Shift Happens with Richard Sutton | Adrian Gore on questioning dogma, leadership and finding hope through agency

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Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by First Light, providing therapeutics for a modern mind, and Prime Media Plus. From the moment, to the mindset, to the life you choose next, this is Shift Happens with author and performance coach Richard Sutton.
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Speaker 2: Two things you can't get back, time and reputation. Those are two things that you cannot mess with, you know what I mean? But kind of health makes time more effective.
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Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
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Speaker 2: And without that effective ability, you can't make an impact.
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Speaker 3: Shift Happens with Richard Sutton, powered by First Light.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Shift Happens podcast with me, Richard Sutton. Here we speak to people who have navigated extraordinary pressure, adversity and change. Moments that tested them, transformed them and ultimately shaped who they became. Join me as we explore what made their shift happen. Pressure changes all of us, but the shift defines who we become. Born in Johannesburg into a family that prized knowledge, founder and group chief executive of Discovery, author of The Four Principles and pioneer of Vitality, a shared value model studied at Harvard Business School. Meet Adrian Gore. So Adrian, thank you so much for making the time. Very busy schedule. You've been everywhere. The UK here. From my standpoint, this conversation is so much centered around how beliefs become decisions, decisions become lives, and how pressure can change both. Now, I had the great privilege of reading The Four Principles a couple of weeks before it came out, thanks to a shared publisher. And I was sitting on the couch. My wife said, like, how's the book? And my honest response was, this is a masterclass. And this is a masterclass in two things. For me, the first was human potential is what we're capable of. But the thing that kept resonating with me was how you give the reader hope. I think that very, very few books with that degree of rigor can encapsulate that. But I want to take a few steps back and it's before the discovery and before the bank and before the vitality And I almost want to know if Adrian Gore, as we know him today, was always there or was he built? So if you look back at your childhood, do you see the same qualities that define you today or this version of self as everyone knows you? Did you emerge a bit later? Sure.
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Speaker 2: That's a tough question. First, I appreciate the opportunity. I appreciate your comments. I'm thinking aloud. The book is an expose of the research as to what I and our team feel bring out the best in people and their full potential. It's not about qualities. So just to qualify your question, my hypothesis is regardless of your kind of innate IQ and abilities, if you apply the principles, you'll maximize your impact. And I think 20x, so therefore, you can do amazing stuff. And that's what the maths kind of show in the book. So coming back, I'm not sure if my journey has been a function of abilities or it's really been I've been fortunate to follow the principles that I'm trying to say to you. So I just need to qualify that. But what's interesting for me is I don't think, I think what's happened to me over that period has been a, I've had certain innate beliefs, urgency. I believe in kind of a positive outlook. I think naively in the start of my career, I've always been a positive person. And importantly, the issue of optimism is not about Being optimistic, it's about a sophisticated tactic of seeking positive. So it's a much more sophisticated issue. But I think elements of my innate kind of disposition, I think I started with what my journey has done is I've kind of reinforced now with science and experience and observation why those things are important. So I'm giving you, sorry, a complicated answer. My whole hypothesis is it's not successful individual. It's not just about born abilities. That's maybe the point.
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Speaker 1: It's about what you create. It's what you create. And I think that kind of leads into the next question is, from what I understand, both your parents were academics.
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Speaker 2: Well, my parents, both parents actually were, no, they worked, they loved education. That's how I grew up. My mother was a chemical technologist, worked for Lancet Labs for 40 years in the same thing without a promotion, right? Sucking up blood, you know what I mean? My dad was an accountant kind of in small business, entrepreneurial businesses, etc., but both had an obsession with education. That was the only, in fact, my dad told me and my brother, listen, if I never had you boys, I'd be at university full time. I'm not interested. And in fact, he had no desire to learn vertically. His idea was, you know, he did a B.Com, he did a anthropology, he did astronomy, he did an MBA when he was like in his 60s, you know. So that was my context. But critically, my parents, I think, you know, if I think back about it, gave me a, a sense of not contrarian thinking, but always question dogma. You know, don't accept things. You told us, don't accept. I don't mean in an authoritarian perspective. I mean in a knowledge perspective. You must question. You must go back to first principles. You must research. You know, so this was the, that was the, you know, kind of absolute things were debatable. There's no sacred college put on the table. And that's kind of my whole context is being always questioning, trying to understand, you know. And certainly for my parents, that's been their core thing. You know, that's what I grew up with.
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Speaker 1: And, you know, in terms of, I mean, you're extremely ambitious. I mean, what you've created is evidence of that. Were you always ambitious or were you more curious?
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Speaker 2: I think I was always ambitious. I've always been competitive. I'm not quite sure why or how, what the drive is, but I've always had a desire to win, not in the counterfeit way, not to squash the But I've always had a desire for impact. You know what I mean? Make a real difference. And I think curiosity, which is actually, I think, a more noble attribute. I think curiosity is something that I have had. I enjoy knowledge. I enjoy, and I think you're the same when I read about the stuff you've done. I enjoy an.
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Speaker 1: Epiphany. Connecting the dots.
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Speaker 2: There's nothing more rewarding. Yeah, that feeling of, jeez, I never knew that. You read The Economist, which I love. You know, I think I know stuff and I read a page and I'm like, geez, I never knew that. You know?
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: That gives me a, so I don't know if that's curiosity, but I have a desire to uncover truths. I have a desire to connect dots, you know?
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Speaker 1: I think it gives a lot of us this feeling is when we understand something that is deeply complex a little bit better.
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Speaker 2: Yes. And a sudden revelation of it.
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Speaker 1: Yes.
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Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Now, I'm not sure if that's ambition. I think they're two different emotions. I think that is a curiosity. The competitiveness and ambition is just, I think, you code it that way. You know what I mean?
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Speaker 1: Just striving, wanting more.
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Speaker 2: In my early career, you know, my first job at Liberty, it was an epiphany in that I kind of got the sense of what a big institution can do. But I think my kind of early career showed me the power an institution can do in a business sense but in a social sense. And I think that set me off on a journey.
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Speaker 1: Going to Liberty, I mean, here's an interesting thing. I mean, in your mid to late 20s, You're rising, as stated in the book. Everything was working, technically. I mean, everything's good. And counter-atturtively, you decide that you're going to do something different. And, you know, it's crazy because so many people spend their lives trying to achieve what you did at that moment. And I think so much of what we understand about you is this incredible ability to calculate risk. So, Clearly, there was a greater risk of staying than leaving. And what was that risk at the time to you?
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Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure you've had the same in your own journey. It's often hard to actually uncover your own motives. You know, I'm trying to say to you as it is to observe someone else. But leaving that and starting something myself felt like almost predetermined. I didn't feel like a moment in time.
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Speaker 1: It was.
