Season 3: 'Mindset of the disruptive entrepreneur', Episode 6

In the final episode of this six-part series, host Darren Moffatt and his guests uncover the BIG leadership lessons of disruptive entrepreneurs, and how to apply them for success in your business.

Guest Bios:

Stephanie Thompson is business psychologist & the founder of Insight Matters https://www.linkedin.com/in/insightinitiatives/

Rachael Neumann is the founder of Flying Fix Ventures and is a board member of StartupAus https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaelneumann/

Chris Brycki is the CEO and founder of Stockspot.com https://www.linkedin.com/company/stockspot/

Morgan Coleman is the founder of Vets On Call https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgancoleman1/

What to listen out for:

3.07 An example of how good leadership, can have a PROFOUND impact on others.

10:06 Vision - From a clinical perspective

11.04 What is emotional contagion?

13.11 Visionary LEADERSHIP

17.08 What leadership qualities Rachael Nuemann looks for in start ups

25.26 Morgan Coleman on who he rates HIGHLY for leadership

33.18 How storytelling can PROJECT authenticity

39.10 Top THREE key conclusions from this episode

41.56 Our Final nerd under pressure, for Season 3

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Hi there, and welcome to the Nerds of business podcast. My name is Darren Moffatt. I'm a director at Webbuzz, the growth marketing agency. And I'm your host. It's great to have you with us for the final episode in the series mindset of the disruptive entrepreneur. So far, each episode is considered an aspect of the positive mindset. We've looked at resilience, creativity, confidence, and drive. We've also taken a dive into the negative and destructive behaviours that can sometimes overwhelm entrepreneurs. And finally, today we're looking at the concept of leadership and in particular, what it takes to be a true leader in a venture that aims to disrupt a market or challenge the established order. So, what, or perhaps who Springs to your mind when you hear the term leadership, perhaps you might conjure images of historical figures, such as Winston Churchill, or Abraham Lincoln or recent iconic entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey.

Leadership is actually a funny thing. It's both ubiquitous and elusive. Everyone at some stage has had a boss in the workplace. So, we're all familiar with the concept of being led. But true leadership, the kind that inspires and transforms is unusual. You know, it, when you see it, if only because you see it all too rarely. To help define this true leadership, I went looking for a story and as I often do, I turn to pop culture for inspiration. Dolly Parton is known all over the world as an icon of country music and a brilliant entrepreneur. She's even got her own theme park, Dolly world in Tennessee. What a lot of people don't know about Dolly is that in her day she was a massive disruptor until she came along in the 1960s, the country music industry was completely dominated by men. They wrote the music; they produced the records, and they controlled the money. Dolly changed all that. She took control of her own career and was a trailblazer for other female artists who emerged in the decades that followed such as Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Taylor Swift, and even Beyoncé. Although Dolly got rich and famous by creating an outsized personal brand, there's a lot more to her than the makeup and the big hair, she's fiercely intelligent and as you're about to hear in our opening story drawn from a little-known episode of her later life, she's also a true leader.

The year is 2016. When a series of wildfires ravaged the Smokey mountains in the state of Tennessee America. It's most famous resident Dolly Parton, monitors the fires closely from her home as they spread for several weeks unabated in the Hills nearby. Although her theme park, Dolly world, is spared, 14,000 local residents are forced to evacuate and over 2000 buildings are damaged or destroyed. Ultimately 14 lives are lost. Upon seeing the extent of the crisis and its impact on her community. Dolly takes decisive action. First, she organizes resources for the relief effort by calling upon her music and media contacts to help. Secondly, she communicates with the public, she immediately releases a series of video statements, stressing the resilience of the local people, the magnitude of the crisis and her own efforts to bring as much relief as possible to the region. In fact, her communications are notable for the consistency and frequency of key messages.

