Aidan McCullen - The True Origin of The Innovation Show

You know, the way people say there was always a book before the book. So there was a show before the show. If you're going to do something new, it's always going to fail. They're going to kill all your ideas. I was like, well, what do you want from me? And she's like, I want you to stop doing your stupid show.

Welcome to the innovation show. I'm not Aidan McCullen. I'm also not Aidan McCullen. I'm Scott Wolfson, this is Kez Sanpanther, my best friend and partner in possibility. We host a show called Tectonic, the AI thought show with Kez and Scott, and Aiden was gracious enough to be the first guest on the first episode of our second season and then offered us this opportunity to do a bit of a remix. Not unlike he used to do back in the day with that conversation.

One of the greatest things about Aidan is he is just shy of 600 shows of the Innovation Show. The full story of Aidan's origin has not been done. And that's the opportunity we had in this amazing conversation with him. It's nearly 10 years now. So early days interviews, you're trying to find your feet and you're not, not really, I mean, not intentionally trying to find your feet. You're doing, you're doing the best with the tools you have.

Are you asking questions with the with the knowledge that you have available to you for me back then it was mainly functional so i'd worked in a like an earlier decade in digital transformation so i was asking from there and then, books i read articles i read etc but i but i hadn't really layered on lens of top of the lens on top of the lens of what i do now so in the early days of the book sometimes you didn't view people the title looks great and then you'd

realize they didn't even write the book. So a lot of times they had a ghost writer and you'd ask question i can go oh yeah maybe we'll skip that question. Oh ok so so you then you become more discerning with what books you choose and i saw this does it does actually it's on youtube it's carl sagan, i'm carl sagan says he shows a library like you guys have and i have here and he goes in your lifetime you're only capable of reading this amount of books.

Most people and he said so choose your books wisely and i was just one of those moments i went okay so i decided i was like on i know i have those books i know i have a lot of authors lined up to speak to. But i actually need to reshuffle my thinking about this so that those kind of little tips are where were things you just kind of stumbled into over the years.

Well, I want to, I want to like jump off right from that point, Aiden, because I spent a little bit of time with the innovation show last night and I created a Goodreads shelf with as many of the books as I could. 382 of them. I should have done that, man. You're making me look bad here. Well, I can't, how could I make you look bad, Aiden? Because you, you were the one who, who, who, you know, chose all of these.

Like all of these books and, and it's just, it's absolutely, it's a fascinating peek into your brain. So, you know, how did you start? Like when, when I scroll all the way down, On SoundCloud, right? Here's your intro theme. And then episode number one with Seth Godin. Like, how did that even happen? That's, that's amazing. You know, the way people say there was always a book before the book. So there was a show before the show and the show for me started.

So I'll tell you the origin story because actually it's a story of resistance to change and a story of being told you can't do it. By the powers, right? So I joined the national broadcaster here and within a week, I knew, Oh man, this was a mistake, everything like I remember, I remember feeling the energy in the room and kind of going, Oh my God, what is this? It must be the high ceilings or something like that.

But it was just this, this low frequency of energy of fear of untapped potential in people and a leader that. Actually try to keep them there to keep them in check because they're forced to have more power and she had this board and on the board where again, a mix of sycophants people yes men and women and then people who are afraid of telling the truth. And I came from a totally different business before.

And I came from an entrepreneurial media company where you, you tried and you tried and you kept doing stuff. And if you weren't doing stuff, you weren't doing much.

So we came to this different environment and it was a public broadcaster and i was asked to come up with an idea for the the player we were building which was like the netflix so i said straight away i was like well it's gotta be as good as netflix you know that it can't be so far because that's the bar for people now, i'm on top of that you have to pay a license fee for this national broadcaster so i was asked to come up with this idea. I had nothing to do with it.

I was like, you know, we have all these people living in Ireland now who aren't Irish, who are craving content that is educational and somewhat, somewhat edutainment. And i said this idea of the innovation show i said it's really nice for sponsors as well cause most shows when you hear the word innovation people think of technology i was like, it's a mix of technology resistance to change strategy theories behind technology etc so i was told straight away we tried that before i was like gone.

There it is cuz what my old boss who i left really well with before you remember saying they're gonna kill all your ideas and he appeared to me in this little cloud like in the simpsons gone, i was like no man i'm not letting this happen. So I went, I was, so this was in the digital department and a guy who worked for that entrepreneur worked, he ran one of the radio stations. So I walked into him in the radio station and I just said to him, I said, Dan is his name, Dan Healy. Great guy.

I said, Dan, I had a one pager is like, what do you think of this idea? And it was just. few lines of what the, what the themes would be, what the format would be, et cetera. And he goes, great idea. He says, we have no content like that. He said, what kind of budget do you have? And I was like, well, I was going to ask you that. What, what budget do you have? And he goes, he goes, have you got a presenter? And I said, no, that's what I was meeting you about. And he goes, why don't you do it?

And I was like, Oh man, I, I've never done anything like that before. And he said, but you do rugby commentary. So I used to be a co commentator on rugby and co comments quite easy. I mean, all you're doing is commentating on specific parts after the fact, like a great move or a try or the equivalent of a touchdown. So it's kind of much easier, but with the show, you're the anchor. So he goes, I'll tell you what, I'll give you a loan of a producer.

This guy, Alan Swan, I'll give you Alan for six weeks. He'll help you get set up. And then you're on your own. So I started that, did that show. And again, what I, what I started to do was scan the internet for incoming people into Ireland who were speaking at events, and then I'd go, I'd either go to Get in a taxi and bring them to the studio or order them a taxi and bring them to the studio and interview them and send them home in a taxi and they were great.

They were delighted because it was national broadcasters, national broadcaster, national access. So that's how it started. And the best thing about this was I didn't tell anyone, so I didn't tell my boss or anything like that. I just, you know, the whole idea.

ask for forgiveness not permission i had that branded into my brain so i do this on a few weeks later, my that we're having this meeting again and my boss goes hey how's that idea coming along the innovation show and i was like oh yeah great it's on episode thirteen and it's top of the tech charts, she nearly had an aneurysm.

It was great, but in doing so, you know, I always talk about this stuff on my show that that idea of asking for forgiveness, not permission is not actually a great idea because you, you run out of runway and I soon ran out of runway then because I had no support then because I had done this thing.

In you know don't know behind the scenes try to build this thinking that was quite a good thing and i'll be able to go but it's successful so what she tried to do then is move me office and handed over and find somebody to run the show so pretty soon i was like on you know this isn't working.

This this relationship this job and i was given an ultimatum actually to go i was like what do you want from me and she's like i want you to stop doing your stupid show i want you to stop writing cuz i started right that's when i started writing first actually because. I was trying to find another medium for this brilliant content I'd stumbled upon. So when you're doing interviews, you pull out nuggets and they mix with your own ideas and then you can create something new.

The whole idea of that combinatory thinking. So you're combining different ideas together. So I'd start to write that and publish that and she wanted me to stop doing that. And she's like, and I want you to sit out there like everyone else. And I kind of did this, one of these slow head turns and looked out to everyone else and was kind of going, I don't think that's a good idea.