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Speaker 2: But I kind of, it was a path where I kind of thought I would always do. But, you know, the key issue in the issue of the first principle, discipline and optimism, is the ability to, we all see the negative. It's about seeing the positive as well. That's the art. That's the discipline. I think at that time, with South Africa kind of going through a massive change, it was a time of considerable worry and kind of, how can I say, immigration, rising crime, boycotong, all of that stuff taking place. I saw not in a reckless, oh, he has an idea. It was more of an intellectual view that healthcare is going to change. The need for a much more kind of robust health insurance capability is much more actuarial, you know, capitalized, etc. So it was quite an intellectual view together with this feeling of opportunity. That is what I think kind of made me make that decision. I think it was an intellectual decision, but it was, as you say, a gut feel. And it seemed kind of not obvious, but the right thing to do.
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Speaker 1: But it's almost going against the stream because today it would be normal. Funny enough, today it would be normal. We're far more adaptive and we understand that the economy is changing. It's evolving. We don't feel stuck in a particular environment in the 90s. I mean, we both grew up in that era. You stayed. This is what you did, especially if you're successful because the opportunities just become carved out for you. I mean, it almost kind of begs the question. At some point, you had the conversation with your wife. What was her position on this major life change that you were embarking on?
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Speaker 2: Completely supportive. Completely. And in fact, my daughter was born during the time that I was kind of chatting to Larry Dippen on the R & B guys about the capital and whatever. I don't think we ever, maybe I was too young. I was like 26, 27 to really think all of that stuff through. But I remember once before I started, I took a two-week break and I held my little daughter. I was just two weeks old or something, three weeks old. And I said, this is actually quite, At that moment, I had this kind of almost looking at myself from above and saying, you know, you're making a call here. Do you understand what you're doing? But I didn't. I mean, you're asking me. I don't remember those discussions, those responsible discussions we probably should have had but never did.
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Speaker 1: And, you know, like the time was tumultuous. We forget. Anyone who lived in that time forgets how tumultuous and how– and how uncertain things were. Do you feel, I mean, everyone's taking their eye literally off the ball, so to speak, in terms of opportunity and focusing, as you say, on the negative cues. And there were plenty of negative cues. Do you find that that's actually the chaos made the opportunity stand out more at that time?
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Speaker 2: Definitely. I mean, I think it's exponential. The chaos, those social changes created the opportunity, number one. Number two, the social changes created the the kind of the chaotic time, but the negativity. With negativity, people are distracted. Competitors are thinking of other things. Capital is, or prices are lower, so opportunities are actually easier. And I actually think that's the South African story, the tragedy of kind of the bad narrative. We're in the same position all the time where people think, you know, this is really, we're in difficult times. We're the same with our bank, starting the bank at that time. And it's the same now. I mean, I think things are different now. There is a feeling that's different. But I think that if you are smart, this is a great place to start. Opportunities are underpriced here. That's the reality. I see it all the time. But there is no doubt to your question. I think things are not linear. I think the negativity underpriced great opportunities. Competitors are distracted. And you're doing building when others are fleeing. It's like an obvious ….
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Speaker 1: I think it's such a strong message that the listener or the viewer can take away from this. is that so often we see the crisis or the obstacle or the barrier as a way of stopping us pursue and something that hampers our future progress, but if we reframe it and understand that within the chaos, within the crisis, within the barrier, within the hardship, within the whole ecosystem, therein lies the opportunity.
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Speaker 2: What's the other way around? Because of that chaos lies the opportunity. There are only two constraints to that. I believe strongly build a business in difficult times because of that. I need two constraints. If there is Armageddon, you were wrong, but there isn't usually that's number one. It doesn't matter anyway. I'd rather be trying and building when it happens. Number one, number two is you can't get capital because it's difficult times, right? To start your business. But if you can, if you can, if you can, that's the time to do it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. One question I have for you. Why the name discovery?
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Speaker 2: Actually, myself and Barry Schwartzberg co-founded with me. We still work together. Um, On a plane, I remember going down to Cape Town to present, I think, to a potential client. I forget what it was. He had this idea. He said, it's like a discovery. As I heard that, he said, shit, that's brilliant. You know what I mean? It had this kind of sense of limitless potential.
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Speaker 3: This is Shift Happens with Richard Sutton, sharing remarkable South African stories of courage, reinvention, and hope.
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Speaker 1: In the book, you mention the seminal moment. The seminal moment was Palm Beach, 1997. You've got Investors Business Day. You've got these traits that augment performance that are presented to you. And it's like some of the things I presented now. It's that aha moment. It just makes so much sense. What belief about people changed at that conference?
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Speaker 2: I went into that conference. Discover is already about five years old and we were really scaling. I've become quite obsessed with this idea that there's greatness in people. It was quite a revelation. I don't quite know why. I think when you start a business, you're commercial, you're egotistical. This is going to be, you know, but quite quickly, I got into this understanding of sitting in our business, actuarial, clinical, you've got to hire and motivate the best people and really get people that are better than you if you want to really scale. You know, that's also another People say it, but they don't really do it. It really gets people smart.
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Speaker 1: They have to have a lot of confidence.
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Speaker 2: And say, listen, I don't care what you do. Let's build. And so I was on this kind of journey of this real, I was talking about the other day, this Leo Biscaglia idea that when you go to heaven, your maker's not going to say, why didn't you win Wimbledon? He's going to say, why weren't you more you? That's the question. So I had this almost idealistic view. And then I saw this research about, you know, I think you mentioned it earlier. Ten attributes of what makes people successful, and not just in business, just whatever they put their minds to. And the issue was it wasn't about abilities or race or education or origin. It was about other attributes. And that set me on a journey of trying to see what are those things and what are those multipliers. And it came back to the question, why is it that some people, regardless of the same human capacity as a colleague, have the ability to scale and get impact? And that's been a, you know, as it was our team, became our value system, if you wrote down. The one value, liberate the best in our people. That's been our battle cry within our discovery, kind of our value system. And in our entire thinking, we've just introduced a new leadership attribute structure that has similar kinds of ideas in it.
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Speaker 1: Similar to the book as well.
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Speaker 2: So it's all the same stuff. The book really is a combination of that thinking. So that really started that up. But it's been a journey of three decades of just trying to understand how you get the best out of people, you know. And to an extent, I think great companies don't have values or structures that are good for them. I think the best structure is get the people to be great. Some will outgrow you. Some are going to do great things, you know. And I had one young guy who worked at one of our brilliant actuarial fellowship earners. He and I just, we connected in a very deep way. But he was just a restless guy. And I said, you know, you need to leave and go do something. He did a start-up. did amazingly well, literally in months. It's a great story. But I'm just saying, I think a great company is one that liberates the best in its people in their own context. I've seen that when you do that, they take you for the ride with them. You know what I mean? So this has been a journey of decades. And in fact, the book and the principles has been, I've done talks, papers, op-eds on different parts of the book over decades. It was putting it all together in a much more cohesive and then doing the mathematics more rigorously. You know, what is that multiplier? How do you prove it, et cetera?