Knowing the importance of the money that tourism brings to a local economy, she encourages anyone who had planned a trip to the Smokey mountains to follow through and come despite the fire. Whenever someone in the media asks her, what's the best thing people can do to help, her response is always to visit, and her constant focus on positive messages of renewal opportunity and growth rather than pity or loss, help to build morale and a sense of hope for the future. Soon enough, Dolly Parton's efforts begin to pay off. The year following the fires, tourism in the region breaks all records, generating an estimated 1.3 billion in revenue. Up 3% from the previous year. Parton continues to help people recover from the wildfires. She stages a telethon that raises 9 million. She pledges 3 million of her own money to help victims of the crisis. And she donates an additional $5,000 to more than 900 families affected by the tragedy. It's a masterclass in crisis management, vision and communication, and the results prove beyond any doubt that good leadership can have a profound impact on the lives of others.

If like most of the public, you have a one-dimensional view of Dolly Parton as the almost cartoonish country singer, then you can be forgiven for thinking her leadership during the fires was an aberration, but you'd be wrong. She's actually got plenty of form in this area. For instance, in 1995, she helped tackle the crisis of early childhood literacy by launching the imagination library. What a wonderful name that is. This is a book giveaway program that has donated over 150 million books to school children around the world, which goes to show that good leadership in an individual tends not to be a passing fad, for those who are unfamiliar with the full Dolly Parton story, I strongly recommend you listen to a podcast called Dolly Parton's America. It's a truly astonishing piece of journalism, aside from providing a fascinating take on American culture. It will also give you an incredible insight into Dolly Parton's long and storied career. There's much to admire, but two things stand out. Firstly, she became a disruptor out of pure necessity. If she was to achieve her dreams, she needed to first smash the established norms of the country, music industry, patriarchy. And that was a very big achievement in the 1960s and 70s. And second is that although Dolly was a prolific collaborator, she was always a leader at heart. If you are running a business or planning to launch a start-up, what can you do to tap the power of true leadership and inspire your team to greatness?

I love data. You need to have systems need to have structure. You're going to get chopped to pieces. Enthusiasm is unstoppable. We kind of hit a point where we were like, we need another lever. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and richer than you.

This is nerds of business. So, the title of today's episode and the problem we're trying to solve is, how to adapt the unique leadership lessons of disruptive entrepreneurs to bring your business vision to life. It's a big show today and we've got some truly awesome guests. Up soon, you'll hear from a business psychologist on the theory of effective leadership and a seasoned investor in the start-up ecosystem who reveals what qualities that she looks for in founders and in a special treat several of our entrepreneur guests from previous episodes return to share who their favourite iconic business leaders are and why. But first here's just a quick reminder that if you're enjoying nerds of business, to please hit the subscribe button on your podcast player, it means you'll automatically receive each new episode every fortnight, and it makes it easier for us to stay in touch.

Even a cursory glance at the business section of any bookstore, will give you some idea of the interest in the topic of leadership. There have been many thousands of books written on the subject over the years. For today's episode, I wanted to take a different approach. So, I turned to our mindset expert for this series, Stephanie Thompson, Stephanie is a qualified psychologist and business coach based in Sydney, Australia with over 25 years’ experience helping executive leaders and entrepreneurs to optimize their mindset and performance. She's the founder of her practice insight matters and she's regularly in the media appearing on the ABC, channel nine, financial review and more, I began by asking her to deconstruct the components that need to come together for good leadership. She goes on to explain the concept of emotional contagion, which is as fascinating as it sounds and what entrepreneurs can do to improve their strategic thinking. A lot of the literature indicates that vision is in fact, a hallmark of a great leader. What exactly is this kind of vision thing from a clinical perspective?

I think of it as the ability to foresee or to create first in the imagination that, which you would like to make manifest in reality. Oh, nice. And importantly, to communicate that in a way that enables others to envision it.

Yes. And you know, that's a nice segue way into the next question, because to be able to communicate that vision is obviously the secret sauce, you know, like it's one thing to have a vision, but you know, to communicate and to get other people excited by it, you know, like that's where the magic happens. Right. So now apparently, uh, that is part of that is what's called emotional contagion, which is a term I learnt from you. I wasn't aware of that before. Um, can you tell us a bit, what a bit about that? What is emotional contagion?

