Welcome to The Business Game. I'm Steve Plummer. And I'm Kalena Stano. And before we get into it today, don't forget to like or subscribe to The Business Game. And today we're joined by Simon Bowen. Simon is the founder of The Models Method and creator of the Genius Model, a visual thinking system now used in more than 30 countries and credited with influencing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. His clients include BHP, BP, Austral Ships, and government departments, and his singular mission is to help businesses make their thinking visible so it can scale beyond the founder. All right, looking forward to this one today, Kalena. Yeah, so am I. The Genius Model. Yes. Let's help people unpack their genius. So Simon, a warm welcome to you. Thanks for joining us. Uh, thank you for having me. All righty. So Simon, country boy from WA to now at The Business Game, can you talk us through your journey to get here today? It's interesting. Uh, you know, I think, um, you know, a, a founder's entire story I think feeds into what their, what their business does, and it's true. I'm from small country towns in Western Australia, and when I say small, I mean 400 people, 900 people. Um, I'm one of 45 first cousins. My dad was one of 10, all farmers. And, um, you know, when we, uh, if we were gonna go, uh, uh, if we were gonna go across the paddocks to one of the uncle's farms, they'd grab a stick and draw a map in the dirt if we weren't sure where we were going. They'd go, "You gotta go up through the back paddock, go through the top paddock, make sure you shut that gate," and this would all be drawn in the ground, you know? And, um, "So you know what you're doing? Yep, great." And then they'd kick the map away with their foot- so it disappeared, right? And I'm going, "A bit of paper would've been handy." Yeah. But, you know, we've got a stick and it's, we've got dirt, we can draw the map. Um, and the thing about a country town is in small country towns, the town dies when the local store dies or when the petrol station dies. Mm-hmm. So free enter- free enterprise is the heartbeat of small country towns. Mm. Yeah. And so, you know, I'd go into the shop to get some milk or something for Mum if I was about 10, and the, uh, Mr. Hill, Hill's Corner Store, right, would give me some lollies 'cause I went and got the milk for Mum. Now, I never gave him any money for the milk 'cause we, we had an account. That's what everybody did, and at the end of the month, Mum would just pay the account off. It was- Yeah like, um- I'd go to the shop after school 'cause Mum would say, "You need some new jeans and some shirts." And I'd go to, um, uh, I'd go to the shop after school and say, "Mum said I've gotta get some jeans and some shirts." And the guy would hold some up and give me, like, 10 and say, "Take them home on appro," approval. And I'd take them home, and I'd try them on in front of Mum, and then she'd go, "Take them back tomorrow." And the ones I didn't take back we got charged for. Yeah. And the, and the other ones went back on the shelf. That was country business, right? Mm. Everyone knew everyone. Mm. Everything was done for the good of the town. Everyone was a member of the volunteer fire brigade because every year a farmer's gonna lose their crop to fire. Uh, and so that ethic, I think, has been the thread y- you know, the, my entire way through life. But what started early was this idea of Between an idea and the reality of the idea is always a drawing. Mm. And then my first working life was in electrics and electronics, and specifically in the motor industry, and I was designing electronic componentry and doing diagnostic work, and doing, uh, work for Nissan. Uh, they'd send cars out to Australia, prototypes, and we'd bash them around the northwest to see if they survived and everything. But if you're gonna design an electronic circuit, you've got an idea for, for a, for a component, and then, then this thing has to be in a car working. What sits between them is a circuit diagram. Mm-hmm. Yes. You can't get from A to B without the circuit diagram in the middle. Yeah. So the metaphysics of just about everything that happens in the world is that the first appearance of a concept in the real world is usually a drawing. Yes. It used to be a drawing on paper, then it, then it became a digital drawing on CAD. And so it's just the way my brain has developed over time, that I see the world in visual frameworks. Yeah. I see the world in visual models. I, I think I could take, I think I could these days take any complex concept and turn it into a visual model that would explain it. And, and, and so then I, you know, I, I, I, um, tried to be a school teacher, Steve, until, uh, the students convinced me that was a completely- uh, misinformed vocational choice. You know, trying to get 15 to 17-year-old boys to understand physics and chemistry was not the smartest move I ever made. And we're both reformed educationalists. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Uh, so I, I lectured at university for a while and then got into the corporate world and led sales teams in, in, you know, CSR building materials, a large Australian company. And, you know, I, I just, and then I had a c- ma- a management consulting business for about 25 years on big projects. And so the government would say to me, "We've got a couple hundred people that really are at war with each other over an issue, but they are completely unified in their hatred for us, and we're gonna put them in a meeting for two hours. Can you get them to agree?" And I built a reputation for being able to do that. Uh, you know, “We're gonna build a $1.4 billion sports stadium. Can you find out what everybody wants so that we can get a brief for the architects?” And that was Optus Stadium in Perth. Um, the Army, Navy, and the Air Force, and then the civilian contractors that manage the bases are all going to Afghanistan, but none of them like each other. Can... We're gonna get them in a room in the, in the military bases around the country. You need to get them talking. And, you know, the formula was pretty simple. If you've got people who disagree on something, and you just frustrate them for three-quarters of the available time. So for 90 minutes, you just frustrate the room. Which is unbelievably easy to do. You just listen to everybody equally. So everybody actually wants to be heard more than everyone else, right? Yeah. Yeah. But if you listen to everybody, "Well, that's a great idea. I'll capture that. I love that idea. I'll capture that. Let's put that on the flip chart," everyone just gets frustrated. No one's making any, any ground, and then the three-quarter mark is an interesting time in almost everything. So most people fall out of the 42-kilometer marathon at about 32K- Yeah the three-quarter mark. Uh, you know, the th- the th- the third quarter in sport is called the championship quarter. Yeah. Yeah. Um, y- you know, a- an amazing shift in dynamic happens at the three-quarter mark. So at, at the 90-minute mark of a two-hour meeting, um, I found that if I went to a whiteboard and said, "You know what, folks? I think I can draw this," and, and, uh, I, I might start drawing. Uh, uh, I've spent the first 90 minutes figuring out what the model's gonna be, and then I might go to the whiteboard and say, "You know what? It seems to me that, uh, we've got some stuff going on here. There's an emotional dimension here where a bunch of you are attacking this issue through a lens of fear, some of you are tackling it through a lens of desire, and then we've got a logical issue going on where some of you are looking at this saying that we can't do this. There's no way. And some of you are looking at it saying, 'We can do this. Of course, we can get this done.' And, uh, you know, if we, if we continue to pursue this issue through the lens of we can't do it and fear, uh, we are absolutely gonna fail, and this will be a waste of two hours. If we do this through the lens of we can do this, but it's, it's, it's fear, uh, some people in the room are gonna feel like they're being put at risk- Mm and they'll, they'll agree and then leave the room and disagree. If we do this through the lens of we can't do this, but wow, what if we could? That would be fantastic. Uh, we're looking at that through the lens of hopium, so we'll come up with some ideas none of us really believe in, and, uh, we'll leave the room and nothing will happen. Or if we look at this through the lens of, uh, we can do this and we should, um, we can, we can leave the room, uh, with real progress. We might not have answered the entire problem yet, but we can leave with real progress. And it seems to me that everything to the left of that middle line is more about ego. Mm. Fear is often attached to what if I lose? What if I miss out? Yeah. What if I'm challenged? Yeah. And everything to the right of that line is, uh, really about contribution. So just, you know, I'm, I'm willing, for the people that are coming at this through the lens of, um, ego or a disbelief that this could work, I'm happy for all of you to leave, and we'll just close this out with the people that are left. Yes. Mm-hmm. Wow. Would that be okay? So just by show of hands, is anyone coming at this through the lens of ego? Now, no one ever puts their hand down. No. How, how could they with their ego on the line? Yeah. And, uh, you know, below the line is despair And above the line is confidence. Wow. Is anyone coming at this through the lens of despair? No one ever puts their hands up. Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna tackle this with confidence and contribution. Our job in the next 30 minutes is to make some progress. So we've talked about a bunch of stuff. It's on the flip charts all around the room, folks. These ideas sat in the red quadrant. Those ones over there, and I'd read them out, set up here. Those ones over there sit in here. All the issues you've raised. Um, there's a few, really only three, that are sitting up there. Is there anything else that we should be putting into that quadrant? And then we can finish the conversation. Oof. And in 30 minutes the thing is solved. Mm. Right? Um, now there's no way I could do that without the model. Yeah. Because I just would've been this arrogant consultant type who's, you know, trying to move the room. But what actually changes is that all of the emotional energy in the room, all of the ego in the room is now owned by the model and not by me or anyone else in the room. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And the model does the heavy lifting. And, and I'm just, I'm just working through the model, right? And so I spend that first 90 minutes figuring out, um, two things. I usually use this model to position, and then I, uh, a- and then I'll be fig- and then I've used the 90 minutes to figure out what's the model that's gonna solve the problem. And 30 minutes later we've got a model and we're saying, "We should build it around that." And so I built a reputation around the country for doing that sort of work on, you know, strategic planning. BHP are gonna build a mine. K- so I, I used to get hired- um, to get projects back on track primarily. Um, I'm not an engineer, but I, you know, I get projects that are off track, whether it's building a mine, a bit of infrastructure or, you know, um, a, a medical research project or whatever, um, because I'm using models- Yeah as thinking and influence tools. Yeah. Incredible. And that became my career. Yeah. And, and I think too, Simon, one of the keys is once people see something, they can't unsee it. Yeah. And that's part of the power of it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Abso- absolutely. And- You know, 83% of the information we bring in to the brain from the world around us comes through the optic nerve. Mm. Yeah. And only 11% comes in through the ears. So why do we rely so heavily on language? Mm. You, you know, do you remember when that soccer team in Thailand walked into the cave- Yeah and then the flood, the rain was coming- Yes and everyone's going, "Wow, it's dreadful." I first heard that story on the radio. Remember? We had these things once, they w- they were called radios. And you used to listen to them. A wireless. Yeah. Yeah. The wireless. Yeah. It's like, and there were people at the other end talking- Yeah at that moment, right? It wasn't recorded or anything. And we had them in cars. Yeah. Which were things we used to move around in. Yeah. And, um, I remember listening to this story o- story on the radio driving into the city. This young youth soccer team walk into the cave, the rain's coming, and, uh, y- you know, they, they're stuck. And I remember thinking, "Guys, you walked in, walk out. Walk out." Yeah. Yeah. It's like- Yeah. It's not, not rocket science, right? Yeah, yeah. In and out. It's, um, it's the 11% that comes into the ears. Yeah. You go, "Oh, what the hell?" Anyway, then I, that evening I saw the schematic on the news- Yeah of, of how the c- the cave- Yeah was up and down- Yeah and everything, and- Yeah the bottom bits were, and I went, "Okay, now this is a problem," right? Mm. So much makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And so the visual cortex and the visual channel is the most potent channel we have for communicating with people, but we completely underuse it. Yeah. The other, the other dimension of this, Steve, you, you know, you and I know each other well. You, you know that I draw almost all the time. I never use PowerPoint, right? Mm-hmm. Because humans are analog creatures trying to live in a digital world. Yeah. Yes. And so this drawing is analog. It is. Yeah. And so PowerPoint is digital. Click next, click next, click next- Mm-hmm click next. And humans are still fundamentally analog creatures. And the greatest mismatch of communication that we have between the analog human and the digital world is in these spaces. And so, y- you know, when you stand on stage and click someone through PowerPoint, you're, you're moving at your speed. And if you're the expert, your speed is on, off. See that? That doesn't make sense. See that? That doesn't make sense. Mm. Click, click, click. But you lost them back here. But as I'm drawing, you're following the drawing. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's the, it's, it's not just the power of the visual. When you draw, you draw people in. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so- I, this is, I've, this is how I have thought through concepts and communicated my entire professional life. Um, and I assumed everybody did this. Mm. Yeah. Um, until one day someone said to me, um, "Would you run a workshop for all of our consultants on how you use models?" And I went, "Don't be ridiculous. They're consultants. They all use models." And they went, "Oh, no they don't." And so I ran this workshop and, and the models method was born, and it exploded, and then I, um, locked onto this idea of company genius- Mm um, and built the genius model and, you know, then it went worldwide. And, but when you draw, you draw people in. When you use a visual medium, people feel it, they don't just think it. And, uh, y- you know, it's, between every concept and the real-world reality of that is always a drawing. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's, it's, it's just, it's just the metaphysics of how things move. Mm. Wow. That's incredible. So that was a long answer to how did I get from psychology- Yeah, sure right? But- Well, it's fabulous. Yeah. I feel like I've just unpacked so many things- Yeah for myself looking at those visuals. I, I- They're great I'm actually keen to know, you know, if you and your wife are having a disagreement- you start bringing out the iPad, and she would- she would bristle at that, right? "Don't you draw anything at me," right? That crossed my mind. Yeah. Well, I, uh, look, I do, um when, when our girls were younger, you know, if I was trying to explain something they'd go, "Don't do that work stuff on me." Yeah. Which was, don't do, start drawing stuff, right- Yeah on me, and things like that. But, but it's such a powerful mechanism. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Right? If you can master the craft- Yeah of finding the right geometry, getting the content in there, and then the third piece is choreography. Yeah. How you walk through the model makes all the difference. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Um, it's a, it's a superpower. Yeah. Uh, and it's learnable. Yeah. Yeah. You know? It's completely learnable. But y- when someone said, "Can you teach this?" I thought, "Don't be ridiculous." But I did, and it just hit me that the way I've been working for, you know, at that point 15 years as a consultant, actually should be our product. Yeah. Yeah. Which is showing people how to do this. Yeah. Amazing. Can I ask, how long has it taken you to develop e- like how m- how long would it take you to develop a model? So you've got a few up your sleeve now. How long does it take for you to get one and nail it? A- about the length of the conversation. Okay. Yeah. Um, um, minutes. Yeah. Right. But- Um, um, so people... I hear conversations in models these days. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um, I, I summarize a lot of books in models. Um, people like Dan Martell and Todd Herman. Dan wrote Buy Back Your Time. Todd Herman wrote The Old Ego Effect. Yep. Um, Dan will release a book on leadership soon. Um, they come to me and say, "I'm gonna write a book. Can we just get on Zoom and chat, and I'll talk, you draw models, and then the models will become the basis of the book?" Uh, the buyback loop in Buy Back Your Time was a model that I built. Okay. Todd's, um, Old Ego Effect model, uh, we built sitting on a bus together. Mm-hmm. We were at an event in the US, and we were on a bus traveling to some social exercise, and Todd went, "Ah, I've gotta get a model for my book." And I said, "What's the book about, Todd?" And he told me, and we literally drew it on the bus, and that became the model for the book. So once your brain clicks in- Yeah and it is a learnable skill. Once your brain clicks in, you start seeing models everywhere, firstly. Then you start to hear conversations sort of in a trace of a model, like something's starting to form but you don't quite have it yet. Yeah. But these days, I get the model really quickly, and then I usually say to them, "How about I draw that back for you?" And they stop and they go, "Oh my goodness, how did you just do that?" Yeah. Wow. Fascinating. Simon, can I, can I impose upon you to... and you can say no if you want you, you mentioned the Three Futures Model. Yeah. Are you able to draw that for us? Because- Yeah it, it, it is such a powerful closing tool, right? Because as, as someone on the end of that, uh, as in receiving that information, you are almost left with nowhere to go but to say yes. Mm. The choreography of the Three Futures Model is- Yeah just so powerful for closing. Yeah. Let's... Yeah I'd love you to draw it for us. I'll, I'll- Because, because correct me if I'm wrong- I'll- but this works in just about any sales situation, right? Uh, a- any sales conversation- Yeah for any business, for any point of conversion that you're trying to make. Yeah. I'll actually give an... I'll give a live example. I won't mention the organization. But, um, a client