What happens when you realize you’re successful but not fulfilled?

Scott Garrett has lived the highs and lows of reinvention from being a touring musician, to leading teams in education, to walking away from security to build businesses that align with his purpose.

This Voices of Leadership episode of Unleash Your Impact, Unlock Others explores:

• How to find your ‘why’ and build a career with meaning
• The leadership lessons from life in the music industry
• Why resilience isn’t about avoiding failure—it’s about using it
• How the best bands & businesses build trust, culture & creativity
• What it takes to step into the unknown and follow your passion

If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re on the right path or wondered what’s next, this is for you.

Links referenced in this episode:

• sgmmusicgroup.com
• vitavoice.co.uk
• musicplusbrand.com

Welcome to Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others, a podcast about inspiring leadership.

We hope to bring you grounded wisdom, stories from real leaders, and leave you feeling inspired.

Let's dive in.

Welcome to this Voices of Leadership episode of Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others.

This podcast is where we explore the lessons, stories, and insights from leaders who have carved their own paths.

I'm your host, Dave Morris, and today we're diving into a topic that resonates with me and so many other people.

Finding your why and living a life of meaning and purpose.

And crucially, having the courage to follow it.

My guest today is someone that has lived that journey.

Scott Garrett started as a musician turned educator, built a successful business, and ultimately walked away from a high paying, secure job to pursue something that truly aligned with his sense of purpose.

He now runs multiple businesses, from merchandise to education, and even a brand designed specifically for vocalists.

But here is the thing.

So many people dream of doing what Scott did.

They think, I'd love to do something I'm passionate about, but I just don't have the courage.

This conversation is about what it takes to take that leap.

We'll talk about the role of intuition, resilience, leadership, and creativity in making the bold career decisions and building something meaningful that Scott has done.

Scott's journey is full of lessons applicable to all leaders, from his experiences in the music industry, to leading teams in education, to navigating business partnerships.

Some good, some not so good.

There's just so much to unpack here, so let's dive in.

So.

Hi, Scott.

How are you today?

Very well, thank you.

Dave, how are you?

Good, good.

Looking forward to a conversation with you about your leadership journey.

Yes.

Sounds like your life's been quite fascinating.

Lots of different aspects to it, I'd say.

Yeah, music's probably been the binding force throughout, definitely from early stages within my life.

But, yeah, it's creativity music that's kind of been the thing that's pulled everything together.

Yeah.

There's two things I love as well.

So I don't have your talent for music, but.

So let's start at the begin.

Tell us about small Scott.

Where did he grow up?

And how did music become a part of your life?

I know, I've got all their autographs.

Right, okay.

Yeah, I remember seeing them in a place Called Yate, where I used to live.

Yeah.

In a dodgy nightclub.

And after the gig they were on the stairs and I went to meet them and yeah, they signed the program.

So I do know Diamond Head.

Yeah.

Good band, actually.

Yeah.

And, you know, so I learned some early lessons really from Diamondhead and the experience of even seen that at a very young age of a successful band who could have been obviously a lot more successful than what they were.

And in later life I got to talk to Brian, the guitar player, quite a lot from Diamond Head about what success is.

But we can touch on that in a bit.

But my early memories, yeah, my dad doing all the T shirt designs and merchandise for Diamond Head and he did a great job with it and they ended up selling hundreds of T shirts.

And that was a lot of thing that finance the early stages to Diamond Head rather than record sales, it was merchandise sales.

Okay.

Yeah.

I got to see that from a very early age of the power of merchandise and what.

What it can do for bands.

But my earliest memories with Diamondhead were sitting on the drummer's lap and I think six or seven, and him holding the sticks in my hand playing to probably Am I Evil or whatever tracks I were playing at the time.

And from that moment on, I think it's very rare for kids.

That made me go, I want to be a drummer, I want to do something in music.

So from the age of six onwards, that's all I ever focused on.

And then did your dad buy you a drum kit so that you.

Eventually, after lots of bugging and.

Yeah, yeah, we got both my parents, my mom obviously as well, said, yep, we've definitely got to get him a drum kit.

So I think that happened at about 8 or 9, after lots of pots and pans and playing on cushions and everything.

But yeah, that's what started me off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you started life as a drummer.

What was your vision for your life back then?

Just two.

But I suppose inspired by what I saw with Diamondhead to do that, and coming from Stourbridge as well, that's quite a unique place, geography wise, for the music industry, because we had.

When I was 14 to 16, well, probably a little bit earlier, but 13, 14, 15, we had three really popular bands come from Stanbridge called the Wonder Stuff, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Pop Elite itself.

So those were huge influences as well to local teens in local schools, in the Stanley Bridge music scene as well.

So I've gone from Diamond Head to these local bands who were just touring around the world on the Front cover of NME and our school kids in the.

In the hometown.

When you'd be walking around on a Saturday afternoon and see them popping in and out the shops in an hour price and things like that, it was hugely inspiring to go, well, if they can do it from our hometown, why can't I as well?

And did you think you'd have the talent to have a career in music for the rest of your life or was it wasn't that grand a plan at that point?

I didn't think of it in talent terms.

To me it was just experience terms.

And, yeah, I mean, I would never wanted to be a virtual virtuoso musician.

It was never about that.

It was more being inspired by the.

The rock side to it.

So I knew that you could sit down, play a basic rock beat.

I figured out that most bands just want a good hard heavy hitter and just someone who's a good team player within bands.

So, yeah, it was more about the experience of what can this get to?

Had, you know, a few goals.

Like, I wanted to get an album into HMV, as everyone does, have CDs out tour America.

So I got to do those things eventually.

And then that was up until the age of, about my late 20s, I was still doing bands and touring and doing all that type of stuff, had experience, toured the States five or six times, had the albums out.

But I wouldn't ever say that I was in a commercially successful band, but I had lots of great experiences that will stay with me for life.

So let's pick up on some of those experiences.

What were some of the biggest challenges that whilst you were living that life and you were trying to make it in an industry, which is a tough industry to make it, let's be honest.