Well, we infect each other with emotion, any emotion, so it can be fear or indignance or playfulness or happiness. And it seems to spread on its own because we're a social species and we look to each other for indicators of is everything okay or not. Yep. Um, in a team or a family actually, or in a business, it tends to be the person who has the strongest energy who leads the emotion, the emotional leader. In fact, that's an aspect of charisma, is being able to, being the emotional, uh, core. Um, and in a business, of course it's also whoever has by implication, permission of sorts. So usually the boss. Yeah. Um, and in the wider community, we can see it very easily with media, emotional contagion, very much driven.

Am I right in thinking that this emotional contagion is, uh, to use a very tortured, mangled metaphor? Um, it's kind of like the superhighway for the vision, you know, like it's what transmits the vision and gets it spreading, so to speak, into other people or across, across a community

That is a big part of it, I would say. Yes. So, enthusiasm, enthusiasm. Yeah. Being infectious. We talk about that, we say, so and so's enthusiasm is infectious. Yeah.

It might be good to term to use in another time, but right now in the middle of a COVID lockdown, uh, maybe not.

Well, good things are infectious too. That's true.

That is true. Yes. And so, here's a practical question that I think a lot of our listeners will be very interested in what can entrepreneurs do to be better? Um, at the persuasion, cause essentially what you're talking about there is to some extent persuasion, um, what can they do to be better at the persuasion required for visionary leadership?

Hmm. I might challenge that question a little bit actually, because I think, yes, I think that if you have visionary leadership, technically persuasion is not really required. Interesting. Because the vision is inherently compelling. right. So, it's more about communicating or talking about what you want to create over and over. Maybe using graphics too, that helps people to visual. If, if your concept lends itself, most concepts do lend themselves to a visual communication of some kind.

Well, that's, that is that's fascinating, particularly for start-up founders, right? Because, um, if you're a start-up, a founder and you've, you've got a, an idea, you've got a vision, uh, you wanna affect change in the world with a certain product or business model venture capitalists and, and investors are notoriously, uh, unsusceptible to persuasion. That's their job. Their job is to be impervious to salesmanship persuasion, charisma, overconfidence, and so on. Right. So, um, that what you are saying, um, would seem to sort of bear that out, that ultimately, it's the strength and the value of the vision, uh, is, is core. But then how that is, is communicated and the energy and enthusiasm behind that. Is that, is that a fair call?

Yes. That's a good summary.

Cool. Now strategic thinking, you know, there's been thousands of books on strategic thinking. It's, uh, it's a really big buzzword. I think sort of back in the eighties and nineties. I mean, it's still around of course, but it's less, less buzzy than it once was. So, a lot of books and business coaches talk about this, what exactly is this strategic thinking?

I Get this one a lot, actually. It's quite a common thing when I'm dealing with the leader of a business and they're complaining that their next tier of staff is not strategic enough or somebody in the next tier, who's trying to get promoted and saying, my bosses are not strategic enough. How do I do this, what is this? and I think usually it really just means they're not business minded enough. So, the head is in the detail perhaps or in the task or in the skill, but they're not quite grasping the bigger picture of cause and effect in business, they're fixating on daily activities, not fully considering the ways in which it translates into value or not. So strategic thinking is really about finding or creating ways to generate value. It has a long-term quality to it and a big picture quality. Yep.

So, it's the opposite of the everyday and the tactical. And what I liked about what you just said was the linking of it to the delivering of value , so that it's not just strategic thinking is not just kind of scheming and, you know, moving the chess pieces around. It's actually with an outcome in mind to deliver value for shareholders or stakeholders or what have you. And Stephanie will return later in the episode with some important insights into authenticity. So, stick around for that. Authenticity was a strong theme in the chat with my next guest. Rachael Neumann is the founder of flying Fox ventures, an early-stage venture firm for angel investors based in Melbourne Australia. Prior to that, she was the managing director of eventbrite for Australia and New Zealand and the head of start-ups at Amazon web services, where she's worked with literally thousands of entrepreneurs. She's also served as the chair of start-up Oz, Australia's national start-up advocacy and lobbying group. So, she's a highly respected leader in the start-up ecosystem, who knows exactly what it takes to be a disruptive entrepreneur, listen to Rachael, as she reveals the leadership qualities that investors like her look in start-ups and why founders need to have a magnetic quality about them.

