Why AI Won’t Take Your Job — But Refusing to Learn It Will

AI isn’t coming for your job — but staying comfortable might be.

In this episode of Elements of Culture, we sit down with Oliver Bruce, CEO of Pinpoint Media Agency, to unpack what AI actually means for leaders, teams, and the future of work. From starting a company by accident at university to scaling a global agency without outside funding, Oliver shares why adaptability—not technology—is the real differentiator.

We explore why fear is slowing AI adoption inside organizations, how leaders can introduce new technology without threatening their people, and why the biggest risk isn’t AI replacing roles—but professionals refusing to learn how to work alongside it.

Join us weekly as we dig into the real stories behind work culture transformation.

Not theory. Not fluff. Just honest conversations with leaders and innovators who've been in the trenches.

Transcript

Cold Start With AI Adoption

Speaker 0:00

Now, in terms of motivating our team to use, develop, build, and live with AI, took a long time. Took a long time. So the first year and a half or so, there wasn't the adoption that we wanted. There was the leadership team that were pushing it because they knew there was efficiencies, potential margin to be made, ways of working, improved content, etc. And that was the focus and that was good. But yet then there were the middle and juniors within the business that looked at it rightly so as a this might take my job. I'm not sure I necessarily want to um adopt it, use it, show that it's a good thing. So it took a long time for us to instill that level of confidence. And the only way we instilled that level of confidence was simply by testing, iterating, proving that we're not getting rid of people because of AI. And actually, to this day, we haven't got rid of anybody because of AI.

Speaker 1 0:44

At Elements of Culture, we sit down with experts in leadership and team building to explore the DNA that drives a thriving organization.

Speaker 2 0:52

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Elements of Culture Podcast. My name is Tierin, and I'm joined with my co-host Julie. And today we are so thrilled to be speaking with Oliver Bruce. He's the CEO of Pinpoint Uh Media Agency out of London. And we're just excited to have you on to talk about all things uh business, sales, uh digital media, and probably some other things in between. So welcome, Oliver.

Speaker 1:18

Thank you so much for having me.

Origin Story And Early Entrepreneurship

Speaker 2 1:20

Thank you for being here. Yeah. So as we before we dive into some of the topics, um, maybe some hot topics, I want to just introduce everyone to who you are, Oliver. Give us a little bit of your background, your story, and and kind of uh what's brought you to where you're at today with with pinpoint, your journey of you know, really starting it.

Speaker 1:40

Sure. So um that thanks for having me again. I'm Oliver Bruce. I sort of founded the business um a number of years ago whilst at university. So 10, 12 years ago, actually, whilst at university. Um that was sort of my foray into entrepreneurship. Um being neurodiverse, I kind of always thought that uh employment maybe wasn't necessarily the route that I'd go down. So having to kind of do something of my own accord was probably the right way to go. I just didn't necessarily expect to start a company at university and graduate with two staff and an office. It was a bit of a weird situation. Anyway, fast forward a little bit and we we grew the business organically. We've never raised money for this specific business, have done for other businesses, but not this one specifically. And since that point, we have acquired other companies, diversified the service offering, opened up into different regions, be that trading with the US or opening up in Cape Town. We opened an office there about a year and a half ago. Some interesting stories we can talk about there. Uh, as well as sort of diversifying um the tech stack. So building out specific AI workflows as the world kind of evolves into a more technologically advanced kind of uh way of being, um, which I'm pretty bullish on and have been for a while, um, but it's taken a while to sort of bring the team up to speed. So um, yeah, happy to talk around lots of stuff. That's kind of my story. I write angel tickets and such like for fun founders and entrepreneurs that I think are onto something.

Speaker 3 3:02

So, Alor, I love the fact that you said that you knew from the beginning that you needed to be an entrepreneur and it started at such a young age. Talk to me a little bit about what you would tell young leaders who are thinking the same thing, but maybe hesitating. Like, what was your thought process during that time? Because graduating with the staff, um, you're ahead of the game there. You looks looks like you really knew what you were going after. Talk to me about that mind process. Tell me about some of the struggles that were are happening in your brain or at that time um when that's happening. Or is there, are there, or are we unaware of them so so much so that you can just move forward? I think sometimes being unaware can be good.