Yeah, not everyone's going to make it.

What were the challenges that you faced in it?

What did you learn from those challenges?

So I was trying to make it in the industry, pre Spotify and being able to put content out in whatever way you wanted to.

I suppose the gatekeepers at that point were still record labels, managers, booking agents.

They were still the people who go, right, you've got to be good enough to get out.

And we had, you know, certain records out.

We had a major deal.

Part of Universal was one of the deals that we signed with one of the bands that was in.

But it just didn't push to that next level of filling arenas, you know, and filling, you know, or even like the O2 academies.

It just got to the level, you know, we'd go to Glasgow we'd sell a couple of hundred tickets, we'd go to Southampton, sell 100 tickets, we'd always do well in London.

But it was always at 150 to a couple hundred tickets nowadays, ironically.

And we sold probably 10,000 CDs as well, you know, so, you know, income wise, probably 100k came into the band at some point.

I didn't see much of that.

But nowadays, if you had that type of traction with a band, if they were selling out a couple hundred seats in a, you know, in a small tour and, you know, and getting 100k of income, they would then be a hugely successful band.

Nowadays.

Nowadays, yeah.

So you talked about being in the US and touring around the US supporting major bands, and I think you've said to me before, that was like a living in the back of a van lifestyle, which, you know, I've read Dave Grohl's autobiography and he describes exactly the same thing before Nirvana became big.

And it's.

It doesn't sound very glamorous, to be fair, because you're sleeping on people's floors, you're sleeping in the back of your van, you're probably grabbing food.

Not healthy food.

Yeah, yeah.

Six or seven of you in one hotel room.

Exactly, yeah.

So that must have taught you a lot about teamwork, about resilience.

I'm also interested what it taught you about leadership, because obviously that's.

Yeah, the podcast is about leadership, so just talk to me about those things.

What did it teach you at that lifestyle that you were leading at that time?

Yeah, I think being in close quarters with other people in that way.

In the same way, I guess, you know, probably from other sectors, like if you join the army or something, if you know they're going to have similar type of experiences, that you have to be tolerant of other people's idiosyncrasies, I suppose, or what, you know, and it's just such small things, you know, like someone might come in and, you know, they just cough really annoyingly or something like that.

But if you're with someone for 24 hours a day, it can drive you nuts, you know, because at the, you know, at the end of like a four or five week run, you're just like, I need to get away from this person.

Things like that.

So your tolerance level to how people are, I think gets really toughened when you're in that type of scenario compromise, I think, is a huge thing that is probably taught.

Taught, taught me from there.

So when I'm leading teams, everyone being able to have their say, everyone feeling like they've got some type of compromise, that's the only way I think, that leadership and teams can develop as well.

Yeah, it's a huge word for me.

And I'm guessing bands that aren't able to do that, that's why they fall apart, basically.

Yeah, they can't compromise also as well, I think dysfunction as well.

There's a lot of dysfunctional people who naturally go towards the music industry and for whatever reason, you know, whatever's gone in their life, you know, they need to get their creative output and this is a good way of doing it because otherwise they'd be doing all sorts of horrendous things.

But they seem to gravitate towards creativity.

And I'd say learning from that, that going into my.

When I went into leadership roles, which were more traditional in teaching and SLT teams, I would say that I'm good at dealing with dysfunctional teams.

So I'm the type of person, I think, who could come in and probably be hired to get a dysfunctional team together as well through that kind of compromise.

And the lessons I've learned from being in the band and now analyzing it now, it is probably from touring and going with people, but I've never really sat down and mapped it together and gone, oh, actually I've learned those skill sets from that and it's translated into being able to deal with dysfunctional people.

Well, that was my next question is how do those experiences shape your mindset as a leader?

So you've alluded to the fact that, well, it shaped my mindset because collaboration is really important.

If you're going to be around a lot of people a lot of the time, you have to learn to collaborate and to compromise and what have you.

Was there other things that it shaped your mindset when you got to those leadership roles?

What were other things?

Yeah, people first.

I would say team culture 100 to me, shapes everything right as well.

You know, if you can't get a good.

If you're leading.

Because I, you know, at one point I've been leading teams with 90 people.

I wasn't personally responsible to.

You know, there was people in place, but you'd have, obviously managers under that.

But under my care was, yeah, 90 people and the culture.

I like to think, you know, one of those leading teams that big was good.

You know, it was a good trusting Atmosphere where people could come in and not feel like, you know, if they'd done something which hadn't gone to plan or hadn't gone right, they couldn't come and share that with you and say, look, this hasn't gone right.

I need to tell you about it.

There was no kind of covering up of that.

So you created a safe environment.

People, if they made a mistake, they could own up to it.

Yeah, my team.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I mean, if you look at some of the theory around what good team environments look like, that's exactly what you need for a good team environment.

You also mentioned about how you define success.

So just taking the music bit, because there's probably a lot of misconceptions that people have about what does success constitute in music and in life in general.

So how did you redefine, you know, you didn't quite make it in the music business.

You went on.

Went on to another career.

So how did you then redefine what success means for you?

It was post that experience, really, to me, success, the measure of success.

I think the mistake which is made is it's just measured on money.

So if you're able to earn £100,000 a year from music, then you're successful.

Well, you can go and earn £100,000 doing lots of different things, but it doesn't exactly make you necessarily happy, does it?

No.

So to me, the measure of success was, were we treating our art in the right way?

Were we putting stuff out that people wanted to listen to time and time again?

To me as well, success is not a competitive sport.

And I think that's the differences between sport and art as well.

Right.

There's a huge difference.

Sport is very much, you know, the measure of success in sport is your personal best and against someone else's best.

And if you can beat both of those, then you're a successful sports person.

It doesn't really work like that with music.

To me, it's.

It's like saying, you know, what's more successful, an apple or an orange?

Yeah, it.

It doesn't.

The metric is completely different.

To me, it's.

Success, first of all, is from inward.

Have we created art that we enjoy, that we want to put out, that we're proud of, and will other people enjoy it as well?

So if you carried that through into your other leadership roles, then.

