Simon Mainwaring Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing Simon Mainwaring
Simon Mainwaring is the founder of We First, a strategic consultancy that accelerates growth and impact for purpose-driven brands.
As an accomplished thought leader and author, he brings years of working with the world’s top companies, Simon reveals how brands thrive and survive in a fast-changing market, and
accelerate growth even in challenging times.
Simon studied Law and Fine Arts at St Paul’s College, University of Sydney.
Prior to founding We First, he spent 15 years as a writer, Creative Director, and Worldwide Creative Director at global advertising agencies such as DDB Worldwide (Sydney), Saatchi & Saatchi (London), Wieden & Kennedy (Portland), and Ogilvy (Los Angeles), working with clients including Nike, Motorola, & Toyota.
He took all this experience and delivered it to the world with his first book, We First How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World“, is a New York Times bestseller named Best Marketing Book of the Year by strategy+business.
His new book, Lead With We, is a Wall Street Journal bestseller.,
So was the power of branding always something that interested him, or did it slowly creep up and slap him around a bit before it really hit home?
And how do new entrepreneurs and small business create the own purpose driven brand if at the beginning most sole purpose is just to survive?
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr Simon Mainwaring.
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Simon such as:
Simon shares how he discovered he had a huge amount of unhappiness in his life and what he did to find the spark in his life again.
Why Simon studied five years of law even though it was the last thing that he wanted in his life…due to making his father happy.
We chat about fighting your way forward from the state of desperation, until finally being engulfed with your passion.
And lastly……
We discuss the power of holding back your words and voice with your family when you first come home each day to give the power back to them.
How To Connect With Simon
Return To The Top Of Simon Mainwaring
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Full Transcription Of Simon Mainwaring Interview
Intro [0:01]
Life shouldn’t be hard life should be a fun filled adventure every day. So now start joining up dots tap into your talents, your skills, your God given gifts and tell your boss, you don’t deserve me. I’m out of here. It’s time for you to smash that alarm clock. And start getting the dream business and life you will, of course, are dreaming of. Let’s join your host David route from the back of his garden in the UK, or wherever he might be today with another JAM PACKED episode of the number one hit podcast. Join Up Dots.
David Ralph [0:40]
Yes, good morning to you. Good morning to you and welcome to Join Up Dots. Thank you very much for being with us. And thank you so much for the people that have been with us for years and years and years. I don’t say it lightly. But thank you so much for continuing to join up the dots of your own life and of course, be episode. Well. Today’s guest is somebody who’s got lots of dots to join up because he’s the founder of we first a strategic consultancy that accelerates growth and impact for purpose driven brands. As an accomplished thought leader and offer he brings years of working with the world’s top companies. And he reveals how brands thrive and survive in a fast changing market and accelerate growth even in challenging times. Now, he first studied law and Fine Arts at St. Paul’s College in the University of Sydney. And then he started to basically have a journey and he spent 15 years as a writer, Creative Director and worldwide Creative Director at global advertising agencies such as DDB worldwide Saatchi and Saatchi Wieden. And Kennedy, Ogilvy and working with clients including Nike, Motorola, and toy, a OTA. And he took all this experience and delivered it to the world with his first book, we first how brands and consumers use social media to build a better world. And then he’s led with another book lead with we, and that’s a Wall Street Journal best set up to. So what’s the power of branding? Always something that interested him? Or did he slowly creep up and slap him around a bit before it really hit home. But this was important, and how to new entrepreneurs and small businesses create their own purpose driven brand, if at the beginning, most sole purpose is just to survive? Well, let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Simon Mainwaring. Good morning, Simon, how are you?
Simon Mainwaring [2:29]
Good. I am very well. Thanks, David.
David Ralph [2:32]
It’s lovely to have you on right. I’m gonna get right to it. When I was doing my research. I was doing a bit of stalking. I saw a tweet that you said. And it intrigued me. So I thought I’m going to start with this. Now you said and I don’t know when you said this. I used to be an ad guy lucky enough to work accounts like Nike and Motorola. But after 15 years of travelling with work, trying to live up to some version of success, I realised that my career as desirable as it may have seen from the outside, wasn’t at all aligned with my values. Now, was that one of those dots that really led you to where you are today was that when things really change and you stopped being kind of? Let’s bring it to me, let me had the success and started sharing it.
Simon Mainwaring [3:19]
Yeah, I mean, it’s a great question. And I’d love to say that I had a plan in mind. And it sort of all unfolded as I had planned, but it was quite the opposite. I, I found myself as a young dad, and I was like 38 years old walking around my backyard here in Los Angeles. And I had two young children, and I lived all these versions of success in the ad business. And yet I was unhappy David, I didn’t even know what that feeling inside me was. And I don’t know if any of the folks who’ve worked in other companies or even in moments of entrepreneurship affiliate themselves with like, why am I not happy? What’s missing? Why am I discontent? And only in hindsight, did I realise that I was looking for more meaning in the work that I was doing? And and here’s the insight, you know, I think we all sort of until we get a little bit old and get to know ourselves better. We all try different versions of successes prescribed by other people. But until we realise that we’ve got to align who we are with what we do, and that’s an inside job. Only then do we start to find the fulfilment that we want. And I think it takes us, you know, it takes a little time to get there
David Ralph [4:20]
is an interesting moment when you realise that actually the survival mechanisms at the beginning, ie security, financial rewards and success actually aren’t as important as being unhappy. You know, we see it in sort of rock bands and pop bands that they split up and most of us go after the amount they were earning, I would have just put up with it and kept going. But there’s something more isn’t there when you’ve actually achieved those first survival instinct sort of metrics.