So I left and it, and I want to say this, it's so hard to leave because. It was a, it was what we call in Ireland, a cushy number. So a cushioned job, great pension, no, no stress for people who don't want to achieve things, but stressful for someone who wants to have, who wants to build something. So really stressful for me. I couldn't stand it. And the biggest challenge for something like that is I have two kids and a wife.

And when you're going and you're taking, what's it really a selfish decision to go, I can't do this. I will rush my brain will run away if i do this and you have this i remember having this moment i was in the gym and i looked in the mirror as i gone just suck it up just will do this and then i said i can't i can't like my reflection was talking about to be man we can't do this so i pulled out of it and went on and it was the best thing i ever did and years later actually it was.

Reveal that there was so many problems in that organization that it was validated. And so many people got in touch with me and were like, well done for leaving, you know, but at the time, so difficult. And these are the challenges you face when you, you take these entrepreneurial pursuits, so.

That's how the show started that was the show before the show and just the set golden piece so i reached out to seth i'd followed him for a long long time i'd read most of his books i reached out to him i knew he answered his emails and here's the thing i did i interviewed a lady who wrote a book on how to write perfect emails i interviewed her on the other show. And I used her format to email Seth and Seth came back immediately and said, yes. And I was like, Oh yes. So I went, I'll record that.

I'll put that out as my first new show, the innovation show. And I, at the last show on, of the previous incarnation, I announced, I said, look, The show is closing now and thanks to everybody for all their help. Thanks, Alan. Thanks, Dan, the guys who made the show possible and all the guests that we had. And I said, watch out for me on LinkedIn and Twitter. I'm going to release something new soon. And then about a week later released this new show. And that's where it came from.

So there's always a book before the book or a show before the show. I love that. I definitely want that book. I don't know if you read the author of, uh, I reached out to Seth very early on when I was designing my, one of my first startups and I shared with him and I got really excited about Purple Cow. I created a Purple Cow marketing plan around how I'm going to launch this innovation tool and sent it to him.

And like, he always responds, but he was like, his response was like, Oh, this is really cool. Go for it. Ship it, buddy. Hey, you should show, show for those people watching us your, your special editions of the purple cow. I don't think people have seen that. Are they, are they easily accessible there? I thought that was so cool. I look, I can get it. Give me one second.

Well, and that's, and that's perfect timing because I'm going to, I'm going to jump into a. A question that I think is going to wind its way throughout the rest of the conversation because that, that book before the book, the show before the show, when, when did you, when did you start to have a relationship with the concept of reinvention? Is there a time that you can think back to where it started to click?

Well, it's easier to, it's easier to look back now, Scott, and say, oh, I have a theory. And you know, you actually don't know when it actually happens. But the thing I talk about in the book is one of the great gifts that is. Is actually seen as a huge struggle is as a professional sports player of any type of player and anybody who changes career dramatically when you know there's an end coming that you have to prepare for that and the idea of reinvention for me is.

It's in this idea of the show before the show, or the book before the book. Like you say that it's really characterized by this metaphor of the Phoenix that I absolutely love. And the Phoenix is this mythical creature, as you know, that every 500 years willingly walks into the flames from the ashes of what it used to have. So, so it's created this persona or this entity, the show, and.

Is willing to burn it up to absolute nothingness again but keep what is absolutely useful only what's useful to actually go on to to enjoy a new incarnation another five hundred years of life, i'm not is very very much at the heart of everything that i do is that what you've done in a world of rapid change what has a shelf life.

And it will burn up it will be over it will be no longer fit for purpose and you have to be willing to to put energy into it but know that it's not gonna last forever, i knew you're gonna have to constantly change cuz the world's changing you're changing and the product itself is then out of out of sync airline and there's a. A jack wealth quote that i love whether people of jack wealth or not but there's a quote that he had that if the rate of change on the outside

exceeds the rate of change on the inside the end is near i think that quote encapsulates this kind of moving.

world business world or society and then if you on the inside you personally are not updating your mental models to be able to match to be able to see those in in in context, you're gonna be out of sync and this is kind of this whiplash effect and you're gonna see this blurred version of of what could be reality so i think that's the, the source of everything and we'll talk about this in a while that the idea of kintsugi thinking which is really.

The source of all this and you, you had this yourself with your work in TV that is now paying off. That's Kintsugi thing. It's like the thing I did ages ago that I thought was over dead and buried, cropped up again in a way to help me today that I never could have ever considered. I never could have predicted. And we usually tell these post rationalized stories of go, yeah, yeah. I planned it, everything. You're kind of, no, you didn't. It's an absolute look that we came across this.

Yeah. So here's the purple cow, marketing. His purple cow marketing book is still inside. This is one of the sealed ones. And you know, like you had to buy 12 of them, which I love as a marketing idea. And I gave them away with my business plan. So as I went and asked people Wow, for funding and support or join the project, I would send them my mark, my purple car marketing plan with the milk carton. And, you know, basis, I, I had to tell people to open it.

I realized the first one I sent, like, uh, it was actually a friend of the family's and he was like, yeah, look, the marketing plan makes sense. I love the milk carton. I gave it to my, you know, I was like, did he read the book inside? It goes, Oh, there was a book inside. I thought he just sent me a milk carton. Brilliant. Oh, that's a great idea. And you know, I'd say there, have you checked what they're worth on eBay? I'd say they're worth a few Bob now. I have not checked it.

I have seen those bad boys. Well, I want to say it's like free prize inside was also a cereal box. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Yeah. Because unfortunately, I think I only for some reason, I only have one. And it's opened. So I'm not sure you did that same model where you had to buy a couple of them, but again, it was like a, it was like a cereal box with a free price inside, which is a book, which I love, like growing up, like in our generation.

It's like, you know, the prizes inside cereal boxes. So, love it. I love that. Seth Godin has been a hero of mine and inspiration for so long. He is, he is. I love the idea of being remarkable.

You know the simplicity of it that somebody will remark about it it's remarkable and that if you if you try to do that you know one of the things i think about him and you know, one thing we should all strive for is and i didn't do this in sport enough is that, you actually only really make progress when you embrace who you are and you stop trying to emulate somebody else that you create something totally unique, that you really you got it's you in it. And I think that's what he really did.

He just embraced himself and he embraced his way of doing things and then just kept doing the work. You know, that's the thing. Yeah. People miss the discipline behind something like him, like a blog every day. And you know, it's even going through Christmas there every day. So that means planning to go, I'm going to write something every day. Cause it's not just.

It's not just filler, like, you know, you, you unsubscribe from so many newsletters that you received today because there's so much information, but his things are always well considered and that takes huge discipline. It's like he works for like 15 hours a day, even now. And, uh, you know, that's how he gets to write so many things, write so many books. Um, Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Yeah. Scott, man, I took your way off and I do this off piece too. My mind works that way.

It kind of goes, but I'll come back. I always come back if I have enough time. You know, as, as, as we figured out a couple of years ago, unfortunately, the term tangential thinking has some unfortunate baggage because it's typically more associated with schizophrenia.