So you.

You determine success in terms of.

Have I created something valuable for other people?

Yeah.

Do they want to engage with that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Does it, you know, does it.

Does it define A moment in their life I still have now, you know, I'm proud to say some of the bands I was in back then, and we've had people who have used some of our music for their first wedding dance or something like that, or they, you know, still get, you know, Facebook messages, you know, like nearly 20 years later saying, will you guys get back together?

Because I still listen to your album and I'll put it on you and things like, yes.

And you think, oh, that's really nice.

You know, it's a real nice thing to hear that some.

You've created something 20 years ago that someone's still listening to if they're driving or if they, you know, if they want to get, you know, into an uplifting mood or something like that.

So that type of stuff really is timeless.

And even if it only affects one or two people on the scale of the world, it's still a great thing to have out there.

Yeah.

I do wonder sometimes in business whether money is the overriding success factor.

And as you said, there's a lot more that constitutes success than just money, isn't there?

Legacy, I think, is a huge thing that people don't realise until they get older as well.

You've got lots of experience, so what you're doing here, these podcasts, this is what I would call a digital legacy.

You're picking people's brains, like me or your other guests, you have in.

And this will sit on a digital file somewhere and it could just go on for all time, you don't know.

And someone might come back to it in 50 years time and go.

You just don't know.

With these type of podcasts, your experience as well, personally, because you're.

I've spoken to you at length about this.

You've got lots of experience that you can say that you'll put into these podcasts and someone at some point will learn from.

From it.

So it's a great thing to have.

Digital legacy.

Yeah.

And it's great if you can earn money from doing these things.

But you said that for myself and Rich, it's about a lot more than that.

You know, our sense of purpose is not about just earning loads of money.

Yeah.

So you're dead right there.

So how that transition, then?

Some.

You're working in a band, wasn't quite working out.

Gonna have to go on to another.

Another career, if you like.

Yeah.

How did that transition work, going into education in the leadership roles that you alluded to that you were in there?

I guess from, you know, my early upbringings of, you know, how my parents were as well.

I was brought up in a very entrepreneurial household.

That always stuck with me as well.

So I always got to the point with bands thinking, okay, with bands I knew for even back then, you've got to have different income streams.

You can't just rely on being a drummer in a band.

Right.

So I thought, what else can I do?

What can I turn my hand to?

Which is probably where I succeeded, where other people in my position wouldn't have done this.

So I thought, well, I can tech for bands.

I can set drum kits up.

I know how to play a drum kit.

So I ended up teching for bands like Kaiser Chiefs in their very first early tours.

And, you know, so when I wasn't on tour myself playing, I just would go back on tour and set up drum kits because I was not too proud to be able to do that.

I'd got a design background as well, so I got a flair for designing, you know, logos and things like that.

I've always loved how logos have been constructed.

So you think classic logos like the ACDC logo or the Motorhead logo, things like that?

Yeah, to me it's fascinating because Motorhead are a band that have sold more T shirts and they've sold albums.

That's quite, really historic fact about them.

Okay.

So they made, you know, they're more money from selling their T shirt, their branded items.

So that's always something which kind of fascinated me from the art side.

So I got into about 20 years ago just printing drum heads for bands.

You know, not a lot of bands in my circuit would have their band name on the front of their bass drum head.

I did one for myself and then that turned into other bands saying, oh, where did you get that from?

I did it myself.

Can you do one for me?

That quickly turned into a nice little niche business that I've had for about 20 years called Rockstar Skins, which is just printing drum heads for bands that led to.

And some of the clients I've had through that, clients like Queen who have recently done this.

Like this week I went to see a couple of weeks ago, James Blunt.

Yeah.

Jason Donovan literally came up, you know, like last week and things like that.

So I've had some high profile companies and bands like Universal as well have used me.

I got into that in the early days of E commerce as well.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

So that's, that's been a great thing.

Which has just stuck with me for the last 20 years.

And being what I'd call a supplemental income, it's never been enough to pay the mortgage by itself, but it's always been enough to keep my head above water.

So no matter what's happened with my jobs, I've always had that in the background and it hasn't the hours I have to put into it because it's subcontracted to a printer.

I just get all the designs, get the raw materials, it gets sent out and drop shipped and then.

Yeah, that's it.

But what's interesting about that is you're, you're following a passion for design.

Yeah.

And art.

Yeah.

And it, and to this day you're still using that passion.

Yeah.

So when you went to teaching, I presume you, you weren't straight into a senior leadership, you were a teacher to begin with and teaching music or.

Yeah, I got a job as a band coach basically, so mentoring and coaching young bands who were 16 to 18.

And I would have been 26 at the time.

25.

26.

So about, you know, about the right age to be mentoring that type of age group.

Yeah.

And just using my experience of being in bands, entrepreneurship, marketing, just.

Yeah.

And I was only coaching bands probably for 10 hours a week.

Okay.

At a local college.

But then that led to, oh, you're doing well at this.

Why don't you become a full time teacher at some point?

So I think, yeah, I obviously life happens when you get into your 30s, you get married, you have kids and then you want something a bit more secure.

So I was like, yeah, that sounds good.

So yeah, I went into basic teaching full time alongside still doing rockstar skins.

Teaching what exactly?

Music at this point?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So music and music business was my specialism that I taught then, but also managing acts as well.

I went into managing acts at about that point in my 30s and went into managing pop acts.

So I took one pop act on at that point parallel to teaching, that went and did again using my contacts from the States.

She went over to the States, recorded with Taylor Swift's engineer.

She got Radio 1 playlisted, she got funded as well.

Yeah.

Talking about buy into Mary Hill center to go out and do lots of stuff as well as part of their community outreach.

So I was doing lots of brand deals with her as well, which is.

So what satisfaction do you get from doing the management side of it?

Seeing someone Else go off and do the type of stuff that I enjoy doing, like touring estates and putting records out, things like that.

Yeah.

There's a lot of satisfaction from the management side.

Yeah.

And that motivation that seeing other people thrive because of your help and your guidance.