So, at flying Fox, we have this term where we, say empathy and execution, and we need to see those in equal parts. So, empathy is deeply understanding that customer problem, as I talked about, deeply understanding the market that you're trying to work in deeply understanding what the competitive landscape is and what your value prop needs to be. And then execution is how do you just build, build, build, and just keep, you know, going at it, iterating, failing, falling down, fixing Et cetera. So, you need to have those in even parts. Now you talked about vision and often for our types of companies, we need our founders to be really ambitious and to have a really big and bold vision of what the, how the world is going to be different when their product is in its full life cycle. But what we need also is someone who knows what to do in the next six weeks.

And it's a really fine balance. It's not always held in the same person. And so sometimes what we're looking for is founding teams or complimentary pairings, where you have a really big visionary leader. And then someone who's able to distil that down into, okay, that's where we need to be in five years, but where do we need to be in the next 12 months, and then where do we need to be in the next six months? And then what do we do today? And I'm working with one of my portfolio companies right now, um, and they just hired an incredible CTO and we're super excited, um, about this hire. It's a real win for, um, the company and it's gonna be a great pairing and he's a very visionary CTO. And now we also need to hire a head of product. And in order to compliment that visionary CTO, we're gonna need a product manager and a product leader who is a little bit more tactical, um, and is able to translate a visionary leader into what needs to be done today and tomorrow.

And so that is what we're looking for. Now, what’s important from a leadership perspective is that vision needs to be communicated to a team. And everyone on that team needs to understand what the big picture vision is here that we're all driving towards. And how does my little thing, even if I'm just the person who puts the toilet paper on the roll, but how does the little thing that I do translate into the bigger vision, and so good leaders have that vision, great leaders help everyone to understand what is my job to do today in order to achieve that vision?

Yeah. Well, thanks, that's full of insights. Um, almost don't where to start. Um, but, um, there's, there's so much there. And I think, I like the way you broke it down essentially into, the strategic versus the tactical. Um, and that's, that's often the key nexus point, you know, it's, you gotta have the strategy, but if you're crap at the tactics, you know, the whole thing's gonna fall down.

And I think what, I think what Mark Zuckerberg always said, you know, perfect is, I think he says like, you know, ship, ship, not perfection. I'm, I'm botching it. Now I remember visiting the Facebook office and seeing the sign there, but that's also really important just in a fast-paced company. You need to hold tight to the, to the vision and be unwavering in that, but you can't be stubborn in how you're going to get there. Yep. And you have to just keep shipping. That's how you're gonna learn, how you're going to get there, the path, the actual rows you're gonna take. You're gonna be very different to how you thought you were gonna get there. Yeah.

Um, well, that's fascinating. And in that context, um, what about the topic or the tool of persuasion? So, um, you know, how important do you think persuasion is in the start-up family? Because it clearly, there's a sales process going on here, they're selling themselves and their idea to you. Um, you know, how does that factor in, like, do you find yourself sometimes being swept up by a founder? Who's a very good salesperson, but maybe the idea isn't, quite where it needs to be.

Yeah. And, um, I think that I now, because like I said, I literally talk to hundreds of companies a year. I usually know when I'm being sold to, I'm always being sold to. Right. Um, but that's okay because I'm like, wow, she can sell. And the ability to sell a, you know, eight out of ten products will always be a ten out of ten product with no one who knows how to sell it. Yeah. So, it's actually a very important skill. It's important for me to be able to see that they actually have that ability, because we need them to be magnets. Right? Early-Stage founders are magnets for talent and magnets for customers. So, I need to be able to see that demonstrated somehow some way. And sometimes we have founders who are not very magnetic, but they can write great code that becomes magnetic, right.