Simon Mainwaring [4:55]
Exactly. When you’ve got some measure of success, some skills under your belt. You kind of think you’ve got place in the world. But what actually happened for me, David was that there was no planning here. I had had, you know, enough success in my career that I was a freelancer. And I was busy all the time. And I was, I was, you know, keeping the family fed and all those sorts of things. But I still was feeling unchallenged, I was feeling sort of at odds and I was discontent in a professional capacity. But then something came along that I, I really couldn’t have planned for. And I had a father who had been sick for a long time. And one day, I walked into my kitchen here in Los Angeles, and there was five messages on the answering machine. So this was sort of quite some time ago. And the first message was from my mum, in the middle of the night, you know, I was listening to her in the morning, and she was yelling down the phone, Simon pick up the phone, and yelling, because she was trying to reach me in my bedroom, from the answering machine in the kitchen. Next message, two seconds later, her even louder, Simon pick up the phone, pick up the phone, third message, my sister yelling down the phone saying Simon, wake up, Simon pick up the phone, fourth message, my mum upset. And then the final message. And my mum said Simon dad died, he was calling to say goodbye, call us when you wake up. And that, for me, was a real shift in my trajectory, because I was already feeling kind of uneasy with trying to kind of fill myself up with, you know, corporate career and getting awards and so on. But then, you know, I hadn’t seen my dad for five years, because, you know, I’d been running around being caught up in work and so on. And, you know, having missed the call those words, wake up took on a meaning to me that I don’t even think my mom intended, you know, it was like, wake up, what the hell are you doing, man, like you’re unhappy. You haven’t seen your dad. Now he’s passed. And for the first time data, I kind of got out of my own way. And I was like, What the hell am I doing? I mean, so busy putting food on the table. So busy trying to get the kids through school. So busy trying to be a decent dad and a father and all that sort of stuff, which is all you know, the right thing to do. But sometimes you almost neglect yourself in the process. And you kind of write yourself out of the equation. And in that moment, I was sufficiently destabilise, I got out of my head, I was so sort of just, you know, at sea with the emotions that were going on, that I didn’t try and fix it. I didn’t write a list. I didn’t try and control it. And I just sat in it for a while. And I think in hindsight, what I what I did was I allowed whatever I was supposed to be doing to show up, because about two or three weeks later, I read a speech that Bill Gates gave at the World Economic Forum in 2008, where he said, Hey, businesses got to do better. They’re, they’re causing all these problems. And they got to show up differently. And I took that very much to heart and I said, I’m going to write a book to answer that. And I never wanted to write a book, I never had any aspirations in that area. But I thought, you know, it’s not fair. What happened in the economic meltdown, and business can do better. And I’m going to put some thoughts down about it. And that was the first book. So made, all I can tell you is that I was professionally sort of, at sea a bit and then personally got knocked sideways. And I finally, sometimes you need to, some nuts are harder to crack, as they say. And the world came along and cracking the top of the head and said, What the hell are you doing, and that changed my course,
David Ralph [8:09]
I held back from saying anything, because as you said that about your dad, I felt overcome with emotion, because my parents are getting older. And I realised any strange I see my parents a lot that they’re five minutes across the road. And literally, at that stage that they can’t use any part of the television, they’re always phoning up to say, the television is not working, there’s something wrong with the telly. So I go over there and do it. And I’ve realised recently that I have deep conversations with complete strangers every single day through my show. But I’ve never had a deep conversation with the people that I care about the most my parents, and I suddenly realised the other day that I’m running out of time, but I’m also Simon very aware of, it’s gonna be weird. My dad’s not going to feel comfortable, we’re going to sit there and realise that is never going to to happen. So can I ask you on a personal note, did you feel like your journey with your father had finished? Or do you feel like there was more to be had, you should have made more effort?
Simon Mainwaring [9:15]
Yeah, I mean, appreciate the question and happy to go there. I mean, I think the more vulnerable the out we are, the more relatable and the more connected we are. And I think, a couple of things, you know, that have been sick for a long time. And there was a point in time about five years prior where I’d gone out and this is a corny old story, but my mum said his first great love affair and in his life was this car that he had this convertible car that made him feel like quite the man around town. So anyway, I went back because I was living overseas and I rented a similar version of that car that he’d loved when he was dating. My mom. And I drove him around town for five hours and I took him to the first house. He grew up in the next house, the family moved to the school that he went to the college He went to he wouldn’t get a coffee. And he wasn’t very communicative at this point due to certain health challenges and so on. And I really made an effort for those five hours to sort of share how I felt what I think worked in our relationship, what didn’t, and so on. And then over that trip when I was there, you know, I think some guys and even some ladies on the call can relate to this. But, you know, when you get very old, you need help. And they’re very special moments, like, I had to shave my dad a couple of times, because he wasn’t capable of shaving himself anymore. And it’s a very private thing a man a man does every morning, that moment of reflection where you’re shaving your face. And to do that, for your Father, for the first time in life was very beautiful. And on another occasion, I could see how sort of bound up he was in his body due to health challenges. And again, as an Aussie male, very uncharacteristic, but I said, you know, Dad, let me give you a massage, let me just kind of, you know, I don’t think I’ve really touched my dad for 10 to 20 years, that’s not what was the blokes did. That’s not really that anybody to write. And, you know, it was very mindful of, you know, the closing of our time together. And he was solid as a rock. I mean, it’s something that actually moves me very emotionally, David is like, what actually touched him and sort of gave him a massage. So he was like, bound up like cement in his back, he’s almost like encased in his body. And even to this day, that feeling makes me very, you know, it has a lot of emotion behind it. And, too, and so little things like that had led to some sort of closure. But I think, you know, a lot of English kind of people English origin, people with colonial origin, people with Australian origin, were a little less forthcoming for our emotions a lot of the time, and we didn’t really have those watershed conversations, we didn’t tie a bow on it, we didn’t sort of have those hearts to hearts, we didn’t hug it out. We didn’t, you know, tell each other, we love each other, even if we never said it, we never got there. But strangely enough, his passing, had played such a powerful role in helping me find a life of purpose myself, that I in some ways, I feel closer to him than ever. And as I’m standing here in LA saying this, I look to my left, and I got a photograph of my dad, just about a foot away from me on the shelf there. And I feel very close to him in some ways, because of that very, you know, there’s extraordinary circumstances
David Ralph [12:19]
does that affect? While we’re still on a conversation of success and defining success for yourself? Does that define your relationships with your boys? If that hadn’t happened? Could you have still been rushing around? Or was that a real wake up call for you, that has affected those those relationships you have with your sons?
