All the work I do, I started values. Because values drive systems, which drive habits, and habits create the uh the the victory, it comes from your values. What do you value? If you're a family person and you value that, then that's underneath your decision making.

Welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast, where we help web design and digital agency owners create abundance for themselves, their teams, and their communities. This week we're joined by Richard Young, speaker, mentor, and coach of performance fulfillment. Richard focuses on helping cohorts of subject matter experts mostly in sport, education, and the health sector, and has some truly incredible insights that I believe apply to all types of businesses as well as anyone who has any kind of goal in their life. In this episode, we discuss performance systems and achieving the right outcomes with strategic subtraction, slowing down to go faster, finding clarity by learning the skill of simply focusing on the basics and how the delivery of high performance is really a subtraction game. I'm Troy Lenin. Stay with us. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome to the agency number Richard Young. Hi Richard, how am I doing? Hello, Troy. Good to see you. Thanks for joining us here. By the way, I've got to say I love your handwritten signature in the bottom corner there if you're That's a nice touch, my friend. Very nice. Uh now, for those that don't know, and our audience, I mean, one of my questions for you is how you found us and how we crossed paths, because our audience probably won't know who you are. Just give them the too long didn't read elevator pitch. Who are you? Where are you from? How did you get to where you are now?

Yeah, so uh Canadians, so you can tell by the accent. That's where I that's where I grew up. Um spent my whole life in high performance sports. So raced bikes for Canada and then coached uh for Canada and then got into coaching others and uh doing some um um Canadian system work really and then got uh over to the British team. So I was there for seven years and uh my wife was involved with them as well, so she was Scottish and and then um uh program that I created over there for the British team was the innovation and research uh program, which was mostly around you know getting carbon fiber and uh instrumented equipment and uh GPS into sport from military and formula one. The Kiwis wanted that, so we ended up coming over here, settled in Auckland and Titarangi for uh five years, loved it up there in the park, and and um then an opportunity came south. We're both from the northern hemisphere, we're used to the cold and uh skiing and things, so uh so down we came. Yeah.

Wow. How did you how did you make the transition from because my understanding is that these days you're in the business of kind of helping experts become high performers, right? How did you make the transition from uh from the sporting world into the thought leadership entrepreneur world?

Um, so that was three years ago. Uh so a couple of the projects that I was doing for the Kiwi team, um, that innovation project, um, what that flagged was uh because when you arrive with really interesting gear, um it takes people's uh mind off the basics really and what the main problem is. So you arrive with some pretty good looking stuff, suddenly they're trying to integrate this, but uh the athletes aren't quite fit, the coaches don't know how to plan, some of the basic stuff isn't in shape. So so it pointed out the quality of the problem, um, and the discussion mostly was there, so that's where the innovation program was. And then we looked back over all the debriefs because Olympic sport and pro sport are heavy on reviews, and um, and so we added everything up. So uh some of it was going to be binned because it hadn't been used, but managed to get back to Sydney, which was 2000, add them all up and compare what people said about what they did, um, how they won, how they didn't win, where things fell apart, what the patterns were, and so looked at the difference between target sports and combat and team and individual and water sports and land, but the differences stood out with medalists and non-metalists, and it turned out there was learned skills. That's what I became fascinated with, and not just figuring out how they did it, but how others and um new athletes, coaches, and leaders can do it, and so um, so I've been doing that privately for three years now with different sports, um, different industries.

And so, what's the your main business model these days? I see that you have the book, you have some free resources, and you have the programs. What's the main business model at the moment?

Um, so it's around performance systems. Um, so James Clear wrote a book, Atomic Habits, and in that book, yeah, fantastic book. And he's um uh there's a there's a part in there, but we don't rise to our goals, we fall to our systems. That's the gist of it. So it's making the system visible. Not everybody, all of us are in a system. So you have a system, uh, it's a home and work system, and um everybody does. And so the system when we're in, when we can visualize it, we start to see the inconnect interconnection of people, places, and things. That's a system. And we see some blind spots that we didn't notice. So a lot of people in sport have have uh won a lot. Uh they're experts. Experts have more blind spots than others, which is a bit of a problem, and um, and so if you want to unleash to master, which is where the sustained performers are, you have to minimize blind spots, and so that's what I help people do. So there's a lot of um jargon, for instance, uh, there's a lot of speed, the assumptions are helpful for speed, but then when they're replayed to people, they start to spot. Actually, I don't know why we've been doing that this long, and that probably isn't helpful. So, as I said about the problem, we start to get into right, what problem have we been trying to solve all these years? How do we how do we solve the right problems? How do we enable our people to be empowered and transformed rather than just following a to-do list and getting busier and busier and busier? So it's actually pulling back, and the model is a subtraction model, subtractic subtraction is what what I call it, and that's what what I do with people.