That code becomes magnetic for customers because it, uh, in a digital way acquires them or it can acquire talent because they're like, wow, this is incredible technology. Um, so I need them to do that, but then I need them to be real with me. You know, at a certain point they need to drop the Shick and I need to say, listen, I need to be on your team. You need to tell me warts and all. And I recently had a conversation. I won't say who it was, but one of my portfolio companies is in a fundraise process right now. And um, you know, I checked in with him to say, hey, you know, what's the update. And he spun the story a bit. Right. And I just said, hey, pause. I said, I am on your team. Do not spin to me. Like, I can only help you if I know the real story, like, let's be one you need to be intellectually honest with yourself two, you need to be honest with me.

Like, you don't need to sell me. I'm already in, I'm in and I'm in forever and I'm on your team. Now let's actually talk about what's ugly here so that we can fix it. And I think that is where persuasion has its limitations. If someone thinks that they can just continue to use that with their investors, you're just, um, it's just a missed opportunity because investors usually are not there because they want everything to be perfect. They're there because they want to dig in and make this, make this a success for everyone involved. And we can't do that if we are being lied to or being excluded from the truth. Now it's my job to build up that relationship. So, they feel comfortable doing that. Yep. And so that's where the onus is on both parties. Yeah.

Great answer. I mean, you know, I think it's something you only really know through experience, but that sort of obfuscation that spin, you know, that's a friction point on the growth, you know, that's actually holding you back because it's taking longer to get to the problem and then to solve it.

I'll just go back to muso. Um, like I said, they just raised around, um, and one of the, I, they went and, um, pitched to a fund who, who came into this round. And when I checked in with the partner of the fund, I said, oh, you know, how did Jeremiah go? They said, we loved him. Not because he said everything was perfect, but because he told us all the ways in which they failed in the last year and how much they've learned from that. And so, people also sometimes underestimate us the investors. We don't want a perfect, fairy tale story. We know, especially the earlier stage that we're investing, and we know you're covered in pimples and warts, and you are a super awkward teenager. We're not investing in you cause you're hot. We're investing in you because we think you will become a hottie. We know that you are awkward and ugly now, like just show it all of us, because then we know what to work with.

Yeah. Yeah. That's such a good analogy. Um, we could take that a lot further, but then it might get, might get a little ugly. Yeah. Let's not. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not um, talk to any leading entrepreneur for a while and you'll notice that they each tend to study iconic business leaders for ideas and inspiration. Morgan Coleman is the founder of platform, Vets on call launched in 2018, Vets on call, is disrupting the 3.7 billion market for pet health by using tech to bring vets into the homes of pet owners, thereby avoiding the stress and hassle of a traditional visit to the vet clinic. I asked Morgan to nominate an entrepreneur who he rates highly for leadership. His answer might surprise you.

So, there's two that come to mind. Um, one is Richard Branson because I do love what he does and his ability to take the Virgin brand and put it into different marketplaces. I think that's amazing. Um, but I really love his attention to customer detail. And I think that to me is what really resonates with me as a business owner. Um, and similarly the guys from Airbnb, what they've been able to do in terms of their customer experience, the way and using tech to build a relationship with their clients like that to me is the ultimate. And that's exactly what we try and do. And that's something that I'm constantly questioning our team about. Okay, well, how do we take what we're doing and replicate the kind of relationship that they would get from a traditional service through our tech. And I think what the guys at Airbnb have done is, you know, that, um, incredibly well.

Yes. Um, one of my other guests nominated, uh, Brian Chesky is the main founder and CEO of, uh, Airbnb and yet very, very impressive. I mean, what those guys did, uh, with the pandemic and the lockdown, you know, they actually, um, created an endowment fund and they shared the money, uh, without any obligation to their hosts who were relying on this, you know, income that suddenly dried up because of, because of the, uh COVID and they, uh, you know, they gave some money back to, to their hosts and, and like, so I think, you know, that's a good example of what you're talking about. Um, and that is most unusual behaviour. You don't, you rarely see that, um, in, in entrepreneurs or business people and, that how much Good will does something like that buy, you know, like that's, you know, not only is it the right thing morally to do, you know, uh, I listened to an interview with him on this, on this topic, um, on masters of scale, you familiar with that podcast?