But. I, you know, I like that term and, and, and where you went with it, that's, that you embody this notion that Kez and I have been calling nerd jamming for, for a few years, like the way that we got through COVID in particular was literally talking every day. And, you know, just finding ways to, to get through it. And, you know, so we, it is that, that sort of tangential thinking it is divergent thinking. Um, and it, it is a double edged sword and you've got that.

So how have you balanced that, that narrow laser like focus with the wide lens? Like, like one Adner, you haven't wrote about. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's a nice segue man. Nice job on the discipline thing.

Because a good way to think about this is a team i played for are they are the best in the world they're absolutely incredible is to lose start to lose on a french team and they're just, they're even better now than they were then i actually i don't have many regrets but i can look and i'd love to play in their current setup that they have now because they just have.

perfect culture the way of playing the style of playing good really good mix of players as well but people look at them and there's a term is you a which just means to play in french and. People will say oh that's a real style of you a where they just play free flowing rope it's like freestyle jazz to do that you have to have unbelievable discipline in in the. Incremental jobs that everybody does everybody needs to know the job really really well.

And then they're led by this overall overarching kind of strategy or North star of how we play. And. The way i can translate that into business is the same thing that you have to you have to show up and do the work every day making sure it's the right work that we talked about before we came on air make sure that that's the right work but then you're driven by some type of.

Of north star some type of blurry vision of what the future looks like and for me with any kind of tangential thinking is i do the reading, but i actually read it and i was actually thinking about this recently somebody was saying i read that book you told me to read. I was like thinking i wonder what he means by he read it as in you can flick through a book and go yeah yeah it's red take it's task you know task i put thinking or whatever you would say versus quality of reading it.

I think one of the great gifts that you guys will discover as you as you do more more of your shows as well is that when you read knowing that you're gonna actually interview the person. And you're taking notes and then you write about it yourself that it's this beautiful combination of. You have to actually really consider the questions and you have to really consider the quotes cause if you're reading the book.

Like sometimes I have so many of tons of quotes and then you have to go, what do I leave out, which is really difficult, but you're gathering this content each week and then I purposely write about it. I tried to like at any one time i've like right now about three hundred articles and draft and they're all driven by some type of concept that I have some metaphor or some quote from some book.

And sometimes i leave them there i'm like even last week but three years later something something somebody says in the show i go, i think i might have a draft of that and then i go looking through my drafts and go yes i'll finish that one off and that for me that's a real dopamine hit i got this real reward of that, told nerd yes that's perfect i can finish that.

And what's beautiful is when you bring like three or four of guests quotes that are unique to you because they're not quotes that you pulled from goodreads or some brainy quote or something like that that you're the quotes you've you've actually found yourself. And then you've infused them into an article that makes sense i think the practice of that's got over years i'm doing that now since the time i left that organization that i told you about so nearly ten years i'm doing that.

Is that it becomes a way of thinking then because you've actually trained it. You trained yourself to think that way. So somebody will say something and I'll be like going, Hmm. And, and it's so bad now. My wife said to me, she said to me recently, somebody will say something and she go, oh, Aiden will probably write a blog about that So, yeah. And, and, and, but it's also so good, right? So in my book.

There's, there's this concept of this beautiful creature that is, I use it as this symbol of permanent reinvention called the immortal jellyfish, Taurotoptus dornii, right? That came from my son who at the time was about 10. He was just about 10. And he came to me and he said, dad, you can't talk. You can't use the Phoenix. You can't, the Phoenix is a myth.

He says, I found a real creature and he showed me cause he used to watch stuff on YouTube and he showed me the YouTube and I was watching, I was like, Oh my God, that's genius. Like, but the fact that, that just by having somebody in your surroundings that knew what you were doing, but could capture it from the eyes of a 10 year old and give me that lens, it was just an incredible gift.

And there's so much of my kids in the book actually, because they were constantly saying stuff to me all the time. And I'd be like going. From the mouths of babes, you know, so making it that simple was, was great as well. So I'm constantly scanning and I'm not purposely scanning either. Scott, like I'm constantly scanning. Cause once that's turned on that lens, you can't turn it off again. And I think that's the beautiful thing.

You know, I think it was Emerson said once the mind is stretched by a new idea, it never returns to its original dimensions. Eric kandel the nobel laureate he said that when you when you receive just one new bit of information your brain never ever goes back to its former self it advances in ways remarkable i think that's the source of the work that we do that both the show or running workshops or keynotes or any kind of lecturing. Is that you're changing how people see the world for the better.

And if you're driven by that service of, I want to do this. So you see it for the better. That's beautiful. So, so you can see how all this to me is it's the same stuff. It all comes together and it culminates in, in the work that I do. It's fascinating. So interesting enough, the, the prototype game I created and sent to Seth Gordon. So this is, there's only two copies, three copies. I think Scott's got one now it's sold out.

So I only created like 500 of these things and it's a creativity game. And so slightly different to how you think about it. It's like. All of these books are randomized, like I, there's no organization because I realized I'd read books and I'd pluck out ideas. So it's similar to you and sort of like, I read this book three times, I got three different copies and there's different post it notes and things in there. And it's like, because different ideas like jump out at you.

And I started collecting those ideas into an idea library. And as a game designer, I was like, Oh, I can create a game out of this. And I created this creativity commentary play game, which was what I do looking at my bookshelf. Brilliant. Brilliant. Yeah. So you, that's your lens. I saw that in your, in your book, like I loved all these analogies you brought in. I can kind of see how you connect dots. I've seen it in your blog posts since then as well.

It's like, yeah, like I can see you like, you know, that sparks that idea. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not, I think that's, I think that's really nice when you, um, When you can see how somebody's thinking, cause, cause you actually have no, most of us assume people think the same as us or are just on a totally different level, you know, and they are one of the things maybe I'll share with our audience, because we were talking about this before we came on air.

One of the huge drivers for me was my first job after professional rugby was.

Digital transformation that we didn't call it that yet it was just a job like i don't even the organization called it that because i actually went in, i couldn't get a job was two thousand and eight i had loads of jobs lined up by the way so i don't know the work preparing for the end.

And then the end came in the end of this period of absolute chaos, where not only was the jobs no longer there, the organizations that I plan to join were gone, they shut down, they were advertising agencies, et cetera. So. This is the whole idea of creative destruction that this was destroyed, but in the rubble, there was something that actually set me on a totally different path. So I got into digital transformation because I was told traditional advertising was going to be struggling.

And in every organization I walked into, I'd see this like, Sm corner of these kind of snot nose punks, . And I was like, who are those kids? And they're like going, oh, they're the digital guys. And I was like, going, what do they do? And they're, they're like, we don't know yet. And I was like, and then I, and then I, I had a little notebook. I used to bring around a notebook and I'd go, 'cause I'd have, because of the rugby, I had access to the leaders of these organizations.

They go, would you mind me asking me, asking you, how much are they earning? And then they tell me. And then I realized that for their age they were earning way more. Pro rata than people who would have started traditionally. And I needed that because my only source of income then was, I was a coach. So it was, I had to coach at the end.