Speaker 3:38

Yeah, yeah. I think I think there is an element of naivety, especially on the first business, and especially probably at that age when you're 18, 19, you really don't know, you don't know anything really. You don't know about life, you don't know about business, you don't know about relationships. Um so there is that naivety piece that I think helps when you're taking that leap. You also have no dependencies. So there's nobody that actually relies on you for you know putting food on the table, you haven't got a mortgage to pay. So again, there's very, very little risk at that point. So if we dial it back to when I was at uni, I didn't really think about is there a risk? Is it gonna work? Is it gonna make money? Is it gonna fail? It was just um a bit of fun, really. I was running around filming content for companies using university kit and um happened to sell some stuff along the way. And that was kind of how it started. There was no business model, there was no strategy, there was no agenda. You know, it changed over the course of a few years and eventually became something. But other than that, there was no real plan. And I think if we if we look at when entrepreneurs start throughout the period of their life, so be that in your 20s, 30s, 40s, the risk will be different depending on where you are, and therefore the actual strategy, the plan, the kind of concern that comes with that will change as well. Um, so I don't think it was a good move, a clever move, a move that was strategized and planned out from day one. It was an accident, if I'm being completely honest with you. I just knew that I wouldn't necessarily be able to uh get a full-time job somewhere because I have no GCSEs. Well, I have one GCSE, which is a qualification in the UK basically means that you did okay at school. You're supposed to get five or six, maybe even ten. Um, but I had one. So I was never going to be employed by somebody. And I happened to get into university just because I did something at college. So yeah, that was the backstory. There was no plan. There was no plan.

Content’s Evolution And AI Creative

Speaker 2 5:17

So funny, there was no plan, but here you are, all these years later, driving success, you know, building, building your story, which I believe is still probably early on in your story as you go. But it's, I think so often when it comes to business or entrepreneurship, we think things just kind of happen, or you you just kind of step into something without really planning. But at the same time, I think that also goes to show of your your character and your experiences and that tenacity that's actually required. Um to take those leaps of faith. But as you said, there wasn't as much risk maybe at 18, 19 years old, which is true. So I'm curious, Oliver, as you started out um at 18, you know, fresh out of university, moving into where you're at now. I mean, I'm sure you have seen things evolve, um, very much so in the workspace. And you mentioned tech stack earlier and how all of those things have grown. What do you think has changed the most from what you've seen?

Speaker 6:21

So it depends on which business we're looking at, because there's different businesses that have evolved at different rates of not uh rates of time. But if we actually think about the main agency, so pinpoint, we started off just producing video content, right? So this was 12, 13 years ago. This was when video was becoming something that people knew they needed to have on their website but didn't really get it, right? That was the level of knowledge that we were dealing with. You fast forward 13 years to where we are now, and everybody's creating high volume content, everybody's churning through seconds of content because they have no attention span anymore. Um, AI is speeding up the process in terms of generative, um, generative creative, so being able to create avatars, et cetera, which just didn't exist 13 years ago. And I can remember pivoting the business somewhat from doing what was essentially long-form corporate video, which was fine and fairly new because people didn't really get it. They'd just about got their head around photos on websites, that is, into high volume, three or four videos across the course of a day, put out on Twitter at the time, Facebook equally, um, but linked to YouTube, if that makes sense. So there was no like embedding process like there is now. It was very much linking through to YouTube and hoping people would look at it. So it was so like sort of fragmented and broken, and now everything's come so much more cohesively together that actually the way we pivoted as a business was with this sort of the speed that everyone else was, but we were kind of ahead of the time that sort of trend 13 years ago, producing volume creative. Now everyone needs it, and now everyone's doing it for fraction of the price, it's become so much more commoditized. Um, in terms of AI for us, we have developed our own tech stack, both in terms of building on um the foundational model that is the ones that you would naturally use. There's no point in building our own, it'd be too expensive. Um, but actually building out our own agents to be able to increase the workflow efficiency for our team. So be that operationally or be that creatively, we have this ability to be able to actually now do more with less or equal more output at a better quality because we're doing things we love, if that makes sense. So we're taking away uh the monotony that might be paperwork or supplier contracts or payroll, for instance, um, or even frankly just coming up with a photo shoot concept. You know, you can put that through Nano Banana, which is a brand new um uh platform that came out. Well, it's Google's, isn't it, a couple of months ago, weeks ago, um, depending on where this airs? Um, and we use that daily now. We use that daily. We did some iterations for a client yesterday. We had two or three hundred that came out the back of it. That would have taken weeks to do 13 years ago. It's taking us hours now.

