The Art of Reinvention: How to Stay Future-Relevant Before You're Forced To with Piers Fallowfield-Cooper.

“Reinvention isn’t a reaction — it’s a practice. You get ahead by reading the signals in your system before disruption arrives.” Piers Fallowfield-Cooper.

Have you ever felt a subtle tug — a whisper from within — telling you that something needs to change? Maybe your current path no longer fits. Maybe you're not stuck, but you’re not evolving either. In this episode, I sit down with Piers Fallowfield-Cooper to unpack how reinvention isn't something we reserve for crises — it's a skill we should practice regularly, long before we need it.

Piers is someone who’s led from the boardroom to the coaching chair. From navigating London’s financial markets to co-founding global ventures and now helping leaders unlock clarity through his coaching, Piers’ journey is built on listening — not just to others, but to the quiet inner cues that guide us toward growth. He’s also the author of Are You Still the Future?, a book that challenges us to evolve before we’re forced to.

Together, we discuss how to read those internal signals, the difference between goal-setting and directionality, and why flexibility — not perfection — is the real key to resilience. Whether you're feeling restless in your current role or just craving something more, this conversation might just be the invitation to your next chapter.

Piers Fallowfield-Cooper is a former financial executive turned coach, mentor, and author of Are You Still the Future?. With decades of leadership experience across global markets, he now helps high-level professionals and executives lead intuitively, make meaningful pivots, and stay future-relevant through personal alignment and conscious reinvention.

 Key Takeaways:

• Reinvention is proactive: Don’t wait for crisis — learn to listen for subtle emotional or physical signals that it’s time to pivot.
• Directionality vs. rigid goals: Focus on intentional movement and flexibility rather than fixed endpoints.
• Emotional intelligence starts in the body: Being attuned to how you physically feel can offer early guidance for decision-making.
• Sacred listening builds trust: Coaching is not about fixing — it's about creating space for people to hear themselves.
• Future-ready leaders invest in creativity and relationships: As AI becomes more prominent, the human edge will be in our adaptability, empathy, and ability to build trust.
• Know when good enough is enough: Successful executives know what requires perfection and what simply needs to move forward.
• Choose battles wisely: Don’t spend energy on skirmishes — reserve your effort for what truly matters.

If something in this episode sparked a thought or unearthed a whisper you've been ignoring, take a moment to sit with it. Share this episode with someone navigating a transition, and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future conversations that help you lead, grow, and evolve — from the inside out.

Chapters

• 0:08 Introduction to Perpetual Reinvention
• 2:16 Meet Piers Falafield-Cooper
• 2:32 The Journey of Self-Discovery
• 5:17 Insights from "Are You Still the Future?"
• 9:59 Listening to Your Whispers
• 26:43 The Art of Active Listening
• 29:10 Embracing Directionality Over Goals
• 37:42 The Future of Human Connection
• 40:19 Traits of Resilient Leaders
• 47:17 Learning from Others
• 51:46 Conclusion: The Essence of Reinvention

Transcript

Speaker: 0:04

This is It's an Inside Job, and I'm your host, Jason Lim. This is the show where we explore the stories, strategies, and science behind growing resilience, nurturing well-being, and leading with intent. Because when it comes down to it, it's all an inside job. Welcome back, and thank you for joining me for a fresh new week. Let me prime this episode in your minds by asking you a couple of questions. What if the biggest threat to your success isn't failure but staying the same? What if reinvention isn't something we do when we're forced to, but something we should practice long before we have to do it? In essence, it's digging the well before we're thirsty. So in today's episode, we are going to dive deep into the art of perpetual reinvention. And we're going to get into the mindset of lifelong growth, intuitive leadership, and purposeful reinvention with someone who's made it his mission to lead from the inside out. That's Pierce Fallefield Cooper. Now, Pierce began in London's financial markets, led global business expansions, co-founded a mobile payments company, and chaired international boards. But what he's doing now as a coach, as a mentor, and as an author? Well, I think that is his most impactful work yet. So in today's conversation, we are going to distill some of the key lessons and insights from his recently launched book, Are You Still the Future? For example, we talk about the directionality mindset, which is a flexible alternative to goal setting that keeps you open to serendipity while still moving forward. We talk about how to hear and trust those subtle signals from your body and emotions that tell you when it's time to change course, it's time to pivot. And maybe right now, dear listener, you're somewhere in your career where you're thinking, okay, this chapter's coming to an end. There's that subtle signal in you. It's saying, you know, it's time to write that next chapter. But you just don't know really what to do. What's the next move? What's the next step? What's the next chapter? And so I think my conversation with peers may create that next stepping stone that'll help you find the direction that you're looking for. So without further ado, let's slip into the stream and meet Piers Falafield-Cooper. I'd like to welcome everyone back to the show. Piers, welcome Thank you very much Could you take a moment to introduce yourself and briefly what you do? I suspect at some level we're all afraid of being unmasked. And that question is both a casual