Simon Mainwaring [12:43]
Yeah, I’ve got two kids, and they’re actually their daughter, my wife and their daughters. And, you know, a couple of lessons. This is where we’re diving into some things here, which I prize very highly. And I was very mindful of my relationship with my kids growing up. And those two lessons that other fathers have taught me that I’ve shared with other fathers, fathers that I’d love to pass on to others and mothers have, of course, as well. One is that we’re growing up with kids, even the sound of your voice, let alone your size can be quite intimidating when they’re young. So whenever you talk to them, and I think a lot of parents do this instinctively get down lower than them and really sit on the floor. So you’re more eye level and, and just listen to me that and just by virtue of being larger than them, just gives them a much more comfortable feeling of relatedness and openness, and so on. And that was one thing. The second thing, which I found was really interesting that some one father told me a long time ago was he said, a lot of us, dads come home with the same energy at home that we need at work where you got to go out there and slay dragons, be the entrepreneur, sell something in bring home, the bacon, God knows what it is. And obviously the same for moms working moms as well. And he said, make sure that when you walk in the front door, you never say the first word. And I was like, Let me think about that. And I started doing it. And what I learned very, very quickly is that even with the best of intentions, as a loving, devoted parents, you burst through the door, you’re so excited to see your kids because that’s why you’ve been working in the first place to look after them. And you’re like, Hey, honey, how are you? How’s your data and whatever they were saying stops. And when you come in the room, you take over? Yeah, you’re 100% focused on them. And this is especially important with young girls. Because too often, I believe, you know, men take away the voice of women, and that that has been trained since a very early age. And so what I noticed very quickly was at first I come in, and I’d walk in and I put down my bag and I’d say nothing. And they’d look and they’ll be be quizzical first. And then they’d say something and the net result was the same of what they’d say they say oh, that, um, look, I made this volcano out of marshmallow today or god knows what it was. But after over like three to six months, they started to ignore me in the best sense when I come in, I come in, I put my bag down. And they were, they learned that they had permission not to lose their voice a when an adult comes in the room, but more importantly, be when a man comes in the room, and a young woman had doesn’t have a voice taken away from her even in the most pleasant of circumstances. And, to me, it makes me happy now to think that when I walk in the room at home, they basically ignore me and talk over the top and do anything else and a very wealthy, empowered, boisterous young women. And I found that as a young dad, a very, very powerful lesson. And yeah, so I thought it’s worthwhile to share that, you know,
David Ralph [15:48]
it’s funny you say that, because I’ve got four girls and a boy. And I do V I bound in Hello, how are you and you know, sort of take control the conversation. I’m gonna try that differently. But on another thing, I heard Paul McCartney saying that he used to struggle with the fact that he could go on stage or he could go into an interview, and everyone was interested in him. But then he’d come home and his pet ease. His kids would say, Oh, Dad, do you have to play the piano? We’re watching TV? Or do you have to? And it took him a while to realise, but actually, that was the real strength of knowing other people’s needs, and being able to supply those needs, even if you don’t do anything at all, which is a powerful statement.
Simon Mainwaring [16:34]
It is I once asked my young daughter, right when she was like, I don’t know, four or five. And she was, and then she said, I came up, you know, what does daddy do? What’s that is dog and she said, Daddy’s job is to come home to that when I come home from school to be standing at the top of the driveway ready to play. That’s right. That was what she thought My job was. But there’s a larger point you’re making here, David, which I kind of, I learned the hard way, because I think we’re all scrambling as entrepreneurs, I’ve had my company, we first for 13 years, you know, and it’s really hard to stand up a business particularly, you know, when you go to a new country, you have no relationships or relatives there, you don’t have any financial backing, you know, you’re not going to come from a wealthy family or anything like that. And, and you don’t have investors and stuff, just to eke it out of kind of rock is hard. But I used to think that success was an outside in Job, that the affirmation I got from, you know, a job title, or the company I worked for, or the shiny statue I got for an ad, or whatever it is, that was going to fill me up. Because I think all of us had that insecurity we have that need to feel seen, heard, worthwhile. But then running around like I did, living these different versions of success, and then shifting like I did, I learned especially as I was doing a bunch of speaking at different things, and good could hear some sort of people that had been really working on themselves and contributing for longer. What I learned was that fulfilment is an inside out job, you fill yourself up by what you give to others, you’re not fulfilled by what others give to you. And people hear so many sort of sayings and advice around lives of service and giving back to others and showing up in a way that really contributes to to others. But I have found it to be the absolute silver bullet in terms of happiness and success, in that if your mindset shifts from, what am I going to get, and therefore I’m going to give to what am I going to give, and then obviously, you know, people will respond in positive ways. You’re filling yourself up, and you’re not giving away the power to feel happy and fulfilled to other people. Because I what I’ve learned, and what I’ve heard from a lot of other people is it doesn’t work.
David Ralph [18:46]
Let’s hear from Jim Carrey. And we’ll be back with Simon,
Unknown Speaker [18:49]
my father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. And when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.
David Ralph [19:15]
So with those words, still echoing in our ears did the first part of your life what was it that you just did a job or did you love it? But now you really love it or what led you to this? Because it seems now Simon you’ve found your place? And it makes sense to you?