Speaker 3 8:50

So, Oliver, you're talking about the productivity and the efficiency of what's being utilized now. How does that change the way you operate as a company then? So, like what does that change your go-to-market plan? Does it change how you're scaling? Does that change uh anything? And how do you stay on top of it as far as innovation and what's happening in the future? I think technology is changing so quickly. Um once you learn about a platform, there's like a better one that comes out. So talk to me a little bit about how you're utilizing this the efficiency that you're gaining, the time that you're gaining, and how you motivate your employees to stay uh stay ahead of the game. And you said this, you were already ahead of it. So how do you stay as a front runner in what's happening in the market?

Culture, Trust, And Upskilling

Speaker 9:33

So I guess, you know, we really started dabbling in the world of AI probably three and a half years ago. There was a an article um which we published um uh about four years ago suggesting that we're one of the first agencies in the UK to actually accept and pay people in crypto. Now, whilst that's not AI and it's on the blockchain, there is an element of future-proof um being there. Now, in terms of motivating our team to use, develop, build, and live with AI, took a long time. Took a long time. So the first year and a half or so, there wasn't the adoption that we wanted. There was the leadership team that were pushing it because they knew there was efficiencies, potential margin to be made, ways of working, improved content, etc. And that was the focus, and that was good. But yet then there were the middle and juniors within the business that looked at it rightly so as a this might take my job. I'm not sure I necessarily want to um adopt it, use it, show that it's a good thing. So it took a long time for us to instill that level of confidence. And the only way we instilled that level of confidence was simply by testing, iterating, proving that we're not getting rid of people because of AI. And actually to this day, we haven't got rid of anybody because of AI. All we have done is shown them that they're actually now not doing the stuff that they didn't like doing in the first place. Um, so for instance, scamps, storyboarding, concept development, whatever it might be that took a couple of days to do, but was something that you had to do, it was par for the course, it was a process you had to go through, but wasn't the most enjoyable, can be done now, and the heavy lifting can be done, and they can focus on the creative, which they like to do. Similarly, the ops guys can focus on the stuff they enjoy doing rather than having to put numbers in a spreadsheet, right? Um, so for us, it wasn't necessarily just ramming it down people's throats and saying you are going to use it. It was taking them on that journey and showing them that there isn't necessarily anything to be scared of. What you should be scared of is if you don't adopt it, because then technically your job may actually be superfluous. You won't need to necessarily be here because you can't use AI, not because AI has taken your job.

Client Transparency And ROI At Scale

Speaker 2 11:29

Yeah, that's so good. I think, you know, Oliver, we've been able to talk with many leaders and they have kind of said the same thing that, you know, those that are not wanting to adapt or wanting to kind of embrace that technology and learn it for their positions, it that hesitancy almost hurts them rather than you know, benefits them. And I think that some people think that if they just continue doing the same thing that they're gonna be fine, but that's really not the case. Um, with like you said, the tech stack, things continue to evolve. Um, and as a leader, as an organization, you're trying to scale, you know, with those changes and to allow that growth to happen. And so you do have to welcome that. One thing I will say, um, and I don't know what the culture is like at pinpoint. Maybe you can help kind of paint a picture of what the work culture is like for the team. Tell me a little bit about the communication when there are new things being implemented, such as a new technology or new process. What does communication look like? Is it challenging? Is it welcomed? Let's kind of dive into that work culture a bit.