introductory question and quite a profound question. Because what are we going to say to someone or a group of people, your listeners, who we are or what we want to say about ourselves? And one of the things just to sidetrack slightly, and Jason, as you know, I'm moderately dyslexic. So I run off in lots of directions if I run too far would you like to rescue me you and the listeners please so um I think uh people never think about seldom think about as my bias showing seldom think about um what they want to say when they're asked I guess the most important thing for me is, so let's start. My name is Piers. I'm very content and very happy. I find even in this turbulent world in which we're living, I find plenty of joy and pleasure every day. I had a very successful business career, which I was never expecting to have, but I'm not very ambitious. I'm very competitive, but I'm not very ambitious. For the last 20 years, I've worked with, we sold a business, and I was too young and not rich enough to retire. And so I asked myself the what's next question. And I based it on what did I love doing? Because I fundamentally believe we should be focusing on what's working, what we enjoy, what we love, because I think it's just so much more satisfying. And so I asked myself what I love doing. And there were three things I loved doing in the business. I loved working with my cleverest clients, the BPs, the Morgan standings, the Citibanks. I loved being captain of the ship, CEO, make things happen. I loved growing my top team. And each of them had a different kind of energy. One was very cerebral. One was very in charge. But the third one was from the heart. I thought, it's something around there. And so I became, through a couple of little twists, a coach, mentor, and facilitator. And because of my business experience, I was fortunate that I could work at fairly senior levels in business. So for the last 20 years, I've done that. And so today on the podcast, you're showing up as an author and you've authored the book, Are You Still the Future? Maybe we could start there because i i found it a very interesting read especially how you broke it down uh the the way the book is sectioned was there a personal moment when you realized that the question also applied to you yes and curiously uh i hadn't realized the significance of writing the book um quite why not i don't know you know you just said i'm gonna write a book There must be a reason for it. And I hadn't realised it was really a bookend to a career. And it was a desire to share a lot of knowledge and a lot of learning. I went to the same school as David Bowie. And I didn't know him because he was older than I was. But a few people I know knew him and had kept in touch with him. The thing about David was that he'd always reinvented himself before he needed to. And I think this is a fundamental learning about life, career. Yeah. I think we should be ahead of it. We should be ahead of it. We should be reading the signals in the system and paying attention. So we shouldn't be overly surprised when things happen. Of course, things happen all over. You know, you get things happen. But we shouldn't in our general career, in our general life, we shouldn't be over surprised if we're reading the signals in the system because we should be paying attention about how we feel, how we turn up. When I read the book, it almost seems like, as you said, it's a book that you wrote at the end of your current career, if I can just articulate such. But it also sounds like it was written to your younger self, that it was a message from now to the past. To the extent you'd like to share, what is that message? You've touched on it a little in your previous answer, but I was wondering what is that message? Or if it's a message to a younger person right now coming into the game, what would be the couple of top messages you'd want them to take away? Or even your younger self to take away? Beautiful question, Chetan, beautiful. Number one, if you don't fight with it, it kind of works out all right. If you turn up and you be present and you are engaged and you contribute, you see, I'm showing all my biases now. It kind of works out. I think it was Schaffenhaus that said, if you look back at the end of your life, doors will have opened and closed at the right time and people will have turned up at all the right time. And they did. and things at the time that seemed disappointing or troubling or not what I wanted turned out because of the move after or the thing after to be exactly perfect. Now, of course, I'm doing this looking backwards, so I'm just gently moving the pieces so they all fit perfectly. At the time, it didn't feel like that, you know, because things do happen. But i i think there there is a there's something quite eloquent and deep in what you've said you know i'm clocking in my late 50s now and when i look back and i see all the tribulations and the the challenges and the complexities that i have moved through in my crazy career to where i'm sitting right now there is a sense even even those good things that happen obviously they opened doors and they opened whole new universes to me but also those challenges and those complexities those tough parts of my life if i at the time if i could wish them away i would have but i didn't and i couldn't it was there front and center and uninvited on my doorstep peers but what i found in retrospect in hindsight with the wisdom of the present looking into the past that those were fortunate things that happened to me because they they taught a side of myself that it wouldn't have showed up if i was not presented with those conundrums i you know. Curl young said only the wounded physician can heal and i think unless we've had some of the as Shakespeare would say slings and arrows of misfortune you know um unless we've had some of that I'm not sure we can really have true empathy connect with people you know if everything has just