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Welcome back to another episode here on The Daily Grind. Today, we are joined by entrepreneur Nick Jankel. Nick has worked with senior leaders from organizations like HSBC, Walgreens, Google, Nike, Walmart, and so many others. He's led systematic change programs with WWF and Oxfam.
He's worked with entrepreneurs and social innovators on four continents. He's lectured at world-class universities, including Yale, Oxford, Sciences Po, UCL, and London Business School. Nick also was recently chosen to host his own global BBC TV series as a transformational coach. Today's interview is absolutely amazing.
Be sure as always, you have a pen, piece of paper, sit back, and dive deep in today's interview with Nick Jankel. Enjoy. Nick Jankel, welcome to The Daily Grind, my friend. How are you?
I'm great. Very good. Thank you. Awesome, Nick.
For people being first introduced to Nick today, to yourself, if you wouldn't mind just kind of giving a brief little description as to who Nick is and what is it that you do. How long have you got? I'll give you the super brief version. I have been an entrepreneur since the age of 24 after studying medicine and then a brief stint in an ad agency.
And the entrepreneurializing I have been doing has been focused on brand, brand stuff, creativity, innovation, leadership, sustainability, coaching. That's the sort of journey. Yeah. So going back, say, to a 24-year-old self, what drew you into entrepreneurship?
Were your parents entrepreneurs? What kind of drew you into that world? No, I'd never been drawn into it at all, actually. That's nothing in my agenda.
I thought I was going to be a doctor. I went to medical school, on to be a psychiatrist. Long story short, I was in an ad agency working on some fabulous brands like PlayStation and Nike. And the internet was hitting.
It was 1999. And I actually read an online blog kind of thing. It was a manifesto called the Cluetrain Manifesto. It became quite a big thing.
But I remember reading this statement, which said markets, as in people, customers, consumers, are getting smarter faster than companies because of the internet. And I was like, wow, that really puts a doozy in the heart of the ad industry model. And I was just kind of excited by what digital meant and the concept of mass empowerment, mass democratization, mass freedom. And I just very quickly, with a couple of other people, ended up starting a business to help tech companies sort of grow and scale with creativity and brand strategy.
Interesting. When you started the company, did you do it kind of like as a side hustle when you were working in the ad agency? Or is it something where you had the idea, you left the ad agency and kind of started it from there? A kind of hybrid of the two, actually, because we managed to persuade the ad agency that this was the most important thing that they should fund, which didn't actually fund with any money.
But they did say, take a couple of old computers, and there's this bit of office space that we're not using. And it took a stake in us at the beginning. So I wouldn't say they backed us, but they allowed a graceful exit. And then after a while, we ended up renegotiating and becoming fully independent.
Interesting. What kind of work were you doing in the ad agency early on? I was a strategist, a creative strategist. So understanding customers, user experience, hearts and minds.
My whole area has always been psychiatry, psychology, you know, where you go, you know, kind of the mind. So you've got a strategist has to understand where the audience is, where people are going, customers, consumers, and then try to create a strategy that connects the brand or the product to those people. Gotcha. So you start your business at 24 years old.
How long did it take for things to really pick up? So I'll preface that with like, how long did it take for you to realize, like, look at your partners and realize like, wow, we got something here. Very quick because it was in a massive growth economy where people were just throwing around cash and opportunity and people weren't that risk averse. And so within weeks, we had clients within a year, we had a bit of stability and a first employee.
We grew to a considerable number of people headcount wise. We had a very bumpy ride in 2001 when the dot com bubble burst and things got real. And that was actually when we really had to be entrepreneurs. Relatively easy to make money in a growth economy.
In fact, we saw a movie recently, a new movie came out and it's set in, I think, the 80s and the Wall Street in the 80s. And this older guy who's presumably seen booms and busts for 30 years goes, you know, the test of a businessman is not when times are good. The test is when times get tough and things get tight. Can you knuckle down and nail the detail and the basics of what you offer the world?
And that was a big, a rude awakening. I think 25, 26. And I got very serious. I hadn't been that.
It's been all fun and fun and games, dot com, fun and games up to then. And then, you know, we had staff, we had responsibilities and not very serious during those times. Maybe what was the biggest thing you learned? And was there someone there that you leaned on for advice during those times or was something that you just kind of learned yourself through doing the motions?
I had a business partner and him and I were really tight. And we also had a coach, an entrepreneurial coach. One of the reasons I got into coaching is because it was elemental to our success. We both had him independently and together.
