? So, you know, by any objective measure, that would be a really dark moment. But, um, I, even in those situations, I've always tended to take a bit of a portfolio view with my— of my career. It's like, look, the harsh fact is that If you do startups for a long time and you do enough of them, a bunch of them are going to fail, right? Statistically speaking, you're going to fail. But now, if you stay at it long enough and you get smarter and you choose your opportunities wisely, hopefully you'll have at least one success that more than makes up for all the failures. And so, I can think of some dark moments, like when, you know, When you have a company and you've hired dozens of employees and you raised a bunch of money from investors and it's clear that it's not going to work, it's really painful to watch that company die. It's your baby. You've put your blood, sweat, and tears into it. You know, people and their families are counting on that company for their paycheck. That's a really, really painful moment. But also, you have to kind of rise above and say, okay, what am I going to learn from this experience? Right? And will I be better the next time? And so, you know, I don't know. There's a saying, I think it's the author Ryan Holiday, that says, the obstacle is the way. And, you know, like, that one thing I've learned over my career, and my rock climbing has been a huge teacher in this regard, is that the struggle is the reward, right? So, to use a climbing analogy, when you get to the top of a mountain, the summit, there's nothing there. Quite literally, there's nothing there. You just look around, there's nothing. So, you need to learn to enjoy the climb and struggle along the way because that's where all the good stuff happens. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love this. And I've never really thought about this before, but I mean, in terms of rock climbing, I get vertigo standing up, to be honest, not comfortable being this tall. But I can see what he's saying is that rock climbing is a perfect analogy because it is about getting— it's not about getting to the top, it's about the journey to the top. Remember when I was building my first beer business, Gimme Some Beer, and I thought it was— I thought it was gonna be brilliant. I thought I was gonna be a millionaire and franchise it. And then it all started to go tits up. It all started to go wrong. And I learned so much in the, like, the probably 22 months from when it was at its peak to when I went bankrupt and had 2 houses repossessed. I learned so much from that. And at that point, perhaps if it happened to me now, I think I might have given up. But because then I was maybe 30, I was like, no, I've still got time. I can rebuild. And I built another business, a property business around people who are getting repossessed or in debt or going bankrupt. I would never have started that business if I hadn't have experienced all of the downside and adversity— adversity, is that the right word?— that I had in my beer business.
Leanne ElliottYeah, we definitely learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. And in the organizational psychology world, what Kevin is talking about here is is a learning culture. So a learning culture is an environment that demonstrates and really encourages both individual and organisational learning. The idea is that gaining and sharing knowledge is prioritised, it is valued, it is rewarded, and that does mean allowing people to make mistakes. The research is pretty compelling when it comes to learning cultures. Learning cultures typically enjoy higher levels of employee engagement and retention, more creativity and innovation. They're far more resilient to change. Businesses with a learning culture also tend to have happier customers. Customers are more satisfied, they are more loyal, and they are strong advocates of the brand.
Al ElliottBig shout out to anyone who's building in public, #BuildInPublic on Twitter. And I think that's a very much— they're showing from the top, from the top down, even if they're like solo developers, but a lot of them are bigger companies, and they will sort of publish on Twitter or on LinkedIn and say, this is what we did this week, this is what went right, this is what That's easy for me to say. And so the whole point of that, I think, is that it's learning. It's showing that the top— the people from the top don't say they know everything. And so they're telling everyone else it's okay to learn on the job. It's okay to jump off the cliff and build the wings on the way down. Although I'm sure Kevin's probably got a much more effective way of getting down from the cliff top. Talking of Kevin, that it might be the 8th wonder of the world— not Kevin, compounding— but it's our 7th lesson today. Kevin's lesson 7th lesson for leadership is compounding is the key to everything. I don't think I even need to say anything. I think I'll leave it up to Kevin. Compounding is really the key to everything. I don't care if it's like pursuing a sport, a hobby, a career, a relationship, anything, everything compounds. And all compounding means is little incremental baby steps over a prolonged period of time Don't provide linear return, they provide exponential return, right? So it adds up. Same thing in, you know, the term comes from finance, right? And it's hard to grasp the power of compounding until you see it. And so just the power of consistent, deliberate effort applied over time is unbeatable. Now, the catch is, and I'm glad you mentioned this, is you have to be careful about what you're compounding, right? And this is, so, What I always preach to young people is the most important thing to do when you're young, or really at any age, but ideally when you're young, so let's say you're in your 20s or early 30s, you need to take the time to clearly define what the desired end state is for your life. I'm not just talking about your career. I'm saying literally get out a piece of paper and a pencil and bullet point out what your life looks like in the ideal case. And of course, this will change over time, but at any given moment in time, like, Like, what do your relationships look like? How are you spending your time? What are you doing for work? What does your financial situation look like? What are you doing with your free time? What about your children and your friends? And like, as much detail as you can. And I've done this, and it was like a bulleted list of, you know, maybe 30 items, right? The reason that's important is because now you can work backward and you can start being deliberate today, even if some of the things on your list will take decades to achieve. You can start today being at least deliberate, and it provides a framework to say yes or say no. So, at least you're kind of roughly headed in the right direction. Because as you mentioned, there is something that I call the opportunity trap, where if you're someone like me and you don't take the time to define that end state, that desired end state, and you just listen to what society tells you, well, what society told me is, you got to make a lot of money. You got to move your way up the corporate ladder. And so, I did that. And I compounded on that for 20 years, made it to the top, only to realize that that wasn't actually what I wanted. So, I'd spent all this time. Now, there are benefits, right? Like, I'd made a bunch of money and that sort of thing, which is great. It allowed me to pivot. I think I've talked to over 100 people who generally range between upper 20s to low 40s in age, and they all have different situations. But my advice to them is almost always the same. Like, whatever your problems are today, Take a step back, define that desired end state, and then the path will become clear.