I was very lucky that my former club lands and ruby club, they gave me a coaching role and I got some money from that because it was on 18 grand and in this starting job. So I had to find some way to try and just meet my basic needs of mortgages and stuff like that and I hit on the way, like, can you imagine the chaos and then the whole world's ending, you know, with 2008, 2009. So it was, it was madness.

And so in there, I, I, I started to do, I started, I was work shadowing this guy who was outsourcing everything. So he's outsourcing all the advertising to advertising agencies. And then I'd kind of meet the agencies and I realized that they were learning on our dime, really. You know, and then I was like, why would we do that? Like, this is nuts. Like we need to, we need that expertise in the organization. Cause we had 44 radio stations. It was like, we need that skillset inside.

So let's build an internal agency. So pretty soon they were like, they, the consultant who was doing this work moved on. They were kind of going, who are we going to, who are we going to get to do this now? And I'm like, I'll do it. And they're like, what do you know? And I was like, well, I know one thing. I'm a few Google searches ahead of all the rest of you guys, and I'm dedicated to those Google searches. So that's what I, that's what I did.

I just focused on that, but out of that, then built, built this, this new agency within the agency. Yeah. So digital was, uh, digital was at the heart of everything I did, but, but here's the thing I wanted to share was, so when I got to really interesting projects, I'll give you one example, total failure, but it was a great idea, right? It was called, we had a radio station called news talk, and I had this idea.

Where, where, and it wasn't unique by the way, I wanted to build a platform that could be used in multiple ways across several of the radio stations. So one of them was, we had a station called spin and it was a younger station that played kind of like dance music and stuff like that. So I met the agent, I met the labels and I asked the labels, would they give us song parts so you could go in and sign up for this, this, um, platform.

And you could download the song parts, remix them, upload them again. And then there'd be a competition. You'd be voting, et cetera, et cetera. And then the, the, the winning song would be played every week. Right? So great. That really worked really well. Then I wanted to use the exact same format, but this time for a different station, this news talk station, and people would.

Send in their own reports stuff they'd seen videos photos etc and i got actually got nokia to sponsor back then just shows how long it was long ago it was and nokia sponsored this with this brand new phone that they had which was after the iphone. Interestingly most videos that were sent in were iphone videos so anyway we we did we do those things but when i did those.

I actually didn't, I didn't engage the station and the, I didn't get real context about how it worked in the station like that and the, the real levers that you needed to pull on that. But worst of all, I didn't have the language to explain what this was. And this, this had come from books. I'm sure you've read like Wikonomics. And reading books like that around crowdsourcing and understanding that the power of the crowd, if you infuse them into your station, you create something new.

And I don't think anybody's still actually done it, by the way. I think there's probably a real opportunity to be hard to do today with fake news, et cetera, and deep fakes. But the, the, the idea I still was really think is really sound, but I didn't have a way to articulate it in a way that was in their language.

The people i was talking to so it always look like it was for me and i was trying to sell advertising on the back of it that's what that's what they saw when they saw me coming but actually what i was trying to do is go all the rising tide lifts all of us that if we have more revenue we can invest more in the.

digital platforms, we can build more apps, we can engage more audience, we can build more digital audience and it was only later when i had started reading books i started reading really old hbr articles going back to the start of hbr i found somebody online that uploaded all every old, Hb articles and actually had scanned them scanned them in with pdfs so i read all those start reading stuff started upgrading and that's what i sent you that i started to level up then, and

are the owner of our station and brought us to harvard and we did a course over harvard for weekend i was a game changer for me because it was again new lenses. And it introduced me to the power of education then as well. Then when you educate people, then you get them onto the same level.

Cause after that, that was a pivotal moment when we came back after that, and a few of the senior execs had been on it together, we were speaking the same language and they knew that you were on a strategic, same strategic pages then.

So that was, that was kind of like the, again, one of these kind of failures. That was reframed into a success that you can see those things. You can get a look at them and go, oh, that was a total, that was a total bomb, you know, or else you can go, well, it was only by actually creating the chaos that was able to pull some order out of it. Cause if you're going to do something new, it's always going to fail. But so I think that's really at the heart of the work I do.

And even my kids, you know, I say to them, you know, you're always going to be bad at something at the start. Like you have to be you have to go through this right of passage where it's gonna feel uncomfortable and you're gonna feel terrible about yourself. Do the people who actually do well and people who realize that and it's like this as i say in the book it's a it's a milestone not a millstone so you see it and you can go i reach that messy kind of middle that just comes before.

The dawn and I think that's really important

one of the things I recognize by you and it's something with Scott and I have been you know I've been dealing with longer I got Scott into reading a lot is this concept of being auto didact like my research and.

my degrees, computer science and artificial intelligence, which for a good, like after, you know, I lost funding for my PhD because neural networks was, was never going to work, apparently, so deep learning wasn't going to be a thing, and my head of department, like, wrote a letter and got my funding. Anyway, long story, but basically, like, I didn't, AI was done, in my, in my eyes.

And, like, I started learning on my own, I realized I learned more after university than I learned Any time during all the way up to that point, you know, I learned neuroscience. I went back and studied that. I studied economics and then strategy and innovation and creativity. And it's, I found it fascinating how people react to it. And one of the things is, is that sort of challenge, like we're so used to being credentialed.

Like, it's like, like I started doing all those TED talks because I'd worked out this new neuroscience research on how our motivational system works. I'd actually talked to neuroscientists, I'd been working on game design for a long time, created this thing for games myself, and then transferred it to, you know, digital experiences.

And it was this sort of, I think it was at one of those TED events where, you know, I'd been explaining my idea, I'd done a talk there, and this lady was like just, you know, pushed at me and goes, But you're not a neuroscientist. I was like, no, but look, I, and then it was kind of like this, like, she was like, yeah, you're not credible. And you know, that sort of like knocked me back on my heels because, you know, I try to source my materials.

I never claimed to be one, you know, I want to draw on those ideas. I was excited to share them when I came out. So my question to you is, as I looked at a lot of the things you've done is. What does it feel like to be an autodidact in a world where everybody's like, oh, you have to go and take a degree to learn that. Yeah, well, it's happened in ways that I didn't probably even perceive, you know, there's this great story of the deaf frog. Have you ever heard the story of the deaf frog?

I love this. Well, I was saying there was a book before the book. I originally wrote a book that was on, it was, how could you play international rugby when you're not very good at sports, that wasn't the title, but that was the concept. Cause I wanted to show children that wanted to pursue something.

I like i was i was last picked on the playground i wasn't very good at sport at dyspraxia like lacking like you would never go back i will do well and you know i always love their quote by bookminster fuller there's nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's gonna be a butterfly, because you don't know what's what that person's projecting from inside what they're seeing and i always you know these lists that you see this time of year like top ten ways

to be happy and it's like, Moderate alcohol, sleep well, blah blah blah. The one thing I never ever see in that is. It's the internal story you're telling yourself is this you're projecting onto the world that it's your thoughts. It's actually how you deal with regret, how you deal with setbacks, how you deal with the relationship with your mother in law, all those things that actually chip at your energy.