So with the coach and with each other, we we we had what we needed, you know, in order to find the resources within. And that's what it taught me, really, is that in the tough times, you've only got yourself and your team, your people. And you just have to go dig. You have to dig deeper.
You just have to find something else inside or you give up, you go home, you go big or you go home. I mean, it's just that clear. There's nothing that big, by the way. It's just you either go home or you keep going.
And if you keep going, you have to find something to get through. We innovated. We invented a whole new product category. We were on the phones three times a day.
We're meeting to hustle customers over the line. And, you know, we found what we needed within. What was it like for you as a 25 year old who, you know, you built this business up? You have people.
You've kind of transformed yourself from someone who's doing kind of the day to day. Now you're the leader. Now you've got to become this leader. What was that transition like for you?
Painful because I'd never had any leadership experience. I'd never had any leadership training and I'd never had a leader to mentor me or look up to. So it was a rude awakening, actually. And I had to grow up.
I probably got a bit too serious at one point. You know, I was like the world, the world on my shoulders in my mid to late 20s. You know, I stopped partying and going out because I was working 12 hour days to hustle this company. So when I exited the business in my late 20s, I had to sort of re-find myself a bit, but which also tied in with me finding a purpose and then building more purpose driven businesses since then.
Interesting. So walk through that process of, you know, late 20s. You exit that business. You're kind of in limbo.
Walk through what kind of changed or clicked in your mind, which kind of led to more of what you're doing now. So the first thing was getting really serious about myself. And so in my late 20s, 29, 30, at the end of the business cycle, I hit a burnout moment. I was just exhausted.
I'd run out of those resources. I had nothing left in the bank of energy and creativity and joie de vivre. When you're doing feature of a human being. We're not machines.
You can't just put fuel in and keep going. We're complex organisms. And just take it very seriously. And I've met some very serious entrepreneurs who are brilliant and got hit by burnout, and then you're useless to anyone for a good while.
How much of it is being able to separate what you do from who you are? Because that's one thing that I notice and I hear a lot from so many people when it comes to whether it's burnout or unhappiness in their job or life is this direct correlation they have between the performance in their job or their business is a direct reflect of who they are as a person. They can't keep that separate. That's in a way where the spiritual piece comes in, because ultimately, I need to be able to go to bed at night.
So right now I run two businesses and I have other, you know, things going on, fingers in pies, and I need to go to bed at night and feel absolutely peaceful and serene with who I am, what I'm doing, where I'm going, no matter what the bank balance says, no matter what the headcount is, no matter what the clients are saying. And for me, that's about being able to find myself again in myself, in my center, in my ground of my being, in the deep bits of my body, who am I? So that I can have, and that's where purpose comes in, because purpose isn't a mission. You can have a mission and an ambition and you have a purpose.
And then the challenge is being able to dance between big goals and purpose, which is just the deep knowing of how you create value in the world. And it could be through being funny, being creative, doesn't have to be being brilliant. And then you get to play with big goals, but if you don't achieve those goals, it's all good because you're being meaningful to yourself and others in your life. So yes, there's a kind of separation of performance from value, from self-worth.
And that's really challenging. That's why it's the psychological piece, the coaching piece, the healing piece is so important in this, because if you conflate your value with your goals and your achievements, even if you get an Olympic gold, even if you get a Hollywood Oscar, it won't be enough. And no amount of money and no amount of Excel or valuation or number of girls in San Francisco on your, you know, on your face, I was going to say, you know, in your life is ever going to be enough for you. And a lot of entrepreneurs have this rapacious hunger for approval.
And it's great because it gets you going, but it's a tool. It's a tool for you to use if you mistake it for the point of the game, there's only ever going to be pain. A hundred percent. You see it within like so many athletes and even entrepreneurs and celebrities.
Very successful and relatively old entrepreneurs are still trying to get approval from mom, dad, the system, the parents, whatever. And it's not enough. Yeah. And it's tough because they want the approval.
Like they want people to cheer for them. But then when someone hates on them, it's like, it's like the end of the world, right? You have to have that balance there to realize that it doesn't matter really. Not just that you have to, if you put yourself out there, as I have, you're gonna get so many rejections.
And I was very lucky, but also unlucky in my early career. And I had a lot of success in a very small period and very few rejections. And then when I started getting rejections, you know, clients, you know, now I put, you know, I look at reviews of my books and I'll have like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then one, like this guy is a, and this is, I'm like, I just have to go read it and go, even, you know, the Pulitzer prize winners have got loads of negative reviews on their books, right?
