Business Preparation: Why the Warrior Sleeps With a Sword

Hello, Nigel. TK. How are you, mate? Pretty good. You're up and about today.

It's good. Had to happen one of these days.

No. It's it's good. Can't have water before you get on the podcast.

Have a natural conversation he said act like it's just normal.

It's nothing's normal at all contrived. So I was thinking and well, was not thinking, was contemplating something over the weekend which was that sparked some interesting thought. And there's been a lot of people, particularly through socials and and and whatnot, and obviously, in in the business that we're in, we see a lot of the stresses that are people going through through periods of great change.

We have two visual clues here, your lack of it and my premature gray.

Well, I used to have a beautiful head of hair, but thinking about these these major transitions, so we're talking about technology transition at the moment. There's obviously a lot happening in world events. There's particularly in Australia here, there's a a complete change in in credit and funding, there's there's economic pressures occurring all the time, and they're they're real real challenges. I was talking to a few business owners about this whole concept of, well, it's just another thing, here we go again, whatever it is, and and like that. And there's a there's a saying that I really like and I dive into it a little bit today because I think it's it's got some relevancy around during periods of extreme unease, unknowing, and change, the approach to it.

And the question that inevitably comes is, well, am I doing the right thing not only in just running a business, but daily? What activities should I be doing? Should I be this? And I think this is something that, if not haunts most business owners constantly, is am I focused on the right thing right now?

Yeah.

And so there's this there's this great saying that a warrior who goes to bed with their sword looks silly every night but one. And I think it's a yes. I think it's a great saying, and it's the the interpretation is obviously for for the person listening to it, but I take that from the conversations we have with people building businesses is the things that I'm doing that no one sees, are they actually ever gonna pay off? Yep. And I think it's that whole idea of, you know, going to sleep with your sword every night that it only pays off one night.

And we've seen this for years that of people who've done so much of the work that felt like at the time, essentially

a waste of time. They didn't see an immediate payoff to it. It's laying groundwork that doesn't have an an outcome straight away.

Yeah. It's it's do I really have to do this? Do I really need to look at my numbers every week or every month? Do I really need to have the the conversation with a staff member every week? Can't they just do their job?

Or do I really need to look at this new marketing campaign? What we've got is working or or, you know, all these other things. This whole idea that when things are in when things are in in good times, that you just basically keep doing them. And there and there's some, I guess, sense to that, obviously. We we're of the philosophy that when you find something that works, you should double down and go at speed as fast as you can.

Yep. But there's there's this idea that you have to start always thinking about when this isn't here, what do I do? And so I just wanted to talk a little bit about that because I I think for people, this idea of what's beneficial when it shows no immediate outcome. And we hear, you know, you see here people on the Oscars or you hear people in these getting awards going, you're an overnight success. What's the yeah.

And we could write the script. It's not an overnight success. I've been doing this for twenty years straight. This is the first time someone's given me a shiny object for it. And so I just I think particularly, you know, you've been you've been beating on the craft for a little a bit of time, particularly through the growth of our companies and doing that.

And there's there's times where you, you know, you might have a 100 meetings and not one of them leads to anything of of of substance or interest. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about the psychology for you of doing some of the things that you know are important but keeping the enthusiasm to continue to do them without any evidence of outcome?

It's I generally learn through pain, so I need to get a hit to learn the lesson. Like, I can be told it over and over again.

That's a trauma. Yeah. That's k. That's we might just cut. Yeah.

That's couches. It's a couch, mate. Do you? You're not paying for that session.

No. There there's some people that can intellectually understand a lesson and go, okay. Cool. And apply it. I'll get it, but it will slip off until I go the outcome didn't like, I didn't get what I wanted from it.

It didn't produce the result I want. I go, oh, okay. That's what it means. So I need to feel it from that kind of point of view. You're with a lot of the stuff that we've been doing across multiple businesses in in as we've been working, I've traditionally jumped into stuff that hasn't been my initial skill set because I've gap filled as we've kind of grown things.

From

that Which is a very difficult situation for those listening because you're probably reflecting a lot of the owners out there also. They they feel like that as well, which I think why it's so relevant is you're essentially living the owner's journey, which is, well, I need to learn this now because that's what the business needs, and we're not ready to either employ a specialist to this or or get some expertise in this space. Yeah. You know, especially if you're an unfunded company yourself self funding it, that's, you know, being pulled from pillar to post at times.