I think that that's so important and I think that's also the same ingredient that's needed. In you that you have to have a belief and sometimes i believe comes from a good ignorance which is the deaf frog story which is this was this competition about from frogs where i had to jump out of the well, nobody ever achieved this and so this this deaf frog is his turn and he's like he's he's in going for every kind of sniggering adam.

But he doesn't know that because you can't hear them which is great so he starts jumping from from leaf to leaf then he gets on to the stones he gets closer to the tip of the well they're all screaming sees everybody screaming on me so i can yeah, gets to the top achieves the first frog that ever achieves it and afterwards they come up to him and they signed to him and then i got it, why didn't you listen to us when you were we were telling you you'd never make it and he's like gone.

I thought you were cheering me on. I love that story for. the fact that when you do stuff that is beyond your, your realm of expertise, like you did there, is that you will always have that lady in the crowd. You'll always, you'll always have somebody like that, but actually when you kind of go, i don't care, i know, i know that i'm speaking with a place of authority and by the way, i'm saying this not from a position of saying that this from a place of humility.

When you're a professional Ruby player, people expect you to be that all the time. They don't actually see that, well, that was a period in time that, you know, that ended in my thirties, that ended in my early thirties. I'm, I'm now in early fifties, like, come on, that's a whole, that's two decades of life has moved on almost from since then. So, what, what have I done with that time is more the question.

And when you, when you go through, for me, the experience that is similar to you guys and Scott with your experiences is that you have some role that you're playing, some job that you're doing, you're picking up tacit implicit knowledge all the time. You may not have a language for it. You may not have theories to be able to stick the stick to the stick to the knowledge, and I think that's really important, and I think that the sequence in my evolution is really important that.

I did the work i experienced it first hand resistance failure of articulating the strategy right but getting by in forgiveness not permission all those things that we talked about, but only later when i started to read and became a voracious reader of the stuff i was like on. Oh man, how easier would it have been if I knew this stuff, but now I had this, it was like, I had done the primer on the paint at the primer done. And now this was the first coat.

And then every coat since then is, is adding more and more knowledge. The world doesn't know that and actually in many, many cases, all they actually care about is the right outcome. So I'm sure I don't get talks and I don't get. Workshop gigs because maybe my credentials don't match but i know that the work that i do i know that i'm i'm i've i've read more than so many people in the world is probably a handful of people maybe a hundred people who have read.

The level that we read because the world is so full of distractions that to be able to do that means you're not doing a lot of other things there's a huge amount of sacrifice that goes behind that trucker said you're gonna do something you have to stop doing something old, so i don't i don't do social media i don't i don't drink i, I work when i'm working i exercise every day and when the reason i exercise is it gets more out of my learning than after i've exercised.

So more focused i take in the learning more i take notes then have the amazing privilege to interview the people and then it just sticks and the knowledge sticks and then as we talked about earlier. you're writing about it, you're creating your own version of that story, keeping the core message behind it, and then it becomes yours in that you can articulate it, no problem.

So in the early days, because what I say, the humility pieces, I, I was so wary of, oh, they're just going to think you're, This washed up rugby player who's going to give a talk about the what's transferable skills between Ruby and the real world and you know, a lot of times that happens with professional players and like they have never worked in the real world, which is like, how can you then speak with authority about what it's like in the real world when you don't

know what it's like, you know, as a sports player, most people want to do that job. You're then driving change in an organization, an old organization. Most people are just showing up for the paycheck. So it's a totally different thing. How do you drive change in a place like that is totally different than. You know, being a leader on a, on a pitch where everybody wants to be there. Everybody wants to be the best, totally, totally different.

So one of the reasons I started to learn, and my, my wife only actually said this to me, really, she, she didn't realize this was because I felt I had such a deficit because I felt I had to make up for. This lack of knowledge that I thought everybody else had. And then I realized actually they don't have it because they're not reading. And, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, a lot of people don't have the time.

And I'm so lucky that I've created a career that actually makes that time really important. So it's not like in the old days where I have to steal time.

wherever i could to read now it's part of my day i read every single day it's part of my day it's essential part of my day it's my competitive advantage now i don't have the credentials to say that i did a course in that whatever but actually i realize more and more, once you deliver and then the word of mouth between different clients they speak to this personal do a great job then it doesn't matter.

They actually don't care as long as the outcome is great so i think the people who look for credentials like that are actually just covering their own ass and maybe need to because their organization needs that or else they don't know, so they're actually using the credential as the insurance in case they don't know how to do it so that's how i deal with it i think it was marcus really said something like. You have great freedom once you let go of caring what other people think.

And you just actually embrace yourself and you go, I am who I am. I'll do what I do. And there'll always be great work once you do great work because people will recommend you for others. I mean, the deficit thing really resonated. Sorry. You were going to jump in Scott. Go ahead. Well, I was potentially gonna, gonna fork us a little bit, but if, if there's something you want to pull on, dive in. Yeah, just really quickly. The deficit story kick.

So I, as a kid could not sit still, so I could never read why, you know, like they thought it was like, am I dyslexic? And all of these different things I did well in school because I did, I focused on math, which was the least amount of reading I had to do and my brother. It was two years older than me, like always read, always had a book by and always read. So it's like sometime in college, I was like, I had to do this reading. I have to read a book, which is unusual in computer science.

And I was struggling. So I stayed at Easter term. And I was like, I'm going to read. I'm going to read. And it's like, it was really hard. And, um, I remember going, I'm going to be like my brother. I'm going to try and read. I'm going to, like, create a program for myself to get into reading. And I started reading, like, Hitchhiker's Guides and all these books of other people. And it was, like, 10 years later, I kept that up and sort of built it out.

10 years later, I was talking to my brother, and, you know, he, like, came over to the U. S. and was visiting and looking at my library, which was much smaller then. And he was like, my God, how do you have time to read all this? Oh, I just followed your lead. I just, I basically said, I always had to have a book in my hand and I wanted to constantly read because I haven't done that in 25 years and realized, but that whole thing of like being starting out as academic failed.

And then having to go into the real world feeling like i had to catch up because i was like this is my superpower i need to be able to read because everybody else is smarter than me about business. So i'm running a workshop and there be say scott's the ceo and i go say you walked into scott's office and he's got his boots up on the windowsill and he's reading a book and you walk in and you're like oh that's well for some scott.

You know just cause you're the ceo here instead of actually going he he or she should do that every single day they should do that they should take twenty minutes half an hour more than that they probably should meditate. For ten twenty minutes if they're doing that you be coming on oh it's well for some you own the business. No, everybody should be doing that because you'll actually get more out of yourself in the day.

And it's those shifts, those societal shifts that it does take a crisis to make them happen. But I actually think COVID was one of those societal shifts, but it hasn't turned out the way that I think it should have in that we should have more learning organizations as a result of this and not weekends away or not two or three days, like ongoing, like do, do the days away.