So strategic subtraction is, and I was reading a little bit about this on your website uh the other day, is is achieving more by taking or achieving the right things by taking stuff away, removing like we have a thing here called the to-dont list, right? A whole bunch of things come across your desk and it's like, I gotta put that on the to don't list because it just doesn't need to happen. Uh so is this the the the the right kind of philosophy that I'm tapping into here is like doing less, but doing the right things at the right time, do it, solve the right problem and actually achieve the right outcome.

That's right. That's right. Strategic subtraction and the best in the game do that, they do that naturally, and and the best repeat medalists, repeat sustained performers do that without being able to describe that actually, yeah, that's what I've been doing. So when we when we mapped what they did, we looked at newcomers, new athletes at the front. They looked like the super experienced people at the end. So they were doing a little bit, they were loving what they were doing, and then it got into the middle with very crowded experiments and looking for magic and testing everything. It got very, very crowded without much subtraction, and then they come out the back end and they start to reduce. Don't need that. No, I don't work with them because that hasn't worked before. Uh, don't need to even test that. No, thanks. I've got this system, and they start to polish a routine and it's subtraction. So I liken it to a Jenga game. Um, so if you've played that, you you add the blocks up, and no one's really paying attention. They're chatting and having a drink and stuff, and then the giggles are happening, and then it's time to start pulling off, and you look at what happens. People go a bit quieter, they start to look over top of the blocks, they're looking left and right. They're analyzing multiple moves ahead because now they're subtracting. So if I pull that off and she pulls this off, then what happens if okay, what if I do that? And so it turns into more of a chess game. But it's a subtraction chess game, and that's what I help people do.

Super interesting. What what what's the typical blend of your client base? What sort of industries are we talking, and and what kind of roles are we talking about?

Uh, most are senior leaders. Uh, they are um experts, either subject matter experts or leadership experts, so they've been in the game for a while. Um, and they uh are mostly in sport, so high performance sport, or they're former elite athletes who are now in business or coaches who've been to moved into business. And there's also work in education and health.

Interesting. And and what's your typical um program, or I'm just I'm selfishly thinking here because I'm interested in business models and how you take your IP and your experience and deliver that over a course of a program. Is it do you work typically in sprints with clients, or is it usually a 12-month engagement? What's the the usual engagement look like?

Yeah, so it's a combination. So there's some mentoring which is one-on-one over two to three months, and that's weekly. Um and it starts with uh values exploration, so it is a lot about the individual. Um, people who want to move into the performance system end, it's usually in a cohort. Uh, because when you're in a group of people who have become experts in their area, and then we start to share that lived experience, it's like sticks on fire. Um, so a lot of work I do as a cohort. 12 to 14 people um over two months, and there's uh four different parts of the class. You can take one or all four, and um, so the first part is about you as the leader, the second part is about the performer and how we influence and transfer some of the models and philosophy over to them. The next part is the team, and then the next part is the integration of the whole system. So there's workshops, there's mentoring, and uh there's master classes, I call them. A lot of it is Zoom, um, primarily because of the sports uh group that I was spending most time with are heavy travelers, and um, and so getting them into one place is a challenge. COVID uh meant that people could, if they weren't really floored but ill, they could still join. And so a lot of people have done that, um, where they can keep the momentum going even though they can't uh they can't show up in the office. Um, there are face-to-face ones as well, but I'd say the majority, almost 80%, is uh is Zoom based.

Had did did lockdown and COVID influence or impact that business model moving? I'm kind of imagining that it would have been a growth area for you, or that you or that going online would have had to have happened very radically quite rapidly, yeah?

Yeah, it did. That's right. That's right. So I was I was just starting out before COVID hit. So we had a year in Canada and we put the kids into high school and had a kind of a family connection experience over there, and that's where I started. So it was all face-to-face. Then COVID hit, and a couple of things changed because my my model was a simplicity model, that's the title of the book, Simplify, plus it's a subtraction model. COVID hit and clobbered everything in sports, it clobbered the calendars, it clobbered the prep, it clobbered the investment, the finance into the clubs. Um, you know, they're trying to keep lights uh on and and athletes fit. So they were interested in what to put back. So basically, everything had been removed, and and like we had uh in lockdown, everything's gone. You realize some people that was a catastrophe, for others it was brilliant, uh, you know, the quiet, and and then everything starts to come back, and then we've got a choice. Do we put it all back or do we put the main things back? And what are the main things? You know, the day in sport is get the basics right, but ask around, and you won't say the basics.

So that's right.

Why are you model shifted?