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Speaker 1: You know, I've always looked at discovery a little bit differently. And beyond the insurance and beyond the banking, and I've always seen it as an experiment as to whether people can change. Now, you're 30 years in, millions of people. What have you learned about the conditions that people need before they actually do change?
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Speaker 2: Listen, I've seen people do as you say. I've seen people come in with basic skills and do the most, become CROs of our business. You know what I'm saying to you? I've seen that happen. I'm not sure it's as linear as defining every issue, but I think it is in the principles. I think if people are led in a network that is positively seeded, that's purpose-built, I think if people feel safe to fail, or I think, as you know, my book, I say success is much more powerful. But if people feel safe to take chances, I think in a company that's consensus built, not dictatorial, you know, and I think your leader, like a parent, can make or break you. If you're an under person who's holding you down, you know, I'm critical of big companies. The structure dulls talent. You know that it's an amazing thing. You kind of can't set two bigger budgets because regulators get concerned. So boards are naturally conservative. You know, you have remuneration tied to performance. So targets are set differently. kind of conservatively so people hit their targets and I understand that. Everyone has to earn their bonuses, but so none actually sets goals that are ridiculous, but we know that when you set massive goals, that's when you achieve. So an organization, if badly run, I think not only doesn't get talent, actually dampens talent. You know what I mean? I see in a startup, those principles are much more evident. The goals are set, but when you're looking at the customer in the face, right, or shareholders and you're running out of capital, That urgency is automatic. You're seeking opportunity all the time. So I'm not sure the conditions are that simple, but my sense is I think purpose is fundamental. People in organization need to feel the purpose.
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Speaker 1: Psychological safety.
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Speaker 2: But what you're trying to do is noble. You're not trying to make shareholders rich. I don't think that inspires people. They're all quite the opposite. It's got to be about a purpose. It's got to be values driven. And I think it's got to be safe where people feel I can be at my best. Yeah. I'm safe to do that stuff. Not in a meeting, how smart you are, you're going to get caught out. But listen, views are welcome. So it's a complicated art, I think, leadership. I don't think it's one way to do it. But I think you've got to remedy our miscoding. Because that is where potential comes from.
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Speaker 1: You know, so I think, I mean, a lot kind of lands on the Viktor Frankl ideology and the insights that he was able to share. And that's like we need meaning. And that purpose is the meaning. And with meaning, we find fulfillment. And with fulfillment, we find happiness. So ultimately, if we have this value set and we have the why, it brings a deep kind of sense of happiness to those who are part of the journey and part of The psychological safety, I mean, the safety piece is that project Aristotle, two years, I think, if I'm not mistaken, 180 teams or thereabouts. And what's the X factor? Some teams perform, some don't perform. And the single biggest variable in Google's journey, and it's different to everyone else, but there's been 7,700 studies since then. And they've certainly come up with the same thing is that the safety pieces is like a really important component.
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Speaker 2: It's just one point on purpose. What purpose does, and I agree with what you're saying on all of it, but purpose actually ironically creates hard work. You know, it's one of the debates we had is hard work one of the principles, you know. Is it a, because you want to work hard. There's no shortcuts. You know that. I mean, you go through sport. What people do in sport, it is brutal.
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Speaker 1: Give it what you wish for.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So, but the question is why is hard work not a principle of impact? Because certainly my research in the work that we did is that When goals are set out there and you evoke loss aversion, and the goal is a noble goal, it drags you. You don't even realize it. Your whole life gets sucked into it. And that's a beautiful thing. I mean, that's been my journey. You know, I'm working really hard. I'm working longer than ever.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: But I'm enjoying it, you know, because the purpose, I think, is noble. You know, so not just the soft issue of safety. When you talk about purpose, people think it's a soft issue. Ironically, noble purpose, you know, with loss aversion. Mm-hmm. creates an incredible work ethic. And that's at the core of things.
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Speaker 1: You're able to liberate discretionary energy, energy reserves you didn't even know you had.
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Speaker 2: You didn't know you had. That's the point.
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Speaker 1: And we have so much surplus. I think another piece that has always resonated with me is that we go through ups and we go through downs and we go through setbacks and we have barriers, we have hurdles, we have things that really make life hard. And when we have purpose... We can get through the dark period. When we don't have purpose, the dark period sometimes becomes all-consuming. A lot of people, I'm in my mid-50s now, and I've got a very young family. My last child, I was 50 when she was born, and a lot of people say, how are you so disciplined? I'm disciplined to a point. I've still got balance. Well, I think I'm balanced, but everyone tells me I'm not. But how are you so disciplined? How can you get up at, you know, if I've got to go and speak somewhere and I've got to get on a plane at 6 in the morning, I'll get up at 3 to train. It's like because I want to be clear. I want to be focused. I want to be energized. I want to bring my best self.
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Speaker 2: How?
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Speaker 1: And the answer is all I do is on the days I don't feel like doing it, I just think of my daughter. I've got to be around. Easy.
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Speaker 2: Easy.
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Speaker 1: I'll go walk down, straight downstairs to the gym. There's no question. So I think it's, you know, it's in the dark periods where the purpose really kind of shines. But we go back to talking about dark period, 2014 days, you have to remake the business, you're going to lose it. Take me to that room. Who was there? Who was there in the fight?
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Speaker 2: Well, it was a fight that went on for a couple of years, but it got to a point where the laws of how medical schemes are constructed, this is in the late 90s, were completely the opposite of what we built Discovery on. So we created a completely new model as per the purpose initially. And we're absolutely focused on how this thing worked. Insurance principles, age-rated contributions, insurance style, underwriting, accurate pricing, medical savings accounts, using reinsurance for solvency structures and whatever to capitalize in a strong way. And along comes a law that says flat rates, as you know, everyone plays the same rate. A sickness fund that has got no shareholders, no reinsurance, medical savings accounts are somewhat limited. Everything we built the business on was kind of... And two drivers. One is that the government had a very egalitarian mindset. And there's moral debates about what works better, but that is a noble issue. The other were competitors, given how we'd really taken market share. We're kind of lobbying for that change. And I've got to the point where there are like 14 days left that if you don't get those plans registered, you've got no... Now think about the problem here. You've got a massive client base, right? And they're paying different rates. So now if you flatten them out, you get what's called an actuarial death spiral. You're young and healthy, you have to pay more. The old and sick pay less, so who do you think stays? The old and sick always stay. The young leave. So this is where the paradox is. The prices then go up on average. So the old and sick are paying more, which is not good. But then the fairly young and fairly healthy leave. And you get a smaller pool of people, sicker and older, and it starts to spiral. And we could not solve that problem. And I remember you said going to that room, I actually remember One of our top guys, I won't mention his name, who's absolutely brilliant, came to my house. I remember sitting at this table outside. It's amazing how you remember those moments.
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Speaker 1: The emotional moments.