They're like the pit stops and then the works done on the track consistent learning on a regular basis because it's the only way you can get better behavior change it's habit change it's taking on new habits and to take on a new habit usually have to get rid of an old one. So then the organization needs to step in and reshuffle how people work. Well, and it's, you know, one of, one of my many strong opinions loosely held.

is that despite however many people might self identify as knowledge workers, that they don't think of themselves and they don't behave as what, what I consider to be a professional thinker. You know, so when you were playing rugby, when you were on the pitch, you were thinking about your body so much.

There was a lot of mental training, of course, and to your point, that notion that so many people, you know, don't have the time or What I have put on myself is it's up to me to make the time to read. I am a professional thinker. I get paid to help people come up with better ideas. I get paid to ask better questions. And the best way to have a good idea or a good question is to have lots of ideas and lots of questions.

And the best way until we fast forward to the point where Kez and I aspire to have the matrix and literally jack everything up. knowledge, you know, download knowledge directly into our brains. The most efficient and effective method that I know of is, is reading. And I love one of the many things that, that I've seen about you is that transfer, maybe not of knowledge, but of practice from the pitch to the boardroom.

Yeah. And you know, I was actually, my wife was kind of saying this to me recently. She's kind of going like, why are these people, why are these people hiring you? Kind of thing, you know, and, and she, she meant it. She wasn't trying to be insulting. She kind of goes like, you know, It's not long ago since you're, you, you're a professional rugby player. And I, and I, I made me think about it. I was like, um, I can see this now in my kids.

So my kids, neither were, neither of them were one of them's quite athletic and, and, uh, physically gifted. The other one, the older one isn't, but he's now winning MMA and Jiujitsu fights like brilliantly, strategically. He's studying 'em, he is doing the work in the gym. He's constantly.

Training both of them are now so i was able to say to her you've seen the transformation in the kids from these kids that weren't very good at sport to be in the best now in their in their fields, that's partly behind that is what's called coach ability as a coach if you're a coach, the one thing they always stick with their coaches my kids coaches will say to me it's got other great there listen i was great to listen to you. They don't listen so much at all.

They, they, they have, they have what's called coachability, which is you will listen, you'll do the work you're told what to do, you'll do it, not only. And there's a big difference. And this is what I was saying about the reading. There's a big difference between showing up and training and training. You go training, you're, you're mentally present. You're taking on the knowledge you're, you realize when you do something wrong and you try to fix it.

You realize you have a weakness, you stay back and you do five minutes extra passing and whatever it is to try and to come up to speed with that weakness that you have. So that's, that's coachability. It's the exact, and that's what I had. I was saying to you, I was a poor, I mean. Late in my career, I only started playing rugby really when I was 16 and I played for Ireland when I was 23.

So in that period of time, I, I came up to speed and then I was playing for the best club in the world to lose a few years later. So that, that, and that was pure discipline showing up, doing the work, not doing lots of things that other people are doing like drinking. Cause your story about your brother, many people are, have an original talent.

And they, they either don't realize they have that talent or they get bored of it because they have their curse of early, early expertise or early talent. And they, they kind of get bored of it and they kind of go, Oh, I'm sick of this thing. Now I'll move on to something else. I think when you go through the rite of passage of earning it. And, and struggling to it, you own it then. And you're not, you're not going to let it go. Cause you're like, I worked my butt off for this thing.

So the transferable skill for me, Scott was the coach ability is the exact same as learnability. Learnability is the exact same thing because I wasn't really good at things. I have to actually break them down and that's the part partly the metaphorical thinking is break it down into the way that it kind of go, oh, that's all that means. And then build the theory around it and i think that's the real gift that you can have if you don't come from a position of.

Authority at the start because it actually lets you off the hook a bit you can hide behind credentials because like you talked about, but the people who don't and who are really passionate about it. They're the people who really do really well. A place I said this first in my career was when I was working in transformation, I was saying to the stations, we should hire bloggers. We should hire bloggers as broadcasters. And they were like, Oh yeah, but they're not trained journalists.

And I was like, yeah, but they are way more committed than trained journalists. And they have this realm of expertise. That's a passion, not just a realm of expertise.

They will go above and beyond they live breed they find interviews that other people can't let's hire them but the winner and i had the same thing where they didn't want to go with the risk of that because they didn't have the credentials behind, i think that's we've seen that shift in the world where i can the credential people are you know it's great that they have it.

if they have this other passion behind it as well, but you can fake passion and I think that's where people will do well in the world of AI as well as that you cannot fake that passion that human passion that you feel this person really cares, could you admit a certain energy in a workshop or talk that people feel which is why i struggle a little bit of the zoom, effect of doing keynotes on zoom during the pandemic etc is like you want people to feel how much you, You believe this

thing and you buy into it and you live it. Welcome to the deep end of our conversation with Aidan McCullen. I'm Scott Wilson. Once again, that is KezSanPanther. And we wanted to jump in here because as I said at the outset, this was very, very lightly edited and there would have been kind of an awkward jump cut at this point in the conversation. And that's because what we did in real time with Aidan is something that takes a little bit of explaining.

We actually did a real time game where we were we helped kind of create a startup with him and didn't think that it really fit within the innovation show. But Kez, maybe you can tell folks a little bit about that sim that we did with Aiden.

Look, innovation guru, Aiden McCullen, we got to have him in real time create a startup for the re invention summit. And we ran it through a simulation to see how his startup idea did. If you want to see more. Like Scott said, check out Tectonic. We've got the whole show with the game embedded. You'll have a lot of fun. But here's a little bit about the Reinvention Summit.

So one of the things which, you know, you started this Reinvention Summit and we want to unpack a little bit of how you got there. Um, but I want to go back to the reading and something which is like sort of thinking. So one of the things which inspired me back in the day. Was reading Bill Gates's biography, and he used to have these reading weeks. And he'd take his books and he'd go and it's like, Oh my God, that's what I have to do. And I started creating different reading weeks anyway.

So this has been with me. And I noticed at some point he flipped it to thinking weeks. And it's like, there's a whole documentary about it and like what he does. And one of the stories that it reminds me of is, um, I think somebody was walking around Edison's, uh, Ford, actually Ford's, walking around Ford's, um, offices and there was this guy sitting with his feet up and literally doing nothing. And they asked him, it's like, so why do you have that guy?

And he goes, well, yeah, about a couple of years ago, he came up with this idea, which, you know, made us, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And look, I just let him do what he does, which is like, and that idea of like, he was thinking. That time to think.

So, when I think about reinvention, this is something which Scott and I have been, you know, plateauing around and we patched it to KPMG, we were working on a design of it, and what we sort of did with Rita is, Executives, we kept on hearing over and over and we interviewed lots of them during the KPMG days. And it was like they didn't have time to think. Never mind time to read, they didn't have time to think. And it was like, can we give them that opportunity?

So what I loved about the re invention summit and what we got excited about sort of adding on to it was like, Hey, can we bring a bunch of executives? Not only go to a conference, connect and network, but give them the time to think, give them spaces to think, give them inputs, right? And I love the, you know, Gates, like he had whole staff like come up with all these things he has to read and he like lands on his desk, right?