always been perfect and it's been a a lovely um mid-50s Disney musical or something and with other ice creams if if that's your own your only experience of life trying to connect with somebody who's going through incredible pain or trouble, it's going to be very hard. And so in part of your book, you talk about, I think the term was whispers, listening to the whispers in your own body. I mean, can you share a time or an experience where you ignored that little voice, that little signal and that noise that cost you either personally or even professionally? So even today, even today, I ignore it sometimes. Um i think the floor is that um our whispers our intuition call it what you will um we seldom get a positive feedback loop um we seldom get wow that was a good decision because say for example i remember driving to work um for some reason i'd ended up coming up to the roundabout my american friend calls it a suicide circle i think they started to get a few in other places but we know how to do it we don't need we don't know how to do four-way stops i mean that but we do know how to do suicide of course so coming up to i'm in the wrong lane and i want to go right. And you know i had to force myself over and get honked up to get there um and i kept thinking because i have two ways i could go i kept thinking oh should i go the other way today and i ignored all this stuff around the corner three mile trail back right just because i overrode the system now usually we don't get that because if we pay attention to it we don't see that and we don't know about it so the challenge is we don't get the feedback loops um specifically um i get a very slight, very slight tightening. Bottom of the stomach when things aren't quite right, and when that happens I just pay huge attention to it that is not a signal to override for me um uh, We, when I was running the business, we entered into a joint venture agreement and everything in my body was saying, don't do this. But my chairman was committed. He was committed because you could see the opportunity. And I could only sense this wrong person, wrong match and fit. And I allowed myself to be overruled. Um pay attention to it pay attention to those little whispers those those things say because you want to be able to to amplify the body knows if you pay attention to the body i was run over in a um on on the sidewalk years ago and so i'm i'm sort of bounding from the waist downwards. And not really just lots of metal in there and i get very stiff i'm a regular visit to an osteopath and a chiropractor and i'm in very good condition but when i'm working with the chiropractor and he's told me he said you're the only patient who when he says no we're not finished i pay a lot of attention to because i can tell because i'm very very attuned and so there'll be one more adjustment to make so if you start paying attention to your body it'll give you lots of information, now some of it will be biomechanical some of it will be i slept stiffly on my shoulder, but a lot of it will be there's something right or there's something not right you know and you can but you have you must have something to compare and contrast that with so you must have a this is good i feel great what's going on why do i feel not intellectually what i feel but why do i in my body feel good because you've got to have to compare and contrast, so the first thing i'd encourage anybody to do is is when they're feeling happy and have a great sense of freedom. What's going on in the body what's what what's what's the talk what's now i have a tune that pops up well i'm very very happy little tune pops up so i know i'm happy and then when i hear the tune i smile more and i'm even happier um so in a sense what i hear pierce is that you are sort of you you're you're hypersensitive to sort of this embodied cognition whether it's how you physiologically feel or physically feel about something or emotionally feel about something if it resonates if it sits well with you then you kind of tune into yourself you use to kind of stay in the moment are you more self-aware to ask yourself okay what is the narrative running through my head how do i am physiologically or physically feeling right now and you try to understand the reasoning behind the why yes very much because um. I truly believe the secret of happiness in life is to find what works and keep doing more of it so you actually need to find out what it is so is it is it with your family is it time is it friends is it out and about is it nature is it intellectual stimulation obviously a combination but what is it that makes that combination for you and makes it successful when do you get on well with your boss you know what what are the things that you're doing that make this relationship work most people. Most people only get disappointed when it's not working as well as they hope it is, rather than thinking, hmm, this is interesting. I've always been someone to ask. I've been a perpetual asker, and the asker is, first thing I'd ever ask a boss as a youngster was, how do you like your information? People sort of look at you. I say, you know, are you a novel? It was a dark and stormy night. Or are you a newspaper? We've got a big problem um because some people so the person who's most flexible will take over the system a law of requisite variety the person a species animal whatever who is the most flexible will take over the system so have you ever tried to grow roses jason or uh no generally normal houseplants i guess you know people who do grow roses i mean this turns into a life's work oh the roses need to be facing a particular direction not too much rain not too dry you have to spray them for green fly and white fly and it goes on forever we have a plant in the uk called the buddlia plant which looks a little bit like a lilac but it'll grow anywhere give it three grains of sand in a corner of a railway bridge and it's up chop it down it gets stronger sounds