I'm I'm fascinated by this, and you know, full transparency, uh our audience are typically small business owners in the kind of web design digital marketing space, right? And I have I have a lot of conversations with these people who are trying to grow a business to something that is significant, provide for their family. Our whole community is very driven by you know family reasons. We want to provide for our family and whatever that means, you know, whether it's paying off your mum's mortgage or whether it's putting your kids through good school or whether it's retiring your husband, whatever it is. There's a whole bunch of stories in our community around that stuff. But the the main conversation I have with customers and just people in our audience is I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. And I'm running around with my hair on fire trying to figure out how to hang on to this wild bull that I've created, which is my growing business. And the truth is I'm overwhelmed and I just want to burn the whole thing to the ground and go and get a job at Walmart, right? Or Woolies or you know. Um I have been guilty of this myself over the years, and I've reflected on this a lot. And I and I will also say I think it's important to spend a little bit of time looking in the rearview mirror, but not while you're driving a car. Because if you spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror and take your eyes off the road, you'll cause another accident. So I tend to sit on the sidelines and reflect. And my my my um I think people are almost addicted to chasing new because it's because you get a dopamine hit from starting a new project, and also you feel busy, you're like, this is going to be the thing that solves all the problems. What third two questions. Why do you think that people find it very difficult to just list write a very simple list of the basics that need to get done? Right? And if you asked eight people working in the same company, they'd come up with eight different lists, right? So why do you think that is? And second of all, what is the mindset or the approach around the people who are the gold medalists, who are the high performers? What are they doing differently? Is it a genetic thing or is it a tr is it a mindset thing? Is it a discipline thing? What are they doing differently that the rest of us can learn from? And I know they're big questions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great uh, great questions. Uh I'm not not surprised. Uh, you know, that uh you're into the deep side of the the business game. That's the fascinating part of uh the model, like your scenarios there of small businesses trying to lift the game and they're running with their head cut off and and things, and that's that sport. There's a lot of parallel, you know. It it the product has to be delivered, it has to be on time. We know the rules, you can't be late. It's a lot like small business, and you're responsible. And um so in sport, first on the first question, um, human nature is more. Uh, we're we're built for more. That's how we've survived this long. And um, and so only, you know, like you compare parents to grandparents, you know, kids head to their grandparents because they've kind of slowed down, they've they've started to see what really matters, and the parents are still, you know, hammering away, trying to find their way, and um a little busier, a little more distracted, kind of like elders in tribes and things, so that they've and the difference between those and others and the the um sustained performers in the sport game is they're like elders, and and their subtraction model is something that they protect and polish. Um, it gives them a deep sense of satisfaction that actually the magic is in here, it's not out there anymore. The hunt is over. There's a different pace to what they do. There's a different flow as well. You can't flow if you're surrounded by distractions, and um, and so we're in a world, a consuming world. And so we bring athletes say into a system and we say now, okay, now welcome, and uh hey, it's great you got so much talent. By the way, there's uh there's Pilates on offer, there's a different nutrition approach. We've got this innovation group over here, you got strength and condition, you got mental skills. If you don't like mental skills and it's mental health, we take you over here. Wow, and okay, well, I'll try that and I'll have a bit of that and a bit of that, and it becomes this dense package of experimentation, but the date is still sitting out there that you've got to be ready. Plus, there's a biological clock for an athlete, too. So you're not gonna be in this game for a long time, and um, and so the experiment is rush, rush, rush, and there's a lot of parallel with with business, with small business that uh, because not often have they come, say, from um a model they can just lift into small business. You have to, you know, learn your customer, learn what the problem is, learn how to solve it, you have to deliver it, you have to create it, and um, and it's all on you. Um, so a lot like the athlete and the coach in high performance, there's a lot on them. The faster they learn to subtract, the faster they accelerate. And it's a learned skill. So, on on your second question there, it's something they've learned, and it was a pattern across all of them. They've learned this skill. So it wasn't about hard work, diligence, all these attributes, personality tests, things like that, not very helpful. It doesn't, it doesn't really matter. So it's your eye on the ball, what's the goal, and what's actually working, and it's like a repeated business inventory, and those who learn fastest win. And that means learning what isn't working, taking a business inventory. If that product isn't selling, there's no point keeping it on the shelf. So in sport, there's a lot of that, and the debriefs serve that purpose, it's an inventory after an event. I have questions, Richard. I have all the questions.