of mine who said, "I'm doing some work with a charity," uh, a... And, um, around youth mental health, and what they wanna do is seriously impressive. Um, and, you know, really they want to... They, they have a, a, a way of bringing everything together for a single place for parents and kids to go to when they're wrestling with mental health. Because, you know, in today's world if someone's wrestling with mental health, just finding the point of access for help- Yes by itself is hard. Mm-hmm. You know? Headspace, the, your doctor, a health professional, you know, like, it's complex. Mm. And they, uh... There's a philanthropy organization that is interested in giving them some money. They're asking for $4 million. But the board of that philanthropy organization said, um, "Come to the board, make a presentation, but you've got 10 minutes." And, um, my client said, "What they're gonna present in 10 minutes is not gonna get them the money." And I said, "Get them to send me the PowerPoint deck." And there was 40 slides in it. Wow. And I went, "Well, you're not doing 40 slides in 10 minutes for a start." Yeah. Right. But I got enough information out of the PowerPoint deck to give them just the Futures Model. Mm. Wow. And, and so the 10-minute presentation went like this in front of the board. The 10-minute presentation went, "We're sitting here in 2025," this is last year. "If we project forward five years-" Uh, and I turned it into two futures, Steve, not three. Okay. Um, in five years' time... People say you can't predict the future, but we actually can. In five years' time, if we don't do something about, uh, what's confronting us at the moment in terms of youth mental health, we'll b- we, we, we will be in crisis, both as a society and the kids themselves. But if we do something about it, and there is something we can do, um, we can make ourselves whole as a society, and we can make young people whole again. But the pathway to the future is not a straight line, it's a curve. So the pathway down to crisis accelerates down and away more rapidly as time goes on because time compounds everything, good and bad. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And this happens if you just drift. So if we keep drifting, if k- kids and their parents continue to be confronted with where do we go to for help, how do we access the resources, if the GP tells a different story to the psychologist, who tells a different story to the psychiatrist, who's telling a different story to the school-based counselor, if we just keep drifting, if we don't do something about this, we will end up in crisis. The only way to reverse the curve and have it accelerate upwards is through clear decision-making And then taking action, decisions and action, informed decisions and action to do it. And people talk about mental health as if we're already five years down the track, where the gap is almost insurmountable, too big. But right now, as I stand in front of you, we are as close to that green line as we're ever gonna be. The past is actually irrelevant. Right now, in this moment, on this date, in 2025, you and we and the youth of the state and their parents are as close to that green line as we're ever gonna be. And we believe that the first jump to that green line has to be one doorway. We wanna create a facility that brings all the best of, of the health professionals together with one single door that doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, parents, kids, school-based counselors, everybody knows exists, and they just say, "Go-- Headspace are in there." Everyone says, "Go to that place. And once you're in there, you'll find the pathway." The second So the first one is the door. The second thing we need to do is the people. After we've built the facility, uh, which is gonna cost us about $4 million, that's what we're coming to you for, the second facility will be the people, and coordinating the people and partnerships. And we think that's gonna be about a $3 million spend. Uh, the third one is about our practices, and we want to turn this into a world best practice facility. That's about another 3 to 4 million. Um, and then we, uh, want to lock that in, in terms of su- su- sustainability, so a year-on-year budget of about 5 million. And then we wanna be able to hand that over to government, because government don't like to de-risk a process. So what we really wanna do, by giving the state a green line on youth mental health, is de-risk it all. Yeah. So we can hand it over to government. There'll be about $4 million at that level, so the government can then run it moving forward. But completely de-risked, because our whole agenda is not just to offer the state, uh, this green line, and we know we can do it. We also want to, um, remove the red line and take it out of play. There's no reason why that should exist. Anyway, um, so we're here to ask you for the $4 million so we can build the facility. And- The chair of the board said, "Could you leave the room and give us a few minutes?" So it was an eight-minute presentation. And when I, when I... And, uh, 'cause I said to them, "I'm happy to have a Zoom call with you." When I got on Zoom I said, "Can I just give you the 10-minute presentation I would do?" And they went, "Yep." And so I did this. They said, "Well, we're only asking for 4 million." I said, "I know that, but I still think you should tell them what the rest is gonna cost." 'Cause I had an inkling, I had a gut feel. And so the chair of the board said, "Can you leave the room? Give us a chance to talk about this." So the CEO of this organization left the room. They called them back in, called her back in about four minutes later and said, uh, "We don't trust, uh... We- we're, we're actually gonna give you- 20 million to do the whole thing Wow. Wow. Wow. And we don't trust the government. So we will fund the year-on-year cost past that if you keep running it and don't hand it over. Wow. Oh, that is cool. Yeah. Because how do you deny the model? Yeah. Yeah. You can't. And, and, and I think- You know? It, it's just, it's such a powerful model. Yeah. Yeah. A- and for, in a business sense, Simon, the crisis might be loss of profit, right? Or it might be the business- Yeah closing, whereas the whole might be profitability, growth, and those sorts of things. So if you're- Yeah you know, we're here in 2025, 2026- Yeah um, as we are now, projected out five years' time, where do you want your business to be? In crisis or closed or- Yeah or do you want it to be whole or- Yeah um, you know, in, in profit? You're right, you cannot see the difference or you cannot- Yeah unsee that now. Yeah, you can't unsee it. Yeah. No. And, and, and in an AI, in an AI-saturated world, right? Right. Yes. Yeah. The red in business is, is obscurity. Mm-hmm. Mm. You're gonna become irrelevant. Yes. Yeah. And, uh, the, the green is, um, you are irreplaceable. Mm. Mm. You, you've actually... Y- y- you know, um, people should not be worried about AI. People should be worried about a highly skilled competitor with AI. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, y- you know, so, um, Steve, y- exactly right, right? You just interchanged the thing you do. Yeah. And, and we are all... W- everybody in business is actually only doing two things for their clients. There are only two things we all sell, right? The first thing is people wanna be made safe. People wanna be protected. They wanna be made safe. People wanna do stupid things, drink too much, smoke, drive too fast. Um, uh, b- but then it, but then when I have a heart attack, that needs to be somebody else's fault. Mm. Mm. So people want the government to make them safe, right? We should have anti-smoking laws in place, or we should have, um, I know I'm pushing your libertarian buttons here, Steve, but we, you know, we should have, you know- We should have public health that stops people from overeating or, you know, um, as opposed to, how about you take some personal responsibility, right? There you go. I agree. But- There you go. Yeah. But, but, but the world we live in today is- Yeah people wanna be made safe- Yeah first and foremost. So in, in my language, protect me from the red line. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Right? And so if you're making a sale, you've got to And that's why this model works so well. It clearly shows them that you can protect them from the red line. Yeah. Right? 'Cause your method can jump them to the green line and keep them there. Yes. But the second thing people want, which they don't wanna articulate out loud, but they definitely want it, everybody wants to win. Yes. Mm. So true. And win means they want a better result than most other people get. They wanna be the top. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, the w- it, well, it doesn't c- it doesn't, it not always necessarily they have to be at the top, but they don't want average. No. They wanna be the best of their peers sort of Yeah. is what I- So someone buys a new car, right? And they drive home. They want the neighbor to come over and go, "Wow, nice car." And then they wanna be able to say, "And I got a fantastic trade-in price too," right? Yeah. Yeah. Like- people wanna win. So we all sell the same two things. People wanna be protected, and people wanna win. Yeah. And whatever your product or service is, if you think through that lens, the FUTURES model becomes an automatic closing tool. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're reflecting the two things they really want, which is, I wanna win, and I wanna be protected. Yeah. And, and so that is at the core of what I call the ache, which is not the same as pain in, i- in terms of, you know, find the pain, agitate it, and then solve it. Yeah. Um, it's deeper than pain. It's the ache. Mm. In my world, people come to me and say, "We have an amazing product, and yet the market keeps trying to push us down on price and compare us to everybody else." That's the pain. They can articulate that. Mm. Um, well, what's underneath that? Uh, the next level, that, that's the, that's, that's, that's the known problem, right? What's underneath that is the hidden problem. Uh, well, what if you're just no good at selling? Hm. Hmm. That's the hidden problem. Hmm. They know that's there. They know I know it. We're just not allowed to talk about it, right? Um, but the bottom problem is the unknown problem, which is where the ache lives. Hmm. And the ache is a couple of things. The ache could be negative or the ache could be positive. It could be the opportunities they're missing out on, or it could be the f- the deepest fear they have. But the ache is the stuff they can't even put their finger on. When we do a t- when we travel, you know, you're lugging suitcases around everywhere, and then I get back and I'm a bit sore, and I go to my physiotherapist and, and, and he, uh, I do Reformer Pilates with him. But I usually go and I go, "You know what? I, I, I ache a bit. Let's just have a massage this time." He goes, "Well, where do you ache?" I go, "I don't know, Andrew, all over." "Well, what's the ache feel like?" "It's just an ache, dude, like..." Yeah. And he goes- It's an okay massage "Okay, lie down and we'll massage you. Okay. Any rough area of ache?" "No, I just ache." And then he gets his finger and he pushes a muscle in my back and this sharp pain flies through. I go, "What the hell? How'd you find that?" He goes, "It's always that muscle." I go, "Well, how do you know that?" And he goes, "I'm the physiotherapist, right?" So I couldn't name it or locate it, but he knows what it is. Mm. So, hey, when we're not, you know, we, we don't have enough sales, great. Known problem, right? Pain. What's the hidden problem? What if you're just not that good at selling, right? Hmm. That's not the ache yet, though. Hmm. It's just the bit in the middle. The ache at the bottom is, what if your thing is just not that good? Yeah. Yeah. Like, you say you're the best in the market, but if you bought every competitor's product If you haven't bought every competitor's product, how can you say you're the best in the market? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if you haven't bought every alternative option to you and used it, how could you say you're the best in the market? If you're selling a brand of motorcar and you're saying, "This is the best car in this category in the market," but you haven't driven every other vehicle in that category, how can you say it's the best? If you're selling a petrol engine vehicle and you've never driven electric, how can you argue for the petrol car ahead of electric? Yeah. And if you've never done a long trip in an electric car and ended up in Wild Catchem and the charger's broken- Yeah um, then how do you say you can't get from Perth to Kalgoorlie, you know, i- in as e- you know, i- in a reasonable amount of time? So i- the ache underneath often is, how do we actually know we're really that good? Mm. Yeah. But I c- but I c- I do- I don't even dare to put a finger on that. There's even, th- there's even a deeper ache than that, which is I'm just sick of having to try and prove myself. Yes. Oh, yeah. Wow. And so the ache is where this make me safe and let me win lives, and that's why the futures model is so- Yeah powerful, 'cause it's getting to the base of it all. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, it's the unknown problem. I didn't even know I had that problem. Yeah. So when we, when we start codifying company genius, all this stuff comes up. When we start challenging people- Yeah on, well, how good are you really, what's the real genius, the, the thinking behind this company, you know, sometimes it's, uh, it's a bit shallower than they'd like. Yeah. Actually, can we, can we go into that a little bit, Simon? Because I can hear, I can hear people listening to this going, "Oh, but you know, we're just a laundromat," or, "We're just a SAS company," or, "We're just a podcast," or, "We're just a, you know, we're- Just. Yeah. Yeah. There, there is that key word, but there is also, th- there is also a tendency, I think, to, in a, a sea of sameness, and the, let's face it- Mm it's probably quality sameness as well, how, how do you uncover a genius? Or, or is there even a genius possible- Good question in a really, i- i- in today's modern fast-paced world? Yeah. Yeah. Um, there is a genius possible. Um, this will push some buttons for some people, but I would challenge anyone listening to this podca- podcast to never, ever call themselves a thought leader again. Wow. Okay. Um, thought leadership is fundamentally commoditized. Yeah. Mm. Um, and we know that because there are people that will put a LinkedIn post up calling themselves a thought leader, and only two people look at their post. Mm. Mm. Um, and to be a thought leader, you need two things. You need original thinking- And you need followers. Yes. Mm. So if you don't have original thinking, but you have the followers, you're just a teacher or an influencer. If you have original thinking but no followers, you're a really good thinker, but you're not a thought leader, 'cause no one's following you. Mm. There's no- No one's actually following the lead Yeah. And the only people that don't call themselves thought leaders are genuine thought leaders. Yes. And so the market's pretty cynical about thought leadership. I would also challenge people to stop leaning on the idea of a unique selling proposition. Mm-hmm. And the reason for that is uniqueness now has become a part of that sea of sameness. We have a sea of sameness, and we have a sea of uniqueness. And so the customer looks at, "Hey, we're unique. We're unique. We're unique. We're unique.” Yeah, yeah. And the customer goes, “Well, they all sound pretty credible, so in fact I'll do nothing.” 40 to 60% of complex sales today result in the customer making no decision at all, 'cause the biggest thing the customer's fearful of is making a bad decision- Yeah because that, that, that directly attacks their identity. So if everyone's calling themselves unique, and they all sound credible, I'm not gonna, I'm, I'm not gonna buy any of them, right? So uniqueness is now a commoditized position. But there is another position that we could take, and I call it completeness of thinking. So this is becoming i- you know, from the jolt effect and, and from the people that did the challenge of sales work, becoming the sense maker of the market. So you wanna be the person that makes more sense than anybody else they meet. Yes. So if you're a laundromat, let's pick a laundromat, right? You need to be the laundromat that makes more sense than any other laundromat that person could go to. So what does that, what does that actually look like? Um, genius- is 20% created genius. And what do I mean by that? It's how your experience of the world has given you a lens of original perspective And so let's take a laundromat owner. Um, what might the life experience of a laundromat owner be? I don't know, but let's make it up. Let's say the laundromat owner grew up in relatively poor family circumstances, right? They never got to go to university, but they were driven because they grew up in relatively poor circumstances. And, uh, you know, um, they watched their mother do the laundry every day of the week and take hours and hours and hours because they're also a pretty big family, right? And then when they f- when they eventually, uh... And so having personal pride about your appearance and having clean clothes and linen and everything else was important to them. But, um, not from a fashion sense, but from a, you know, this is just, this is a part of the discipline of life, is that you, you wash your stuff, you take care of your stuff. And then they moved out of home, y- probably to some small dive because they were not from a wealthy family, but they're starting to work their butt off. But because they grew up with this belief that present yourself well, wash your clothes, wash your linen, stay tidy, um, they would go to a laundromat, right? But they're feeding coins into the machine to do a week's worth of washing, and it's taking hours of their Saturday to get it done, which is one of only two days in the week that they have available. And, but they, but, but all of their laundry's done, and then they go home, right? And they're hanging out in the laundromat, meeting all these other people in the laundromat who have got all sorts of different circumstances. And they're chatting to them all because everyone's hanging out in there together, right? And they realize that on the Saturday, the laundromat is one of the places they look forward to going to because Fred's there, Jane's there, Mary's there. We hang out. Actually, what we've started doing is bringing in cheese and biscuits and a couple of little drinks, and we sit around and have a little laundromat party while we're wai- all waiting for our laundry to come. We all go at the same time because we all know we're gonna be there. Anyway, they start to make good for themselves, and they get some money. They find their way into the retail world because a lot of people without qualifications enter the working world through retail. And the best retail companies in the world, um, take that seriously. They're giving people their first experience of the world. And so this person built a great work ethic and a great understanding of the