like dandelions there you go which one's going to take over the planet it's not going to be the roses oh no i don't really like here i'm not going to bloom here flexibility doesn't mean rolling over flexibility means bobbing and weaving and moving and being past the flow and not getting in the way and flexibility means asking the question is it a battle or is it a skirmish. If it's a skirmish, let it go. Just let it go. Don't use any points. Don't use any energy up on it. Don't use any points up. If it's a battle, you're going to have to stand your ground. And if you're someone like me who doesn't really enjoy the brutality of these kind of things, you know, you're going to have to do it. You're just going to have to do it and stand up to it and just keep saying no. But choose your battles well. Let the skirmishes go. So coming back to the whispers, so you've coached many top clients. And in your book you talk about the alignment between the brain gut and the narrative the story that we tell ourselves in our brain how do you help someone recognize this alignment when you're coaching someone are there some tips you can give to our listeners so they can when they're doing the inner work when they're doing an inside job you know how do you help people recognize this alignment i've been thinking a lot about this recently for a start i think the work i think of the work is different differently differently to the way that some people think about the work so i think about the work as being i'm going to use a very particular word now and it's a very deliberate choice of word i believe the work is sacred because i believe that someone and you will you will understand our listeners may not quite so much but you will understand that you are. Invited in to a very particular place with huge levels of trust and it carries a lot of responsibility with it. And I believe it's the responsibility to hold the space for the client until the client can hold the space for themselves. So what does that mean? So first of all, you want to be offering the client something more attractive than that which they already have. Because you want, whether it's a calm environment or whether it's clarity of thought, whether it's for good listeners, it doesn't matter what it is. But you've got to offer them something which is better, more interesting, bigger or finer or whatever it is than they've got. Because that's the only thing that actually their system will pay attention to. You have to actually be attractive and what you're offering has to be attractive. So, at the simplest level, that could be truly listening with care and respect. So, when I work with my clients, I take them, depending on the size and complexity, I take them off-site to begin the assignment for a day, perhaps two days. Persuading them that they should do this is incredibly difficult. What are we going to talk about? What are we going to do? I say, don't worry. The end of it, you can't, no, no, it's time for you to go home now. No, no, it's time for you to go home. No, we're not going to do any more. You've done enough. Go home. Probably the first time in 30 years that someone sat with them and truly listened to them. And after the people who are doing this work, do not underestimate the simple power of listening to somebody, without worrying about what you're going to say or how you're going to reply. Every now and again, when I've profoundly listened and then the client is waiting for you to say something, I've had to say, thank you for telling me, well, at the moment, I have no words. Could I have a moment? Because if you truly switch it off, you won't be ready to respond because you truly are and listening is not a passive act listening is an active act and the only tip i would give and i know this sounds counterintuitive. Try not to listen to every word, Because when we become very active in our listening, we can listen for every single word. And it becomes too digital and we're parsing for particular information. Try and listen to the general hmm. Because when you listen that way, suddenly the clown will say hmm. My father, boom. Okay, what's this about? Yeah, because you'll hear it with a great intensity. And then you can. That's interesting. And whether they use the word often also using the power of the client's language back to them in not some repetitive way or silly repetition. But if the client talks about his father, talk about father, not dad. Dad might be your language, but it's not his or her language that they just used. Because that means they don't have to process what you've said into their word. And the thing that I've found clients mad, which I never do, I did when I started, but I never do now, is what I think I'm hearing you say. You know, that's your stuff. That's not their stuff. The client doesn't want or need to know what you think they've just said. They know what they've said. it might not make any sense and we can spend time unpacking that can you explain that to me more but so many people go in, back to the flexibility if you're flexible you are what the client needs at the moment. Your own stuff going on and by the way if you find you have too much going on I've always found, pushing the balls of my feet on the floor and just saying, I'm here right now, is quite gathering with a breath. I'm here right now. It just gives you a moment just to gather and settle. So when you're helping a client find the alignment between brain, gut, and narrative, one of the major skills you do is to actively listen. And for me, that's not a soft skill. That's one of the hardest skills to learn is to truly be present by shutting off the narrative in your own head or interpreting what the other person is saying. Because in my training, and this is back in my clinical days, which I use now in my corporate days in my things it's much along the lines of what you said pierce what i what i hear is to i want the person to feel heard understood