Um, I've I have been down the Greg McEwan rabbit hole the last few years reading um uh minimalism, uh sorry, essentialism and uh and his second book, which his second book was a reflection on how he fell into the trap of becoming over consumed with everything that was going on after he wrote Essentialism because he then found himself travelling four or five days a week speaking and wasn't doing wasn't practicing what he wrote, what he was preaching. And so he kind of kind of cut back and then wrote his second book, and the name of that second book escapes me right now. But it's the practicality of how you apply the essentialism principles into small business, and and the tagline is do less better, right? And I I remember reading that, and not very few times in my life I've actually had my breath taken away by something. One actually was in the South Island of New Zealand when I was driving around and I came up to the crest of a hill in the car, and the snow-capped mountains were in front of me, and I literally had to pull the car over and get out with my wife and start and just stand. We stood there for half an hour and just breathed it in. It was an unbelievable, overwhelming experience. When I read those three words, do less better, it was like someone had shone a light into my closet and all the skeletons were there looking at me, and I reflected on because I have been guilty, as have a lot of our audience, of the more, more, more, more, more. Let's just go get more clients, let's get new clients, let's find new people, let's create more products, let's, you know. So so why are we, as human beings? You you said it, why why is human nature more? Why is that part of our because I've actually experienced a mint mentor said to me, You've got to slow down to go faster. You've got to slow down to speed up. It's true. I've experienced it, and I it's a daily practice for me to not do 10 hours in front of the computer. Because I know about four of those are good, and the rest I'm just faffing about, filling in time, feeling productive, and pretending I'm busy, right? And I'm much better at it these days. But what is why if we've exper if we've experienced the benefit of doing less better and slowing down to speed up, and we've done the strategic subtract subtraction and we've experienced that, why are we still compelled to chase more? Is that a survival thing?

Yeah, yeah. There's partly survival, partly it's cultural. It's a consuming culture that we're in. Um, so we're not sitting still enough evaluating like what's really important. And um, and we do that at times, like you're you're mentioning there, but then quickly it steps over back into um maybe the more got me here. There's a sense that doing more actually achieved something, and now I can pull back a bit, that the more actually got me to this place. But right, but it's a it's a daily decision. So the repeat medalists, for instance, we uh um asked them three questions uh in the debrief, and we'd have a pre brief as well, just to see what matches when you take the emotion of the event away, what really stands out. So on their lead up to an Olympics, same questions. What would you keep start and stop? Correct questions. Three questions that are um representative of their experience. What's going well and contributing to performance? What's not going well and detracting from performance? This could be business performance as well. And what are you worried about in achieving your next quarter or your next your next goal? Because emotional words, love and and worry, they get something. What's a nickel? Well, car's not working. And yeah, well, what are you worried about? Oh well, my coach isn't doing very well personally, and I don't know if they're gonna make it for the next game. So then you start to get into things. Then you ask, what do you keep starting stop? When we profiled all the athletes, the repeat medal winners owned 80% of the stops. So out of the big bucket of what people were stopping, the majority were from the repeat medalists, and they were only 5% of the population. And they own the majority of I'm stopping this, I'm stopping this. It's a learned skill they have that that more doesn't work. You can't flow, you can't perform with everything. An expert can, and sometimes university and things and degrees and all of that, um, it keeps adding up. But the delivery in performance, in high performance, is a subtraction game. So if you see an athlete in flow, you can see the sense that actually they're not doing everything they know, they're doing just what's needed, they're communicating with themselves, with us in this moment right now, and it's just the minimum of what's needed, and that's a learned skill. Flow can be brought, it can be on call, it's preparation, it's not psychological, it's preparation. And and the more that our new people in sport and and in business learn the subtraction game, the more strategic they are about the system they're in, the more aware they are of what matters. They're the ones that can answer the question. What are the basics? Hey, I love your business. What are the basics? Boom. Well, here's the top three. Here's something I'm grappling with right now. Here's something that's consistently been with me for 20 years now and isn't going to leave. I'm protecting that like gold. Um, they've got clarity and they sound like these repeat metalists, crystal clear, clear language, short sentences, very basic stuff. Um, but the key was that they own most of the stops. And um and we're not built for this.

You know, it's interesting when you talk about um, you know, subtraction to speed up, because if you think about it, if you think about driving a vehicle, um the you know, I I I drive a Tesla Y prior to that, I was driving a Tesla 3. Prior to that, we had, you know, big well, we've still got a big SUV for the kids. But I think about driving the Tesla down the highway versus driving the SUV down the highway with the kids full of you know camping gear and overnight bags, and I know which one goes faster. And it's not just because it's an electric car, right? It's because it's got nothing in it except me. And there's nothing and there are no moving parts in a Tesla. It's a great big battery, right? There is there's there aren't there aren't there are no it doesn't need a service. I don't have to take it in to get its service because there are no moving parts, right? It's so efficient, it's ridiculous. And if you think about if you think about leading a group of people down a a path that you're not sure about, and the people you've have got all this gear with them, say you're moving campsites, right? Well, that's going to be a very different experience than just going for a night walk with your people and maybe they've got a water bottle and a torch. But if they're carrying backpacks and a whole bunch of other stuff that we may not need, which is my modus operandi, just bring everything in case, right? Um, it gets inefficient. And so one of the things that so I just wanted to kind of remark on that, but one of the things that comes up for me, my wife's a psychologist, and one of the things that comes up for me is that when you start to subtract, and when people slow down and they sit still and they you just give them time to think, stuff comes up for them. And I I actually think a lot of the reason that our audience are just busy doing the busy work is because they don't want to sit still for five minutes because stuff comes up and you sit still for five minutes and your life comes up and starts replaying in your head and you have to deal with it. How do you, as a performance coach, because I've had to navigate this a lot, I have had to navigate saying to people, you know, I think you need to go and see a therapist or a counsellor, and I I can't help you with that. I wish I could. Um how do you navigate that when you know that the the reason that someone is unable to subtract and they're just adding more is because they uh they don't want to confront what is going to happen in their brain when they slow down and stop?