Simon Mainwaring [19:35]
Yeah, I mean, my first job, my dad was a lawyer. And so I went to law school and you know, I, I came out of five years of law school at Sydney Uni and in Australia and I the last thing in the world I wanted to do was law but it was back in the day when at least in Australia, you know you’re supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or pharmacist if you’re lucky enough to have a great education that your parents helped you with that And I think you know, I didn’t know myself well enough to be able to push back and say no. But in fact, I had done a fine arts degree. And I actually wanted to be an artist. And I left law school and started going to an art school in Sydney called the Julian Ashton art school, which is a very sort of traditional fine arts. So wonderful, old school. And there, I was having just finished, you know, five years of university and all those things that we do, and you know, and I had a serious girlfriend at the time, who’s now my wife, and I was like, oh, right, so I’m gonna go into paint for a living. And shockingly, shockingly, David, I realise it’s hard to pay the bills. And so I had a love a love of language from the law, you know, sort of love hate relationship. So we say, and I had a love of sort of the visual side of things, from my art interest, and that led to the advertising world. So it was a sort of happy compromise. And that’s sort of set me on their career.
David Ralph [20:56]
But you still have to convince somebody, you know, you can’t just walk into a business and say, Oh, I’ve just spent the last year painting. I’m now interested in advertising. What did they see in you right at the very beginning, because I think this is a key moment to entrepreneurial life, how you sell yourself by that first job?
Simon Mainwaring [21:18]
Yeah, it’s interesting. I don’t typically share this. But, you know, having got to that moment where, hey, I’m not doing what I want to do. And when I’m doing what I want to do with that, I can’t pay the bills. So I’ve got to sort something out, I suddenly realised someone said to me, Hey, you know, you’ve got an inappropriate sense of humour, you should be a copywriter. And having done law, I thought, What, like copyright law like, you know, protecting trademarks, and patents and so on. And they said, no advertising, where you kind of, you know, you write ads and things like that. So I went to the school, there’s a school there in Australia called the award School, which is, you know, Australian writers and art directors, school, and you walked in the door. And there I was, and again, this is some time ago, but back in the day, everyone had these big leather bound folders with all of their artwork in it all the the solutions that done for various briefs for ads, it might be a print ad, it might be a poster back in the day before we had all this web stuff. And I walked into and I said to the lady in charge, I said, Oh, listen, I would like to inquire about joining a board school. And she said, fantastic. Come back next year. We’ve just finished up this year. Thanks very much. And I said, No, I’d like to really do it this year, because I’ve got to really get going with some sort of a career. And she said, Well, that’s I mean, I appreciate the ambition and everything. But if you look around here, you see all these portfolios against the wall. They’re all people’s final presentations, and they’re going to be judged, and that’s the year. So come back next year. And I said, No, I really want to do it this year. And she said, Well, you are really not hearing me, come back next year. And as I dug around a little bit, I found out that there was of the students, the dozens and dozens and dozens of students that have submitted their final portfolios. There was a masterclass afterwards, where the top I think, 20 students get selected. And then they work with industry experts every couple of weeks to, you know, answer briefs. And then the final two students that survived this, you know, round robin net, where they cut people out every week, actually got a job. And so I said to the, I found out the name of the gentleman running it, who’s a big sort of muckety muck in the ad world, and I in Australia, and I said, I’d love to come and join the master class, if I could, and I’ll just operate the projector or anything, but, and he said, That’s fine. And I said, but only if I consumed submit a portfolio. And he said, Well, wait a second. The portfolios are all submitted. It’s finished. And we’re starting the master class on Monday. And I said, Great, if you give me all the briefs, I’ll do them all this weekend. And I’ll come back to the finished portfolio on Monday. And so my wife will recollect this, I didn’t sleep that entire weekend. I think it was 20 Different briefs of like, you know, how do you sell a beer? How do you sell a car? How do you sell this? How do you sell that all with their you know, demographics and target audiences and messaging you’ve got to get across. I did the entire I think it was about a year’s work in that weekend. And you had to mock it all up as well and pull it all together, have the ideas put all together, arrived on the Monday I gave him the portfolio. He had a look at the work and he thought it was strong enough. And he led me into the class to operate the projector. And then over the course of I think it was eight or 10 weeks, we had to get an industry brief, a live brief from internet agencies answer and come up with concepts and then you present to people from those ad agencies who come in it’s kind of the structure. And each week they cut people out of the class and whittled it down. And you know, through hard work and determination and so on. I was one of the last to left standing and then the light to light left standing there writer and art director. We were given a placement at Saatchi and Saatchi in Sydney and that was my first job
David Ralph [25:01]
for you has success being built by talent, or the ability to create an opportunity to actually create a doorway for yourself because a lot of people would have just gone. Alright, fair enough. I come back next year. But you didn’t take no for an answer. So what is it talent? Or is it persistence? It has got you where you are?
Simon Mainwaring [25:25]
Well, you know, Steve Jobs famously said, I think persistence is so much part of the equation. And also there’s a bloody mindedness with RCS where, hey, tell us what we can’t do. Yeah. And we’ll double down. And also, you know, I had a I don’t even show we were found my fiancee at the time, I had no way of earning money, I was sort of in my mid 20s, going, What the hell am I going to do, and I’d found something that seemed to be of interest to me, and I was out of time. So I think necessity is the mother of invention, desperation might be the cause of that. But you know, as I look back, in hindsight, it was just, there was a drive, there was an ambition, there was a need to, I don’t know, be seen, and have some sort of impact. And that just propelled the work. And, you know, I had no idea where any of it was going to work out. And that sort of situation arose many, many times during the careers, I went around the world and things like that. And you just, you have to make a choice, whether you’re going to show up and go all in. And once you’ve made that decision, the rest will take care of itself, whatever the result is, you can’t control that. But you know, you’re gonna go for it.