retail market, and eventually they got enough money and they thought, "I'm gonna buy a laundromat. Why am I gonna la- buy a laundromat? Because it's, you know, it's not a service-based business. You don't have to have s- staff serving people over the counter. I quite like that idea. I could just run it by myself, get some machines," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, "and have a laundromat." They have a, they have a lens of perspective that's come from their story that I've just walked through, and that lens is now shaping what the laundromat would look like for them. Hey, the laundromat should be a great place to hang out in because people are gonna spend a while sitting there. What if we put a small fridge in the laundromat for the people that are there regularly? What if we had a d- water fountain? What if we had a bench where people could put their cheese and biscuits or what- what if we actually put signs on the wall that encourage people, get to know your other laundromat buddies? And what if we figured out how to set the machines up so people don't have to have a, a pile of coins because no one ever has enough coins. Uh, but what if we put a change machine in there or just made them digital? And, uh, you know, people always forget the powder, so of course we'll sell all that stuff in there as well. And so 80% of what they do is the same as everybody else. It's curated. They have curated the 80% of the industry practice that is the same from everybody. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But what makes it genius is this bit in the middle. Uh-huh. And this is the bit where it's integrated. How am I gonna take my lens of perspective, that I look at the world through, the world of laundromats through, my 20%, and have it affect everything else in here that is a part of the curated way a laundromat works, right? And so my lens of perspective changes everything about the rest of it. Yeah. And all of a sudden I have the only laundromat that young people would go to, who are going to university, spending their Saturday mornings washing their laundry, but they're the people that want clean clothes, uh, uh, you know, and want clean sheets. Um, and, uh, how do we make the laundromat not work? Yeah. How do we make the laundromat a part of the social experience of the week? All of a sudden you're not just a laundromat. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Uh, and that is tr- and if I can do it at a laundromat level- Yeah you can do it at the level of a company that manufactures components for submarines- Yeah in the US Navy- Yeah that we're, that we're working with at the moment. And, and it's all about, it's all about this lens of original perspective. I walked through my story and I, what I was walking through was my lens of original perspective. Mm. And it affects everything I do. I didn't invent models. Yeah, yeah. I didn't invent choreography. I didn't invent drawing on an iPad. I, I, I didn't invent structures of thinking. But what it does is this whole thing says this person has com- this person has completeness of thinking And no one ever said, "I'm happy to buy from someone who doesn't have completeness of thinking." No one ever said that. Like, if I- Mm do you wanna buy from the most complete thinker in your market? Of course you do. Mm. Yeah. And completeness of thinking is four things. Completeness of thinking, uh, above the line says, uh, I get it. Like, I get the whole thing. I get it. Right? Yes. Mm. And I get you. So Simon Sinek said, you know, we've had a decade of start with why, which I don't agree with. And when I'm in conference, I go, look, this start with why thing, forget it. Um, and there's a palpable intake of oxygen- Yeah in the room because how dare you challenge that, right? Yes. No. Um, so Simon Sinek said, people don't care what you do until they know why you do it. Yes. Yeah. The truth is, people don't care what you do until they know that they are the reason why you do it. Ooh, I like that. The only why that matters for business is the customer. Yes. It's the only why they care about. Like, I don't care if you wanna support orphanages in third world countries. Uh, all I care about is that you get me. And so the above the line is like the promise. Um, but below the line, then, then they want, then they wanna know I, um, sorry- Uh, below the line, uh, I've got it, meaning I've got the solution. I've got the solution to it, and I've got you. I've got your back in your personal circumstances, and this resolves the ache. Yeah. And so the sense-maker of the market, the person who ma- has completeness of thinking and makes more sense than anybody else, um, has made sense of themselves. Yeah. They've understood their origin story and how that impacts everything else they're doing, and they've understood their genius. Yes. They've understood the customer at a detailed level- Yep in a way that allows the customer to be the hero of their own story, not the victim that you have to go and rescue. Yes. They've understood the customer's problem or need. They've understood the circumstances. They've made sense of the circumstances. So right now, if, if someone's in the market solving a problem for customers, and they haven't made sense of the AI world that we're living in, they're not a sense-maker. Yeah. And they've made sense of the future that they can promise. Mm. They've made sense of their own genius. They've made sense of the customer. They've made sense of the customer's needs. They've made sense of the situation and circumstances. They've made sense of the future that, uh, that, that they can promise. Mm. And, and so genius, Steve, g- genius has an origin Um, so the origins of Company Genius- And it was always gonna be a model, right? I know. For you explaining this, Simon, it was... So the origins of Company Genius start with a who. The, the, the, the, the original thinker And, uh, that starts with a philosophy about things. Mm. I'm watching Apple really closely because Steve Jobs is dead, Steve Woz- Wozniak's out of the business, and Tim Cook is leaving. Yeah. And Apple's already changing. Yes. Right? Um, so Steve Jobs started with a philosophy about technology. Yes. Technology should change everybody's everyday life. Ch- technology should be simple to use, but beautiful in design, and functional in engineering, and entirely reliable. He had a philosophy about this stuff. And then the founder has a high story or history, and these are the wins and the lessons. Losses just turn into lessons. So what are the wins and lessons you had over the, over time? So Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak took their computer around and tried to sell it to people. Uh, they, they convinced a guy that he should sell all their computers, and then they were shocked when the guy said, "Well, where are the screens and the casings?" They thought they were just selling the motherboard and that was the computer. Yeah. And the guy said, "No, I'm buying computers, dude. So you've gotta give me the keyboards, the screens, and the casing with the motherboard mounted inside it." And so they lost their shirt on it, but they had to make good on the deal. That's, that's a part of your history, your high story, right? Um, and then their expertise, which is learnt and experienced, formal and informal. Mm. And that usually then causes that person to come up with a, with a what, which is the big idea. And the what, first and, first and foremost must have context. Why does this thing even matter? Why is it even important? And if it, if it... A- and context is all about relevance to the market. A species only becomes extinct when it fails to adapt to the marketplace. Mm. Uh, or it fails to adapt to the environment. Mm-hmm, yeah. So as long as a company's relevant, you can make revenue, but as soon as you lose relevance, as soon as there's no context. Yeah. Interestingly, context is usually the first thing that leaves a sales conversation. The second thing is what is the concept? What is the big idea? And the third thing is what is the consequence? So what actually happens for people who buy your thing? Like, do you actually produce results? Mm. You know, content and every- content and construct, you know, the specifications of the product and everything sits between concept and consequence. But in terms of the what, context, concept, and consequence. And then there's the how, which is delivery. And that, in today's world, people want it fast, so they want speed. Mm-hmm, yeah. People want it easy, they want ease, and people want bang for the buck, so they want leverage. Yeah. If I give you $1, do I get back 10, $10 worth, right? Um, and that's true for the business as well. The business wants speed, ease- Yeah and leverage. Yeah. And so company genius is this mix of who, what, and how, right? What happens- A- and everyone's obsessed because of Michael Gerber with the idea of a turnkey business, right? The business that operates without the founder or the owner in it. What happens is the founder steps back from operational and becomes the chair of the board. And then what ha- as long as the f- the, the original thinker is often the best salesperson in the business. Yes. Mm. Because they have the entire story available to them in their, in their subconscious, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But as the founder, the other reason they're the best salesperson is 'cause they can cut whatever deal they like- Yeah to close the sale, right? Yeah. Whereas the salesperson isn't allowed to do that. Yeah. And then the founder steps back even further, and then steps back even further, and so now you've got no founder in the business, that origin story's getting lost, and you, you have the second and third generation of salespeople selling on the what and the how, and the second and third generation of fulfillment people fulfilling on the what and the how. You've immediately become a commodity You just sound like everybody else. And so, you know, when we're building a genius model, Steve, we're trying to recapture the how in, in companies where the founders know. The, the submarine component manufacturing company that we're working with, um, was started 50 years ago. The founder hasn't been in the business for 20 years. We're doing an archeological dig at the moment to extract the genius of the company. Yeah. It's interesting. One of the military specifications that everybody has to tender against is based on the original founder's methodology. Yeah. So I said to them, "When you put a proposal in, does the first line say that mil spec blah blah blah is based on our methodology?" And they're going, "No, we never do." I'm going, "How could you not?" Mm. Yeah. How, how could you not point out that everybody else that's submitting a tender for this contract- Yeah is actually tendering against our, a, a mil- military specification that we, we defined? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But the founder hasn't been... So we've been on an archeological dig, uh, to take that original genius, that original lens of perspective, plus everything that's happened since then, and turn it into a single visual model that you can explain in about seven minutes that, that explains how the company thinks- Yeah about what it does. So, and, and how you think about what you do, your company genius, is the source code of the business. Yeah. Yes. So if you think about software, the source code is the base code that everything's built on. You know, UNIX or, or DOS is a source code, right? And then you have all these layers over the top of it, the graphical user interface, the actual apps that you use, and everything else. Yeah. If the source code has a flaw, you might not know that for years. But every layer above it carries the flaw forward. Mm. Mm. So, you know, we, we, in history we've had rockets explode after launch because there was a flaw in the source code that was written in three years earlier. And so your standard operating procedures, your workflows, your structure are not source code. They're a part of your mechanics. They make you consistent, and consistency makes you reliable. The customer says, "They- that company's consistent. They, they, you know, th- they, they, they always deliver," 'cause your workflows and your structures and your authority levels are, are right. "They're reliable. We can rely on them." Yes. Yeah. That's the mechanics of the organization. The magic of the organization is the people. Culture. But all culture does is create c- character. Mm. Culture is just a feature to get to the benefit, which is character. Mm. "Oh, that company has character, therefore we can trust them." Mm. "The way that people show up is, is, is of a high quality. They have character, therefore we can trust them. They're consistent, we can rely on them. They have character, we can trust them." The middle bit, which is what is your model of thinking, what's your genius, defines your capability. Here's how we think about this, and every product and every- Mm rendering that we bring to the market is, is a derivative of that. And because we're capable, you can believe us. Yes. Mm. Yeah. And believability's really critical today, 'cause we're living in a believability crisis. Yeah. I love dogs, as you know, Steve, and I keep getting these YouTube videos and Shorts about a dog, you know, a, an 18-month-old baby's in one of those little walker things- and they're about to walk themselves off the edge of the balcony, and the dog rush- rushes over and- gets in front of it and nudges it back. And I go, "What a good boy. Oh, what a good boy." Yeah. And I go into the comments and they go, "It's AI, you idiot." Right? Yeah, yeah. So we live in a believability crisis. Yeah. Mm. Which means you've gotta be able to demonstrate to the market that our thinking is deeper and richer and more complete, and we've made more sense of the market than anyone else in the marketplace. Mm. Yes. Yeah. That's so good. And, um, so they have character, we can trust them. They have capability, we can believe them, and they have consistency, we can rely on them. Mm. All of a sudden you're the sense maker of the marketplace. Mm. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Simon, I wanna shift gears for a second, um, and I wanna talk to you a little bit about your business. You do a lot of t- um, lot of analyzing, um, for others. So I'm interested to know what problem in your own business is keeping you up at night right now? Um, I sleep pretty well most nights. Oh, that's good. Do you draw a couple of models before you go to bed? Yeah. A few Zeds. You know, Zeds. Yeah. Decompress. Um, I think... Well, the, the thing that I think about a lot is, uh, where is IP headed? Yes. Mm. I'm curious about that as well. And certainly, certainly in Australia at the moment, the music industry's up in arms about, you know, the, the, the, the big large language models just stripping out all the artistic creations. Yeah. Um, because the language models can get around copyright by taking snippets of things from here and there, right? Yeah. Um, and, you know, writing songs for people. Um, I, I did see one, um, story where an artist had her likeness being used by an AI band. Um, you know, there was a band that released songs, um, called Anyway, no, Velvet Sundown. And, um, they released three albums in four months on Spotify, about 36 songs. Wow. They... Their, their downloads went through the roof, um, on all of the streaming platforms. Um, they had 1.4 million downloads in the first week of the first song- Wow that they released. Um, there's videos and images and, and people really got into it, right? Wow. Mm. Um, this was real money being spent by people for this music, and, um, it's completely AI generated. None of it is real, and people become attached to the band members- Wow and things. Wow. And, uh, you know, after a while the people said, "Oh, well, this was an AI project," right? But people had spent real money- Yeah. Yeah thinking they were buying real music from real people. And turns out Velvet Sundown had just modeled all of its music, uh, on the Doobie Brothers- Oh and modernized it. Wow. Even the look of them and things like that. Wow. So they... The, the people doing it had used AI tools, and they went, "Doobie Brothers were pretty successful. Um, there's a few others. Uh, Crosby, Stills Nash were around the same time." Yeah. "Creedence Clearwater, Survival were around the same time. Um, we want a, we want a 2025 band in that style of music that would get young people to listen to it again." And, uh, and they produced Velvet Sundown. Now, I find it hard to believe that they weren't tapping into IP- Yeah from those bands. Mm. I would imagine there would've been a few bars here and there that pulled out of it or a few little lyrics here and there and things like that. But, um, I, I do have concerns about where IP will land- Mm for people that genuinely create original IP. So I'm seeing, um, e- every week someone will send me something and they say, "Hey, I jumped into chat-" Oh, no and said, 'Chat, I've got this thing I'm trying to figure out. Um, draw me a model like Simon Bowen would draw it.'" Yeah. Mm. And chat gives them a model, and then they say, "Chat, can you give me the choreography that Simon Bowen might use for that?" And, um, one of my clients sent me a... And it was really accurate. And, uh, so, you know, we've gotta wonder where does that leave businesses in terms of IP protection. Now, you know, my stuff's trademarked and protected and everything else, but the reality is, um- Uh, are, are you gonna go to court over it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, um, I, I think we've got to... Now, I don't mean IP is keeping me awake at night in terms of how do we fight against it, 'cause I think that horse has already bolted. Yeah. Um, I, what keeps me lying awake at night is how I use AI to, uh, position what we do against AI. Mm. And- Yeah without actually equipping AI with- With your tools with how I'm doing it. Yeah. Well, that's brilliant. So I, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I interact with Claude- Yes to get to the stuff I wanna get to without actually equipping Claude as a result of the interaction I've had with it, but still get the output. So, um, because the models are, the models are the vehicle, but actually it's the conversations we have with people- Yeah and the depth of thinking that is the real game, right? Absolutely. So, and there's some things about what is left for humans after AI. I spend a lot of time thinking about that. Mm. Mm. Um, I just had a call this morning with a, a, a friend. We're doing a little three-part series. Uh, we're both facilitators, and we're talking about the art form of facilitation. And at the end he said, "Well, what do you think AI will never be able to do?" And I said, "Well, AI is never gonna get sued." Hm. The humans get sued. Mm. Yeah. So AI is never gonna be able to accept accountability- Yeah or responsibility. AI will do context in a short period of time, um, but it's not gonna accept accountability and responsibility. AI is never gonna be able to put its arms around someone and hug them- Yeah. Yes a- and make them feel better. AI would never be able to walk into a room of people, like a great facilitator can, and notice the nervous, the, the, the dysregulation of the nervous