Yeah, it could be what uh that could be part of it, Troy. And the other part is what people expect of me and my role. So, what does their role carry? What expectation do people have of them? Maybe they're a problem solver, for instance. And and so all the details are are sitting with them, all the responsibility is sitting with them. That could be exactly the case if they're in a small business, but when they map their system, if they look, if they looked outside, I call it a floodlight. So there we're mostly in spotlight, and we're looking at a narrow gaze of what's in front of us, and we're attracted to problems. That's another part of human nature, and particularly emotional problems. So we're trying to make things go away, and we're trying to clear the road in front of us, and when we have a floodlight, that's why a coach mentor is important in sport. No medalist has done it alone, done it alone. There isn't anyone who's done it alone. So, out of all the research out there, there is somebody with them, and that reason is that you can't see, you know, the fish can't see the sea, so you need it replayed. And sometimes people need it replayed, and they need a floodlight over top, and we start to see the floodlight, we start to spot, man, look at my pattern. Like, I am I am busy, flat out busy all the time. We start to work on like a habit like that. So, like sport is all about training. We become uh accustomed and addicted, even to the habit that we've created, and our day finishes poorly if it doesn't go like it did yesterday. Human nature again. So we keep adding them, we're looking for magic as well. That's the challenge in sport is looking outside at what somebody else is doing and saying, Oh, that's pretty good. Like there could even be on a floodlight um comment about the audience right now thinking what else they can do. Like their the brain may be thinking, right, there's something I'm gonna try. And Troy's got a good idea there. I think I'm gonna try that and I'm gonna do that, but rarely is it one in, one out. So if I'm gonna try that, what am I gonna remove? And the pattern of the repeat metalists is one in, two out. So they're able to really strategize into where am I spending wasted time. The clock is ticking, two clocks are ticking for them. They can't experiment forever and they can't delay. So two out, one in means that they can really find the gold, protect the gold, they're strategically subtracting, they're starting to see the system, and that's how they start to communicate. They talk like um James Clear in systems, not in goals. Everyone knows the goal. Yeah, the difference makers, the people who know the system.

And the and the you know, I'm fascinated with, and I've I've been exploring this and talking about it for a long time. The goal setting, personal development, weight loss industries are multi-billion dollar a year industries, and they're always growing and they'll never go away because I think fundamentally the flaw is that people are focusing on the goal and forgetting that the goal is just a byproduct of following the process and trusting the process. And what you need to focus on is the activity and the process and the changes in your behavior that will result in the goal. Everyone's focused on losing the weight, everyone's focused on losing 10 pounds. And as long as you're focused on losing 10 pounds, I believe your subconscious is going to keep you in a situation where you can continue to focus on losing 10 pounds because you can't want to lose 10 pounds and lose 10 pounds at the same time, right? Because the want, and this is very woo-woo, I know, but I feel like I'm talking to someone who might be able to come on this journey with me. I think the want trumps your ability to take the right action to get the right outcome. And well, and I think while we're focused on the goal, we're not focused on the microhabits, the atomic habits, the incremental changes in our in our behavior that are going to get a different outcome because we're just focused on the outcome. We're not focusing on what we can do differently. Or what and I love this one in, two out because that makes it more efficient. If I can put one thing in and replace two things, get rid of two things with one, then that makes it leaner.