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Speaker 2: The emotional moments where you actually can smell this outside table we're sitting at. And he said, look, I just don't think we can solve this problem. But there was a moment where I think that first principle, seek the positive. What is it in this new open enrollment structure? This free movement around actually is an actuarial benefit. How do we structure that? And we kind of came up with a complicated structure of different options to stabilize things.
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Speaker 1: So you stayed with the challenge. There's no alternative.
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Speaker 2: We embraced the challenge.
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Speaker 1: We embraced it.
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Speaker 2: And if that had made us ….
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Speaker 1: Was there no doubt, like in your mind? Did you never doubt? Or did you go through those moments of doubt and kind of had to share it with the team and had to kind of reconcile?
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Speaker 2: I think, I mean, I guess your earlier point about purpose. I think, and it's the same as the vitality moment I talk about in the book. I think the intensity of the purpose, I think the kind of dissonant optimism that's always … In every situation, try and seek where is that. It wasn't as articulate as it is in the book after years of thinking about it. But emotionally, the team was, there's a solution here. I don't think I ever really thought we would fail. And that's a bit arrogant. We could have failed. I'm here because we didn't. There's like selection bias.
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Speaker 1: But you have to believe in success.
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Speaker 2: Yes, but it wasn't a, it was like, where's that opportunity? We're going to burrow through this thing. So there is something teachable here. I believe in that, in every situation. And that's what the miscoding is. There are positive things you're not seeing. You're seeing the negative. That's how we code it. What are those things that are positive? You've got to find them. We found that positive. And the irony is we didn't just survive. We created a structure that propelled us.
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Speaker 1: Opportunities in the crisis.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I'm not sure it was thinking as opportunities in crisis. I think it was where is that positive stuff.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, where's the gap? There's a gap. There's always a gap.
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Speaker 2: It's on the table here. There is a solution here.
00:27:19
Speaker 1: But that's the distinction between toxic positivity and optimism. Toxic positivity is everything is fine. Everything is wonderful. It's never been happier that we have to recalibrate. We might lose everything. That's a delusional state. You deny and dismiss it. Optimism is that the belief you can create a different future. You can create a better future. And you acknowledge what's going on. You own it. You hold it. But your behaviors, your actions, and your mindset align to the future that you want. At the end of the day, I see optimism as action bias.
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Speaker 2: I agree. Something I'm scared about in this book is I don't want to argue for emotional optimism. Some people are pessimistic. Some people are depressed. I understand all that. This is not an emotion. It's an action. It's a disciplined optimism. In any situation, the discipline, the negative stuff you see, I can promise you, People tell me, you know, you need to be realistic. Pessimists are, it's a primitive way of thinking. That's how we code it, to seek the negative. So, I'm very hopeful in the, I'm sorry, my hope in the book is that people understand this is not about optimism. It's about a tactical bias for finding positives. But putting the negatives on the table. I knew the negatives. Every time I've been in a difficult situation, the negatives are well known. That's not the issue. It's the, uh, I'll tell you something I've been talking about. If you go into a boardroom, searching financial services, everything you do is about the risks we face, capital, stressing balance sheets and scenarios and solvency testing. I've never seen a board that sees a risk they never discussed. No board actually goes to a risk register generally. Guys are smart. This is our training. They'll debate the extent of the, and that's critical. But no one says, I never knew that risk was around. Jeez, that's a new thing. You know what I mean? But the positive stuff, The vision, that's the art. People often don't know that.
00:29:13
Speaker 1: It's the art and the discipline.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the discipline. So you need both. You need both. That's critical.
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Speaker 3: Our stories are local in origin, but universal in meaning. You're listening to Shift Happens with Richard Sutton.
00:29:27
Speaker 1: You know, kind of looking forward at kind of another crisis, the U.S. At that stage that you entered that market, discovery had like shot the lights out. It worked. model totally proven. There's every indication that it's going to travel well anywhere you go. Big markets, but big markets, different challenges. At what point did you acknowledge that just a belief might not be enough to crack the market?
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Speaker 2: I see it. It's an interesting thing. I know if you read anything about our journey at Discovery. We failed in the US. We had the startup there to shut down. It was a remarkably ballsy thing to do. Let me put it to a different way. We're five years into a startup with 200,000 customers here and we're going to open up a startup health.
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Speaker 1: Insurer in America.
00:30:14
Speaker 2: I mean, how many? It's an idiotic thing to do. And then we get going in Illinois because the regulatory environment actually works and we get about 60,000 members and getting to break even to a profitable. It's amazing. So it's amazing what we did. I think about those times. I was on the road presenting health insurance to broker conferences in, I was 20, I don't know, early 30s. It's a ballsy thing to do. It's an amazing thing, you know what I mean? But we had one error, one issue. The price of healthcare we were paying for because of our size, the networks of hospitals that was a couple percentage points higher than Blue Cross in the state. And market that competitive, that's enough to kill you. We could not get the price points down. So everything, the receptivity of vitality, of the savings accounts, of all the different stuff we did was unbelievable. One of my proudest moments. I'm not kidding. If I think about an incredible thing that we did, it was that. But it taught me something else that the book goes to. You actually don't learn from failure. It's a critical thing. We failed, but there's more of success in that story for me that I've taken out than the failure. Don't fail if you can. I'm not happy that we failed. And I'm not, I don't, I see no ability in failure and getting up again. I see no ability in resilience and be able to deal with adversity. But in any endeavor where the probability of success is less than failure, success is more valuable. You know what I mean? If you've got 100 ways of starting a business, we know that 80 will fail, right? 80% fail. So every failure is one 80th, is one of the 80 recipes. Every success is one of 20. The success recipe is more powerful.
00:31:54
Speaker 1: It is more powerful. I mean, I think things changed in the States a couple of years after you exited, if I'm not mistaken. They did change. Do you feel that you were kind of wrong or a bit early?
00:32:07
Speaker 2: I think with more experience, we probably would have figured out those problems. I don't think it was a timing issue. The timing was right. I think the U.S. is a very competitive, it's a non-linear space, you know. In South Africa, the UK, you've got kind of set industries. The US, people are coming at you from every pharmacy groups. It's a complicated amalgam of things. But I think it was– I'm not a believer in– I mean, timing matters. The economy matters. But management is about managing those things. If management teams tell you it's timing, the economy is bad, you've got the wrong guys, you have to sort it out. Am I confident now if we did the same thing again, we'd do better? I think so. I think so. I don't think it's timing. I don't like management that talk about the economy. I just don't.
00:33:01
Speaker 1: So, you kind of, the third kind of piece in some of the, you know, we look at discovery and it looks like an extraordinary journey with very few barriers, very few obstacles, but that's kind of not the reality. You know, there's been hurdles, been challenges you've overcome and it's pretty non-stop and I think that Even if we look at athletes, we look at successful individuals in any sphere, you don't know what they've been through in order to achieve what they have. So in the book, you talk about waking up in the middle of the night, you've launched the bank and a little bit behind and you've got this sweat and you haven't had something of this nature since probably the US or maybe the other incidents. But do you feel that there was a strong action bias following that, but do you feel that that fear or that moment was telling you something?