David Ralph [26:28]
Did you do miss that desperation? I often ponder this, right? The world, I speak to so many people, but tell me, I really want to do this. I really want to do that. And you meet them. Two years later, they’re doing exactly the same as I did before. I haven’t even taken the first step. And I often think because they’ve already got themselves in a comfortable position. Why go for but difficult routes? You know, as your success has grown? Do you sort of miss that desperation, that urgency, the ambition of youth?
Simon Mainwaring [27:03]
You know what I do? And I don’t, for two different reasons. And it’s a really good question. I mean, I think I had that ambition, because there was something inside of myself and insecurity of fear, a lack of knowing in my myself that I needed to scratch. And so I kept sort of climbing the ladder and moving countries and doing things like that to sort of what’s going to what’s going to scratch that itch. When was it going to stop? Ultimately, I moved away from the advertising business, but took those skills to what I do now. And what that allowed me to have an alignment between who I am and what I do on a daily basis. And it became a different type of drive. Because it wasn’t about looking for outside affirmation to scratch that itch. It was more Hey, now that I feel like I’m living my truth, how do I have the greatest impact I can, so I have a drive now. But I never wonder what anyone else is doing. I don’t worry that someone else is making more money, I don’t think I should be doing something else over here. I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s just the thing that I happen to be doing is really committing to business having a positive impact. And I think we need to go further faster. So that’s the drive. But it’s not about me anymore. It’s about how I and others can all have a positive impact. And that’s a huge difference. But there’s still a drive.
David Ralph [28:26]
So Jim Carrey was talking about, you know, going for what you love. And one of the things that I always questioned with that statement, even though I love it is the fact that so many people don’t know what they love. And I just kind of go through the motions of getting a job and sort of 10 years past 20 years past, I did the same. Now, you found your passion, you found your purpose, and you’re now sharing that purpose with the world? Could you have found your passion on the first.or? Did you have to have that state of desperation before finding it?
Simon Mainwaring [29:00]
I think, you know, I don’t mean to speak for anybody else. But I found it really hard. And I was young to know who the hell I am. And I think you’ve been tested on two fronts. One is your character, how are you going to show up, especially when life comes along and slaps you around? And especially as you’re an entrepreneur? Are you going to bounce back? Are you going to push through it? Are you going to rise to the occasion? Are you going to you know, pick up your toys and go home and say screw everybody else, you know, that’s your character. Or and then there was actually the vocation what you’re doing. Is this the right thing. And I think the first part of my journey really taught me, you know, how am I going to show up with all the frustrations that everyone has in any career, whether they’re working for someone or working for themselves? And the second part was, what the hell should I be doing? Like who am I? And you know if so, what am I going to do with that information? So I think there’s no way of avoiding the character work you need to do the growth work. I look back at myself now. I just see, boy, you know, every, every parent screws up their kids in some way. And I think as you get older and you’re a parent yourself, you can just see the different ways. You know, you had you had, you were screwed up and you had to work on it. And I had a lot of growth to do. And I was such a jerk in so many different ways. And hopefully, there’s a little bit less of that, but there’s always more work to do. But like, God, you know, you look back when you’re 20 under God, I was young. Geez, you know, and how I was showing up in the world. I was such a numbskull, you know, and, you know, you got to get a little bit wiser that there was that expression? The older I get, the less I know. Yeah, do you think it’s true, I really do think it’s true. And I’ve been lucky enough to be around a lot of people that have had some impact and a well known. And it’s right across the board. It’s kind of, you know, when you go to a, you know, your parents house on the weekend, or there’s a big gathering somewhere, and you always see that all guy in the corner, who looks like a deck chair on an ocean liner folded up in the corner bent over and he doesn’t say much, or anything, and, and so on, I can see myself getting there, I’m gonna be that guy, I’m gonna have nothing to say at the end. Because it’s just like, the longer you live, the less you’ve got to say. So anyway, that’s how I see it going.
David Ralph [31:10]
It’s interesting as she was talking about screwing up kids, because yeah, when you first have your kid that they’re perfect, and everything’s gonna be wonderful. And then when their 13 year olds walking out the room slamming the door, you realise that a lot of their traits you’ve got got from yourself. Now, that also holds people, if we take it to the business sense, we hold it accountable to the sort of the dream searchers that have a dream, they have a vision, but because it’s so perfect, they don’t actually want to touch it. They almost want it always to be a dream and not not real. So when you started your business, how did you sort of get past that stage where you kind of go from it being a brilliant idea, let’s do this too obvious as my stupid idea. What am I thinking about?
Simon Mainwaring [31:59]
I, the moment of epiphany for me was it was the presidential elections around the inauguration of President Obama for his first first term. And I was standing in our living room. And it was a really interesting time in terms of optimism and possibility for the US. And I walked out of the living room. And I stepped outside into the backyard. And I had this voice in my head go, I’m going to write a book. And I took another step. And I went, pardon the friendship, I’m going to write three books. And as soon as I heard that voice in my head, I knew that it was going to happen. And I’ve written two books now. And that those books became the beginning of the journey. But I had no money we came to the US with like, you know, $5,000 we arrived, we had no content, no relatives here, nothing to really hang our hat on. It was a really cold start and and going down the entrepreneurial journey, it was the books did well. The first book did well, it was New York Times bestseller and voted best marketing book of the year, which was great, but I had no idea you know what was going to happen? And then suddenly, people say, well, they want you to speak about it. So I started speaking, and I never wanted to be a speaker. And then they said, Well, you got to train people on what this was, you know how to use social media to build a better world. And so we started doing events and conferences and things. So it all unfolded. Like I gotta say, this is someone who lives you know, who is now a US citizen, but came to America, you know, as an immigrant, and so on. The American machine took over, I just wanted to share some ideas. And gratefully the ideas were well received. But then suddenly, the machine took over, well, you’re an author, you’re a speaker, you’re a trainer, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that. And so the business took on a life of its own, almost like a conveyor belt started at a treadmill started underneath my feet, without me even knowing I was on it. And within the first sort of three months of the book, doing well, I got the chance to go to the White House, the State Department, I spoke at Google, I spoke at Facebook, I spoke the House of Commons in the UK, and many, many corporate events. Because, you know, at that time, there’s only Facebook, there was no, there was no Twitter, there was no Instagram, there’s none of this is it. This is like 2011. So all of that is to say that I was scrambling, I was learning skill sets on the fly. I was terrified. I had to do my first speech on the stage with Steve Jobs used to give his iPhone launches, which was a very bizarre experience, for many reasons. And it just took off and it was just I think the only way to describe it was Mount mild terror on a daily basis.