and it's very important that their emotions or their thinking whatever is validated i may not agree with it but that doesn't matter if i agree with it or not and then once once they're there you can see in their mannerisms in their body language when they feel those three elements they feel settled you see this sort of this calm come over them and and maybe like a client you take them off site for a day or two and maybe for the first for in 30 years is the first time someone's truly listened to their their narrative what have you but i find that you listening like that that can help them bring alignment because it allows them to talk logically sort of from the brain the sort of the what they're cognizant of the gut you know what they feeling about something and then the narrative of what's going on that may be the connective tissue that pulls it all together and i think what's very important what you said is it's driving those thoughts those insights into some sort of level of action so we we engage on the inside so what do you think you're going to do with this pierce or at least that's what I'm hearing. How you help people to recognize alignment. Have I kind of caught the essence of what you've said? Absolutely. Absolutely. Pierce said his motivation for writing, Are You Still the Future? Well, it stems from a desire to pass on what he has learned, a theme inspired by David Bowie's ethos of proactive reinvention. The core message? Don't wait until circumstance forces you to adapt. Get ahead of the curve. A central thread throughout our discussion has been the importance of listening to life's subtle signals. Piers emphasized the value of tuning into how you feel, how you show up, and what your intuition is telling you before the noise of disruption hits. In hindsight, he's found that many of life's disappointments were actually redirections. He encourages us to treat these quiet internal whispers as a form of early guidance, especially when we're trying to find our way through the fog of uncertainty. Pierce also offers strategies rooted in adaptability and self-awareness. He emphasizes being emotionally attuned to what energizes or depletes you and choosing flexibility over rigidity. Success, he argues, comes not from sticking to a fixed plan, but from responding widely to what life presents. He advises conserving energy by letting go of unnecessary skirmishes and choosing our battles and to focus on what truly matters. We also talked about his coaching philosophy, where the core of one of the skills he uses is active non-judgmental listening, where he creates space for clients to explore their internal landscape, and he encourages them to articulate their challenges in their own words. Now, this deep listening fosters alignment between their thoughts, gut instincts, and their own personal narratives, which unlocks clarity and actual insights. But we can also turn this listening device onto ourselves and pick out those subtle signals. Listen to those emotions when we're feeling a little bored or a routine. But it's not just a little blip that comes up every now and then. It seems to be a consistent signal. And if we sit with ourselves and truly listen, we'll be able to parse the signal from the noise. And to understand that maybe it's time to write the next chapter. Well let's slip back into the stream with Piers Falafield Cooper. And for a very particular reason, I wrote an article recently about it. I think there's grave risk in goal setting of missing the bigger picture and the bigger opportunity. So let's say we have young visitors coming over and we decide we're going to take them to the zoo. And we've got a list of animals. We're going to go and see the lions, the tigers, the elephants. And we go in there and we take them all off and we come home happy after that we found that that was the only day of the year that were going to be four giant pandas in one place at the same time anywhere in the world ever so it would have been better to have what i call directionality, we're going to zoom we're going to find some interesting animals so when we arrive we find the zookeeper or whatever the modern equivalent is and we say good morning mr zookeeper i have two young animal enthusiasts here could you have any recommendations what what we should see. Well you are so lucky today uniquely we have four giant pandas now you're very lucky as well because you come here nice and early they're going to be fed in about 10 minutes so if you walk up the top the hill you'll see the ball so it's much more important to get the directionality right and then deal with what comes up and make small adjustments you know the challenge with goal setting is you get your goals and their goals are set from now with only the imagination you have now without anything new and interesting and extra you know so so yes get the client take some action but get the client of course there's things they might have to do i'm not saying never set a goal but for what we want to do what we want the client do we want the directionality, So if the person you're working with, the client you're working with, is –. Forever busy with lots of stuff, then we could do all sorts of goals and things about how he's going to change. Good luck with that. So we've got to put something more compelling and more interesting. So in a few years' time, what's the kind of size and shape of the business and how do you think your role will evolve and what do you think the team will be like and what are the changes you're going to make? And start just moving them along that way. And they'll come back to you in a week, a couple of people say, do you know what I've been thinking about? They'll say, I've been thinking about this. As if this is some wonderful new thing they've just invented, thinking about it. Oh, I've been thinking about this. I think, don't, and then we're off. I wanted to come back to making someone or helping someone to stay