00:33:53
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. It's a great question. I mean, the bank, like Discovery, was launched at a difficult time in the economy. And in fact, to an extent, people are like, why are you doing this now? And we decided not to, we had a JV with F & B Discovery card, if you recall that, you know. And the original thinking was that kind of in a partnership, build that into a bigger bank. Then we took a view, let's build it, you know, from, we invested 12 billion to build that bank. So it's a huge bet, right? So we've done everything organically. And organic, if you do an acquisition, it's got all kinds of value, destruction, potential. But at least you've got a going concern. You know what I mean? You acquire something that is institutional. It's profitable. So you might destroy some value, which is a terrible thing. But it's not as visible as a startup. And the pain of a startup, you will know, is unbelievable. Nothing is easy. It takes five years to get scale. Five years to get to some kind of success. Ten years to get scale. That's my experience in the institutional business. So the bank started and it was built on a completely different idea of shared value, a vitality model, digital, but a full services bank. So you had, you know, these other Revolut, Monza, all these digital things coming out, et cetera. So it was a completely different, I had a deep conviction about what it could do. But the moment waking up one night was just a reality about, like, you've actually got to get clients. You know what I'm trying to say to you? You know, there's something about kind of strategic talk But ultimately, I woke up saying, listen, you're getting 50 counts a day here. You've got to get to 500 a day. People actually want to be fully banked by us to make this thing successful. And it was a moment of just, I think of just, you know, I've had those moments in my journey of not a reality check, just like a irrationality of, you know, just you're thinking through everything here. And it probably did get some change for me, but Listen, the journey of that bank has been the most remarkable thing. I think the hypothesis of what we built it on has proven to be so fundamentally correct. I think the team is so smart.
00:35:56
Speaker 1: It's funny how when we start things and we have the conviction and we're going ahead and it might go through the process of what I call slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, fast. It's an experience that I've had throughout my life. Anyone's career or anyone's journey is It's like you put in so much effort and so much work and so much effort and so much work and it feels like you're just not getting any headway and then one day something ….
00:36:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not linear.
00:36:20
Speaker 1: It's not those steps.
00:36:21
Speaker 2: But if the hypothesis is wrong intellectually, the market will find out. If something is right, I believe. I have this irrational belief that I can burrow through. If the core purpose is noble and the business model is well thought through and applicable … Because that's the cool thing. Is there going to be demand for what you're offering?
00:36:42
Speaker 1: Is it right?
00:36:42
Speaker 2: If you believe it, you'll figure it out. You get on that road and you start working.
00:36:46
Speaker 1: And it's pretty courageous because, I mean, you're competing in a sector which South Africa does well.
00:36:51
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. There was a similar kind of bank, so exceptional.
00:36:55
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. Some of the best in the world.
00:36:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're exceptional, all of them. They're great banks. They're great companies. You're not dealing with a declining market of great competitors. But, you know, there's something in that community. deep belief about our purpose is right. And again, it comes to quality of people. Quote to you in the bank, the leadership, Hilton, my colleague.
00:37:13
Speaker 1: That's all right. You brought in Hilton soon thereafter. Yeah.
00:37:17
Speaker 2: Hilton came in. The original team built the infrastructure. And Hilton has done a remarkable job. And the team is unbelievable. So the actual, you can't ultimately come back to the whole hypothesis of the book. It is about people. It's simply that. Unless you're a trader and you're buying businesses, but if you're starting an operator, It is fundamentally about leadership and people. They will give rise to the right structures. But it's a fascinating, fascinating thing.
00:37:46
Speaker 1: I always find that if you distill any challenge within any form of team, it always comes back to culture and talent. It lands on those two points.
00:37:57
Speaker 2: And leadership. Bad leadership will take a great idea and screw it up. And a great leader takes an idea and finds issues and somehow solves problems. It's an amazing thing.
00:38:08
Speaker 1: To that point, and I totally, I mean, I'm completely aligned to that. There was a guy called Sam Walker, like very interesting, like sports enthusiast, crazy, but these journalists are brilliant. And he said, look, I want to understand, you know, like who are the best sports teams in history? And he goes down this rabbit hole, a hundred years of research and, Teams from everywhere. I mean, how he had the patience to do this, I don't know. And he's building this hypothesis. It's like, who were the best teams, and what can we learn, and what can we extrapolate, and what can we apply? Could there be a framework? And ultimately, I found performance to be a framework in any given context, a framework. Like the four principles, it's a framework. And what he does is he goes through this detailed analysis, and he comes up with 22 teams based on eight criteria. Initially, it was five criteria. 122 teams that are meeting these criteria and say, like, they're extraordinary. He says, too many teams to analyze. Needs to filter down. He adds another five criteria. So 10 criteria in title. And it's like percentage of wins and each team has to be collaborative and more than five individuals. And it's like, but more important than anything, they were successful for four years. They were at the top for four years or longer. And a lot of teams, they're good for a year or a season or two, but four years and above, very difficult, and over an 80% success rate. And he arrives on 16 teams. This was pre-Springboks, and I think the Springboks would be the 17th team. But pre-Springboks, and he arrives on these 16 teams, like asking the question, like again, what was the X factor? And he goes, institution. You know, we're attracted. Great institution attract great people. Is it the institution? Was it star players? Was it a goat? Was it the coach? Look at all these five variables. And the obvious was like financial. If you've got more financial resources, you can build a better team. Made a difference for a season. One season, you wouldn't get four, you'd get one. And then we're looking at superstars. Too many superstars, the whole team disintegrates. And I think we can't find it. I think, okay, well, let's look at the captain of the team. And what they do is they kind of look at when the captains took over the captaincy. Team one, suddenly kind of the rise. When the captain left, the fall. Strange. Team two, the rise, the fall. Team three, rise, fall, rise, fall. 16 teams, the benchmark, or the bookmark, should I say, was the captain.
00:40:39
Speaker 2: Leadership.
00:40:40
Speaker 1: It's leadership. So like a really, really powerful thing, but You know, there was something, you know, like from an outsider's perspective, you're extremely courageous.
00:40:53
Speaker 2: Which is not true.
00:40:54
Speaker 1: You've said that before, that it's not true. But from an outsider's perspective, you're extremely courageous. McKinsey kind of did analysis on 8,000 CEOs, kind of best of the century, so to speak. They arrived, landed on 200. They did 67 interviews looking at what this X factor that separated the great leaders from the good leaders was. And what they certainly uncovered was it didn't relate to intellect or academic history. In your experience, what is that X factor?