That's right. The two birds with one stone in action, in action, because they're looking for gold. And so on on your weight loss scenario, um, what's the goal? So, for instance, in in performance, you get athletes that are trying to prove something and others that are trying to improve something, and they're very different. So, and whoever arrives is what we've got. So the system has to adapt, you know, uh to the to the um spectrum. You get a lot of spectrum um uh power in in high performance. It it just it's it's an attractor for um people on the spectrum, and so we're used to dealing with innovative ways of thinking, like it's a creative uh diversity of people in here, but you also get on a fundamental level people trying to prove something about uh you know their own self-confidence, their worth, uh, etc. And others trying to improve. So uh, for instance, on weight loss, which one is it? Am I am I trying to prove something to somebody, including myself, or am I trying to improve something? And the improve folk keep at it longer, so they're on the journey. The prove something are looking to get somewhere, just like a medal. So the metal matters in high performance, but the sports that only talk about that are trying to prove something, and they've lost the learning game, they've lost the improvement game, and um, and they're on it, and that's why you hear so many bad decisions out there in sport. A lot of things that make the news that are about the win at all cost. That's what's under the hood. If you look at a floodlight on that, it's win at all cost. And I don't intend to make dumb decisions, but the system I am in, it looks like winning is everything, and um, and I better produce. So there's another consumer more magic, um, because the system has um it fosters that.

We have a a sponsor of this podcast, E2M, who are a white label development and SEO partner who essentially help our clients increase the capacity of their development and SEO work so that they can take on more clients. Now, by the way, if you want to check out E2M, uh they have a special partnership with us here at Agency Mavericks, and they are the exclusive sponsor of the podcast at e2msolutions.com slash agency dash mavericks. I'll put a link in the show notes so you can check that out and you can save a bit of money on your first month, I think. Manish, the CEO and founder of E2M, was at our event recently in the Gold Coast, and we had dinner and he spent a lot of time chatting with our customers. They've grown a team of 180 full-time staff who all work out of their one state-of-the-art building that they've put together. Um, I lose sleep on behalf of Manish every night, worrying about how he's keeping all of his people working on the right thing at the right time and moving in the right direction. Now I know that they have a very well-articulated mission and vision and that that's shared across the team, and everyone seems to be on the same page. But it leads me to my question, which is how does this play out differently? This kind of work with individuals. You talk about cycling athletes or, you know, maybe a a tennis player or someone who's playing a solo sport versus a team, how does it, how does that play out differently there? And also across the age spectrum, you know, a lot of elite athletes are younger, unless you're, you know, talking about people playing darts or maybe rifle shooting or archery, but a lot of elite athletes are in the younger part of their career. How does it play differently with them versus people who are a bit older who might have a bit more baggage and are a bit more protective of their habits and a bit stuck in their ways, so to speak? How does this work play out differently across those different situations and scenarios? Yeah, yeah.

So that's a lot like the experience. So when you compare people with low experience to high experience, that's like an age difference. Um and what happens is they carry a lot of extra baggage, like you said, and assumptions in the game. They've been in it for a long time that certain things have worked in different environments, but they're not working in this environment. And there's something that's just not gelling. So, for instance, you hire a um, there was some work I was doing with explicit and implicit knowledge and mapping that in people, so particularly um high skill leaders. What did they bring into the role? And so a CEO had hired a VP, and she was outstanding in the last job, outstanding, and so they expected this is future CEO. They got her in, and within months she was a bomb. So it things were just falling apart, and and all of this potential looked like it had vanished somehow. It's a different role she was in and a different culture, and they're looking for all the reasons. How did she perform so well over there? But over here. And when we map the explicit implicit, it turned out that skills she had over there that she was well known for weren't necessary in this new role, but she carried them in and continued to do them. It was around project management, where she her new role was more on strategic, not project management. So she was doing a lot of work helping people out on the project management because that's what she did in her last job. Her role didn't carry that, it didn't require that. Same as when we bring in superstar athletes from a different team. Bring them in, and it's a bomb. Why is that? It's the same person, but what are we not creating and what are we clobbering in in this person? So so when she realized and her uh CEO realized, actually, that's it. It was one thing that she needed to reduce, and it took her some effort because she realized she loved that in her last role, dropped it, accelerated, and two years later became the CEO. So it turned out that her intent wasn't to do that. She was looking to perform and do her best for the company. And there was another example from Aussie Rules where um a previous captain was drawn into another team and um a senior leader, he was on the senior leadership team as a as a player. He came in and started showing up late to meetings, and and he was a distraction. And the coach had talked to him and said, Look, we don't operate that way here, and um, I have to lay the the law down. And if you keep this pattern up, you're probably out, you know, as good a player as you are. I I don't think we need the distraction here. So it turned out when the uh when the coach realized actually there's probably a difference in values and principles that we've got, and explored at that level. They call it Switzerland in the middle. If it's a personality, you know, me to you, and then you do this, and then I do that, and it's all about events. But underneath is the system, and so they're voting on a system, they're bringing a system with them. His system was the athletes lead and they make a decision. They're the ones that lead in the previous team, and this one, it was the coaches' lead, and the coaches make the decision. So his intent was to create this difference in power just by showing up late. I'm the athlete, we make the decisions. Very simply didn't mean to distract, but when that was pointed out to him, he sat back and said, Ah, you're right. Okay, that's the difference between this. Okay, I I understand. It took a bit of time, not long, took a bit of time, but he stepped up and he started to contribute, and then he was a top leader on that on that team. So it's just recognizing the system the person brings in, because they do have way more power, and it's usually a subtraction game, and it's making something visible because they know the context, and when that visibility is made to them, you see their eyes change, and they say, Okay, you're right. And that probably isn't helpful to me right now. I'm gonna I'm gonna make some changes.