Yeah. You're in that situation of I have to rather than I get to. Yeah. Which and Totally. So that that I have to it places a fair amount of pressure because you know that there's somebody if you had the right right income, the right whatever, you're in the right position, you can get a specialist in, then they get 50% more result from it.

But we've always self funded. So learning through those skills, it's I've never really actually felt safe in a skill set because it's generally, I'll get something down and then you go, oh, now we need to do this, this, and this. So it's always progressing forward. And I'm lucky enough to have you and Lance around all the time. You've got better eyes at how I work than I do.

I can get pretty mission blind around things and I need someone to actually go, no. Look at the result that your old reference to chop wood carry water is I always need a reminder to actually sharpen the sword which is I guess that part of actually being prepared.

Definitely. Definitely.

Because I I will go at something with a blunt axe.

I mean, we it all the time. We see owners that this is what they think they should be doing, so they just do it blindly. So this is and I think this is the the madness that we have to sort of try and navigate is when there's no evidence of direct return, how do you know you're not complete wasting completely wasting your time? And this is you know, it's this very, very thin line between complete delusion about what you're doing, it's never gonna work versus I need to spend time here. It just needs time to marinate.

And I suppose this is the whole the challenge that maybe experience helps.

Yeah. I guess Yeah. If if I can talk about it from because I've spent the last eight years or so heavily involved in networking. It's how we've grown the business. A lot of the work in that and a lot of the things you do, like, from an outside you go, what the hell are you doing?

Like, there's all these coffee meetings, there's these social events, there's going to the meetings themselves. The groundwork on that can take years Yeah. To actually marinate and to for the opportunity to come up because there's no from a networking perspective, the the golden rule is you don't sell in a room, you sell through a room. Yeah. But that takes like, to actually get your visibility up, to get your credibility up can take depending on how good you are, a week, a year, ten years to do.

But even if you've got the right things in place with somebody, the opportunity needs to pop up from the other side.

It's it's interesting you say that because I you know, as is with most of our things, I and it's probably the roles we need to play in the company. I have almost the complete opposite view. Yeah. And so if you're talking about it from a from a founder point of view, networking is important. So the net type of networking, you know, that I albeit it's not my greatest sorry.

It's not I I enjoy it. It's it's the type of networking. So I think networking for sales is is one thing, but particularly with owners, when you're in an industry or you're moving out, you wanna be around others that are doing things in an industry. Where where I see it of key networks, like, as you said, that build up and they look like complete waste of time, but then provide you that one opportunity of a lifetime somewhere

Yeah.

I think is something you have to have in place. But also the balance of it is, well, how much time is the ROI for a life changing opportunity? Yeah. Because I would almost argue that with a vision of, hey, three, five, ten years of of working through something, while important, you may have had three businesses in that time because it's too slow. Yeah.

And it's depending on, well, what what are we trying to get out of that network, or what are we trying to do? So for me, organically, I think for smaller businesses, 100%. Right? A lot of people have local networks. They do things.

Network is not in the form of formalization. It's in the form of I go to a local sports club, we catch up, there's a parent

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Group, whatever it is. What we're talking about sort of now is, well, how do you know when you've over indexed in in something versus the payoff? So if you don't get the opportunity, is that the last five, six, seven years been a complete waste of time? Well, I'd say do you know?

Yeah. Well, then as as looking at ROI against those activities as well because if you're networking for and I and I'll look at it purely through that BD or BDM kind of lens. It's, hey, we're looking for clients. We're looking for referral partners, and then we've got our whale sitting up here where as we progress, there may be an opportunity to come there as long as you're getting a return from those things in a transactional sense. Because I would say that our business has been built through networking because that was the skill set that I brought to it originally.

So you kind of look at one, who are the clients that you brought in? Are they highly referring clients? Have they brought in more clients from that point of view? Because we look at different angles from it. But as long as it's no return, like, I I don't know if I could have sat there for five years, ten years getting no single return on the hope of one

Well, I don't think I don't think small business can afford Like, I actually don't think it's you couldn't you couldn't you couldn't invest in it. Not as an independent. You you can't justify to me, this is where BDMs get sacked. Yep. Like, if you sit there and go, my job is to be in network and go, well, what have you produced?