00:41:27
Speaker 2: I hate to say the four principles. That's my finding. You know what I'm saying to you? I'm not suggesting it isn't innate leadership abilities in certain people. I accept that. But I think certain leadership attributes according to Seeding networks positively. I think urgency. I think goals. And I think being in the tail. That's the issue. And I think that leads to your point earlier about a framework. I don't think a chaotic group of people that you can organize. Great businesses or great teams have a structure. You know, we have a vitality shared value model. My role as a leader is that's our thing. You know what I mean? I'm not interested in anything else outside of that. That is what we do. That is what we repeat. There's a discipline. That's how it looks. That's how it feels. Nothing is outside of that. You know what I'm saying? And I think when you peel under that leadership issue, whether it's Rassi or Sia, there's some methodology, you know. There's some, you know, the bomb squad comes on. You know, there's certain attributes of the manifestation of leadership into disciplined frameworks that makes a difference, you know. So I come back to, I mean, and I'm not, I hope I'm not being repetitive. I may be, I guess I'm saying, I research that the power of this kind of remedying some of the coding issues He's so powerful that I think if you apply them, you get great impact. Whether you're leading a business, leading a charity, it's all the same thing. And the great thing I believe, and this is the Pareto tale, is it's stuff in the tail. You just do a few things well and the whole system changes. It's an amazing thing. Sport is harder.
00:43:01
Speaker 1: Sport is harder.
00:43:02
Speaker 2: You've got to do it all well.
00:43:03
Speaker 1: It's different.
00:43:04
Speaker 2: If you're a golfer, you've got to beat the whole field every day. I mean, it's a terrible thing.
00:43:08
Speaker 1: You will lose. I mean, if you're one of the best tennis players or golfers in the world, you will lose every week.
00:43:12
Speaker 2: Yes, but if you build a business built on a model that's disruptive, you change the rules of the game.
00:43:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you've done many times.
00:43:20
Speaker 2: It's much easier to do, you know, and it's noble. So these things are difficult, but I agree with you on leadership, but you're asking me.
00:43:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're going to frameworks and corporates.
00:43:30
Speaker 2: Frameworks and the four principles. Those principles make a difference.
00:43:34
Speaker 3: Another piece, how we see you, is you've built a career of believing in possibility. What does hope require of the rest of us?
00:43:39
Speaker 1: What do we need to do to find hope when we feel despair? I think that these things are all connected. I think that.
00:44:02
Speaker 2: If you seek positive signals, it gives you a sense of agency, you know, and agency gives hope. I think in despair, the sense of helplessness is something that gets worse. I think the moment that you feel we're in a moment of despair, but, you know, our potholes, it's a great example. You know, the city has declined. You know, we're now hopefully fighting back on those different issues. Potholes are the most evident thing. All around the world, there are broken windows where people feel this is the physical manifestation of decline. The feeling of, we're going to fill these things. We've done nearly 400,000 of these potholes. It's unbelievable. But forget about the quantum. That sense of agency. We're going to fix this. I think it changes from despair to hope.
00:44:50
Speaker 1: As you said, the sense of agency. One of Jonathan Sachs' key quotes came to mind. He defines hope. as together we can make this better.
00:45:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
00:45:05
Speaker 1: And that's, everyone plays a role.
00:45:07
Speaker 2: And you can feel it. It's a very deep emotional sense of agency. Hope is a critical thing. I think that's a key thing of leadership is the ability to give hope. And that's not about just strength. It's much deeper than, it's also fragility. I think a great leader says, listen, things are dire. This is problematic. You know, but, you know, let's think about what can be done here.
00:45:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, what can be done?
00:45:28
Speaker 2: I think that unrealistic leadership, oh, That's nonsense. That's what I'm saying to you. I think that the discipline … Rolling your sleeves up. No, these are issues. But I think that in your own life, this is my experience, in your own life or leading a business, it's always about trying to … I've always said, in my view, I feel better when the slope is up. I'd rather be down here with the slope up than at the top of the slope down. The slope of the curve is how you feel. It doesn't matter where you are. Yeah. I'm trying to always turn the stop up. You know what I mean? Ideally, yeah. But wherever you are, if you can turn the stop up, it comes to Viktor Frankl. You're down in the most dire circumstances. If you can get that hope and you feel, I think that's the art of leadership. I met with Nelson Mandela. It was a unique thing. I put it in the book. But that's one thing he told me. It's an amazing thing. He said, one thing I want to tell you. Leadership is about giving people hope. That is the core thing. Beautiful. Yeah, powerful.
00:46:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's one of those things that sticks with you. There's a few sentences or a few sayings I have when I'm doubting myself, I'm doubting a process, or doubting a system, or I just kind of go back to that loop of one or two things, that why I'm doing this in the first place and what the outcome could possibly be. But as a parent, there was one thing in the book that really stuck out. I mean, you have this event in Sun City, you finish at 12 o'clock, from what I remember in the book, and you get in the car and you drive. I mean, first of all, it's dangerous, right? I don't know in terms of assessing risk whether.
00:47:01
Speaker 2: That's... I remember that drive well.
00:47:03
Speaker 1: But, I mean, you wanted to be there for your child. You wanted to be there for... It was the last day of school?
00:47:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was the last day. I take my kids to school, and I know for me it's a great thing. And I've managed to balance my life between family, which is fundamental, health, and work, and Missing taking your kids to school. You can easily get detached from your children, I think. And my whole theory is you must have regrets. How have you managed that?
00:47:28
Speaker 1: I mean, with all that's on your plate.
00:47:30
Speaker 2: Discipline. Sorry, discipline structure that actually I find quite easy. I think like you, I mean, something I discovered was intense short exercise. One brutal K in the morning. It's five minutes. People say to me, I've got no time. Five minutes.
00:47:43
Speaker 1: You've got time.
00:47:44
Speaker 2: You've got time.
00:47:44
Speaker 1: You've always got time.
00:47:45
Speaker 2: But I came, I didn't want to miss that day. And now I've got, like you, I've got to put up. I'm older than you, but my boy is 10 years old. I'm completely out of sync now. But the same thing, I don't want to miss that time with him. So, you know, I drove home from Sun City. I remember that drive. It was a stupid thing to do. My wife was livid with me. Got home at 3 in the morning. She's like, what kind of person leaves a conference? But I think those are, you know, there's nothing courageous. You know, it's a self-interested thing. I want to be with my kids. But it's kind of for me when I think about it. I think you've got to work hard at Work-life balance is not about linear time. It's about what's important for you and make sure you get that done.
00:48:25
Speaker 1: And for them as well. It's showing up.
00:48:28
Speaker 2: I've got old kids now. They're in their 30s, my oldest daughters. I'm good friends with them. And I'm proud of that. I never paid a price for hard work. I didn't. And I have worked hard.
00:48:38
Speaker 1: So, you're 62. You're an author now. And I have no doubt within a week or so, it's a best-selling author if it's not already. Extraordinary book. You're still getting up. It's three in the morning. You're still working three in the morning. You're training at five and you're killing it. You do these long days. A lot of people are slowing down. My question to you, a lot of people have asked me, is what are you still trying to become?