future relevant. In your book, you talked about two skills, adoptable and adaptable. I was wondering what these two traits mean for leadership as you see it currently in 2025. I always thought about adaptable and adoptable earlier on in Korea, because that's when there's usually people tracking for young talent. And I think that they're absolute prerequisites for there. As you move on. I would be... I'd be running with the adaptable because the adaptable is another interpretation of the flexibility. I think it's also about relevance. And this is back to the title of the book, Are You Still in the Future? We're living in a very changing world. and that which is going to be valued in the future is not necessarily that which is valued now or in the past. So for many people, they're going to end up going head to head with large language models chat GPT and things, so you know they're going to go head to head with with the ultimate predictive text, so you're never going to beat it it's always going to be able to do that stuff better quicker faster than you can just the simple nature of it so i would be asking the question about, which part of your skills and your experience is where you are most creative, most thoughtful, most idea combining. And I would be spending all my time ramping those up. Generally people who are often in creative industries. Live in quite an unpredictable world. You know, it can often be feast or famine. You know, your pictures are in favour or they're not in favour. Think how many French impressionists had to swap now priceless canvases for their dinner and things, you know. So creative, artistic people, often their journey is quite rocky. So they have an ability to deal with that unpredictability better and somehow continue to produce beautiful work. So I would be paying a lot of attention to the creative sides of your career and the creative opportunities within your industry or business. And I'd be focusing on them. And I would start to redefine both to the outside world and to myself and my inner talk the description of. Of your job, not so much as the title of the job, but more a description of the interesting things you do within it. Does that make sense? Yes, yes, yes. Because when I was reading, you know, that part of the book, I'm just reading from my notes, you know, I was kind of, it kind of kicked off some thoughts. For adaptable, for me, it means to be able to constantly evolve to the situation. And we talk about learning mindset a lot, but I think it's about having, putting on the mindset of exploring and discovering and thinking of the different ways that I can adapt my particular skills, understanding that machine learning is coming, AI is coming, AR, VR, and these things within, you know, 24 months are going to far out surpass any human capacity to think. But the question is, it doesn't replace us per se, but it's about adapting it as we would any tool because you know a hammer is going to be better at driving a nail than my clenched fist right it's it's how to do that and adopt for me when i was taking notes reading that section of your book here's adopting is you know sometimes looking sideways looking outside of my particular. Wheelhouse per se and looking at other disciplines other schools of thought that i can borrow and take from right i mean we look at sometimes biomimicry the science of biomimicry and how we can use nature to improve engineering in different ways why reinvent it when nature's used millions of years to refine through natural selection a certain adaptability a certain skill a certain skin a claw whatever that we can just oh there it is and take that engineering and and placed it to ourselves. So for me, that is something that kind of, that's what I pulled from what you were writing, sort of using adaptable and adoptable. And I think there are two skill sets and we can broaden that term depending on the discipline someone's in to enhance us or make us future ready per se. And to add in, remember the one thing that, this coming future will not be doing, and that is it will not be building relationships. So it won't be doing human things. It might mimic human things, but it won't be doing human things. So start thinking about your relationships. Start thinking about how much time you invest in your relationships. Anybody who's ever been in sales or that part of the world, they know that you have to keep your relationships alive you can't not speak to somebody for six months and then when you make the call you want something you know hi hi jason you popped into my mind today and i just wondered if you'd like to buy you know so so so talk think about your relationships think so think about your connections within within the system because that that will not be that will not be taken away i think machines are better at being machines i think us humans have to be better at being human or doing the human thing you know whether it's communication collaboration uh cooperation i don't know creativity you know curiosity all these elements that make us truly who we are these are things we need to even enhance more again that's just my two cents but i think we have to be better at being human you know in that connection because we can't just rely on machines anymore because the machines won't be relying on us too much and interestingly on that um i read somewhere that the patients have the highest trust in the recommended course of action if some kind of, um Analysis diagnostics etc has been done by an quote-unquote infallible technical source but the results and recommendation are interpreted by a human uh that that's when people have the greatest confidence oh here's all the tests that the doctor said you know um so there's always going to be a joke for the humans just just to pay some attention i agree i agree now you you've coached a number of executives. And again, I like to pose this question in the framework of culture and resilience. What