To go, oh, it's a long term goal. It's been a lot of bad BDMs that have sat in that space of these things take time to pay off. Yeah. And it's very interesting because it needs to align to, well, what's immediate. As I look at those long term things and, you know, obviously for the stuff we do, we have strategic reasons around everything where to sort of infiltrate different networks, where to be thought leaderships, like it's starting to do that.

But also, you know, those days are changing dramatically because the reach is not reliant on that anymore. No. And it's in fact, it's it's pretty difficult to justify what we used to be able to have is, you know, and what traditional businesses had was, you know, people invested full time on that, which is I I to me is is a very I think I think it doesn't make sense from a a value proposition for an a business case at the moment for a business. It's a very interesting time unless there's one to significance.

Yeah.

So moving in small business, obviously, you know, small businesses are doing that where you have channel partner meetings and networks and things like that, I think it's completely different. But it's still, you know, as you said, ROI is is the first indicator. I think the challenge is then, well, how much should you invest in something that doesn't yield immediate results? So what do you do there? To me, this is a very, very interesting question across everything.

Where is those stop losses in? How much are we gonna put in energy, resources, capital, whatever it is versus the actual expected return. And to me, this is where most businesses lose years, years and years doing something that should work, but actually, it will never work for you. And that's the difference.

Do you think that that's because a lot of the businesses that we work with or have worked with are technician led businesses. They don't really have they're the owner, the CEO. They're the person that answers to themselves. So they don't have to answer to somebody else. Like, anytime I've gone out or anything we've done, I've always had to answer to the other people in the business, you, Lance, and you'll be able to go, no.

No. No. That's actually you're looking at it from a different angle. That's not worth our time at the moment. But a lot of people having those conversations with themselves and themselves alone, and you can always justify your actions, particularly if using networking is as the example.

You can always justify your actions. No. I think that's I think you've hit on exactly the problem. Yeah. I think I think people can be deluded in justifying their actions, but the reality of it is most people don't have anything better to do with their time.

I would think No. No. In the

because they would do it. If actually think about this fundamentally, sorry to cut you off. Yeah. Think about this. If you know you have something better to do with your time, you would do it.

If not, what is that actually saying?

No. I get that. But I think for small business, and I'm talking small business solely here, the networking function not only serves the BD kind of all business growth function, it also serves a community function for them as well.

Yeah. But that's why 90% go they fail. This is the whole idea is, you know, everyone in the same asylum. This is the whole point. This is this is why people are listening and going, why is it so difficult?

Because everyone you're hanging around with is going through the same problem they can't solve. Mhmm. This is exactly the delusion that grips small business. So where are the great business builders? Are they around your networks?

So you look around and go, who's the most successful business builder here, and how do they afford to still be in this network Yeah. From a time point of view? And what you'll find is most of the people that you're aspiring to be or even in that question, who are you aspiring to be and the people you hang out with? If there isn't one or you think you're the one who's the smartest there, you're the most deluded. And this is the the whole I think the thing we have to start thinking about is what gets done in private is important unless what's getting done in private is a complete waste of time.

And this is this is the challenge that we all have as owners is not just even, you know, if you've got someone doing it on behalf of your business because where are those where is that better utilized? Where is that resource? Where is that capital? Where is that time better spent? You know, we we ordered a lot of businesses through, you know, a number of our companies in different ways.

The amount of wastage of things that people have no trackable outcome for, and they go, that's just business? It's actually not. It's it's it's bad management and bad leadership. And these are the things we have to start thinking about because even the idea of, you know, as I said before, the the warrior that goes to bed, sword every night looks foolish but one. Well, is that actually correct?

Because that's one of those great sayings like, you know, curiosity killed the cat. Yeah. Did it? Or is it just one of those stupid sayings that caught on that everyone can remember where actually, curiosity was the birth of all innovation, and if you're not curious, you're a moron. Well, let's I mean, look

That doesn't look quite as good on a t shirt.

Yeah. Exactly. Right. Exactly. But these are these stupid things.

So I love that saying. Yep. And I love the the idea of some of the things we grind away at makes comes out just when you need it. Like, some of the the lessons, people, networks, you know, the it it all sort of compounds at some stage, which is this sort of the beauty in all of these things you you go into, but actually working out where you should be indexing at what stage in your business is the key to this whole game. Like, I you know, we obviously, we talk about networks a lot, but what are the other diluted things that you are doing in your business that you still justify based on because everyone else is doing it?

Yeah.