You can't please everyone. People don't like you. That's fine. It's just all good.
You know, you can't confuse your product for your value as a human being. The value of a human being comes from your relationships to yourself and others. That's it, right? A hundred percent.
I think what you're talking about is super important and, you know, it's one thing that, you know, people go through these stretches of anxiety or go through these stretches of self-doubt or whether their head's on the pillow, like you mentioned, and they just can't get out of that spinning cycle. They can't do it. Are there exercises or are there things you found to help you as you had said, kind of get centered with yourself and get out of that state? Many.
And various books of mine describe them, but I'll give you kind of overview. I think there are basically, there are three types of practices for this that I would call red, blue and purple, just to give a little color code. So blue are those sort of calming down, imagine water, smooth, going with the flow, cool, like a Chinese misty mountain. So you're talking about meditation, quiet meditation.
You know, you're talking about Qigong, Tai Chi, slowing your system down so that you're no longer like. Then there's some red practices, which I think are sort of what people call ecstatic dance or breath work. So you're, or some of the psychedelic medicines people are going where you're sort of almost speeding things up to get to a higher truth and also let go of stress, let go of releasing your muscles. So for me, I do a lot of running, but I, you know, really use it as a kind of like a, I do it fully.
I fully run, you know, that's a red practice. And then there are purple practices, which I think are what people would call tantric practices, which is about becoming totally connected to whatever it is you're doing and just giving yourself to that thing. And so when you're sleeping, you're just like, I'm going to fully sleep when you're working, you're fully working. When you're with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you're fully with them, you know?
And so that's the kind of like, you're sort of creating unity in the moment. So I talk about the blue, the red and the purple, and everyone gets to choose, you know, choose those things. But I'll tell you actually one little tip. When I really am struggling with like, I'm grinding on a certain issue at work, I can't solve a problem.
You know, that kind of, you know, what am I gonna do now? You know, oh my God, this person doesn't want my beautiful product. There's a kind of like, it's called a prayer, but it's not a prayer in the sense that we would know that from a traditional Western view. It's a Hawaiian practice called the Haponopono practice.
It's usually used as a way of healing a conflict. Um, but I use it, I'm not gonna show you. I mean, you look it up if you want to do it, but it takes, you know, 10 minutes. I repeat a certain set of sentences to myself.
And as I do, I can feel my whole body just calming down. Um, and so reconnecting with my inner stability. It's in my first book, Switch On. Um, there's a whole description of it.
It's really powerful, really, really helpful. And what's that practice called again? It's got some apostrophes in the middle of the word. It's like Haponopono.
If you put like HOP and N's into Google, you'll probably find it. We'll find it. We'll find it. I'll put it, uh, I'll put it in the show notes for everyone to make it easier.
But, uh, okay, perfect. You mentioned a couple of books, even just recently, obviously you're an author. Um, what got you, how many books have you written for the audience? Four books, four, four fully published books and then some other bits and bobs and toolkits and stuff.
Uh, first book. What was the first book? The first book was the one I mentioned called Switch On. And it was kind of, the idea was if you wanted a self-help book, but you were a thinking person and a, and a non-cheesy, woo-woo person, what book would you read?
And that was the book I tried to write. Perfect. And most recently, um, my recent book was called Now Lead the Change, which was, or is a book about how you lead change and how you lead organizational change, team change, self-change. It's a book about what I call transformational leadership, the leadership of, of adaptation and, and positive lasting change.
Interesting. Who did you write the book for? What, uh, what was kind of your inspiration behind, behind writing that? The value of the change.
I guess it was a number of things. One is I work, I'd say half of my work is working with leaders, either coaching or running leadership programs. And you have a book that sort of summed up everything I do in that work. I've got a really huge curriculum and methodology.
So I wanted to capture all in one place so that people could, if they're only working with me on, say, storytelling and pitching, they could then find out the stuff around team, emotional intelligence in teams or whatever. So I wanted to write it for people who really wanted or do want to really understand leadership and understand what it takes of your own self to step up. And then the techniques and tools you need to reach other people and bring people along with you. What do you feel like is the biggest myth behind, you know, leadership these days?
Wow. What do I say? There's still a thing around leadership is a position in the hierarchy. And it's not that it's a skill.
It's a talent. It's a