traits do you see that consistently come up with these clients that where these executives or these professionals remain grounded, they're able to evolve or as you said, be flexible and to be emotionally resilient? Are there certain characteristic traits that you've seen consistently yes uh so one key one these are no particular order no one key one is uh. Knowing when it has to be perfect or good enough is okay so this one i recognize myself so i've i ran a regulated business so most things as long as it was good enough that's okay, but my report the regulator had to be perfect so that's the first thing that they tend to do they tend to work out because these things tend to require a different amount of energy effort time and put in so work out which things are the ones that have to be absolutely perfect and which one's good enough is okay. The second thing they do is they tend to spend a lot of time getting the right team in place. And be willing, particularly when they move in, because I've worked through several clients through multiple companies I've worked in, be willing to take the short-term difficulty disruption to get the right team in place and really have a team and invest in it. The best are also very good delegators who offer high levels of autonomy but of course you only do that if you've got the right team in place. They tend to focus in on who the they tend to be very very careful about understanding they can't be everything to everybody all the time. So they understand who the key stakeholders are and when they're going through time and care. And the best of them, they will start by believing that if they work incredibly long hours, they'll get it all done. And then at a certain point, they'll work out they can't. And then that's the point they really start, that's the point they really start to win. Which is they are willing to simply let things go. What do you mean by that? By trusting in the competence and knowledge and experience of their team that they will do the job? Plus the system. Yes. So you set it up so that then the other thing they do, because then it will work. The other thing they do, and this is quite interesting. They tend to treat themselves quite well. Uh in that uh particularly after and i don't mean this in any arrogant sense but after they work with me they tend to be paying more attention to what they're eating they tend to get back on their exercise routine whatever that is even if it's just a nice walk or whatever um i always actively act incredibly actively particularly the the younger senior execs who are really hungry for the future are they're willing to stay late you know every every night of the week and i always encourage them to have a going home early night midweek you know sit around the table family together because then they've done it the weekend if they've only missed monday tuesday they've done it again wednesday thursday friday daddy's back home because children particularly younger children would much rather have daddy there once a week or mummy fully present rather than them there three or four nights a week but they're not there because they're actually on their phone or I've got to go and do some work and I heard a very senior he wasn't a client but I heard him speak. And he was a former CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi it was a small group and he at the time he was spending two weeks a month in london a week in new york and a week back home in new zealand with his family and he also was a dean of a university there my little hand goes up so how would you do that he said well first of all i take out um half the meetings that are put in which half, you never know but the important ones get put back in so don't worry about it, and his other mantra was only do the things that only he could do. So after this roundtable he was talking at, he was flying to Japan to see the chairman of Toyota. So he was the only person who could do that meeting. So start asking, it's back to that good enough or perfect. You know, it ties in with good enough or perfect. Which are the meetings, which are the things that only I can do? And start paying attention to that. You know, just to kind of riff on what you said, those that I see that are able to buffer more storms is that they sometimes learn the dire lessons of what other people have learned themselves. You know, some people, they can learn from the mistakes or the failings of others. You don't have to go through hell and back. You don't have to go through the gauntlet yourself to pick up the major lessons. Of course, the experience, a raw and unfiltered experience will be the best teacher ever, but sometimes we don't have to go through the entire gauntlet or the storm all the time. But if we can learn from the wisdom of others and we can apply it in small cases that are not so extreme and we can apply those lessons, then we can get some sort of feedback loops. Back to the feedback loops you were talking at the beginning of this conversation, Piers, and I find that is what has made a lot of the clients I work with very resilient by learning the lessons of others without having to go through the extremes themselves all the time. I'm going to say a little odd thing, and it's almost back to the beginning of our conversation. Speaking to my younger self I would have encouraged him. Because he was good at tracking the signals in the system, he was really good because a combination of reasonably intuitive plus moderate dyslexia means that you tend to be a systemic thinker because you're filling in the missing bits initially consciously and then afterwards just automatically. But I would have, Asked more people, I've noticed you're really good at, how do you do that? Which I would now. I was at a lovely restaurant, I mean, beautiful restaurant, and the waiter who was looking after us was Italian and stylish. He was clearing the table and taking the plates and we'd done the