David Ralph [34:53]
And why did it take off? What was it just lightning in the bottle? Was it just the right moment? right time, right place, right idea.
Simon Mainwaring [35:03]
I think a lot of times authors or entrepreneurs or something, they capture something that’s sort of latent in the culture, you know that there was an appetite for people to understand well, you know, if we had social media, we can brands and their customers can talk to each other, and institutions, and citizens can talk to each other. And maybe there’s some positives that can come out of this, there’s a lot of people talking about the promise of this. But not a lot of people knew how to do it. And having had the opportunity to work on Nike, as a writer and do their ad campaigns, one of many at this amazing ad agency called widening Kennedy, you learn how to kind of build movements and engage consumers and I was worldwide creative director on Motorola after that, and you know, with the team, we’d launched the razor phone, which was a big deal back in the day, and you kind of had I had direct experience and how you can really engage people at scale. So it was sort of this combination of my skill set, I think, and which gave me a perspective that could be applied to these emerging social technologies. And I think the market was ready to hear it. And you know, and it also, it’s always a function of how you put it out there and promote it. And I did everything I could on social media, of course, and everything else to try and give it a success, because I’d invested three years of my life in it, but um, it was just a moment, it was just a moment, and it was well received along with a lot of other books. And it sort of took off and, and, you know, after that it was just trying to keep up with it. And I was just scrambling for the first three to five years, there was no, it was absolute, like breathless business triage all the time. What the hell am I doing? Who am I doing it for? And you’re codifying things, you’re working things out as you go, and then you’re taking them to market with clients. Like in real time, it was quite energising, shall we say, David energising.
David Ralph [36:49]
It’s one of those parts of business that I try to get across over time, but it’s never perfect, it may look perfect from the front end, what we allow people to see from the back end, but dreams never finished. There’s bits of work here, left, right and centre that’s not completed, you know, it should never stop someone. But that’s one of the things that I love about podcasting, I’ve done to 3000 shows. Now, I don’t know. And if you want to listen back to the very first episode, it was the very first episode that I actually had to almost write and record three or four times because I just couldn’t get it. And then the next one was a little bit better. And I just sort of moved on. But a lot of businesses out there don’t allow people to see the work. They don’t allow them to see what’s actually gone into it. And with yourself. Obviously, you have an inspiring guy you like to make a difference to people. Would you like Matt to be a part of business that you can see where actually you could step back? I know, we’ve got Wayback Machine and stuff, but actually understand the struggle and be make it up as you go along this, but is involved.
Simon Mainwaring [37:59]
Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting question, because I think part of us wants to appear more together than we probably are. Because that gives you greater marketplace traction, it presents a more confident image of yourself. And I get that, at the same time, I’ve tried to be very transparent all the way through because, you know, it’s not like I was ever a big company and you had this big reputation larger than yourself, and you had to have a shiny veneer on its I think showing that is, is actually more powerful, just just to be real. That said, with clients, you know, they’re paying you money. So you can’t really be a turtle kind of mess, and really communicate that to them. So I think there’s a little bit of a tension there. But I remember David like that, as mentioned, the first speech I ever did was on the stage at the Yerba centre where Steve Jobs used to do his iPhone presentations, and I had never done a public speech and long story short, I was 20 days before the book launch came out. And this goes to this point about like, what’s really going on behind the scenes 20 days before the book came out. And I literally was saying to myself, How the hell am I going to get anyone to read a book about, you know, a more responsible practice of business and capitalism? Because, you know, it’s arguably boring topic, right? Like, why, who cares? I mean, many people care, but I had no idea. And so I called up I asked myself, I said to myself, What am I trying to do here? This is after years of work put into the book, what am I trying to do? And I said, I realised, I’m trying to put new words in the mouth of business. So that you know, because words frame behaviour and so if you give people new words, they can behave differently. And the book was called we first which is an antidote to the me first approach to business. And so I reached someone, someone introduced me to someone who’s a spoken word poet called Sekou Andrews, who’s opened for Ted and many other things many times, and he’s amazing, amazing gentleman. And we took the language from the book and crafted a spoken word piece. And then I reached out to someone I knew from the ad business and I told him what I’m trying to do and businesses are forceful. Good. And he said, Yeah, they’re getting some of your blogs were in. And we’ll do the animation. And that was a company called Troika design here in Hollywood. And then I reached out to another company called machine head that does sound design, because I’ve been doing commercials for years and so on said, Listen, this is what I’m trying to do. And they said, Great, we’ll help. And I mentioned that because these three companies showed up for me, when no one else had any reason to show up and charged nothing to support a vision or an idea they believed in. So I want to make that point. Firstly, that, you know, whether you look like a, you know, a mess out there or altogether or not, when you show up in a hot lead way and put something out there with authenticity, those who believe in the same things will rally around you. And the reason I mentioned that was the first speech that I was asked to do was a TEDx speech TEDx San Francisco in 2011. I think it was one of the first ones. And it was at the Yerba centre, where Steve Jobs does his did. He did his iPhone presentations. I was terrified. David terrified, like, apoplectic, like, Oh, my God, I can’t you know, like, freaking out, I couldn’t even breathe, you know, you’re just like, and so there I am doing my first speech. You know, this is two days, three days before the book came out. I’m exhausted from all the stuff that goes into launching a book, I’m