00:49:10
Speaker 2: Listen, I think discovery is on an incredible journey. And forget about the corporate speak, truthfully. We make global impact. We have knocking on the door of that. There's things we're doing, how the bank is scaling. I'm just kind of so enjoying pushing hard with our team, how we can scale what we're doing. And it's not a linear thing. The book is part of that journey. The book wasn't. I mean, I'm not really an author. You know, I'm saying it's part of the same thing. And what I found wonderful, I'm grateful for it, is that they say work hard. Well, it's not work really. You know what I mean? Writing a book, working in the bank, going in. It's unbelievably exciting. So one thing I believe is, and it's a repeatable model on a certain purpose, just opens up doors all the time. You know, I'm not searching for stuff. As we go down, the team as well. We're just finding, you know, the organization is magical, you know, and I'm kind of privileged to be part of it. How you scale that is just a vexing, addictive problem.
00:50:15
Speaker 1: You know, I'm reading the book and when I kind of wrote the last book, especially the last book, and I brought Black Coffee into the mix and just some of the challenges he had and But in writing that, I just start putting on his playlists. I'm like trying to get into his world, like just through his lens. And I'm going through the book. And firstly, I mean, it's the way I think. It's the way I've lived. And I feel that these principles, the 20X, unequivocally, this is not a theory. The book for me had a central thesis, right? Actually, take everything away, the unbelievable impact that you can have on a person's life. And the central thesis was on time and your value that you place on time. So in terms of optimism, you're asking the reader to invest their time in possibility. Where do we invest our time? In the negative. What does that bring us? Nothing. Goal setting is directing your time towards something that's going to be meaningful in your life. What do we tend to do? Just let things happen. Life becomes not on our terms anymore. Urgency. You stress and you get me anxious on this one. Time is finite. Don't waste it. And kind of the last piece of the Pareto tale is about clarity and prioritization. Is that we have to use our time wisely to have impact. But Now I'm thinking about this and it's like this time piece is really like sinking in. And I'm bringing it back to the discovery moment. And if we take time into context and the way I saw it, and I've even got goosebumps saying this, is that with time being such a priority to you personally maybe, it appears that way, and the organization, what you're doing for every member of discovery is you're giving them more time The biggest gift that could be. I don't know if you've seen it in this light.
00:52:31
Speaker 2: No, I see it maybe more, what's the word, actuarially. And I appreciate how you've put it into a purpose. So the purpose of making people healthier is something I get a warm feeling about. It's a driving force, you know what I mean? But the issue of people being healthier, not only living longer, but more effective years. Because that's what the book comes to. The existential tragedy of time is logarithmic. You know what I mean? You burn it quickly. You can't get it back. That's a fact. Two things you can't get back, time and reputation. Those are two things that you cannot mess with. You know what I mean? But kind of health makes time more effective. And without that effective ability, you can't make an impact. So I appreciate what you're saying, but I do agree. You people are healthier. You're giving them not just longevity.
00:53:18
Speaker 1: But you're giving them … You're giving.
00:53:19
Speaker 2: Them effective time. And there's nothing … More important than time with your kids, time to make an impact. You know what I mean? That's the key issue. You know, the other points, I mean, about just the tactics, the issue of goals, it's not Machiavellian, but it's a trick around your miscoding. We code it by loss aversion. We code it by potential loss. When you set a goal, you've got something to lose. So it's not only the nobility of that purpose, it's that when you've got something to lose, you're all in. You're all in.
00:53:46
Speaker 1: You're all in. And effort just moves up.
00:53:48
Speaker 2: This is in sport, the goals are set for you. So you see, you know, A Federer will kill himself to win Wimbledon, what it takes to get there. You know, you made it earlier. But in life, people don't put it out there. You know, you've got to.
00:54:03
Speaker 1: So where, you know, like I've always believed that confidence is a big driver in the expression of our potential. Whatever success means to you, everyone's success means, where do you think confidence fits into this conversation, this discussion?
00:54:20
Speaker 2: It's a good point. I'm not sure. I mean, I think confidence is often misunderstood as social confidence.
00:54:29
Speaker 1: I'm gregarious. I'm out there.
00:54:31
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? But real confidence about impact is a quiet, you know, reflective confidence, which I think is much more important, frankly, in my view. And again, I think it comes to the stuff we're talking about. I think the ability of purpose and goals and an intellectual belief gives you confidence. I don't need to tell them around. I think If confidence drives that, I think it's a counterfeit. I think it's the other way around. I think true nobility of purpose and a belief in the route you're doing it, the business model.
00:55:00
Speaker 1: Gives you the confidence to fail. Gives you the confidence to try.
00:55:03
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:55:03
Speaker 2: You're talking about America. My confidence may be wrong. I might still fail. But when you ask me that question, I am confident because I think what you're doing is right and I think we have the methodology of doing it. It's not an interpersonal confidence, you know. You know. Put me in Illinois and I'll mow down other, you know what I'm saying to you? I have a core confidence that Discovery can, that's getting there, be one of the best financial services companies globally, uniquely so.
00:55:29
Speaker 1: That's the declared goal.
00:55:30
Speaker 2: Conviction, yeah. That is our declared goal. That's what we speak about in our team. That's what our board has as our ambition. That's what we're doing, you know? And that, it's not a gregarious confidence. It's a, the business model works, the smartest people, you know? I've met with some technology companies with our team. I won't mention who, in Silicon Valley. And watching our team, I'm like, whether it's right or wrong, our guys are smarter than these guys. I believe it. Our guys are smarter. So I don't have this. It's a long answer. No, it's great. I think confidence is an outcome of an intellectual values process. I don't think it's a point of view, so to speak. It can be, but I think that's counterfeit.
00:56:12
Speaker 1: Sure, which means that you have control over confidence.
00:56:15
Speaker 2: You have agency of it, yeah.
00:56:16
Speaker 1: You have agency. And that's a lot of what you kind of say today.
00:56:19
Speaker 2: I'm not a confident person. I can't do this. I think that's, that may be true, but you can do it.
00:56:24
Speaker 1: If you have the purpose, you can do anything.
00:56:26
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
00:56:27
Speaker 1: So, you know, there's, from my standpoint, I speak from personal experience and I almost kind of want to put this to you. I've had similar moments, like key, key moments, whether it was good or whether it was bad, whether I was successful, whether I failed. where I believe there was a shift. Do you have that moment where that shift happened that you recall?