Leanne ElliottWhat a call to action. You need to take the time to clearly define what the desired end state is for your life. Goodness, that can feel overwhelming. There is an awesome coaching exercise that I use a lot called VITALS. It was introduced to me by Dr. Audrey Tang, and it's rooted positive psychology. So as we've discussed already, understanding and living by our values really is a core part of maintaining our well-being and building our resilience. In circumstances where environments are misaligned with our values, we often experience these, these reactions, this emotional and psychological discomfort. And over a period of time, it is actually called moral burnout that we can experience. And that translates into a lack of meaning with our work, with our lives. is not a good place to be. The VITALS model is actually really good at helping us recognize exactly what Kevin was talking about there— what is important to us in our life. It helps us to choose opportunities and actions that are authentic to us, including new jobs, hobbies, and relationships. So the VITALS model includes values, interests, temperament, around-the-clock life mission, and strengths. I will leave a link in the show notes if you want to give it a go. And as Kevin explains, it might also help you build a multi-dimensional life.
Al ElliottThere's one more important aspect I want to mention too, which is building a multidimensional life, right? So, a lot of men in particular, a lot of our identity is our career. And the problem with that is, you know, we have this notion that we're going to focus on our career and then at some point we'll build a better life. And the problem is that that someday rarely comes. And what happens then is your entire identity is based on your work. So, if you have a company that goes bankrupt, You're devastated. Well, if you build a multidimensional life, which means like, yeah, work's important, but it's only one facet of who I am, then when one thing's going good or bad, it balances out with the others. And the thing that you have to remember is everything takes time and compounding. And so, the idea that you're going to work for 20 years and then start to get healthy or then start a family or whatever, it doesn't work that way. Everything takes time to compound. So, you have to start today, whether it's like fitness, relationships, a hobby, whatever. Those things all need to compound in parallel and you need to be multidimensional. Bravo. Well done, Kevin. Absolutely. When you identify or when you pin everything on one thing and the idea that if this business is going to define your identity, it has to work because if it fails, your identity has failed and you are a failure. So you cannot— and this is where we go down the whole idea of men's mental health, which is different from what I learned from Leanne and some of our guests, was very different to women's mental health— is that men's mental health tends to concentrate around shame and the shame of saying, I'm going to go and do something. Because you read these books going, do these affirmations, write these goals out, tell everyone what you're going to do, and then you can't back down. And then when it all goes to shit, you have to back down and you have to make up some kind of rubbish like, oh well, I didn't really want that car in the first place anyway. I'm gonna go and buy myself a nice green Mitsubishi or something. Or you have to say, oh, it wasn't down to me, it was external forces, in which case you're not taking— you're not taking ownership of the entire situation. So I feel like I'm actually taking away from what Kevin said there, because what he said was absolutely perfect. And I think everyone should hear that.
Leanne ElliottI don't think you have taken away from it. I think you've added to it very beautifully. And I think that is maybe the struggle that we're seeing with the younger generations coming through at the minute, they're trying to do this from day one of their career, whereas as Kevin said himself, this was something he had to do retrospectively. So I don't think we can really hate on the younger generations for wanting to get this right from the beginning. And I think as well, just the authenticity through Kevin just really shines. Think back to his intro there, and this is how he describes himself and how we introduced him. He's the CEO of Disruptive Fintech. He's been a chief marketing officer. He's He's a rock climber. He's a fitness enthusiast. He is the nicest guy on Twitter. He is multidimensional.
Al ElliottI love it. I love it. So shall we recap on King Kevin's 7 lessons for leadership? Do you want to take them one by one?
Leanne ElliottYes. So lesson number 1, values are for life, not for walls.
Al ElliottLesson number 2, the way you do anything is the way you do everything.
Leanne ElliottLesson number 3, never bargain shop for talent.
Al ElliottLesson number 4, don't chase a misguided definition of success.
Leanne ElliottNumber 5, culture trumps strategy every time.
Al ElliottNumber 6, you don't learn anything when things are going well.
Leanne ElliottAnd number 7, compounding is key.