right, literally just like, just want to lay down and cry and go to sleep. And so and the woman before me, was a woman named Heather, who had a terrible skiing accident. She was Australian, actually, and she was paralysed from the neck down. And I think it was Boston robotics had built her an exoskeleton. And so the person before me literally was in a chair, wearing an exoskeleton stood up for the first time and walked across the stage. And the place was in tears, like, Oh my god. So I’m like, I have to follow Lazarus. I am like, This is unbelievable. The whole audience is in tears. And I’ve got a follow this. And then, just before I went and you know, Heather walks past me and she kind of looks a hand and goes good luck, Simon with the exoskeleton on and I’m like, Oh, my God, I’m going to die. So and then, just as I’m about to walk out this gentleman and all black with a headset on, taps me on the shoulder and says, are you Simon? And I’m like, Yes, I’m Simon. I’m really nervous. What the hell do you want? And he goes, you see the confidence monitors out there that showed the slides and stuff. The the signals been intermittent all day, we’ve had problems. So we’ve turned it off. Good luck. And literally, all seconds before I walk out, they turn off the screens and lay to see what you’re doing. And all they were was snow like that white snow shaking. And if you ever get a chance to look at TEDx San Francisco was Simon Mainwaring Mannering on my talk from you know, from me first, we first you see me looking over my shoulder all the time, because I couldn’t see what they were what the hell I was saying, as a thing. So I came back from that David laid out in my hotel room and just like lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, oh, my god, watch us happen. Yet people may look at that and go, Oh, wow. You know, you play that animated film that was created in your TED Talk, first TEDx talk, and so on and so on. And like the book, you know, people kindly shared that video Share the film with us, like over 40,000 views in the first day. And then the book came out in the New York Times bestseller and so on. All of that is to say that people rally around you, and that you could look at that video and go, Wow, that seems all very well put together. It was an absolute scramble, I was terrified. The monitors weren’t working, I almost had a heart attack doing it. And yet, you know, it started me on this journey. So it’s always messy behind the scenes.
David Ralph [43:31]
And it always or more not, it turns out, okay, I used to do loads of Stand Up presentations. And I always had a depression afterwards, because I knew what was in my head. But it was always it was always okay, it was always Okay, let’s see here from Steve Jobs.
Unknown Speaker [43:49]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards. 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [44:23]
Now those words are hard to believe until you’ve created a certain amount of dots to actually look back. So as a young man, if I played those to you would you have gone? Yeah, I bind to that. I think that’s totally true. Or would you have gone now, load of old rubbish?
Simon Mainwaring [44:40]
I don’t even know I think I was equal parts arrogance and sort of like, I’m gonna make a difference. I’m going to do something big or whatever, when I was young, but behind that about a millimetre behind that was oh my god, I’m totally insecure. I have no idea who I am and you know, help. And I think I would have listened to that, and the bravado side of me might have gone yeah, I get that. And let’s go and see and put those dots together while inside, I’d be like, is this the right doc? When should I do that dog? Do people like that Doc, you know, it would have been a total mess, quite honestly, I think it’s hard to know yourself, it’s hard to read the label from inside the jar, you know, and it’s really hard to see yourself from outside of yourself and had that vantage point of, you know, looking back from the future, or, you know, with the perspective of someone who’s wiser, I just know that I was too dumb to know any better, we’re just try things like we went to, you know, we went to London, and I didn’t, before I went to the States, and you know, I, I didn’t see my then bride for five months, because I had to get a job. And no one would give me the time of day, you know, I was another bloody Aussie in the UK. And, you know, all these fancy pants ad agencies wouldn’t give me the time of day, and I was sleeping in my sister’s couch, down the bottom of the black line in London, and, you know, turning up for appointments to show my portfolio to try and get a gig. And they wouldn’t even be there. And they’re off at the pub. And you know, I just get an eye roll and other Aussie trying to come over here to, you know, the English ad world. And that’s not to denigrate the English AdWord it was the sort of high table of advertising at the time. And you know, London’s full of vases. And there’s nothing unusual about that. And it was just par for the course that was your rite of passage. But yeah, I don’t know, would that have led to where I am today, having my own business in the States, I have no perspective with that. I actually think I was pretty hell bent on a on a circuitous course of searching for whatever version of success made me feel better inside myself. And only when my father passed, did you know the universe come along and say, Listen, sunshine, you know, just stop it. And just take a deep breathe, get out of your own way. Let something show up. Let whatever you’re meant to be and do and impact show up inside of yourself. Let that animate you for a second, and go with that and stop living in your head and trying to kind of muscle your way through. Someone said something to me, David not long ago, which I found really powerful. And you know, we’re all learning different lessons at different times. They said, I know Simon, I think you’ve white knuckled your way through life, you’ve really outworked and you know really hustled all the time, because it sounds like he didn’t have a choice. But you’ve really just used work as your lever. What if you just sort of took those clenched fists with those white knuckles and just open those hands for a minute. And just see what the universe is trying to give you. Instead of trying to muscle your way through, and it’s something I’ve been working on very diligently in the last year. Oh, sir.
David Ralph [47:44]
I think that is absolutely profound. And that’s exactly where I am at the moment of going. Let’s wait and look. Instead of you know, I was always forcing, forcing, forcing when I took the Strength Finders 2.0 test many years ago, and my number one strength was futuristic. So everything is about tomorrow and the next day and what we can do and stuff. And I’ve really realised recently that that is my kryptonite as well. And it’s time to just rest and allow the next.to Come to me instead of me trying to create the next dot.