Yeah.

Is that something that still motivates you to this day?

Oh, yeah.

100.

Yeah, I still do it now.

I've still got.

It's part of my business now, which is a consultancy business for colleges.

I still have a band development program.

Right.

You know, it's licensed to different colleges and organizations.

So yeah, it's definitely a passion seeing young bands go through this process of branding, marketing, songwriting development, recording, practicing, showcase gigs, all of that packaged into one development program.

And then you said you moved into senior leadership.

So you were in a teaching role, still following your passion because you're teaching music, the stuff that you care about.

But then a senior leadership role came along.

How did that come about and why did you go for it?

Yeah, I think what tends to happen, maybe it happens in other industries as well.

But my experience of working in colleges and education is when you become good at something like teaching, there's not really any room for you to progress beyond being just a great teacher for like the X amount of years.

If you want to progress salary wise and, you know, moving up within the organization, you have to go into leadership roles, which then takes you away from the thing that you were actually really good at, which was teaching.

And I'm laughing because it's not dissimilar to a lot of other industries.

Yeah, yeah.

Where people sometimes take those leaps and actually they suddenly realize, hang on, my passion isn't for this, it was for that thing I was doing before.

Yeah.

Because, you know, people management and leadership isn't for everybody, is it?

No, no.

So you found your way into senior leadership.

Yeah, I did.

What were some of the lessons you learned from doing those roles and did you enjoy it?

Was it something that in the end you thought, no, that's just not for me.

I suppose the lessons, the position I found myself in, it was very much senior leadership, but still have taken direction from senior leaders above me.

But while having middle management still come to me with problems as well.

And I think because I'd come from the same team and the same team had seen me develop and kind of leapfrog into these positions, I probably made the mistake of not going into senior management in a completely new place.

Right.

That's probably something I would advise you if I could go back and say, yeah, if You've got the opportunity, just start fresh as a senior leadership role where not everyone knows you.

Because I think I was too familiar now reflecting back on it with everyone within the team who thought, well, it's still Scott, you can just knock on his door, bring him every problem, he'll sort it out.

And I was very much of the mindset that I wanted to sort everyone's problems out and culture wise as well.

When I think reflecting back on it now, I probably should have had more barriers in place or more.

What's the word, sorry, Boundaries.

Boundaries, sorry, that's what I'm trying to say.

And more boundaries in place.

I didn't.

Yeah, reflecting that now boundaries is something I should have put into the senior leadership role of.

Yeah, you can't just come to me and knock on the door every time you've got a problem that you could probably sort out yourself.

But again, that happens in lots of other industries where, you know, people get into these senior, senior roles, senior management roles in leadership roles and whether it's a part of the human condition, I don't know.

But we still try and solve everyone's problems for them rather than actually guiding them to sort them out for themselves.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you're not there to be the hero and solve everyone's problems, are.

You haven't got time to do that.

You've got other more strategic things you need to be doing when you get more senior.

So what happened for you to think actually maybe this senior leadership thing isn't for the rest of my life.

Well, there were circumstances that happened within the organization to give you a bigger overview.

I suppose funding cuts would be the best way of saying what happened within the senior leadership role.

But I was, I was offered a deal that made me go, yeah, I'm going to take that deal basically to go and set myself up as a independent consultant, which is what I've done post leaving that role.

And it made me reflect on it, you know, it took me a good few months to reflect back on it, my kind of learning from it.

And I did a post that because it was quite a traumatic experience, I guess, leading the senior leadership role at the time.

I ended up doing an NLP course and NLP is very much a, you know, I completely understand with some people, people it's.

Some people regard it as pseudoscience, nlp, you know, which, you know, I can completely understand.

But all I can say is from the NLP course that I did online, it was with a guy called Kane Ramsey.

Highly recommend it.

Love doing it, it was a thing that 100 saved my whole mindset because I was always positive.

But that's kind of dark.

Six months of leaving the senior leadership role, it kind of really brought me on the downer of God, what am I going to do with my life now?

And I just stumbled across this NLP course basically when I had some time to reflect and do this type of stuff.

Stuff.

And one of the defining things in it was after traumatic experiences and leaving roles, it said that this what you call the 3Ds, which is all based around NLP, which is basically you can let a traumatic experience define you from that point on moving forward.

And it's all you ever talk about.

Yeah.

You can let it destroy you.

Yeah.

And then you would just completely, you know, never be able to come out of it.

And you'll never develop or do anything to make yourself happy or develop from that.

Or the third D.

You can let it develop you okay.

Yeah.

You know, you just think, well, what can I learn from that experience?

How can I make sure that never happens again?

And you just get your mindset locked in of.

Right.

Moving forward.

Forget what's happened in the past.

The past is the past.

I'm just going to develop from this.

And you've got to go out things then like a speeding train and develop from it, which is what I think I did.

So you left a very financially secure role.

Yeah.

Probably one that wasn't exactly in line with your passions and your, your sense of why.

Yeah.

Completely financially secure the role was then.

And yeah, I did all the things as well.

Yeah.

Because obviously I was in a leadership role which I wouldn't say was making me 100 happy.

And I did things externally like the business, I've got to say, actually going back to Rockstar Skins and what I was doing outside, that was still doing well.

Yeah.

And that was still.

So I was getting paid a really good paye wage and a leadership role while still having a limited company on the side, which wasn't even that much effort to run at that point as well, which was still doing financially well.

So lots of money was coming in from different sources.

So I did all the stupid things like I'll go and buy Porsche.

That'll make me happy.

So you did.

Yeah, yeah.

So I went to bought a Porsche at 40 thinking, oh, that's the thing that's going to make me happy.

Turned out, yeah, Porsches don't make you that happy, you know, as.

As what you think they should.

So obviously after everything came to an End with the leadership role.

I got a good payout for doing there.

I thought, right, I'm going to just get rid of these things I don't need.

I got rid of the Porsche, got rid of, you know, that.

So I had a good chunk of money bank to then be able to go on and think, right, now's the time for me to do all these things I should have done years ago, which has really developed the limited company and put more time and effort into that.