That's how he came up with the internet or pivoted to the internet because these people had done this huge report and it's like, You're missing the thing which is right in front of you, and you know, he read that, came back, wrote this memo to the company, it's like, we're pivoting, and like that input, the time to think, and then the time to do, like, I love Davos for doers. But to get to doing you need the time to think of an effort so that was one of the inspirations. Yeah, the

neuroscience piece is interesting in that that one of the things I learned about that is, you know, when a company and I get this, sometimes they'll go, you know, we have a great boardroom here, we have a great, Meeting room will just use here so we don't have to book a hotel and we'll use our own caterers etc and actually the thing that i always suggest is, what happens is if you go to a foreign country so you guys come to dublin next april you'll experience a different country your dopamine.

Centers get turned on massively so you start to have your start to be more open to new information in a new environment that's why when you go somewhere else all this is beautiful etc and you could be you could be living in dublin and not see it anymore cuz you're but you know i saw you guys in your recent show you're such an influx of information that you don't have time to actually kind of go well what information am i letting in because your filters are on so much

so so when you are used to an area You shut off all that in new information so it's hard to take a new information all the time you have to train that you were talking about system one system two in a previous episode so, this idea of moving to a not only a new environment but in brand new country i'm being able to then totally everything is new. So your dopamine centers are firing like crazy. And then you add in this new information as well.

So that new information is going to be absolutely beautiful, beautiful for you. As long as the information is good, that is. You're going to take it in in a way that you could never do if you were taking it in your own office or your, or watching it on a zoom, you know, I, I don't really get that watching a conference on a zoom call the, the differences, the people together, the environment, the feeling.

the novelty that all that stuff leads to an amazing experience and that's what i love about what you're doing bring in the senior executives to a thinking week and it's it's more than just the content it's the whole everything's thought about i think that's. What will make it a remarkable event? Yeah, I've noticed the, so when I came, I moved to the U. S. from England in 98. And I realized my best thinking happened on, on trips back to England.

And it's like, you see this country, which I grew up in. I spent the first 28 years of my life kind of there. And then you see it through a new lens because I've spent so much time in the U. S. And then when I go back to the U. S., I see the U. S. again, like I was that Brett, you know, walking off the plane and seeing all these new things. And I realized like the book I would read on the flight, plus all the things, like I realized those are part of that think week.

And that's why we're so excited. Now, I love the way you articulated that and fully brought all those pieces back together.

Yeah. You know it's it's again i think the show because i do loads of shows on neuroscience and the brain because cause of that you know you understand how the brain works then you design stuff for the brain not for people, you find for the brain inside their head one thing to share is em i did a show i don't know if you caught that one on the goodreads scott was eric mazel he the book called the magic of sleep thinking.

And I was, I was doing this anyway, but when I saw this book, I was like, oh, no, I want to interview this guy about this, but I think, and I think people need to know when they know this, they, they, you can learn even better. So if you say, for example, I write a weekly article the night before I go to write it and I don't write it always on the morning, like I'll write it sometimes a week in advance, but the night before I'm going to write it, I'll read all the ingredients for that article.

And I think about it like, you know, literally like making it. Marinating something you're putting everything in the pot and you're putting it in the fridge so i read all that stuff just before bed and then i go to bed and it will inevitably marinate overnight and then i want to straight away wake up in the morning right i'll actually go to the gym and i'll read it again the ingredients before going to the gym.

let it marinate and like you always come up with some different insight that you wouldn't have had otherwise just by letting it marinate you know and given that specific time i think that's partly, what happens is you can read the content but if you're if you're always under pressure and you're just gonna i need to i need to read this content on your brainwave states are totally different.

If you're in like high beta, you're not going to take the information in the same way as if you're in like a chilled kind of alpha wave state where it's like, you know, a book you're reading in a, in a coffee shop, you're nice and chilled having that, having the coffee, reading a book, you take the information in differently. And I think that's a really important aspect that's often overlooked when people are. Thinking about thinking.

Add a little piece to it, Scott was a job bit as well, because he has this whole thing about feeding your minions. So one of the things I worked out from the neuroscience of this, and this will help you improve your process even better. At the end, once you've sort of marinated, like read all the materials, ask questions, write down questions with no answers.

So basically it's like API in the sense of application programming interfaces is my programming background like I realized that questions Were the way to actually get your brain to do it because that idea of an open loop where your brain Like does has this problem which is working on like so I studied the neuroscience of incubation and how does that actually work?

And, you know, the classic studies out there, and then some of the neuroscience, and literally, like, if you ask questions right before, so we do it before, well, I do it before I meditate, so I create two sleep cycles, as it were, because meditation sometimes acts as that. So I sort of, you know, Pick up a bunch of books and things, which is sort of like things I want to think about, then I question, then I drop in and come back.

And again, it's not just to come up with the answers or a new idea immediately, but that process allows you to actually create the mental frameworks. So around how you put knowledge in. Questions that create an infrastructure for you to actually start putting information together.

You've taken this, this creator path, um, and you've, you're really leveling it up now. You know, you, you, you blog, you've done podcasts, you wrote the book, and now you're doing this very, very large scale, uh, event with, with, uh, with Reinvention. Yeah. So, I think many times members of the audience said, Oh, it would be great for us to meet up as in regular listeners, because I've connected them.

I ran little kind of workshops where previous guests would come on and do a private workshop for, or private talk for members of the show, regular members. And it was a little bit of that, a little bit of frustration of actually. I was being a keynote speaker and i've had the privilege to speak at some great events that i didn't feel the energy of the event i always feel the speakers are not included as in the speakers are treated like.

They come in they do the peace and they leave and i was like on what if you could create an event that the speakers actually wanted to stay that the speaker didn't feel like god this isn't worth my while or i'm not part of this so part of it was. If you could create something compelling enough for these great thinkers that are regular speakers around the world that they would like to stay and partake in then it's gonna be extremely appealing to.

Senior executives from all over the world so that the difficulty is to try and bring in like we were talking about this whole show people who have the same strategic lens so they feel they get it and they don't feel there.

It's above their level of thinking anyway so you want to have somebody who's open to that open to the learning at the event but also is already, strategically upgraded to a certain point that they get it and they're not gonna go well what the heck is this all about so that there's that and then.

Really that the event has an energy behind it like that people feel warmth and they feel connected it's a networking event it's an opportunity for people to really meet each other and one of the things we talked about from a lens is the jobs to be done theory. Is that it it's it's satisfying the job for participants from different realms so senior leader strategic leaders also from consultants people who work from the south solopreneurs small team startups scale ups.

that there's something for everybody there that they're gonna learn from and we've done a huge amount as you know who to work with the people speaking there working with you guys to build your workshop that you're gonna run, your alchemy that you're going to unleash to create something that people just go wow that was awesome so all those things are thrown in the pot there there all the ones that are marinating. And, uh, now I'm going to use your trick of asking questions.