I could sit here and chat with you for weeks about this, Mr. Young. I'm enjoying this so much, and it's such a different conversation. Um I mean, you're just such a different guest that we usually have on this show, and I'm so grateful that you found us or we found you. How did we cross paths, by the way?

Um, Anna and Holly. Holly works for me, Anna works for you, they know each other. Uh and then she said, Hey, you'd like to check this group out. So I listened to a couple of podcasts, and yeah, I love the work you do. So I said, Yes, yes, sure, happy to join.

Super interesting. Um one, I'm conscious of everyone's time and yours. Uh one really one sort of final question before I uh tell people how to get in touch with you. We I understand the importance of values, and uh we're going through a bit of a challenge at the moment as parents with our two kids because um they're just at that age, you know, particularly our eldest Oscar, who's just turned six, where he's pushing back on everything and you know, he's kind of getting under our skin a bit. Anyway, um, which happens. And one of the things I know that we need to do and that we've been meaning to do for a long time is actually just to sit down and write down what our family values are. Now, if my wife ever listens to this episode of the podcast, which she probably won't, but if she does, I'm going to apologize to her in advance because I feel like this is an exercise that I've been wanting to do for a long time and she hasn't prioritized. And I think that she kind of feels like this is a bit of a grade school exercise, right? And well, you know, is it really necessary? Now she's a psychologist, she understands the importance of values, but actually getting the two of us to sit down and write down what our family values are just hasn't happened yet. But it's going to. We've made it a priority. Because I think that values, once agreed upon and committed to and shared and communicated, I think they help solve a lot of other problems. A lot of decisions can be made through the lens of that shared set of values. If someone's never done this exercise, and I'm not suggesting that you're a values expert, but if but if someone's never done this exercise, how do they how do they start to think what are the values that the system that we should bring to the system? What, you know, how do if if we've if because I know a lot of people just get blocked and stuck with this exercise because they feel like they write down things like honesty and transparency and integrity, right? And they feel like they're not very impressive values. They feel like it it needs to be something they can put up on the office wall and show the world and be proud of, right? How do with your experience having worked with a lot of athletes and and teams in sport and in business, what what would you say to someone if they're struggling to articulate this? What's the first thing they can do to try and get their values out of their head into something tangible?

Yeah, yeah. So that's uh where I start. So all the work I do, I start at values. Um because values drive systems, which drive habits, and habits create the uh the the victory, it comes from your values. What do you value? Um, if you're a family person and you value that, then that's underneath your decision making. Um, and if you don't understand your own values, you can't see the values of others. You start to recognize the more in tune you are of your values, the more you recognize the values of others. You don't need to fix them, they just stand out to you. Okay, there's the driver there. And um I understand that. So this person's in an achievement value mode. That's okay. That's gonna that's gonna work fine. I understand. So that then there's there's tension between people, between teams, between current reality and a future. There's a tension, and under that is a creative tension. It looks like conflict, but it's not. It's actually people just not using the right words, and they're trying to describe something they can't articulate. And if we look at it that way, we stand back as a floodlight and we say, right, what might be driving this? What's my next decision? How can I impact the real creative tension under this? That's sustained performance. It isn't drama, conflict, battles. It's uh, but it starts at value. The value is clarity. So the work I do, it's uh it's a survey I use, and there's 128 values, and and um, and then you come down to probably your top five, and um some are called foundation values, which have to be fed, so they'll always get your attention. For me, it's family, so they'll always get your attention. If I'm making work decisions and I've forgotten to talk to my family about it, and here I go on another trip, another, and I for I can feel the tension, I can feel this rubber band pulling me back. Others don't have that, they've got a different set of foundation values, maybe security. Um once we understand that, we know what to feed. And then the next set of values are your focus, which is really deep inside you. That's kind of your soul, it's it's what you're here for, and it's the stuff you're looking to express and support people with and influence, and everybody's got focus values. When we're clear on our own, we see those around us, we see the team. When the vision and mission are written on the wall, we see how we connect to that because how we live them is important, you know. So there was a comparison of the mafia and Gandhi, and they both had family as the first value, as their priority value. So it doesn't really matter what it is, it's how you live it. So do you recognize that and do you live it? So the best teams, so for instance, the all blacks, all about values, and and there are great teams in Aussie, great teams all over the world where you know, okay, we're at a deeper level here, and it is usually values that they know what drives them, and they're not all exactly the same. They recognize what's driving me as an individual is different to you, but together we're in the same boat, and we're traveling this way together, and um, and and and I'm gonna have my values fed as we go as we go forward. So uh so that's empowering as well. So values for anybody out there. Um there's a lot of uh there's a lot of free um surveys and things on values. It means you don't have the connection to somebody to walk you through that, but still it's a start. There's so much good stuff on the internet. I to I use one um uh one survey approach that have uh um that has worked for me for years. So I've kind of got this pattern of what it looks like um and how to discuss it, then what people do with it when they finish. So but on your question there, values are key, and there's a lot that people can find just online.