Common Pitfalls And Secure Adoption

Speaker 12:32

Yeah, sure. So we developed uh so we call our tech stack core AI. So that is that's the tech stack within the business. I know it's made up of lots of different bits that will plug in together, but we brand it core AI and everything feeds into that. So when we first launched that, which was probably 18 months ago internally, um, big concern. It was a big distraction. It was why are we focusing on building out a tech stack when we're not focusing on on the individuals within the business, if that makes sense. Now, at the moment, we've managed to instill a culture of people wanting to actively test, iterate, learn, and trial platforms simply because we allocate at the moment 20% RD time across the course of the year. So we say to them, look, use 20% of your time within the business to test, learn, work on platforms, upskill, train yourself, um, because it'll make you a better person, period. Whether or not you stick with us, even if you move into a new business, you'll still understand something about AI, right? So we're trying to empower individuals to just play with, make mistakes, understand what's good, what's right, what's wrong with these new platforms. And actually, normally when they come to us and request a budget, for instance, you know, a monthly fee or a test fee for one of these platforms that's just launched, it's always a yes. We never say no. Um, so I think that element of giving confidence to anybody within the business to just go, look, there's a couple hundred dollars a month to trial this thing. Can I trial it? And we go yes means that they're more confident to be able to open the door and give things a go, knowing they're not wasting money, knowing they're not wasting their time. They have to do it outside of work hours, etc. Um, so that for us has been a big thing. And actually seeing the appetite from clients um in terms of asking now, can we do a thousand renders of this? And us going, we can, but we're using AI, and clients going, Great, I want to do that, that empowers them and that makes them more confident rather than what does or used to happen was we never used to tell clients we were using AI to do renders or specific pieces of the job because we felt it devalued the service. So we felt that if we told clients that we were doing it in half the time, they'd get angry. The reality is they're ecstatic if the output's more. Granted, if the output's the same, we're making maybe more margin. Ethically, that might not be correct. So we try and balance the two. And the guys in the business know that now.

Speaker 3 14:44

Yeah, that's good. I think it's good to see companies embracing it. We have talked to some leaders that have mentioned the pushback with AI and their uh, I think hesitation in some areas. And I think it's just like you said, you have a group of people really pushing it, hoping for efficiency, and then there's like the middle people that are like, you know, is this gonna eliminate me? And so that hesitancy. So talk to me a little about how this changes your go-to-market plan. Like how when you're talking to clients, talk to me a little bit about how are you putting that out there that the AI is being used, it's something to be excited about. Are you saying it on the back end? Like, talk to me a little bit about that and how people are receiving that.

Avatars, Agents, And Near Future

Speaker 15:22

Yeah, it's not necessarily something we market outwardly. I mean, obviously, everyone kind of has this narrative now where it's all kind of data focused or data driven and AI kind of, you know, is always baked in. And I think it's just becoming the norm, if that makes sense. Um, it's like, I guess, when video turned to colour, it's not like you'd say it's gonna be a colour video. You just kind of assume that it was always going to be colour, right? Like I, for me, think that every business now should be using artificial intelligence in some way, shape, or form. So it isn't necessarily a USP, it is just simply like breathing. You have to use it to stay alive. Um, so so we don't really cram it down people's throats in that sense, but we will explain to them that, you know, yes, fine, if you want to have this image of prime example at the moment, a hot chocolate brand that we're working with, and you've had a photo shoot and that's great, and you've got 20 assets off the back of that. It looks like it's done in a studio, it might look like they've done it on location. We'll create some renders, we'll give you a thousand different versions that will be, you know, on a mountain somewhere, it could be, you know, somewhere overseas on a hot country or in a hot country, X, Y, and Z. And these, this element of how AI can increase a campaign's value or increase the return on investment to a client, I think is the really important piece. Um, and we don't sell it, we don't push it down people's throats, but we do allow them to see the value that it can deliver over time. They just should expect, I think, that most companies use it these days.

Speaker 2 16:46

Yeah, I think that that's what we're seeing. I mean, even as individuals, as users, we anticipate, we expect that AI is going to be a part of things. And um, I think that as you have those conversations with clients, that level of transparency to the client, I think that that probably even solidifies the relationship, the working relationship that you have with that customer because you're increasing your efficiency while also giving them more options, essentially, is what I'm hearing.

Speaker 17:14

100%. And this time last year we were rendering out some um Black Friday content for the exact same client that we're working with currently. And I'm talking we did a fraction of the volume comparatively to what we're doing now. And that's not necessarily because we've got more people on the account. In fact, we've probably got the same amount on the account, but the platforms, the tech, the the way the world has moved over the last 12 months has been so quick, we can probably 100x it, right? Um, in terms of in terms of the output in the space of 12 months. And we're creating human renders now that are perfect, we're creating product renders that are perfect. This didn't exist 12 months ago, and it's going to be something that just continues to grow.