How do I want people to feel when they leave the event is really the big question. And I want people to leave feeling that was the best event they've ever been at, that they really got something from, that they weren't just inspired, but they actually could take action on that inspiration that they feel it was, it was edutainment. So they also got a bit of entertainment there.

that they met new people that there was nothing that was filler that's that's always a job to be done for me that when you know that somebody's put into this to the lineup as a filler because they're a sponsor or something like that drives me mad and i know there's commercial responsibilities believe me but really resisting those things to actually make sure that every moment has been thought about.

Everything is combined together to create an overall two day story that people leave kind of going i know why they had that person in there i know why that person was placed at that specific point that you're building these lenses, i'm across the day you come away with some type of transformation at any level that you're you're open to so that's that's what we're aiming for. Well, it's, it's been a truly a remarkable journey for you to get to this point.

And the fact that we have now joined your, your band of, of Merry Misfits, along with Nye Meards and Nadia and Rita McGrath and Seth Godin and Charles Kahn. I mean, it's, it's really something to use that word again, remarkable that, that you have pulled together. And it, it really is just such an absolute honor to be a part of pulling this together and doing something different. And we don't know if it will work. But everything that we're doing suggested it will.

One thing i'm very aware of, there's so much goodwill towards this from the speakers, attendees, etc. And and you know i think about that book the mom test rob Fitzpatrick who i had on the show and you know the whole idea of your startup is don't ask your mom because she'll tell you it's a great idea is that you can create a false reality of progress.

And to actually can i go is this something that is real as in people really want to be part of it or is it something that people are just are giving their goodwill towards in year one i think that's a really important question to ask because you go well what's repeatable here.

And i'll be very very honest i said this to you guys from the start start i really do want to do it again, what if we do it and we do an unbelievable job i'm also happy to go that's it it's done it was amazing we're all happy we created something remarkable that will talk about forever but, It it's too much of a stretch or i don't think it's repeatable or whatever that i'm also happy to walk away like you said i grip it tightly but i hold it loosely so i'm happy to let it go as

well so it could become something massive. I think it has the potential to, I'm open to that, but I'm also open to the whole idea of, of letting it go if it needs to be.

And I love, you know, that to me speaks to this concept of that I like called the maybe mindset, you know, the classic parable of the Chinese farmer who experiences good fortune and ill fortune and responds to all of it with that notion of, Of maybe, and if I might offer one of the other mental models that I love so much when it comes to doing this kind of work and, and trying things that have never been tried before, nobody has tried to do what you and we are doing with Reinvention Summit.

It might be spectacularly successful and scale to a level none of us can imagine. It might be a spectacular failure, and it's the notion of putting in the work and doing it. Much like if you've ever seen Tibetan monks create a sand mandala, are you familiar with this practice? It's amazing.

And this was, you know, one of the many incredible stories I got to shoot when I was in TV news back in Salisbury, Maryland, there was a group of Tibetan monks that visited Salisbury university and they created one of these sand mandalas. And it's incredible to watch. They spend days with these tiny brass cones and they scrape them and it makes this fascinating rhythmic noise.

And the cones have, Brightly colored sand and the cones as they rub it puts out one grain at a time and they create over the course of days these intricate, beautiful, incredible sand mandalas. And when they're done, they scoop up all the sand and they take it to running water and they release it back to the stardust from which it came. And that to me is Is something I've done so many times in my career.

It is that notion of the Phoenix or the immortal jellyfish and reinvention might be another incredible salmon doll. Beautiful man. I never heard that. I absolutely love it. Yeah, the, the.

The journey is the product in a way so yeah i'm i'm i mean that i'm totally up for that man you know that if it happens and it's a beautiful mandala at the end and then we go ok start the water start the houses, we're good we're done here then we'll do it with so we'll just we'll just go with the flow the one thing i do know and the chinese farmer story says it is. I mean, whatever happens, happens. So just embrace it. If it works, it works. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

And I'll, I'll just go with the flow. I'm getting better at that. I'm not always great at that. I'm getting better at it and just going where the universe takes me. Well, Aiden, this is, this is it.

For our debut episode of the second season a completely reimagined and totally reinvented tectonic the AI thought show with kez and scott it's it's been absolutely incredible to have this conversation with you it was a pleasure guys thank you for your time and i'm always as i said, i'll say it here public as well i'm so happy to have you involved in the reinvention somewhere i you are bringing. You're going above and beyond, and it's greatly appreciated.

And I, I know we'll be able to repay you at the summit, but I hope to repay you in other ways in the future as well. Both you, Scott Kez and Rita as well, and all the team of Felice. So thank you very much. Thank you, Aidan. And as, as we have come to learn so often, innovation is its own reward, and this has been deeply, deeply rewarding. So thank you. Yes. Thank you. This is amazing. We are so excited about the re invention summit. Let's build that San Mandela.

You and I have been around a lot of innovators throughout the course of our career. We help create the innovation labs at KPMG and scale that globally, launch an innovation service offering at BCG.

I've got to tell you, I had no idea, you know, back last May, whenever it was when Rita McGrath introduced us to Aidan McCullen, um, realizing how many episodes he has done, what he's done, you know, with this show, it, it fascinated both of us, but I've got to say the guy is just absolutely the real deal and a true blue innovator.

I mean, Any takeaways from that conversation and what you learned, you know, the show before the show and the book before the book, you know, in that conversation with Aiden McCullen. Look, like you say, he's, he's a true innovator, not just a talking head, talking to innovation and strategy leaders. Aiden lives innovation. Not only did he disrupt himself moving for rugby into digital transformation, before he was called out, into like this media, social media, and creating a show.

But he's innovated over and over again. This is the thing which actually drew us in to even working with him on the re invention summit. He wants to truly re invent how Summits and conferences are done and that's what got us really interested. Look, he has lived a true innovators life and you know, that, that was the amazing experience to hear his story.

Look, it's like, whether it's a deaf frog or, you know, just understanding like how he faced so much resistance as he was going, it felt like listening to a lot of innovators story, right? It's hard. It's hard because the pushback is real. But. The reward is even bigger. And, you know, he's done what we've seen so many do. And we constantly connect to the hero's journey. And that's something, one of many, many common threads that we have with Aiden.

And the notion that his book and what he has done with his book, Undisruptable, and in his podcast, it is like bringing back the elixir and sharing it. And working so hard to get to that elixir. Um, and, and we've realized that we've tried to capture a lot of our thinking and share it as, as publicly as Aiden has done learning in public, a truly curious human, because any final thoughts, anything that really, really struck you before we wrap up this very special episode of the innovation show.

Look, it is amazing to hear his origin story. I always love trying to work out how somebody got to where they are. So really, you know, peeling back to cover, hearing him tell his story of how he, you know, overcame so many obstacles, get there. It has definitely been one of my favorite conversations we've had.

Well, for the Innovation Show for Tectonic, the AI Thought Show with Kez and Scott, I'm Scott Wolfson, your friendly neighborhood curious human, joined as ever and as always by my best friend and partner in possibility, Kez St. Panthers. Stay curious, stay augmented, stay hungry, and stay foolish, our friends.