I don't want to work for anyone again, you know, for the rest of my working life, which is what I've ended up doing.

That's quite a courageous leap, though, isn't it?

Because there must be a lot of people out there.

There might be people listening to this, thinking, yeah, I can resonate with Scott.

I am in a role where I'm not completely field.

It's not necessarily in line with my sense of purpose.

But actually it's quite scary to leave and I haven't got that secondary source of income that Scott had to fall back on.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a scary thing to make that leap, isn't it?

Now, did you make that leap because you talked about the resilience you had from earlier in your career where you've been through some pretty tough things.

So you.

You had that resilience and you weren't afraid to make that leap.

But some people are going to find that really scary.

What would your advice be to them?

Yeah, now you've made the link.

Actually, you're right, it is.

The resilience definitely comes from being in bands, I would say.

And if you're going to be in a band, you know, back to that, you're gonna be 100% of the time focused on trying to be creative, trying to drive the band forward.

That's.

That's the only way it's ever going to work.

But then 99% of the time, you're going to face rejection as well.

Yeah, it's a huge kind of learning curve of, like everything you keep doing, you're just going to keep getting rejected for.

And then the 1% of things that happen which are great, they're, you know that you cling onto them and, you know, those are your great experiences and you just remember those.

So that kind of resilience was definitely built from touring and being in bands and things like that.

Yeah.

So people who haven't had that experience, but want to, or think they want to make the leap that you made from one career to something where maybe it is More purpose led.

It is more in line with their sense of who they are and their why.

What would your advice be to them?

It's quite a big, probably corny guy to quote, but I'm sure you've heard of Gary Vaynerchuk.

You know, he's another person I've come across on, you know, as everyone has here on social media.

But I love.

He's saying when he's asked that question is literally three words, you're gonna die and that's it.

So, you know, just.

You just face the reality we're all gonna die.

So what do you want to do?

You know, do you want to.

Do you want to spend your life, you know, wishing I would have done this and then get to the end of it and go, oh, no, I've died now, you know, there's no time to do anything.

Regrets.

Yeah, yeah.

So just, yeah, throw all that out the window, you know, it's just you can learn something from every single experience you do, but you can't, you know, what can you do with regret?

You just gotta.

You gotta sit with it.

Even if stuff fails, you still learn from.

That's a massive thing, isn't it as well?

Absolutely.

I'm sure you probably failed a few times.

I've certainly failed a few times.

And those are often the things that give us the biggest learnings, aren't they, in our life.

And the other thing is as well, I'd say putting yourself forward for opportunities as well.

That's something I've started doing a lot more of over the last few years as well.

We've met through a course that I just said I was like 50, 50, whether I wanted to even go and do it.

But I can remember meeting you on the first day and you said, not everyone turns up to this.

And it's absolutely mad, all the opportunities and stuff.

You know, this is through Worcester Council, who just put some business mentoring.

Yeah.

On and, you know, through just doing that course.

I met funding hero on that one day, the first day we met, and I've gone on to an angel investment course through the back of doing, you know, meeting that one person.

If that angel investment comes off, then that's, you know, it's hundreds of thousands, thousands of pounds coming into the business.

That wouldn't have come had I not done that course.

I went and did the R D tax credits.

Yeah.

Thing which I knew before I did it before I don't actually qualify for R D tax credits.

So I was again half and half thinking, shall I go and do it.

Because I know I don't qualify for them anyway.

But I thought, no, I'll just, you know, I'm going to talk to other people there.

I've got to meet other people on the table who set up meetings for me with people.

I've been trying to get meetings for for ages just from talking to them in the break of being on that course as well.

Yeah.

So what?

So rather than seeing problems ahead of you, you almost framed it is there's opportunities here.

I'm not quite sure where this opportunity is going to take me.

Yeah.

But I'm going to be curious and I'm going to see what I can learn.

Yeah.

I've always been fascinated by the butterfly effect of, you know, you do one thing and you meet one person, you think, okay, yeah, great to meet you.

But it might be that we work on something in four or five years time.

Yeah.

Because we've developed a relationship and it might be, you know, that something in a couple of years.

Go.

Actually, I remember Dave's company and Dave would be perfect to meet so and so here, but because he connected to people now and you've said yes to those opportunities.

Opportunities.

You don't know what's going to happen later on down the line.

It's happened so many times in my life.

Definitely.

Yeah.

So you took this leap.

You went out and said, right, I'm going to run my own business.

I don't want to work for anybody ever again.

So what happened next then?

So you had the drums skin business on the side.

You.

I presume that it was the teaching consultancy which is the business you originally launched.

Well, yeah, there's a couple of different things, actually.

So.

Because I've been into health and supplements for a couple of years as well.

Lion's Mane Mushrooms, my first supplement that I really got into.

I wanted to start a supplement company for musicians.

Okay.

There's a completely underserved area.

I knew there's a niche there because I thought sports is got.

You can pick of any supplement for any sport.

You can think, you know, powerlifting's got its own supplement.

You know, CrossFit's got its own supplement.

You know, probably tennis probably has its own supplement for joint care and things like that when you, when you look into it.

Yeah.

But drummers haven't.

I knew that.

Yeah.

I knew.

Well, and I knew as well that drummers and musicians, you know, without trying to stereotype, are.

Are historically more unhealthy.

Okay.

And they don't keep good diets, you know, they have Touring lifestyles where they don't get good sleep patterns, they don't eat well on the road, don't get enough nutrition in their diet.

So I thought, why hasn't someone come up with a supplement which is specifically aimed at touring musicians and the lifestyle of.

Of what they go through?

But talking to my wife, who's also a clinical voice expert, so she's already working in the NHS on people's voices and she.

She deals with hardcore voice problems when people have nodules and.

Yeah, etc.

Etc.

She said, well, why don't we do a supplement for vocalists using my knowledge?

And then you do all the business side and she does all the clinical side and research.

So we spent a year basically getting our research together, scientific paper of, you know, based on what different supplements and vitamins and minerals, nootropics work for different parts of the voice.