Al ElliottSo to conclude, I wanted to get some final words of wisdom from Kevin. I said, how is it you're doing something brand new every single day and not losing motivation? How is it you're coming up against these challenges and it's not always working out? I take nothing for granted. I never feel like I'm there. I always feel like the best is yet to come and that, you know, more of my life is ahead of me than behind me, even though at some point it's hard to make that argument logically. And, you know, I know that my father was that way. So maybe he demonstrated, you know, I didn't have a great relationship with my father, but that's one thing he did pass on to me is this notion that like the best is yet to come, always looking forward, don't look backward. But, but even if you didn't inherit that mindset, I just think it's a, it's a choice. Like, it's a, it's a, it's the best way to choose to live because ultimately we can't change the past anyway. And, you know, the, I, um, you know, you have to ask yourself, like, what is fulfillment? Like, what is the end goal? I determined, like, at a relatively late stage in life was as good as it gets is being able to choose your challenges, right? So, you know, I've earned the right to have Control over my time, control over the challenges I undertake. There's no happiness in, like, the proverbial, like, retiring and playing cards or playing golf all day. That's a path to misery. As good as it gets is just being able to construct your life the way you want. And I've been able to do that. And I still truly believe that, you know, the things I'm working on now are bigger and better than ever. And so, you know, continue to just look forward. And I just say, even if you're younger, that's why it's so important to take the time to define that end state that I talked about, is because, you know, that's the thing that you're building toward, and that will evolve over time. But it's a never-ending process. Like, I published my list of end state the other day, and yeah, the good news is at 52, I've probably already achieved 3 quarters of them, but there's still 5 or 6 on that list that I want to chase. And so that, that's all there is at the end of the day. The best is yet to come. What fantastic advice from Kevin Senior there.
Leanne ElliottYeah, and I think that's all you can do, you know, as a leader. Just keep on moving forward, keep striving to be better, keep listening to yourself, investing in yourself. And we hope that these 7 lessons of leadership will help you add to your leadership development plan and future coaching conversations. If you've loved listening to Kevin as much as we have and want to hear more inspirational stories, there is some excellent news. Kevin also has a podcast. It's called Compounding with Kevin Dahlstrom and features the most interesting people you've never heard of, people who don't typically do podcasts because they're too busy living an incredible life. Let's hear more about Kevin's podcast.
Al ElliottThe idea behind my podcast Is, you know, I bring on people who I believe are the best in their fields. And some of these people are really well known, some of them are not so well known, but I take very much of a quality over quantity approach. So, I've been doing this podcast now over a year, and we've only published 7 episodes. Carissa Moore, the women's surfing gold medalist, was the latest and maybe my favorite guest. But when I talk to Carissa, or when I talk to someone who's built a billion-dollar private equity fund, Or when I talk to Alex Bogusky, who's a legend in the advertising industry, we don't talk about business at all, right? All I'm interested in is what lessons have you learned over time and what things have you learned that the rest of us can apply in our daily lives to perform better at whatever it is we want to do, to build a great life, to perform better. And Carissa Moore was a great example because she's undoubtedly the best in her sport, if not one of the best of all time. across any sport. Her achievements speak for themselves. But what stands out about her to me is that she's done something that very few CEOs, very few celebrities, very few athletes have done, which is she's become the best while building a great life, right? A great life full of family and aloha. She's from Hawaii, so full of aloha and incredible experiences. And the best example of that is the thing that stood out to me from our interview was she was at a— in 2018, she was struggling. She was not winning tournaments. She wasn't even finding fulfillment in the sport anymore. And she went to her dad, who was her coach, and she said, I don't know what to do. Should I just quit? Am I done? Should I retire? And most coaches would say, no, we're going to rework your training program. We're going to double down on weight training. We're going to hit the water twice as much. Here's your training plan. Instead, her dad said, why don't you ground yourself in giving back and then see where that takes you? That gives me chills, too. And so, she founded her charitable foundation called Moore Aloha, which is about introducing the sport of surfing to young girls, underprivileged girls. And the rest is history. She came back, won 5 world championships and a gold medal. Big thank you to Kevin for being on the show. Big thank you to you, listener, for getting this far and listening and putting up with my horrible, whiny nasal voice.
Leanne ElliottI think it's quite sexy, actually.
Al ElliottDon't make me laugh. I just got— I launched into a coughing fit, which we've had to cut out. I don't know how much of it I can cut out. All the links will be in the show notes. We'll be back next week with a very special episode on diversity in the workplace with the incredible Sonia Thompson from Inclusion Marketing. She is our sister show on the HubSpot Podcast Network. And Leanne, you've got a special guest too.
Leanne ElliottYes, I had an awesome conversation with Catherine Garrard, former Head of Inclusion at Sky and author of the recently released book Conscious Inclusion, which I would— I was asking Catherine about this, the figures are out next month, but if it is not in the best-selling category, I will be shocked and appalled. I'll be writing very strongly, And to Jeff Bezos. And Jeff. Don't get me started. I've not got time for Jeff right now.
Al ElliottSort your life out, Jeff. Right, we'll see you next week.
Leanne ElliottBye.
Al ElliottBye-bye.
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