Yes. Um, no, that was, yeah, it's a good one. Yeah. It's a good one. Uh, listeners have probably heard me sort of recommend that multiple times now, but it is so good. And, um, so yes, I great choice. I think, I think what those guys are doing is, fabulous. And I asked the same question of one of our other recurring guests in this series. Chris Brycki, Chris is the founder and CEO of stockpot, which is Australia's leading share investing platform. Listen to what Chris has to say about his inspirations for business leadership.

So going back to my roots as an investor and as a trader. So, I love trading shares as a kid, and I was always in inspired by people who were famous, and fantastic and well-regarded investors. And so probably one of the ones I was inspired by is one that's controversial, which is probably fitting because, you know, we've controversy in our industry. Um, so Ray Dalio, who I'm sure you've heard of and, many of your listeners. Ray Dalio. Yeah. Um, his style of managing his business is extremely controversial. Um, you know, publicly and privately, there are people that have said it's terrible, there are people that have said it's great. What I think is that it's very interesting because one of the insights I have from the investing world is in order to be a successful investor, who's trying to beat the market.

Um, you need to get one main thing, right? Which is that you need to make calls that are anti consensus and right at the same time, cause it's easy to make anti consensus calls that are wrong and easy to make consensus calls that are right. And that's what most people end up doing in, in the investment world. But you need to do the thing that's really hard is known, when everyone else is wrong. And, and he's like brought into his business, I think like a really interesting and unique kind of management process and style to help their business do that more successfully, which I think he describes as radical transparency, um, you know, meritocracy where they actually try and quantify, um, you know, how good people are at making decisions and then weight their decision making process based on that sort of quantitative method. And I think he's done a Ted talk on it, and he has, um, he's sort of talked quite openly about at it know it's definitely not a management style that would work in all businesses.

And there's certainly a lot that it would work terribly in, you know, being a hundred percent honest with people cause he expects people to come up to him, even as the leader of a hedge fund, managing hundreds of billions of dollars to tell him when he's done an awful job, but to be able to back that up with, you know, why, and to really own that. And I, I mean, I really respect that as a kind of a leadership style and management style. Um, I think in his business it works fantastically cause that's what you really need in order to beat the market is you need people that are prepared to debate things openly without it being a personal, you know, a personal fight. Um, and I think it's just a good model and a unique model for, for the business that it is. Would it work in every Business? Definitely not. Um, I've thought about it for our business. I'm not sure whether it's, it's quite right. Um, but yeah, for me, it's, that was just great out of the box thinking in an area that wasn't ultimately his area of expertise like management, he an investment expert, but yeah, I think sort of has made a lot of people think.

Oh, He's, he's really interesting, exciting person. And he's got a great book out, at the moment, which you may well have read called principles. Um, so that's uh, are you familiar with that book?

So funnily enough, before I started stockpot, I read that, but before it was a book, it was just a PDF downloadable document. I downloaded it and printed it, and read it in the year that I was, uh, starting the business.

Oh Wow. There you go. Okay. And, and the other thing that, um, I know about Ray Dalio, you would definitely know more than I do, but uh, I was listening to a podcast with him, uh, and some someone else he was being interviewed and, and he was talking about what you were just describing. He's very, uh, contrarian, um, nature. Uh, and, um, uh, and he, you know, he's obviously a risk taker and, and you know, he, he nearly lost it all, you know, like he, he was, it was back, I think in the early eighties he made some massive call. Um, and it was the wrong call. I mean, he's just almost got taken to the cleaners. So, uh, but, but he learnt that was the really interesting thing. The story he told it was a massive lesson for him. It was seared into his brain, and it was obviously something that set him up for the rest of his life, uh, in terms of, you know, um, his, uh, capability and, um, and ultimately, you know, where he looks where he's ended up.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, in the share market, the wonderful thing about the share market is that humbles you very quickly when you're wrong. And I think that's what I love about it is there are so many areas of life where you never really know if you are right or wrong. And there's a lot of confident people that ultimately have no idea what they're talking about, but never get shown up to not have any idea about what they're talking about. Because there, isn't a way to quantify that, the share market, there is a great way to quantify it. It's your returns. And so, the, I think to be successful in the share market, you need to be able to accept that the market is right, and you are wrong and learn from that rather than just get angry and say, everyone else is wrong. And I was right, because it's not the case. Everyone else is. Right. And you were wrong.