Speaker 2 17:51

Sure. Now, you guys said that you have been really kind of on the forefront. I think, you know, you listening to your story and hearing how you've had AI in your tech stack, you know, pretty established for a long period of time. I mean, some companies we're that we talk to, they're just now thinking about implementing an AI strategy. Yeah. Like so they're kind of behind the ball already.

Speaker 18:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:13

But I guess I want to ask you too, you know, what are the challenges that you see? Because in the world of tech, there things change so quickly. Like you're just getting your strategy implemented. You're just kind of getting involved. How do you stay ahead of the game, like what Julie said earlier, while there's so much change happening?

Leadership, Risk, And Going All In

Speaker 18:32

So good. I'm actually doing a bit of consultancy work for US business at the moment, um, specifically around their AI um adoption. Big business, they've got um they've got a lot of staff, and their adoption is incredibly slow, to the level of actually a lot of their team are having to pay for it personally because they're wanting to learn, but they don't that the internal sort of workings aren't quite there. So you'll bang on in terms of that sentiment. But I think some of the things for people to watch out for are essentially security being one, a lot of companies, big or small, maybe aren't adopting quickly enough because they're concerned that actually the data that they're putting onto OpenAI, for instance, could be accessed by multiple people. And that's right to be concerned, and that's that's that's proper. But there are also platforms out there that are hyper-secure and you can bake it into your processes. Gemini is a prime example, part of the Google Suite. You know, it's very, very simple to adopt stuff like that, and actually not very expensive. I think the risk is taking on too much and not knowing exactly how it's solving the problem. People can kind of have that magpie effect where they go, look, great, I'm gonna take five or six new platforms that I think are good, bang them into our processes, but they're not gonna use them to the sort of value they should. So they're not gonna get 100% out of it. So therefore, none of them will be adopted because they're not executing it correctly. So building a process out whereby you go, okay, like with our guys, you've got 20% worth of RD time across the course of the year. Let's methodically break down what accounts or what's what platforms we're gonna work on this month, then we'll report back, which we do every Single month, and we'll see how much time it's saved, where the efficiencies are, and what the output is. And if it's worked, we'll double down and we'll put that into the workflow. And if it doesn't, then we'll bin it off. So it's it's very much, I think, like starting a business or doing tasks when you're in this sort of employment, whatever that might be. If you have too much on your plate, you won't get everything done correctly. You'll do it, but you'll do it badly, for instance, rather than hyper focusing. Same with adoption of AI. You can have 20, 30 platforms today, you won't maximize them all correctly, they won't join up correctly. So you won't therefore get the value. You'll have wasted your time in that square one.

Speaker 3 20:33

Yeah, I think that's accurate. I think the security aspect, we've heard that feedback from multiple leaders about the security aspect of it and wanting to tread very slowly. So I think you nailed it, nailed it on the head right there because that's accurate. And I think it's because what they don't know what they don't know. They don't know what they don't know. So it's they're trying to make sure they're making a healthy decision. Oliver, talk to me a little bit about what's on the horizon for tech and what's on the horizon for pinpoint. Like what are you in preparation for and what are you predicting for the next five to ten years?

Intrapreneurship And Psychological Safety

Speaker 21:06

Like five to ten years is a hell of a long time when you actually look at what's happened over the last 12 months. But um, for me, personal branding obviously has been a huge thing for a lot of people over the last probably 18 months or so, UGC specifically, where individuals are starting to, you know, get themselves, get themselves out there a little bit more. I think genuinely uh relatable um AI avatars are just around the corner. I think, you know, this conversation we are having now, I think in 12, 18 months, won't be us as humans having this conversation, but actually our avatars and our agents having this conversation with prompts put into it and the narrative being very similar to this, the uh ethos, the culture, the vibe, what we get out the back end of it being very, very similar as well, except it won't be us, we'll be doing a job somewhere else and we'll be maximizing our time using our agents. Um, that I think is where it's going in the in the sort of, I guess, 12 to 18 months uh timeline. Where it is going after that. I mean, your guess is as good as mine. Everything's gonna get quicker, everything's gonna get more intense. It'll be quite a fun journey to see, but I wouldn't know where to bet, put it that way. I wouldn't know where to put my chips.

Speaker 2 22:07

That's so funny. As I think about that, I'm like, wow, what would my avatar say? I mean, we were working with trainer, you train the avatar.