Simon Mainwaring [48:19]
Yeah, I mean, I did something really out of out of the ordinary this Christmas for that reason. After the launch of the last book, I was really depleted and exhausted and over it, as any author will know, with all the effort that goes into it, especially when you’re launching a book during COVID. And we’ve been doing some work to support the Pachamama Alliance, which is this incredible organisation that is working to protect the sacred headwaters of the Amazon, which is, you know, along with the oceans, the lungs of the planet. And for 27 years, this incredible organisation led by belittling twist had been really working with indigenous tribes there to protect it because you know, 24% of the Amazon has been lost. And by 27%, it stops being a rainforest, it becomes a savanna. And then our future is really compromised, even more so than it is now. And so they kindly mentioned that there was a trip that was going on, and I was really, really rundown. And I went for two weeks, to the sacred headquarters at Amazon at the Ecuador Peruvian border. And we visited three indigenous tribes, zapper a tribe and our tribe, tribe and another. And there was no phones, no roads, no water, no running water, no lights, no Wi Fi, no news, no cell phones. And you swim in the Amazon each day, which was a very powerful experience in its own right. You are sleeping with just under mosquito nets in the most biodiverse place on Earth. Literally, the jungle air crackles with this lifeforce is absolutely extraordinary. And I mentioned all All of that because, as opposed to going to a hotel and sitting by a pool, or doing what other things people may do on a holiday, it was like plugging back into a Tesla Supercharger. But it was nature itself and came back so damn restored like, so sort of reanimated and reminded me firstly, how important time in nature is, but it also really deepened my relationship with the natural world and made me realise just what we’re losing by sort of all trying to line our pockets at the cost of each other on the planet. And so coming back to the point about being exhausted, you know, my one tech takeaway this year is really just spend more time in nature, not to do anything not to climb anything, like you can hike, you can go to the ocean, you can do whatever you want to do. But just like, let the natural world restore you, because the way we live our lives through our screens, and what it asks of us now in terms of any entrepreneur like to be in all this content all the time about your products, your company, on every channel, and so on. It’s exhausting us, let alone the toll of COVID and everything else, we need to be kinder to ourselves. And nature’s just waiting there to help us if we let if we let it.
David Ralph [51:10]
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely powerful stuff. Well, I know we’re gonna get another bit of powerful stuff, because we’re at the end of the show now. And this is the part that we’ve been leading up to when you get a chance to join up the dots, not just your life, but of the episode, and have a one to one with your younger self. So if you could go back in time and speak to the young Simon, what advice would you give him? And what age would you’d like to speak to? Well, we’re going to find out because I’m gonna play the theme. And when it quietens is your time to talk, this is the Sermon on the mic.
Unknown Speaker [51:47]
We go with the best bit of the show, remain on the mind the sermon on.
Simon Mainwaring [52:05]
I think if I was to talk to my younger self, and I thinking about early teens, as a young boy, I think I would, I’d say to myself, that really the most important journey that you can take is really to look inside yourself. And to really mind what your authentic self is, and who you are, and what you can be in that context. I think too many of us, including myself, look out to the world, you know, to kind of onboard projections of what we should be as prescribed by others, and we live these different versions of success that you think will fill you up. But rather, they’re actually only going to leave you empty or hollow because you haven’t done the harder work the interior work, you’re really examined your interior life, to find an alignment between who you are and what you do on a daily basis. But when you do, everything else falls away, all those sort of uncertainties and then sort of, you know, competitiveness with others, because you’ve you’ve locked into that alignment between, you know, your ambition, and your integrity and your authenticity. And when you do that, it allows you to wear your heart on your outside. And when you wear your heart outside of yourself, those with similar values, those who care about the same things, those who are aligned with you on different levels, emotional, professional, and so on. They’ll they’ll find you. And then it becomes a force multiplier, because you’re working not just on your own behalf, but with others and services, something larger than yourself. And when you do that, you will find that the work that you do, will be the most meaningful and fulfilling work of your life. Rather than looking back with regret, rather than wondering whether you should have done what somebody else did, rather than wondering why you would never give him the chance. And rather than taking that out on your kids or your partner, or your family because you’re unhappy inside yourself. So I’d probably look back and say to myself, know that you’re enough, and really have a look for what that true authentic self is. And then see how that can be applied to the marketplace and bring it to life with integrity.
David Ralph [54:18]
Great advice, Simon, thank you so much for being on the show. But what’s the number one best way that our audience can connect with you?
Simon Mainwaring [54:26]
Two ways, actually, it’s a two parter. One would be to have a podcast called Lead with we and it’s on Apple, Google and Spotify. And we have world class entrepreneurs who are just reinventing the future and also, you know, top CEOs around the world, telling us how they’re getting it done. So lead with we it’s a podcast, and also we have a course lead with we course.com that brings the book to life so that you can really simply and effectively apply it to your business so they can grow your business but also scale your impact so lead with weak or stop calm
David Ralph [55:00]
All the links on the show notes. Simon, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Joining up those dots and please come back again when you got more dots to join up because I do believe that by joining up most dots and connecting our past is always the best way to build our futures. Simon Mannering thank you so much.
Simon Mainwaring [55:17]
Thank you, David. Thanks to everyone listening.
David Ralph [55:21]
Simon Mannering so yeah, he’s created shoe success around the world. But as he said, it was all sort of white knuckle time he made it up as he went along. But what he did do, he did see opportunities and make them bigger opportunities. And that is a great way of making things occur in your life and in your business. And I think a lot of us probably sit back and wait for the dots to join up. But you can go and make those dots into stepping stones and be a bit more proactive with it. There’s a lot to delve into and digest from that podcast. Until next time, as always, thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate your ears and we’ll see you again. Cheers. See ya. Bye bye.
Outro [56:06]
That’s the end of Join Up Dots. You’ve heard the conversation. Now it’s time for you to start taking massive action. Create your future create your life, Izzy only you live God. We’ll be back again real soon. Join Up Dots Join Up Dots Join Up Dots. Jolene, Join Up Dots