The notion of authenticity is commonly seen as a prerequisite for effective leadership. If you're a business owner or an entrepreneur who wants to become a better leader, you won't want to miss this next segment, business psychologist, Stephanie Thompson shares, why it's so important. And we discuss how the power of storytelling can help project authenticity.

Well, they say authenticity is the corner, the cornerstone of business. Yeah. And once you learn to fake that, you've got, it made.

You beat me to the punch. I was, I was gonna bring that one in, but you're right. If you can fake authenticity, you are probably you've got it made. Yeah.

Yes, yes. You would've delivered it better. I'm sure. No, in all seriousness, um, it's a, it's a charming quality. It is a value issue though, in that people who are authentic tend to be very strongly drawn to others who are authentic. Yep. It's such, oh, thank goodness. There's no game here. What a relief, straightforward to person to deal with. Yep. Um, I, I find it a very charming and attractive trait. Um, and yes, but I wouldn't say it it's universal as far from universal. There'd be many, many leaders who are effective actually in their own way and sometimes highly effective who don't necessarily have the authenticity component.

Yeah. Um, absolutely. Um, but for those that do, or that can project it, like, sorry, I'll start again. But, uh, for those, uh, who do value authenticity or who are naturally authentic, um, how can those entrepreneurs project that authenticity? Like what, what are the, um, I don't wanna say sort of tricks of the trade. That's not the right framing, but what are the methods by which they can, they can project that?

Mm, yes. It's almost an oxymoron because I would suggest that authenticity is not actually projected. It just is. It's the nature of authenticity. Yeah. And if you're projecting it, you're probably faking it. Yeah. So don't do that. Yeah. Ironically, um, and I think it comes down to a bit of advice. That's just good advice in general for life, which is to be yourself, be yourself, speak your truth. Yeah. Uh, yes. Be considerate, be reasonably polite, but don't try to create yourself as someone other than who you actually are. Um, let you know, in the mould of someone else and let your business be itself as well.

I, I think that's, I, you know, all great advice, but I guess I'm putting my marketing hat on now I've seen other, other people in business do this where they, they use their story, their personal story to project a sense of authenticity. Right. And, you know, that strikes me as being a very powerful technique. People seem to relate to storytelling, um, do you have any thoughts on that?

Actually, yes. That's very true. And sharing of your story is, um, more and more popular, actually these days in that some seem to be of a view that yes, you shouldn't let too much be known about yourself. Don't give away too much personal stuff. But the reality is we love these stories about people. We love to know the real human being behind something. Yep. And so, I I'm in two minds, I understand the caution that people have about revealing self too much. On the other hand, you know, if you're a reasonable human being, what's the worst that can happen. People find it very compelling yeah. To, uh, yes, to hear the true story behind something

They do. Um, but you know, like it's in the way it's handled. Like I know someone in business, uh, I don't know her very, she's lovely, but, um, she, uh, got on social media a while ago and kind of revealed an aspect of her sexuality. and it mean it was a very brave, it was a very brave thing to do, but, um, I didn't feel it was authentic. I, I thought it was, and maybe that's just me, you know? Um, so it's no judgment at all about the, the sexuality itself. It was the way it was done. She revealed this aspect of her, uh, innermost self to the public. And I think it was really driven by a need for more attention on social media. Right? Yes. And, and so I was struck by that doesn't feel authentic to me. So yeah. I mean, what do you think of that?

It's interesting. It's interesting. Isn't that? Yes. When it's done strategically or it's got some other intent, it's not a true sharing, it's not a true gift. Um, yeah.