Speaker 22:15

You do, you train them. We were we're doing some avatar stuff at the moment, and actually, I had an avatar of myself last week, which I put together, super simple, and I spoke in Japanese, and no, I know no Japanese, right? So I can't fluently speak Japanese at all. Um, and and it simply translated everything that I was saying into Japanese, and I didn't actually say it in English in the first place. It was just prompts that I put into my avatar. So it understood what I looked like, understood how I sounded, and then I basically fed it prompts and had a full-on conversation with another Japanese avatar. Um, but I was obviously uh very much an English one that just got translated. So that is the level that it can do it at the moment. The mouth movement doesn't look correct, really. It looks a little bit basic, like a kind of dodgy um 1960s movie that's been overdubbed. Um, but I think the potential is there, the concept is there, people are going to start to do that. I think the only thing to bear in mind is usually you see an influencer marketing where people are buying authentically from people might change a little bit. I think the personal branding side of things is where this could be really valuable from, or indeed, internal comms from a CEO with a, you know, a FTSE100 company or whatever, where they need to talk to a couple of thousand people straight away, they'll be able to have this interactive conversation, but it not be them, but they pre-feed the answers into it. Um, so that's that's my prediction for 18 months' time. I think there's going to be a much bigger focus on on an AI avatars. It's a tongue twister.

Speaker 2 23:35

Well, well, Albert, I look forward to keeping in touch with you and seeing where we're at in 18 months. Yeah, and what I hear is that there's hope for me in my language skills when my pronunciation is off that I I can rely on an avatar to help get me there.

Speaker 23:50

You could be English if you wanted to be. We could change your accent.

Speaker 3 23:54

So I can cancel my Duolingo subscription. Is that what you said?

Speaker 23:57

Where are you going? There you go. That's that's very, very true.

Parting Advice: Have A Good Time

Speaker 2 24:01

That's so good. That's so good. I love it. I love that you're optimistic, but at the same time, you still have a structure, you still have a plan in place, you know, that allows room for growth and for for learning, like you were saying. So I'm curious, uh, as a guy who's the CEO uh of uh pinpoint and trying to stay ahead of tech, how do you balance everything? How do you balance, you know, things in life? We were talking earlier about um some personal excursions and things that you have that you're training for. But but how does one really keep the balance?

Speaker 24:36

Yeah, balance is not something I've ever been any good at, really. Um I'm sort of just hyper into new stuff, business, and just moving the needle. Um, and and you know, it's the same at home, right? We're renovating our property at the moment, and on a weekend I'll be so focused on the renovation, and then in the week I'll be so focused on work that there's no there's no balance. It's all in or all out with me personally. Um, and and I guess, you know, I've got ADHD, which probably double clicks into that a little bit. Um, but looking at that excursion that you alluded to, I mean, in 2027, I'm planning on rowing the Atlantic, which is 3,000 miles from Canary Islands to um to Antigua. Now, that was an idea that we came up with on the golf course. That was a fun thing to do. We went away and we booked it. Now, I rowed at university badly and took up swimming because I spent more time in the canal than I did in the boat. So um, again, something that I've just gone all in on because I find it exciting and I find it fun. And I think with business leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, I think if you're not going all in, then you're never gonna get to where you need to get to because you can't do it sort of with your, you know, your glass half half full, sort of thing, or whatever the saying is. You can't, you know what I mean? You can't do it unless you're fully in it. And that for me is the way I've always been. I've been like, if we're gonna do something, we're going 110%. If it fails, at least we know we've tried. Um, and that for me is the reality.

Speaker 2 25:55

That's so good. Yeah. Go all in, um, all in and everything, uh, as it sounds like, and you are. And I think, you know, for everybody that might look different. Your all in might might look different in different areas of your life. But I love that you're saying that because it's it's take the risk. Don't be afraid to fail. Um, go for it and learn from those mistakes. And I think that honestly, all of our the best leaders that we have had the pleasure of encountering or even talking to here on the podcast, they're the leaders that are not scared to fail. Um they fail forward into the next thing and learn from it and continue to develop.