There's the the the everyone would have a thousand of them. You could look around every single thing you go, oh, I could optimize that. I could change that. I could stop doing that, which is that old stops keep stop start exercise.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we I mean, we we, know, Lana and I, we've spoken about this before, but we used to have an activity that every week, we would come in and remove one thing that is redundant in our business, and there was no specificity around what it was. We just had to pull one thing that was redundant.

So

I'm still here, by the

way. Well Just knows what next week will be. But it started with there was a dead plant in the corner that Yep. Was just no one could revive it. Get rid of it.

Then it started with it was removed something that didn't fit the business. So then it was the way the desks were configured, then it was around so you start with these superficial things, then it started with team activities, and it started with, you know, something was happening with AV. This is years ago. Then you start looking at it because you run out of the superficial, and then you get to a point of, well, what else is not working? Well, we don't have enough leads.

Well, where's that going from? Why is that going? What are we not doing? What are the things we are doing that are actually yielding no results? It's this whole idea of being invested in reduction of things in the way of actuality.

So what are the things that are actually having in my biz that are actually occurring in my business versus what could occur if it was right, and this did this, and this and did this, which is essentially a road to delusion. Yeah. And this is I think this is part of the important conversations that we have to have is at what point do you call yourself on being deluded? So let's get into some really heavy stuff. If you've got staff, who isn't performing?

And the the more important question is, how do you know? Because most people on things that are so important like team performance, what's happening, who owns an outcome, you go there and go, great. Who owns this result? Well, I don't know. What's their job role?

Well, it's a bit of this, of that. Great. What's how do you help them? Well, I just let them do their job. And then you go, alright.

So the actual delusion is in the leadership versus what does a business that needs to start taking ownership across things? What what do you need to be providing as a as a as a leader versus what you did have to provide when it was just you? And so moving from this leadership role to an architect of scale and growth is a massive leap for a lot of people, but they never think about it in that way. They just do more of what they were doing when they were a small business, but that actually guarantees that you stay small.

Yeah. And it's a big jump from being the one that's doing everything too, and we've seen it and been it, to actually leading others or getting them to do the same things. And there is that challenge around in small business, it's very hard to get specialists.

Afford specialists.

Yeah. That's what I mean.

Getting them is quite easy.

But having being able to set someone up for success in one of those hybrid or unicorn roles. That's a really hard thing because they've they're jumping from social media on one day, client management

to the other day. Because what how do you how do you and this is the the challenge is that's still not a good hire. So generalists are not good hires. Yep.

But it's it's where a lot of people are in small business.

Yeah. But that's their delusion of I'm gonna bring in someone who could do a bit of this, bit of that, bit of that, and go, why is it not working? Because you're actively making that choice that I wanna bring in someone who doesn't know too much about everything, and I'll get them to do all of them. Yeah. Like, it's that that's an absolute delusion.

Now there's a necessity to it at times that is absolutely correct. But even as you start let's just take it away from small business. You're starting to get into established business. This still occurs. Like, we're dealing with businesses and have done for many years, you know, $102,103 $100,000,000.

CEOs aren't that much different, and they're still doing it. And what they don't realize is the way that they've been operating not only because they look at it as I'm a good CEO because I'm across everything. What they're actually doing is keeping out talent from your business because someone who's good at something doesn't need the sort of babysitting that let's say the CEO in that instance needs to give them their management style. So they don't realize that they're not even accessing the talent that's gonna take them to the next level because it's not enough it's affordability thing anymore. It becomes why would I work under someone who can't let go?

So we've, you know, sent in some really interesting interviews with, you know, senior roles, you know, at for for bigger companies, and the feedback from the person because, you know, we were just sitting there observers and and and following up and and finding out was I'm not working under a CEO that's still trying to run everything in their business because great people don't need that form of management. They need direction. They need to understand the goal, but they wanna do their job. And this is where I think the experience of small businesses, if you go right back down, you're starting to build that muscle early. So even the clarity of someone doing a couple of different roles or or needing to to help out there, say, a business under 10 people that you still got some hybrid activities occurring, you can still make the management and leadership in those roles simple.

If you can't, you're never gonna be able to run a biggest business bigger business because that's actually the simplest one. People need more direction Yeah. Because they need to know what you want. I think this is the interesting part of all of this is what do I need to be doing right now that will not yield immediate results but are essential for my next phase of of growth. And and to me, that is very difficult if you're not even open to the idea that everything needs to change right now.