Yeah. I just didn't in this case, I didn't feel it, it didn't illuminate any wider point about her or what was going on. It was, it just seemed to be, look at me, look at me like, so anyway, um, yes, as you say, don't fake it be yourself. So, the problem we set out to solve in this episode was how to adapt the unique leadership lessons of disruptive entrepreneurs to bring your business vision, to life. Our mindset expert, Stephanie Thompson revealed the psychological theory behind leadership and Rachael Neumann shared her insights as a leading investor in the start-up ecosystem in Australia. And we've also heard fascinating takes on some iconic business leaders from our entrepreneur, guests, Morgan Coleman of vets on call and Chris Brycki of stockpot. I hope their wisdom and insight have given your ideas to crack the code to growth in your own business.

For me, there are three key conclusions we can all take out from this Episode. Number one, vision is great, but it needs to be communicated to the team. I loved what Rachael had to say on this. It's not enough to have a compelling vision of how your business or your product will change the world. You must communicate this clearly and often to the people around you. And of course, to the market. Number two, enthusiasm is the transmitter of vision. As Stephanie explained, the person with the strongest energy in the organization leads the emotion in the team. This is often called charisma, and it's hard to get people to buy into a vision without it. Number three, it's important to be real, as Rachel said, persuasion has its limits, especially with investors. Although storytelling is a powerful technique to amplify authenticity, the fake it until you make it ethos, that seems to proliferate in start-up culture can be a serious handicap when it comes to dealing with investors.

As we heard at the top of the episode in the Dolly Parton story, disruptors often become incredible leaders simply because they are the first to forge a new path, such leadership takes courage, charisma, tenacity, confidence, creativity, and the ability to execute well, both tactically in the short term and strategically in the long term whilst good leadership can of course be learnt. It seems clear to me that it's way more than just another skill, perhaps the right way to think about it is as a kind of lifestyle choice, good leaders don't turn it on and off. They're committed to it, twenty-four seven, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. It becomes a way of life. And it might just be the secret sauce that you need to take your business all the way to the top. We're coming to the end. But before we go, it's time for our regular segment nerd under pressure where a guest has year one killer hack or tip, they can recommend for you, our listeners let's find out who our nerd under pressure is today. Morgan. We now come to a very famous segment here on nerds of business called

Nerd under pressure.

So, nerd under pressure and today Morgan Coleman of vets on call. You are our disruptive tech nerd, uh, or perhaps we can call you the, the fluffy animal nerd, uh, something along those lines. Uh, you're in the, you're in the hot seat. We're asking for one killer hack or tip. You can give to other business owners for launching and scaling a disruptive tech start-up. I'm gonna give you five seconds thinking time. Alright over to you.

So, my tip would be hypothesizing test, reiterate, and just rinse and repeat.

Great. Yeah. So, it's really, before you get out there and you spend all the money and you build the tech and, you know, uh, really sort of commit yourself financially and emotionally, do the testing at the start. Yeah.

You need to be testing your hypothesis. And even, even now we still do it like on a day-to-day basis, you know, we are running experiments and what we work, what won't, but before we run the experiments, like, okay, well, what do we think will work? Yeah. You know? Um, and we're measuring all those sorts of things. So, and then if they work, then we reiterate it and we start again.

So, thanks for listening to episode 31, one of the nerds of business podcast. If you've enjoyed it, please leave a review on apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to your podcast. It helps us climb up the ranks and become more visible to other people, just like you, remember, we want to help as many entrepreneurs and businesses as possible. If you've got a question or some feedback. We'd love to hear from you. You can engage with us at our website, nerdofbusiness.com. That's nerdsofbusiness.com. So, feel free to reach out and say hello. I want to thank all of our guests and the team at Webbuzz for helping me put this show together. That's it for this series, we'll be taking a break for a little while until we return with season four. But in the meantime, we'll be back in a few weeks with a series of uncut specials until then I'm your host, Darren Moffatt. And I look forward to nerding out with you next time. Bye for now.