00:56:51
Speaker 2: I think I've had multiple points. But ironically, my framing of thinking is, if I think about those principles I spoke, I've been busy with them for decades. I think my journey is, I'm sometimes living them, sometimes not. You know what I mean? When I am living them, I'm getting better results. We're dealing with a pretty complicated actual accounting issue right around how you understand something I've been very frustrated about it my leadership style has been bombastic and you got to solve this thing and you know it's more of an intellectual issue not getting any results flip it around there must be a solution here just think about what's how powerful their thinking would be and you get a different I'm not saying it's soluble but a different so my own points of development have been about I think about I'm a framework person I have a business model I have four principles that's my We have pictures that define things. That's how we work. That's how I think to an extent. And I think my journey is I know when I'm living them and I know when I'm not living them. And those points of inflection, the point of the ball for vitality for our team was living those principles to the full. Urgency, make people healthier. How? And hard work, ruminating, twisting and turning in bed. You know what it takes. You turn your insides out. What is it? What can it be? You know what I mean? Everything about your thinking. Wherever you're going, this is what is this solution? Einstein had that great saying. I'm not smarter than other people. I just stay on the problem longer.
00:58:23
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
00:58:25
Speaker 2: That intensity. So to an extent, I think there have been shifts for me, but I've kind of seen maybe a different framework.
00:58:34
Speaker 1: It's when you're aligned versus less aligned.
00:58:36
Speaker 2: When I'm not, yeah. And I can see that. I mean that, you know. as I was saying earlier, kind of writing it up gives you a discipline of like a retrospective on think about your journey. You know, when were you in that zone you were talking about and when weren't you? I can see it. But you've got to have something to lose. That's the invisible hand of loss aversion. That's what goals do. The goal may, in the book, we might declare goals. The goal's got to be visible. Without that, you're only working on undefined potential gain. Maybe something comes up. true so that intensity is both you know loss aversion and time you look at the the one in ukraine now you know you said all the time drone how fast that how they develop drones that you know the intensity of survival and the deadlines you don't get it done a week you're dead etc you the i think the challenge in life in business or in anything is how do you create that intensity You're great with purpose. You're great with goals. If you don't.
00:59:34
Speaker 1: But also constraint can be the greatest driver of intensity. But time is the biggest constraint. And we often think that limitless and abundance like scope is where our greatest creative moments come from.
00:59:48
Speaker 2: No. That's the worst thing. No.
00:59:49
Speaker 1: Box it.
00:59:50
Speaker 2: I think companies that are constrained in capital do better. Too much capital, too much food. You know what I mean?
00:59:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:59:58
Speaker 2: Makes you lazy. You need that intensity. I agree.
01:00:01
Speaker 3: This is Shift Happens with Richard Sutton, sharing remarkable South African stories of courage, reinvention, and hope.
01:00:12
Speaker 1: Last question of the day, and I started with the younger version of you, and I'd like to almost end there. If you were that teenager on the motocross bike, having the accidents.
01:00:25
Speaker 2: Repeatedly.
01:00:26
Speaker 1: It didn't make sense.
01:00:27
Speaker 2: It was a stupid anecdote to raise, but anyway, be that as it may.
01:00:31
Speaker 1: When you look... So, I mean, in the book, I wrote the piece.
01:00:35
Speaker 2: I wrote the piece, so why am I putting it? But anyway, yes.
01:00:38
Speaker 1: When that version of yourself looks at the man that you become, what do you hope would make him proud?
01:00:44
Speaker 2: I think impact.
01:00:46
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
01:00:47
Speaker 2: If I think about my own journey, my most... It's not... It's not quantifiable. I'm very proud of what we built in its scale and its, you know, financial scale and all that. But I really feel, and it's not as tangible as the measures. It's a feeling of impact, you know. And that's what keeps me incredibly intensive. Driven, motivated, energized.
01:01:06
Speaker 1: I feel I'm more driven.
01:01:07
Speaker 2: I'm working harder than I did before. And I'm enjoying it more. Because I think that I can feel something I've done. Maybe it's used me at Fedora. I'm making that comparison. I'm saying he built on platforms of success. He didn't jump onto something else. That's a mistake. It's something I've always felt. Use the asset to build on.
01:01:24
Speaker 1: I agree.
01:01:25
Speaker 2: Don't go into something different. So to an extent, I feel that impact is a platform for continual. And I don't feel we're close to the destination. So I don't have that retrospective yet. I'm not someone who revels in looking backwards. We're just starting here.
01:01:44
Speaker 1: I also feel like that. I feel like we live in such an incredible time. At 62 or mid-50s, 30, 40 years ago. You'd be winding down. No.
01:01:57
Speaker 2: I think winding down is a.
01:01:59
Speaker 1: No. We can ramp it. We've got the opportunity to now, whatever we built on, build on it.
01:02:05
Speaker 2: That's a tactical decision. Don't be foolish and step off the platform into saying, whatever that is, use what you've built. Yeah, I agree. And if the purpose is noble, keep escalating.
01:02:16
Speaker 1: In our conversation today, the theme around purpose, resonating. The theme around the influence that a leader has in a team, in a collective, like really echoed. The importance of almost kind of overriding oneself. The biggest barrier in your success or your potential ultimately is you. And what contributes that, as you repeatedly kind of outlined in the book, is the coding from an ancestral past, which is no longer relevant. And we've evolved quite, quite, you know, emotionally, mentally and technologically. Yes. Physically, exactly the same, you know, one 10th of 1% every a hundred thousand years. I believe that's the number, but I think there's so much depth. So, so many lessons that in the book, again, it would be the biggest investment in anyone's time to not just read and kind of experience a book, but to apply the principles. I feel the 20X from my own experience and from the wealth of research that you've cited and the mathematical models that are implemented in the book or installed in the book, it really echoes and it feels right to me. So thank you so much.
01:03:40
Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
01:03:41
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for uplifting your country. Thank you for uplifting... Anyone who reads the book is going to be uplifted. And I think, you know, I love South Africa. I love South Africans. And you're really kind of standing tall on that podium.
01:03:57
Speaker 2: Thank you. Appreciate that.
01:03:58
Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
01:03:59
Speaker 2: Thanks for the time.
01:04:04
Speaker 1: Wow, there have been so many great standouts from this conversation. It was hard to choose just three. But here they are. The first is that hope creates agency. Adrian started Discovery in 1992. during a period that was profoundly uncertain in South Africa. The risks were very real, but so were the positive signals that stood alongside them. Hope is the decision to act on those signals. The second take out was to learn from success. Failure shows us what went wrong. Success can show us what to repeat. Understand why something is working and invest further in your strengths. That's the key. And the final takeaway is on leadership. And leadership, according to Adrian, requires three things. Values that guide behavior, purpose that gives the work meaning, and psychological safety that allows people to speak, grow, try, fail. So here's a call to action. The next time you face a challenge, a pause, a reset, a barrier, an obstacle, ask yourself three things. The first is, what can I learn from this? The second is, what opportunity am I not seeing? And the final question is what action will move this forward? Choose one action and take it within the next seven days. Hope creates agency, but action turns it into change. Keep shifting. I'm Richard Sutton.
01:05:32
Speaker 3: Shift Happens is a First Light and Prime Media collaboration. This episode was produced by Grant Jensen and Kaylee Kruiser.