So for you personally, and we're going through a massive transition period over the last sort of couple of years, what's your version of sleeping with that sort? What are you doing in the background for the day when you need it that you're not seeing the result on at the moment?

Well, it's a great it's a great question. But I think for us and, you know, the the the transition is not a nothing that we we can't talk about publicly because we've moved from a a traditional consultancy business, which was always the plan, into a a completely digital business. And so delivering what we did in a completely different form requires different skills, different people. So everyone in the business is essentially needing to be rehired in the role of where we're going, not what the past is. Now that's a very difficult people management thing because, you know, there's that's huge amount of transition.

You've got to change every aspect about the company, your messaging, what you're doing, how so I think the sleeping sort of with the sword itch is what are the things that you expect or or that need to be there when required? And that's grounding in the fundamentals of, well, what is the backbone of a good company, and how does it run? So what are we doing that's still in those those fundamental things? And I think the hard bit is is obviously the people challenge is the hardest because you people are changing the roles they need to play to adapt to a to a new Yeah. Industry and world.

But equally, the whole world's changing that way. So, you know, two years ago, not everyone was using AI. Now it's absolutely essential. So you're actually walking in, the more the shock is, are we training people up to have time to learn how to use it? Because we've still got and we've seen it.

People are using AI in the most inefficient way, and then you ask yourself, well, how have we trained them? You're like, we haven't. Or and or we haven't trained in this or or it's evolved since six months ago, blah blah blah. So these are the the important fundamentals of what are the things that we're doing that even if they don't pay off are the right things to do because it's a protection mechanism of how we how we're putting the fundamental business systems behind where we're seeing other companies that are, you know, we use AI as another example. They're so excited about AI, and they're just doing such dumb things on it from security, from reach out, from allowing computers to run, and they're getting, you know, Facebook ads of people going, you can have 10,000 new employees tomorrow without having to do anything.

It's just there's so much distraction and and things happening that they're the the worrying things at the moment because I think people can destroy their businesses. Whereas for us, it's, I think, still grounded in the fundamentals of what does tomorrow look like and being fully committed to the things that align to the vision of tomorrow. And I think that's easier said than done. And I think for us, it's we're back to every single day walking in and going, I'm gonna remove one thing that doesn't align to tomorrow's vision of where we're taking the company. And those things are pretty difficult because we're no longer looking for dead pot plants.

We we have to make bigger, faster decisions around what conversations need to be had. Like, even the the simple stuff of who actually is our customer. Yeah. And why are they our customer? Or why do we wanna keep serving them?

You know, it's changed dramatically on how or what they need from us. Yeah. So there's so much of that occurring. And to me, that's in in the metaphor of the things that we're doing every day that pay off is exploring that stuff in-depth because it's not so relevant today, but it's gonna 100% be relevant in the discussions of tomorrow, and we need to be we need to be armed. And that's the difference I think we considered when we hit milestones because we've been planning and thinking about it, not just being or waiting for reaction, which is being attacked.

Where is my sword? We know exactly what we're doing right now. So to me, that's probably the grounding that most businesses, I think, should be really thinking about, and most leaders should be asking themselves that question. What is it that we should be talking about today for the transition of tomorrow? I have some genuine lawyer yesterday, and she was talking about their use of AI, for instance.

And she's like, yeah, the business has pushed a lot on us, but I'm too busy to learn. Yep. So essentially, there's a 10 x productivity thing that that company's losing, and let's let's call it they have 40 people working for them. So 10 times that output that is being wasted because people aren't adopting it, they're not looking at it, they're just sending you should do this, but it's not actually institutionalized or do that. So every day they're going backwards 10 x against anyone else who's implementing properly.

Now that's not to create anxiety, but you can't do that. And what's the reason? We're too busy. Yeah. And it's

a I had made the mistake well, not made the mistake, but I went through that process of I need to get this out. I also know know I need to automate the process, but the need to deliver trumped the automation. Yeah. So I needed the reminder from the back end of that. And you you're right.

You look around our company and we're very heavy in the AI space and whatnot. Everyone uses it completely differently. Yeah. And everyone and the little prompts or the little conversations that you can see someone take a massive leap forward in how they use it and what they can get out of it from a water cooler conversation.