And we came up with a supplement called Vita Voice.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, right.

So you've been amateur singers and amateur singers.

Yeah.

And, you know, so mainly women who are in there who are retired.

Yeah.

You take it as well.

It's a huge market for us.

Wow.

So it's basically, it's a supplement that's aimed at people who get horse voice voice, people who need to keep their voice immunity in check, people who have low energy levels as well.

That's a big part to it as well.

There's some mindsets, nootropics in there, like lion's main mushroom is in it, Ashwagandha's in it as well, which is great for mindset as well and just calming you as well.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we came up with this supplement that's been on them.

We had to go for a whole year of learning something we've never learned before, which was Amazon fba.

Never done anything like that before, never sold anything on Amazon.

So me and a ex partner from the.

The old organization I was working in, he was great with spreadsheets and great at learning it.

He does all that part to it.

I do the marketing part and my wife Carrie does all the clinical side to it as well.

So we've got a great little team.

So it's a couple of good lessons to pull out of that one is if you're going to go out and follow your passion, do it with something that, you know, so you Fell back on what you knew, the music industry and the entertainment industry and the creative industry, if you like.

That's a really good point.

That's a really good lesson.

And yeah.

Did you watch Dragon's Den the other night when there was a really respect of you, but two guys came on and basically wanted to start a.

I think they started like a sauce company and, you know, barbecue sauce.

But they.

They literally said, oh, we wanted to do a business but we didn't know what.

So they just picked things out of a box.

Basically it said, we'll start a barbecue sauce company.

And I just don't know.

Being young, I don't know if that's going to give them the longevity.

Once it doesn't become successful, what do they go on to do?

Yeah, I think if you've got a passion for something, you'll just keep on doing it until it becomes successful.

You've also got a frame of reference, you've got some experience.

Yeah.

The other thing I pulled out of what you said there, Scott, was you're quite lucky.

You had your wife who had some expertise so the two of you could partner up.

But actually the value of partnerships, because it might not be somebody who lives with you, but it could be somebody that's not that distant from you.

Actually partnering up with people, if you're going to go down this route is really important, isn't it?

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

Fraught.

Sometimes with, you know, it can go wrong.

It doesn't always work out.

Yeah.

So what would your advice be to somebody who is.

Wants to take that leap?

You said it.

You know, follow what you know, do something where you.

Where you have a passion, but you also got some knowledge there.

What would your advice be about partnerships?

I think, well, going back one step, you need to do a skills evaluation on yourself and you just need to have an honest conversation with yourself.

If you can do that in the mirror, you know, just basically saying, what.

What am I lacking?

What do you.

I know myself because of my various.

You know, I don't mind saying now because it's not so much of a stigma now, but.

Yeah, I've got dyslexia and.

Right.

That would have been more of a stigma when I was in the senior leadership role, actually back in the education world, because there's still a tiny bit of a stigma to it.

But I know that my limitations are definitely figures and spreadsheets and looking at numbers and, you know, so I knew that I can't do this by myself.

It's impossible for me to scale A business that would need me to be in charge of the finances.

So I've got to get a part time partnering who can do that?

So which is what I did with Jack, who's just, you know, that his world.

But luckily Jack doesn't like doing the stuff that I do, which, you know, here I think he'd be comfortable in saying he doesn't like being the, you know, at the front of things and having to talk on podcasts and do all this type of stuff.

I mean, he'd be great doing it.

He'd be comfortable doing it, but it wouldn't be the thing he would go, I'll go and do that, you know, and you do the spreadsheets.

He's, he's great at having an organizational process in his mind.

And what I've been found working with Jack is I can just, you know, know come up with kind of creative off the wall ideas and he'll slow me down and go, right, how are you going to do that?

Let's put a systematic plan into place of A, B, C and D.

And that's how we get to the end of that.

And that's how you achieve that end goal.

It's interesting you say that because Rich and I, you know, we work together very effectively, but we're quite different people in many ways.

Some common skill sets, but some skill sets that are quite different.

And people say like you two work so well together, but actually probably work together well because we're quite different.

Yeah, that's not always easy to work with somebody who's quite different to you.

But actually that could be where the magic is, isn't it?

Actually you fill the gaps that you can't fill yourself.

That's 100%.

And I found that even going back to when was looking for people building teams back at the, at the organization.

So when we were putting job adverts out and we were trying to build the right type of team for roles, I wouldn't necessarily want 10 people who were exactly the same person.

What I was, you know, of, you know, just wanting to do things which were outside the box, thinking and you know, doing stuff which was creative all the time.

Because the problem with that is if you've got 10 people like that, nothing ever gets done.

Everyone just sits around the table going, wouldn't it be great if we change the world doing this?

But no one actually goes out and puts the plan into place.

So sometimes within a team, you really do need people who are more, you know, more introverse as well.

I think Introverts within teams are really, really like they your secret kind of power in some ways.

And people should employ more introverts.

You're saying this Rich is here listening to this and he's an introvert.

So he's going to be going, so you told you, Dave?

I told you, yeah, yeah, 100%, yeah.

If I was going to build a team again going forward for Vital Voice, I am looking for introverts as well as extroverts.

I want a good mix.

So just expand on that because I think it's an interesting point because I think introverts and Rich will say this to me, often get overlooked because the extroverts are naturally a bit louder.

A bit more out there will crowd them out, out.

That's a really interesting point, actually.

Why should we value introverts?

You know, what is it about?

What does an introvert bring to a team?

I think it's down to extroverts to value introverts more.

Because one thing which drives me absolutely nuts is when you see kind of training videos or advice on YouTube basically saying, if you're an introvert, this is how you become more extroverted within a job interview scenario or things like that.

To me, you've just got to play on it.

It's.

It's a superpower.

To me it's like, okay, yeah, maybe introverted and you just got to have like a good.

You could maybe have, you know, the, the confidence to say, look, I am an introvert, but that allows me to think of things systematically.

It allows me to have a good creative thinking process that probably extroverts don't have in the same way.

Interesting.