And you know, I think it also makes hiring decisions very easy. I was talking to one of our most successful clients recently who's just decided that he is going to go all in on building out his own training because it's more important that they hire for character and values and fit, and then he can train people how to do the job the way they do it, um, rather than hiring very experienced people, which he's done for a long time, who come in and they're just not a they're not a cultural fit, they don't have a a shared set of values, and within two or three months they're they're either fired or they're resigning, they're leaving because they know that they're on the wrong bus. So it makes hiring a lot easier. We do this a lot here. We explore the values a lot. We're about to do it again next week. We're having an all-hands meeting where we're exploring um you know what it looks like for the next 12 months for us here because our team has changed a bit. Um, I've I I avoided these exercises for years because I thought they were a bunch of corporate woo-woo. But I hand on heart now will say if I was starting a new business from scratch now, the first thing I would do is articulate why are we here, what do we believe, what value do we bring, what's important to us, who do we serve, how do we help them? And if you can if we can't if you can't answer those questions, let's not build any products because you're gonna have to answer those questions at some point. Otherwise, you're gonna end up in messy land. And so you may as well answer those questions from day one. It makes everything a lot easier. Hey, this has been a super interesting conversation. I'm so glad Holly and Anna suggested you come on the show. Thank you so much for joining us on the agency hour. And uh, where can people get in touch and learn more about you and reach out?

Uh so there's a a website, RichardNYoung.com, uh, or simplify2 number twoperform.com. So uh so there's a lot of uh free papers that are right on there plus information about the programs.

Perfect. Love it. I I love the Simplifier to Perform uh website. I've been on it yesterday, I'm looking at it right now. It looks great, it's very clean, it's very easy to use, and also I love the simplify to perform name. It's funny, you know, because we're we're just launching a um a new uh campaign called the Simplified Agency, which is very much about just, you know, stop doing all the stuff that you've been doing that's not adding value that you think is adding value and just dial in the 20% that actually moves the needle and just gradually cut the rest. It's a big mindset shift for people. It's very challenging, it does take time. Uh, but off the back of you know what I've learned from Greg McEwan and James Clear and conversations like this, slow down in order to speed up, strategic subtraction. I love it. Thank you so much for joining us on the Agency Hour.

Right on. That idea sounds like a winner, Troy. You're on to something there. Yeah.

Good luck.

Thanks, Richard. Yeah, thanks very much. Great, uh, great to see you and uh love your work.

Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour Podcast and a massive thanks to Richard Young. That was a super interesting conversation, and I could just sit here for weeks and pick your brain and unpack your experience. Special thanks to E2M Solutions for becoming the exclusive sponsor of the Agency Hour Podcast. Please visit e2msolutions.com slash agency-mavericks. Let them know you came from us so they can help you out if you need to boost your bandwidth and capacity so you can serve more clients and increase your recurring revenue. And I believe if you join up at that link, you will get uh a bit of a discount off your first month. Okay, folks, don't forget to subscribe and please share this with anyone who you think may need to hear it. Are you currently on the verge of burnout due to managing your day-to-day? Do you want to increase your recurring revenue without having to deliver more services to your clients? Well, maybe we ought to talk. I guarantee you are sitting on your agency's most valuable asset and you're just not getting paid for it. If you'd like to know how this works, click the link near this episode. Book a time to have a quick chat with our team. We'll have a very short chat to see if we can actually help you. And if we can, we'll explain the next steps. Now, you should know that this is not for everyone, and unfortunately, we are very particular about who we work with because we only want to work with clients where we know we can hit a home run. So chances are we won't be able to work with you. I'm I'm sorry that that's just the reality. So if you do book a time to chat with our team, please know this is not a sales call. It's just a very quick chat to see if we can actually help you. If we can't, we'll explain why, and hopefully we'll point you in the right direction and we'll part ways as friends. If we can, we'll explain the next steps. So click the link and let's get to work.