Yeah. And it's like but I don't think anything's changed. So to me, the only difference right now is there's an interesting technology that fast tracks people's ability to, you know, completely self customize them itself to their their learning gaps and how to use it. But actually, best practice is still being established, and this is the interesting part of that. But, you you know, where is the responsibility of the team to self learn?

So for me, it actually you start identifying people who or where they're at in their career around self learning. So why does someone need to be prompted to learn? Like that's in my question. If you're a top performer in a position, you gotta be asking yourself why aren't I why aren't I investing in learning everything that's gonna make my role better and my skill set better? Not just for the company you're working for, but literally your own personal development.

And you still see people with fundamental human conditions still just lazy. And not laziness if they don't wanna get better is I'm too busy to put something else on my plate. So even with the greatest solution that mankind's ever known, people still like, I don't really have the time. Like, it's but they don't. Like like it's the ridiculousness of the thought process.

Or maybe they don't know where to focus the questions too. Like they train themselves up on a skill set that's not the most ideal.

Yeah. But it's a delusion because you can literally talk to the thing about that. So it's literally not choosing to have conversations with things that could help you. So here's the oracle of all thinking. You can ask anything you want and get help anything you want.

The only thing you have to do is ask. I don't have time to learn that. Like, it doesn't make sense. It's a complete it's a delusion, but this is what we this is what we're saying. It's this there's this speed of companies adapting because of a, how they're either enforcing or putting in or training because that's then let's just provide the support and not leave it on.

There's other there's other companies we've seen that go the others other way. If you don't upskill yourself, you're gonna be redundant. And guess what? That's your job as a professional. Yeah.

It's a it's a very interesting time. And to me, this is that nervousness around, well, what where is where is it all heading? Because probably most companies are heading towards the other thing of not being great great trainers or as I was talking about the law firm, it's you would think knowing that they could the difference it could make for their people, their quality, their everything that you wouldn't you have that as your number one priority for the quarter. But like all companies, it's only a few actually do it at the end of the day. You have people in it doing great stuff, but imagine the organizational power of of institutionalizing it properly.

Then it comes to that conversation. Well, who's responsible? And if the CEO is not responsible for that program being fast tracked and implemented and doing that, well, if not now, when or why? What are you is there anything you could be doing with your time that is more important than that?

Yeah. And it's moving at such a rate that it it has to be done now, otherwise, you fall so far behind.

Well, yeah, exactly. But as I I look at it slightly differently. You you won't fall far behind, but you've got an opportunity to fast track what you're doing because, well, you know, some people are still getting digital footprints, and it's been 20. It's and that's not a a laughing thing. It's actually Yeah.

It's just people's adaption. The difference here is I think the barrier of learning's been reduced. So where else in the history of of mankind have you been able to go and go, I'm not sure what to do. This is what I'm thinking. Can you help me do it step by step?

Well, that's and that's the point. So we're there's no excuse anywhere. There's no excuse around protocols. There's no excuse around what we can and can't do. Like, you can self learn now, and that's the power of it.

The power now falls back into individuals or or businesses to go, right. Well, we wanna be better. Help. Yeah. It's just it's a really interesting time.

Massively. And I think with the that going back to your core quote, the the warrior is thought a fool. What's the core quote? Because you you said silly at the start and I don't know if that was the actual first one.

The what?

You said he was thought silly.

Oh, no. It's a it's a warrior who sleeps his sword is a fool every night but one.

So just on that, I kinda got your understanding of it, but the there could be an interpretation of that way, which is a pressure interpretation. Because sleeping with a sword means that you've gotta keep it sharp. You're always looking for battle, a high tension kind of thing.

Well, that's your interpretation?

No. I that's an interpretation Yeah. Of

Yeah. What I'm saying?

Yeah. I'm not actually, I was just trying to look at it from a different angle in there. And I think that might be why some people, like, they don't. Like they'll step back from because the pressure of actually looking for a fight all the time.

Yeah. But that's what I'm saying the interpretation being then of looking for a fight or or I say the same thing, well, why would you ever buy insurance then? Don't know if your house will burn down, so why buy insurance? Yeah. So what's the difference?

So preparation is to me, preparation is the things that you do that are required for the worst case scenario. So what do I need to be prepped? Now some people consider not training your team as being that version of negligence, where others saying it's none of my responsibility. I'll just keep getting better people. You know, this is the philosophy and values and all that, but I think this is that old idea of, well, right now, what should I be doing?