little dusting of the crumbs. And he did this beautiful thing with the salt and the pepper and things. And I said, I don't know if you know, when we start, I just noticed the way you did that. And I said, I don't know if you know, but when we start learning things, you know, initially, we just don't know how to do it. Then we know there's this thing that looks like magic, like tying a tie or doing up shoelaces. And then we can kind of do it if we're very careful, sort of conscious competence, or we wrap that one over. And then we get to unconscious competence, we just do it. While also, you know, cleaning our teeth and all sorts of things at the same time. I said, I believe there's one more step off that, which is the aesthetic beauty. Where you know how to do it, but you do it with great beauty and aesthetic form. And I said, you've just done that. It was beautiful. And he looked at me and he just, whoomph, the colour shot up. And he momentarily was sort of like, just very slightly out of balance. And he said, oh, and I think he touched it. And he said, oh, thank you. And obviously, I just tapped into that thing. So I really would say whenever you see it beautifully done, whatever it is, comment on it. Ask about it. These flowers are beautiful. How do you do that? And keep the question really just wide open. And and i just wish i'd done i do it all the time now because i'm just fearless and wayward now um but uh then i was i was i was more reserved i'm very very introverted but i've got very good so i've now had very good learned social skills uh but yes ask ask people how do you do that how do you do that how do you make it work you know we are coming close to the hour and i'm respecting your hard stop i have one last question for you pierce your book it's been it is is sort of a it's a manual it's a memoir it's a reflection uh it's almost a mirror of your career so my question to you is this what do you hope a reader discovers let's say five years from now when they pick it up again and they reread the book during a different season of their life really interesting a family friend who's son of a family friend who is. Come 27 28 ish really wanted to copy my book and i gave him a copy of the book, and i didn't hear much more and then uh three months ago i'm i'm rereading your book i'm reading at the right time now i just kind of half read it before but now and i'm writing all over it i'm highlighting it and i can i can feel you across the table it's it's wonderful it's written to be fun to read, because it's light. At the end of each chapter, I had a lovely client who said, what we need, Piers, is Piers in my pocket. You can read it in multiple ways. You can read it as a nice, easy read. It's semi-autobiographical. You can read it almost like a manual. And if you read it with depth, it's going to ask you questions about the very essence of being human. So I would hope at different times you get different things out of it. So folks, I would highly recommend Are You Still the Future? Piers, I just wanted to thank you very much for your time today. Is there any last thoughts you'd like to leave with our listeners in our closing minutes? There is one. And the thought is the way we've had this conversation. Um you've been a wonderful interviewer um you've known when to speak and when to be quiet which in itself is a a great skill but we've had a true conversation so i would actively encourage your listeners to think about having really good conversations where i didn't once think what i need to say next because I was in the conversation so practice being in the conversation you know listening thinking replying being quiet again top tip generally when we ask a question we'll get better answers when we shut up after we've asked the question you know it's better that question question mark shut up because so often people want to answer their own question without giving the other person a chance to answer. So have a real conversation. Peter, it's been a blast and a very insightful conversation. So thank you very much for that. Jason, lovely. Thank you so much. If there's one message to take away from this conversation, it's this, that reinvention isn't a reaction. It's a practice. As Piers reminded us, staying future ready means listening closely to the signals, both internal and external, that tell us it's time to evolve, it's time to change, it's time to move on to the next chapter of our lives. If you're someone in the position right now who's trying to figure out the next step, well, it's about staying curious and adaptable. So if you find that this episode has kind of triggered that in you, that it's awoken something in you said, yeah, you know what that that's subtle signal or as Pierce calls it that internal whisper. It's not just a thing I hear every now and then, it's being quite consistent. Well, maybe take a time to stop up, listen to it, take some notes, find a sparring partner, a coach, someone you can talk to to figure it out. Because it's through those conversations where you are able to articulate those whispers into more tangible words that you may find direction, that you may find the next stepping stone that will lead to something great. Something where you will find growth and excitement and rekindle that passion. Well, I hope this episode has sparked some useful reflection in you. Maybe even surfaced a whisper you've been ignoring. And Piers, a big thank you for your generosity, sharing your ideas and your experience with us today. And folks, you can pick up his book, his new book, Are You Still the Future? And it's available in all formats. And if you enjoyed this episode or know someone who would benefit from this conversation, please share it with them. It really helps me spread the word of this podcast. Well, thank you for showing up for another week, and I will see you on Friday for Bite Size Fridays. And until then, keep well, keep strong, and we'll speak soon. Music.