Speaker 26:31

I think there's also a cultural thing to your point. I mean, if you look at the US versus UK, right? The UK is far more reserved in their appetite for failure. Um, whereas the US, which I love, they're just so much more focused on we're gonna try everything. If stuff fails, it doesn't matter, we'll carry on and do it again. Um, and I was over in Vegas doing a conference a few weeks ago. That was the ethos there. That was very much the focus. It was we're just gonna make things amazing, and if it doesn't work, we're gonna do it again. And I was the only British person in that room. And I was thinking, yeah, this doesn't happen in England. People go there and they go, I'm going to try it. If it doesn't work, I'll look like an idiot and then I'll go and probably not tell anybody. And that is the difference. There is a cultural thing, and I don't think it can be instilled in people um necessarily at school. I think it's just something you you kind of build based on the people that you're around. Um, and that's why so many entrepreneurs over a period of time take more and more risks because they get in and around people that are equally doing the same thing. Um, but then it's a measuring thing, right? It depends on where you are in life.

Speaker 3 27:32

Yeah, I agree, Oliver. I think uh Tara and I had a conversation, and the overthinkers in the room will always uh be hesitant to take a healthy risk because you can if you overthink it, you will talk yourself out of it. And so there has to be some level of um or like you said, looking like an idiot. Like you have to you have to do something foolish, something that sounds foolish, looks foolish, um, to be able to, I think, do those things. I don't know that all Americans are like that.

Speaker 28:01

Um the legends are not every American has met. Brilliant.

Speaker 3 28:08

But I do see as we talk to more leaders, more CEOs, more executives, that is definitely the mindset that has made them successful. Like this sounded stupid, everybody thought it was a dumb idea. Uh put you know, put my mortgage on a second loan. Like, let's do it. And so I think those and you can tell the difference. And you can tell the difference in in in the impact they make in culture and what they do, it makes a huge difference. And do you coach your team that way to take this type of uh dramatic risk? Or do you know that there's specific people on your team and who's surrounded by you that do that?

Speaker 28:42

No, to be fair, we never we never really tell anyone off for making a mistake, if that makes sense. So there's no fear. It's not like we'd call them into an office and go, you've, you know, you've lost this, you've done this, you've broken that. That's not something, that's not how we work. It's quite a it's a sporting mentality here. There's a few people, the few leaders are quite focused on sports, and we've got a number of things around the office that is very much like, you know, if you drop the ball, we'll be right behind you to pick it up kind of thing. So there is that culture of look, just go and do something. And if it doesn't work, at least we've tried and we can go and do something else. I call it intrapreneurialism, um, which is being an entrepreneur within a company. And I don't know if that's a well-known phrase or not, but it works here, and it's something that we can sort of, you know, pin to the wall and we can say, look, guys, you can run your own departments, you can do what you need to do, you can make the decisions you need to make. Um, just believe in the decisions you're making. And if it doesn't work, we'll learn from it and it won't happen again. Um, and we've had many, many occasions where that's happened, um, but no one's ever been fired.

Speaker 2 29:36

That's so good. I think, you know, you're creating you call it entrepreneurialism or maybe autonomy, where you're giving people the ability to think on their own to to try something and to own it and not be scared to do that. Oliver, I I've loved this conversation. It's it's so refreshing to talk to leaders like yourself that are not afraid to take the risk, that not really sure what things are gonna look like in the next 12 months, and that's okay. And being okay with that, I do look forward to staying connected and seeing where we're at on the avatar thing. I'm serious.

Speaker 30:09

100%. 100%.

Speaker 2 30:10

It's gonna, it's gonna be a good conversation, and maybe we'll have to do another podcast at that point. Uh yeah, our avatars will do it. That's right. So before we wrap up today, is there any other just a bit of advice or encouragement that you want to leave with leaders that are out there spearheading in a world of unknowns?

Speaker 30:29

Yeah, whether it's leaders or founders or just entrepreneurs or people that want to make a difference, there's there's no good time necessarily to start a business. But I always say in business you should have a good time. And it's something I've always lived by. It's it's very much one of those things that there will be the ups and downs, but make sure that you focus on having fun in whatever you're doing, whether that's running a company, starting a company, doing a charity fundraiser, just enjoy it. Otherwise, you know, you're doing the wrong thing.

Speaker 2 30:53

That's so good. Well, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation on elements of culture. It's been a joy, and we look forward to keeping in touch with you all over. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.