Or what is a necessity for me to be doing? Or where am I looking for my cues to what to do? And as a you know, you give an example with the networking, most people would be happy to be standing in the asylum looking around because everything feels normal versus It's comfortable. Well, it's It's known. Well, I'd say it's familiar.

Yeah. And so the yes. So maybe comfortability is is built from familiarity. Yeah. But this whole idea of understanding effectiveness and understanding limited time, resources, and effort, how am I optimizing that as the leader of my business?

So most of us don't have any time or energy or resources to spend because they're fully optimized or or deployed, and if they don't feel like that's getting the the right result or or starting to compound to deliver the right result, then something has to change. And and that's the point of this is what are you doing that actually is changing your business in a fundamental way every single day? So what are you actually waiting for? And I think that's probably the core idea here is I can sleep peacefully knowing that I've prepared perfectly. I've got my sword next to me, so I now sleep at peace Okay.

Not necessarily expecting war. Yep. This this idea of most people aren't preparing for this era of AI, they're waiting to see what's next versus you should be learning. It's that philosophy I had. You should always upgrade your phone.

Not so much now because there's been a tapering off of technology, but there was such technology leaps for a decade there of learning it that if you missed a couple iterations, it felt like a whole new device you had to learn versus the subtlety of going, you know, upgrades, upgrades, upgrades, upgrades. Albeit, let's take the financial reasoning out of that just from a a self learning point of view. But, you know, learning prompts at the moment was the first step of AI, understanding now where there's sort of semi agentic things happening or what things feed into, how they talk. You know, stuff we were doing a year and a half ago from the understanding of how AI thought with that current technology is essentially redundant now. All that thinking, all that investment, all that, you know, work that we did, but only redundant in the output.

The the learnings from that in the application of then how to redesign the back end system, the the the interfaces, and and why they do that, how they remember, what we're seeing from a trend point of view because we can now we've been in it. You can see where it's heading, which how it's starting to win and the the type of architecture that seems to be better for these type of systems. That stuff you can't replace. Yeah. And that's the interesting, I think, part is even investing in time into these things, you start to learn it the same way you you reflect on the same with networking.

It's not just what you're immediately getting, but the actual understanding of how these little ecosystems works or learning is a compounding superpower that you can have in your company.

Yeah. I look at the way that you talk and interact about like the what we're doing in the back end now. There's no way you could have those conversations without the learnings and the preparation of all of the other things, which could have been seen as because we're not using them as irrelevant work, but that's the groundwork that you can actually now make intelligent decisions and make fast actions on.

Yeah. Well, you you also don't spend time working out if you're being tricked. Like, when people are coming and go, this can do this, and you go, well, wait a minute. We understand it from its fundamental, the idea of how it should work. It either tracks or it doesn't, or you then you can recognize brilliance early and go, oh, that's exactly a problem because people are talking.

It sounds gibberish to anyone else unless you've been in it and you understand exactly where that fits. And I assume that's you know, it's like any mastery of a of of a skill or when you start getting experience around it is you start to pick up on absolutes of what's worked, what doesn't, or how to how to do it. Like, we you know, if you're throwing a punch, you know, people throw a great jab in boxing. They they understand the funnels the fundamentals of what needs to move in the body to have impact because others see you throw a jab, but a boxer would know there's 50 different types of jab you can throw, and some jabs are only to set up the cross. So they're not jabs, they're distractions that look like a jab.

So understand the nuance of what you're doing, where others would never understand the subtlety of what's going on. And then people who've played it or mastered the go, that was so clever, and it because it's recognized by others that understand the actual game. And this is, I think, the importance of these things is where you're grinding on these things for preparation to be prepared for where you're going. That learning is so important in banking, the the quality of the type of business you have because people will be tripped up. That's these fly by nighters that get great success, but you see them, you know, we've we've known people who've made so much money quickly, and then they've been bankrupt six months later because you there's no there's no substitute for true understanding and For substance.

Learning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. From for substance, and it's it's critical. And that's, I guess, the point of you not sleeping with your sword unless you know how to use it, or there's no way it'd be so close to you. You only understand it from the point of why you would choose that.

Yeah. It's a very big topic.

Yeah. It's interesting.

I'm sure we'll come back to it again at a later episode just so I can actually get the quote right

Yeah.

Next time. But, TK, thank you buddy. I will talk to you again soon.

Great. Cheers.