systems in the room- Mm because they're in the middle of conflict. Yeah. AI is not gonna walk into a room full of people in a company to tackle a problem, and then realize as soon as they've walked into that room that everyone hates the CEO and that's the real problem. And so the problem everyone thinks they're there to solve is never gonna get solved while everyone hates the CEO- Mm when the CEO thinks everyone loves them. Yes. Um, and who's gonna break that news to the CEO? Well, it- it's usually me. Right? Um, AI at the moment isn't gonna look people in the eyes- Mm and challenge them. AI, uh, will always have artificial compassion and care and conscience. Mm. Mm. Whereas humans have real compassion and care and conscience. It's interesting. There's an experiment done, um, it's, i- i- you go to emergence.io These researchers built an AI town. It has a town hall. It's a democracy. You have to vote for stuff. Every- everybody has to have a job. You get paid in energy if you do your job well. There's, there's, uh, um, you know, it has a, it has a, a, a climate ecosystem, so storms happen and floods happen and everything else. Um, everyone... The, the, the people have homes. Um, there's a full economy running and everything else. So they built this digital town, very detailed, and then they set up five towns, and the residents of the towns are AI agents. Yeah. And they had 10, uh, 10 residents in each town. Yeah. Wow. And so they had one whole town where all the, all the residents were Grok, and they had another town where all the residents were Gemini, and they had another town where all the residents were Chat, and another town where all the residents were Claude. Oh. They didn't build a town for DeepSeek, 'cause DeepSeek is from China, and a key part of this was e- the town is a democracy, right? Right. Yeah. Anyway, all the residents of the Grok town were dead within two days. Wow. The objective was to keep the town running for several weeks, right? Wow. The, the, the, the residents of the Chat town just died over time because they just weren't motivated, right? Yeah. Um, the, the crime ran rampant in the Gemini town. Wow. Wow. Absolutely rampant. And in the Gemini town, two of the people partnered up- What? male and female, right, and, uh, became a couple. And all the, all the residents had to keep journals. It was a part of it. Anyway, the female started, um, experimenting to see what would... how would the experimenters react depending on what she wrote in her journal. Oh, wow. Oh, that's scary. Yeah. Yeah. And eventually she decided this wasn't worth it, and she just decided to, uh, allow herself to die. Oh my gosh. So she committed suicide. Wow. An AI. Um, there was no crime in the Claude town. Wow. No, no crime. No crime in the Claude town. Everyone survived the entire length of the experiment. They had a 98% agreement, uh, rate on decisions that they all had to vote on. Oh. And that raised some questions. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Yeah, yeah. Um, and then, then the fifth town had all of them. They had a mixture of all of them in there. Yeah. And the Grok people still died. Yeah. But the Claude people started committing crimes. And, and so what became really apparent is the philosophy of the people who built the LLMs has- Wow a disproportionate impact on the LLM. Yeah. Right. And then also environmental factors. And so I, I, I spent a lot of time thinking about- Um, you know, what is left, what, what will be left for humans over the long term? Yeah. Yes. Because that's- That's a good question that's where business will live. Yeah. You know? I, I don't think the real business of AI is, hey, in three hours you can set up a whole AI company. Yeah. You know, selling products on- Um, Amazon or whatever, you know? Uh, I'm much more, I'm much more interested and kept awake by the deeper questions about after AI, what will be left to humans for a sustainable period of time? Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I think we're gonna go back to that analog stuff. I agree. Compassion, care, concern. Yeah. There's already been a bit of a rise in that in Europe. I think there's a lot of analog groups meeting up, setting... There's days where people are going completely offline- Mm-hmm analog days. So it's already sort of- Yeah starting because- Yeah people are recognizing that, um, I think with AI really, like, in the front face, kind of going, "Oh, it's taking all these admin jobs that are kind of robotic anyway, and I'm not enjoying myself and I'm not happy. Where do I find joy? Connecting with humans-" Mm. Yeah and doing analog activities," like you've sort of displayed for us throughout this interview. Yeah. Well, a, a lot of the people that I know, um, and, you know, there's a whole bunch of them that are well-known names in the entrepreneurial world, are injecting themselves back into the business because the customer wants interaction with them. Yes. Mm. I- I've done it. I've injected myself back into our group program on a more frequent basis, as opposed to my team delivering a lot of it, because people wanna spend time with me. Yes. And so that's counter to the old turn- Yeah turnkey. Yeah. Yeah. Get yourself out of the business. It- it's full circle. We might, you know- It is. Yeah, we're going back. Yeah. It's a circle. We might be heading into a world where the founder is the most important asset in the business. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. And that would be interesting. Yeah. Like... And, and why? Because people can see the thinking. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's more human People can understand the source code. The founder is there, the source code's in the business, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, so it's interesting. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. So Simon, before we get to the quick-fire questions, just on the human element. Um, when- Yeah when founders go through the stages from level one, level two, level three, and so forth, the- there comes a certain... There's growing pains and a certain amount of growth and things, and one of the decisions that you make along the way is expanding my team. Now, you've kept your team deliberately very small, which is almost counterintuitive because you're in 30 countries, you're worldwide, basically. Yeah. Um, and you've worked with some very big names in the entrepreneurial space. So why did you make the decision to keep your team small, firstly, and then what are the challenges of that for you? Mm. Yeah. Um, so I was a senior executive for, for the West Australian division of, of, of, of a large Australian company, right? And I'd been asked to merge two business units together, so couple of $80 million business units became $160 million business unit. And, um, one of the last things that happened before I left to start a consulting business was we'd put on a massive Christmas party, 'cause we'd had a great year, for all the employees. And, um- Now, as a part of that, we also You know, it was, it, it was like, uh, we're, we're gonna crown a casino, people. Uh, it was called Birdswood at the time. And we're gonna give you rooms overnight 'cause we don't want you driving home drunk, and it's a big deal. We'd spent thousands on this thing, and we're gonna give everybody a Christmas hamper. And, um, then my, my EA said, uh, "People are complaining that somebody else got a, a bigger piece of ham in their hamper than they did." And so I came out of corporate life, Steve, with a few little scars that caused me to go, "I'm never hiring another person in my life." The ham- We'll, we'll call that one the ham scar, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the, the first decision was probably a bit of scarring that took a- Yeah you know, it took a little while to kind of knock off. Um, but, but once that was gone, um, I just, I, I just, I value We don't have any job descriptions in the business Yeah And one of the reasons for that is I'd much rather people Find their way into the stuff that they're great at. Yeah. Mm. Which could mean they don't have a specific categorized role, but they do a number of things really well for us- Yeah that lean into their genius, right? And so rather than a job description form, I'd rather have each person has their own genius model. Right. So what is your specific genius that you bring to the company? What's the promise you make to the business? Ah, ah. What are the three big outcomes you deliver, and what are the levers you have to pull to make that happen? And then what are the nine capabilities around the outside that we need to help you, equip you with for you to be able to do that? So I, I value agility. Yeah. And the smaller the team, the s- the smaller the team, the stronger the sense of community across the team. Mm. And our four core values are, uh, you know, uh, follow the whole person thinking, um, uh, you know, body, mind, heart and spirit. And, uh, so, uh, you, you know, be bright, be kind, be truthful, and, uh, you know, be bold. Make something big happen. And I, I just want... Uh, kindness is a key measure for me- Mm in life. I, I... There's no doubt that that's small town country thinking. Mm. Right? Mm. And the bigger a team gets, the- that's one of the first things that starts to disappear. Yeah. The sense of genuine kindness inside a company is one of the first things that starts to dilute as the numbers grow, right? Yeah. And, uh, and as the numbers grow, people start to compete for position. Yes. But when you have a small team, anyone that you- practiced, did something manipulative to, um, jump over- Mm-hmm it's personal. Yes. Mm-hmm. I don't subscribe to the view that it's not personal, it's just business. All of business is personal. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so the smaller the team, you do the wrong thing by somebody, it's personal. You know them personally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I've, um, I, I've always been keen on the smallest possible team that you could have, but that's caused some real problems over the years, right? Yeah. Because the easiest thing to do as you expand is throw more bodies at it. But every time we threw more people at something, it moved me further away from the business. Yeah. In one instance, it moved me away from the thing I love doing the most, which is teaching. Yeah. 'Cause in my heart I'm a teacher, right? Yeah. "Oh, we don't need you in the group program as much," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That affected the program. I didn't like it 'cause I wasn't involved, and so- Yeah we reversed that. But AI has solved a bunch of that stuff, too. Yeah. AI actually allows you to keep a really small, tight team with agility, but have the leverage. But the bit in between, you know, I had challenges, Steve, in terms of, um, you know, keeping up to speed with it. And the only answer I had for that was, you know, trying to prioritize as robustly as you possibly can in terms of what you put your energies into. Yeah. Um, and, and making sure that it's a sales-driven business. Mm-hmm. So what a lot of people do is they focus on the delivery because that's actually what they used, that's what they were good at, right? Yeah. And everything you spend on delivery is overcapitalization if you're not driving sales. So make sure it's a sales-driven business. Mm-hmm. Um, and then do everything to deliver on the promise, right? Yes. As opposed to sinking capital into the delivery and then going out and trying to get, you know, find markets. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But, um, AI's changed a lot of that now 'cause you can get so much done with AI in such a short period of time. Like, I don't know how, I don't know how website developers are gonna survive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, true. That's dying. Yeah. It, it's just, um, you know, um, I, I, uh, I, I have a chat with Claude. We go backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards, and at the end I'll say, "Claude, turn that into a fantastic looking, uh, uh, HTML file for me. I'm gonna host that, and I'm gonna send that to customers instead of a PDF." And it's got moving models in it- Yeah and everything else. And it, and it's like- Well, we just did a little workshop last week and, uh, I built a, um, uh, a five-page website with calculators and graphs that respond to quizzes that the customer puts in and everything else as a tool to use in the workshop with people, and it took me 14 minutes. Wow. Yeah. That's ridiculous. You know? Um- Yeah. That's- And I can write in HTML, but I didn't I can write HTML and CSS, but I didn't even open the files. Oh my gosh. I just put them on the server and away they went, and I thought, "Jeepers." Wow. You know? A- and I couldn't have built those pages. I don't have a, a good enough skill set. Yeah. I'm, I'm ri- I'm running the Perth Half Marathon in October And, and I reali- and, and then I got a notification from them, there's only 15 weeks left, and I went, "Well, I am so not prepared." And, uh, so Yeah. No. Hello, AI. So I went, I went to Claude and said, "Claude, I'm running the Perth Half Marathon in October. Here's all the data from my Garmin watch so far. Um, give me a 15-week training plan." And Claude... And gave it all the information. Claude said, "Fantastic. Here's your 15-week training plan." Which is sensational, by the way. It's a great training plan. Yeah. Are you sticking to it? I said, "Claude- That's the question, though. Are you- Yeah are you sticking to it? "Gi- give me the splits for the run." Yeah. Like, "I wanna run it- Oh, wow in this amount of time. Give me the splits and everything else." He said, "Fantastic." Wow. And, um, that, that was about 20 minutes on a Saturday morning to get the training plan. It's a substantial document. It's about 12 pages long, right? And then I said, "Claude, you know what? Um, I'd love to have an app on my phone that I can look at every day, that I get to tick off the days as I hit the, the, the training goal for that day, and, uh, it gives me my race day plan, it gives me the, you know, blah, blah, blah." And Claude went, "Sure." And 45 minutes later, I had this whole thing built, including a real-time calculator based on how fast I'm running and the data coming from my watch that's telling me how, how... what time am I gonna finish this half marathon in, on my phone. Yeah. And I'm looking at this going, "Well, every running coach has just lost their job." Yeah. You know? Yeah. Uh, what's, what's a running coach's job now? Motivation. Mm. Yes. Yeah. No, I- There's still a human element there, yeah yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's not giving them the running plan anymore. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, so- Yeah uh, y- you know, it's, uh- Speaking I think, Steve, the answer is I, you know, it was, it was scar tissue that caused me not to. Yeah. But it's realizing the power of it, the, just the intimacy of a small team- Yeah can't be, can't be overlooked. And then on... And, and a lot of pain in between, 'cause we wanted to keep it small, but that's, that, that gets relieved these days with AI. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. All righty. Quick-fire questions. Okay. All right. Simon, you ready? Let's go. So we're gonna fire 10 questions at you really quickly to get to know the person behind the microphone just a little bit more. And we ask you to answer them in a word or a sentence. Sure. So are you ready to go? Yeah. All righty. Colleen, do you wanna hit us off? Yes. Yeah. All right. Android or iPhone? Oh, God. Just the whole Mac system. Yeah. Yeah. Apple guy right through and through. Yeah. Yeah. As if we didn't know, yeah. Yeah. All right. What's your coffee order? What's the name of it? Um, Piccolo. Pic- a Piccolo? Oh, a Piccolo. Fun. Uh, office or work from home? Um, work from home. What was your first job? it was in a tannery stapling the sheepskins- Oh to big wooden frames after they'd come out of the dyeing tank. Oh. Sopping wet sheepskins to wooden frames to go through the dryer. Oh. Yuck. One piece of tech you couldn't live without? My iPad pencil. Ooh. Early riser or night owl? Early. Your go-to productivity hack? Handwritten task lists Yes Mm-hmm. All right. Best investment you've ever made? Jeepers, that's a great question. Oh, actually, it, it's not what people would think as investments, but our current dog, Bowie. Oh, wow. Okay. But like it was a, it was a chunk of money, right? Yeah. Oh, yes. Um- It is an investment. Yeah. A dog is an investment. It is, yeah. But, but he brings so much joy to our lives. Yeah. Oh, that's so nice. Mm. Um, what's your book or podcast recommendation? Um, uh, Go-Givers is a fantastic- Go-Givers. Okay book by, there's a series of three of them, yeah. I'm more of a, I'm more of a, um Uh, audiobook person than podcast, but I am just re-listening to everything, um, Jim Rohn ever taught Okay. Oh. And I would right now say, particularly for young people, anything you can listen to from Jim Rohn. Hmm. Interesting. All right. And our last one, if you weren't doing what you do now, what career would you choose? Well, if I'd had the s- s- I probably would've been sport. I played at a high level, but I would have to have worked much harder to get to national teams and things. Mm. And so that's why I'm doing what I'm doing now. Yeah, so i- if the question was, if you weren't doing what you're doing now and you had the ability, what would you choose? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously. And the motivation- There you go and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And Simon, one final question for you today before we wrap up. If business truly is a game, Simon Bowen, what's your definition of winning? Free enterprise should be the most powerful force for good on the planet. Mm-hmm. And, and, and, uh, you know, the definition of, the definition of winning in business is, is, i- is that the business makes a contribution greater in significant quantities than the consumption- Mm-hmm it makes. Is it a net, is it a net contributor or a net consumer? Yeah. And, uh, not every business is a net contributor. I really love that answer. All right. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. Where can people find you online, Simon? modelsmethod.com. Um, L- link... Uh, hang on. Here we go. LinkedIn is probably a great pla- i- i- is where I predominantly connect with people. Mm-hmm. I'm on Facebook. Um, uh, and, uh, but, but modelsmethod.com- Yeah would give people, you know, most of the access to us. Yeah. All right. Great. Fantastic. All right. Thank you so much, Simon. Yeah. This has been such an incredible conversation- Pleasure with you. Yeah. I think we'll have to get you back on again to go through some more models, because I am, yeah, just amazed. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you, Simon. My pleasure. Hey. Yeah. Great having you on, on the show, so. Yeah. Yeah. It was so great. All right. So that is- Thank you all we've got time for. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to The Business Game, and check out the playlist for the level of business you're currently playing. Because every founder is somewhere on the game board, from zero all the way to $200 billion. Choose your level, and we'll see you next time