And I would play on the power of that and, you know, so if I'm looking for someone in my team, yeah, 100, I want two or three introverts who are literally going to be able to have concentration as well.

Introverts have great concentration levels.

My concentration level are awful.

You know, I can have like a concentration level of about 15, 20 minutes before I'm like, oh, I'm gonna do something else now or I'm gonna flip onto something else.

I know so many introverts can literally sit down at a computer for two or three hours, get lost in it, create a spreadsheet, won't take a break or come up, and you're like, wow, I really wish I could do that.

You know, I'm jealous of the fact that I can't do that.

It's interesting.

I've looked on, you know, Rich and I'VE been working together eight years now.

I am probably.

You'd naturally describe me as probably as more extrovert.

He had more introvert.

What I've noticed about myself in that eight years, I've probably become more reflective than I would naturally be.

And that's his influence on me.

Yeah.

So I think if you surround yourself with people that have got real skill sets that are different to you, because this is about.

This is about the power of partnerships, isn't it?

Actually you can absorb some of their good stuff.

Yeah.

100% and probably vice versa.

You know, that works both ways, doesn't it?

But, yeah, that reflection, I think that's.

That's key.

You know, I think you probably.

That's a learned skill as you get older, isn't it?

As well you're not as reflective in your early 20s as what you are when you get into your.

Your 40s, like I am when you go.

Actually, looking back on my time, what would I have done differently and how can I apply that now going forward?

That's a huge thing to learn.

Well, I'll come to your leadership lessons in a bit.

I'm just interested in looking forward now.

So here you are.

You've got a number of businesses.

You've got a teaching consultancy.

Yeah.

You've got drum skins, you've got the Vita Voice business.

What's next for Scott, what you're trying to achieve in the next 10 years of your life, Scott?

Yeah, that's a good question.

I don't, mate.

Do I think in 10 years time.

Yeah, well, yeah, getting.

For Vita Voice, we're definitely on the point where we want to try and secure Angel Investment and go for a buyout within five years.

Okay.

So, yeah, we're definitely looking to sell, to build it up to a certain level and then let someone else take the reins of it.

But I'd be quite.

I've never gone through that process.

I've never gone.

No.

Through the process of selling a business.

So that's something I want to go through to go.

Yeah.

I want to go into my 50s, not having to do the type of hours I'm doing right now and just have a little bit more time to just be a bit more reflective and read more and things like that.

So one thing you said to me previously when we've spoken, you said one of the driving forces within you is to leave the world in a better place.

You talked about legacy at the very beginning as well.

Yeah.

And especially because you've got kids now as well.

I've Got kids.

I understand that.

So how does that shape the way that you approach business nowadays?

I think legacy to me, and leaving the world in a better place, it comes back to me what is missing now in education.

The whole point to education, which is my background, I guess, for, for that many years, is fundamentally education is about changing society for the better.

And I think what gets confused now is education, especially from where I've come from, FE and vocational stuff, is education should lead to job outcomes.

And that's it.

Yeah.

And it's very much near like, you know, if you do a construction course and how many of those students who've done the construction course have gone on to get a job in construction instruction?

If you do a music course, how many of them can you say have gone on to get a job in music?

Well, actually, probably not many for the, for the immediate couple years that they've left.

But so many of them have learned about creative thinking, branding, marketing, resilience, and they've taken those lessons that they've learned during music and they've put them into other areas as well, which have making them contributing good members of society.

That's what education to me is about.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So that sounds like if you were the education secretary in our country, you change, you change the landscape of education in this country.

Yeah, yeah.

I never would want to ever be there.

No, I know, but I'd like to consult and, you know, and, you know, obviously put ideas forward, but be part of a team.

But yeah, completely.

It's education to me and what we're here to do.

What.

Why are we on the planet?

Is it.

I've seen this actually.

Yeah.

Going in, you know, going to, you know, we're going to go into big, big thinking now.

But I was saying to Carrie the other day as we, as we were driving somewhere with kids in the back, I said, isn't it mad, the concepts that we're all working, you know, so hard, you know, in, in life, you know, especially everyone on the plants, working so hard, you know, in the vast majority to basically pay for a box on a little bit of land just to go, okay, yeah, we're all working this many years to say, I've got that box, I've got that roof over my head and we're all, you know, massive.

So many people are talk to are not working in jobs that they enjoy doing, so they can pay for that box and pay for the, you know, the four wheels which are on the drive.

And you think, why are we doing this?

You know, know it's It's a mad concept, really.

It is.

And I think there is a.

There is a.

More and more people are starting to question having a job with purpose and having a job with meaning.

But I think unlike you, some people really struggle to find that.

That was my next question, actually.

Looking at your career, if there's someone out there listening to, thinking.

Everything Scott is saying is resonating with me, but I struggle to define what my why is, what my purpose is, what would your advice be to that person listening?

I think everyone knows what their passion is, so.

And that's what you've got to do.

So if you can say, look at my passion is people.

My passion is cooking.

You know, if it's something that you can put a name to, then that's what you've got to go and do.

You know, some people's passion is animals or animal care, you know, so go and do something to do with that or.

Yeah, some people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think you had a passion for tennis, didn't you?

You were saying.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's my, my.

Why haven't you gone into to that as a career as well, or doing something around tennis?

It was a, it was a career.

I took that up much later.

Yeah, I think I got a passion for sport.

I think you're right.

You know, why did I not go into a career around sport?

The answer is I don't know.

I think if I look back now and think if I had some of the opportunities I could have had young, I think I would have loved to have a career in sport.

I don't know what that career would have been.

I don't mean being necessarily a professional sports person, but a career around sport would have been absolutely fantastic because I love sport.

I've got a passion for, but I think my passion is for people.

So, you know, when I left employed work and I was employed for what, 38 years as well?

30 years in my life as well.

It was.

And I got made redundant.

It's a bit like you that sort of, oh, my God, what do I do now?

Yeah, it was, what am I passionate about?

I'm passionate about helping other people just be the best version of themselves, because I'm a coach by mentality, so why don't I make my career for the rest of my life just helping people be the best they can be?

Now, I apply that in all aspects of my life.

It's not just my job.

And that's what Zentano is all about.

That's what this podcast is all about.

But I do it in terms of the voluntary work I do at the tennis club.

Club.

So bringing kids through and helping them.

Yeah.

Being a dad, you know, that's helping your kids thrive as well, isn't it?

So that that purpose and that meaning cuts across all aspects of your life, and I dare say yours does as well.

Yeah, yeah.

100.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think what going back to, you know, is to answer that in a tangible way.

Let's.

Everyone just needs to do a.

An analysis of what are my passions, what do I enjoy doing?

There's got to be something.

Even if it's just sitting down and watching tv, there's got to be something in it.

What do you enjoy watching on tv?

What is it in there, you know, that makes you want to, you know, there's got.

Everyone's got a passion for something.

I truly believe that.

And probably what you said also, what am I good at?

Because you got your strengths and your passion.

Where those two things meet is probably somewhere where your purpose and meaning is.

Yeah.

So let's wrap this up there, Scott.

There's a lot of.

A lot of lessons I think people can take from this.

Yeah.

If you had to sum up your philosophy of leadership into sort of three key lessons, what do you think they would be?

Gutting, style, instinct, I think is, you know, tried and tested.

Really.

I would 100 listen more to my gut instincts.

There's things that have gone on in leadership roles that I have known this is going to come back to bite me or I haven't done my due diligence on partners I've worked with in other businesses as well.

Things like that.

That I thought, yeah, this is.

Why don't, you know, I haven't been brave enough that I can reflect back now and go.

Brave enough to go.

You should have listen to your gut instinct.

You knew it wasn't right, but you didn't say anything about it then or you knew something was going to happen.

Why didn't you do that?

So just having that bravery really to go.

Yeah.

Your gut instinct, I think is probably right most of the time.

You know, if.

When it comes to people anyway.

Okay.

I think that's a great lesson.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then that goes to being brave, acting when you know, needs.

Something needs to change as well.

So it's just having that going back to.

I love that 3D's analysis of.

Of, you know, are you going to let something define you, destroy you or develop you?

Yeah, I love that too.

That's something I'M always gonna.

That's gonna save me for the rest of my life now, no matter what happens, no matter what traumatic.

Because there will be other traumatic things that happen going forward.

We're not.

Yeah, absolutely.

I've got, you know, until probably another 40, 50 years, hopefully on the planet.

So what's going to happen?

You know, there is going to be traumatic things, but I know now going forward that everything that happens to me, I'm just going to let it develop.

Develop me.

I think that's a fantastic lesson.

Yeah.

And as you say, be brave.

Yeah.

And anything else?

Just deciding what impact you want to have on the world and make sure that it aligns with the work that you do.

Yeah.

It's interesting that one because we, Rich and I often ask people who come on our programs, you know, what impact and contribution do you want to make in the role that you've got?

Yeah.

And often people struggle to answer that question.

Yeah, they really do.

And it's, I think, as you say, it's really worth deciding for yourself, isn't it?

What is it?

What's the impact I want to make?

Goes back to your report about defining what success is as well.

Well, yeah, because if success is just about having that lovely box and loads of money in the bank, well, there's loads of people like that are not happy and not fulfilled.

And I tell you what, the stuff I remember now, even with the job in the organization, what I.

The good stuff I remember about everything I've done over the last 20 years is not the fact that I earned really good money at the, at the time.

I don't actually remember that now.

What I remember is the impact that I had.

Even my little small world of the music industry, I can hand on heart say that the impact of.

And the programs that I've put together and the lessons and all the mentoring and coaching I've done to the specific group of 16 to 25 year olds.

Mostly I.

I've taught and mentored hundreds of them now and I know they are because I still get messages now from when I put my kind of statement out, you know, on my social media that I was stepping down from this role and stuff.

The amount of nice kind of feedback I had literally in hundreds of messages going, being amazing what you've done, done, Love the impact you had.

Still remember the lessons now, things like that.

That was something that stayed with me as well.

Yeah.

Now I think, reflecting back on it of.

Yes.

So many people, you know, that you've been able to give, you know, your Experience to.

And have still.

Still contact me today going, oh, I love the time that we did with you when we.

When we did this.

And here's what we're up to now.

And people still keep in contact with you, even from back then.

I'm still in contact with people for, you know, well over 20, 25 years of people I don't necessarily work with, but I just, you know, are in contact with now because I've had these good experiences.

I think that's a fab bit of advice.

Listen to your gut instinct.

Be brave.

When you know something needs to change, just do it and decide what impact you want to have.

And take those 3Ds.

Yeah.

Does it destroy you, develop you, define you, or develop you?

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Finally, where can people learn more about you and your businesses?

Yeah.

So the website for my consultancy stuff is called SGM Music Group, which is Sugar Goldmother.

I really regret calling it the sgm music group.com, but my accountant.

Basically, I wanted to call it the sgm.

I have changed it now to it's just called SGM Group.

So when you look on the website, it's just SGM Group, but the actual URL is SGM Music Group.

Okay.

I'll blame my accountant for that one because he said you need to come up with a name really quick and it needs to get.

So I'll just.

I said, yeah, I just call it that.

But anyway, so there's SGM Music or SGM Group.

You can Google that find now.

VitaVoice.co.uk is our supplement company.

I've started another music consultancy thing for colleges which is called music plus brand.com and that's really good to look at as well.

So anyone who's working in FE or any recording studios who might be listening.

Yeah, have a look at that.

That's really good as well.

Lovely.

Well, Scott, thank you so much for your time today.

Yeah, you're a really inspiring guy.

I think you've got some fantastic, fantastic life lessons that people can learn from.

And let's hope that you, somebody listen to this, takes that brave step towards purpose and meaning.

Thanks for having me, Dave.

I really appreciate it.

And thanks to Rich as well.

You're welcome.

If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to subscribe and share it with someone who might need that extra push to take that next step.

Until next time, keep leading with purpose.