Refusing to Step Back: Giles Vardy on Leading in the Next Chapter

Intro music playing quierly in the background

00:00:02 Áine Maguire

Welcome to the 37%. This is a show that invites people to reflect on a significant career leadership or life decision. My name is Áine Maguire and my name is Susy Kenefick. On our show, we ask our guests about what led to a decision, why they made it, how it was made, and what happened next.

00:00:24  Susy Kenefick

OK, well, Áine, how are you today?

00:00:27  Áine Maguire

All good today Susy, how are you?

00:00:30  Susy Kenefick

Good. Yeah. Well, I'm very well, and we're gonna in a moment listen to our guest Giles. He's going to tell us a little bit about his big decision, which I think interestingly in this case was almost a non decision. It was a decision not to do something. Would you agree with that?

00:00:41 Áine Maguire

I would, and I think that's really fascinating because we make so many decisions all the time in an unconscious way.

00:00:47 Áine Maguire

So not deciding, as we often say, is also a decision, but let's let's get listening to Giles will we?

00:00:54  Susy Kenefick

yeah, there'll  be plenty to unpack afterward, no doubt, but let's dive into the interview. Brilliant.

00:01:02  Susy Kenefick

So today we're talking to Giles Vardy. Giles is a coach and mentor who works closely with board level directors, senior executives and management teams. Giles came to the second career in coaching following his retirement from a long career in finance in the City of London. Over the years, Giles has held a number of high profile directorships, including a period on the board of the London Stock Exchange.

00:01:22  Susy Kenefick

Following his retirement, Giles commenced a Masters degree in coaching and behavioural Change and Giles draws on his vast and varied experience in his coaching work, focusing on guiding people through the transition from working life to retirement and on into new careers. Giles, welcome to the podcast.

00:01:37 Giles Vardy

Thank you, Susy.

00:01:38 Áine Maguire

Giles, it's lovely to have you and I'm really looking forward to hearing about your decision. But before we get into that, just give us a bit of background, four or five bullet points on you know who you are now.

00:01:51 Giles Vardy

Who I am now? Well, that's interesting. I suppose the idea of retirement at the age of 65 is something which has gone out the window and a lot of people now professionally certainly are working much longer into their 70s and you know, you read about retailers finding that older people tend to handle customers better than younger people and so on, so.

There's been a renewal in in older people myself, as I mentioned, I was thinking of retiring in my early 60s and then I felt that so many colleagues and friends contacted me to say.

Could I have a coffee or a lunch with you? and then they would pour out their problems. They didn't like their boss. What is the meaning of life?

Some of them often professionally worked very hard, like lawyers.

And suddenly in their 50s or 60s, suddenly said is that it, and often the answer to that question was 'yes', that's it. And people hadn't prepared for the fact that their third phase of life was coming at them rather faster than they thought. So from my point of view I'm now someone who I want to keep mentally active. It's very important to use it or lose it. And I think the idea of playing golf 5 days a week, not that I'm a golfer because I'm not. Doing something idle for four or five days a week, it's just not good enough. And it's quite clear that people, if they don't use their brains, start to lose their faculties and so you know, all of us are terrified of being sent to an old folks home and put in front a TV set because you will go bonkers and so the need to maintain stimulation of the of your your brain or curiosity I think is the word I would use is vital. And I think curiosity is something which I I think the world at my age falls into two types. Those who are curious and those who are not, and I have alot of contemporaries who know what they know and they don't want to know any more.

00:03:44 Áine Maguire

and you are?

00:03:45 Giles Vardy

I'd like to think I'm curious. I do understand what blockchain means. I I do understand that cryptocurrencies are actually outrageous and I want to understand artificial intelligence. I want to understand the impact these have on society. And although human nature doesn't change that much when we are evolving.

But it is the technology and the thing the habits and performance and the way people behave has changed. And that's very interesting to me

00:04:13 Áine Maguire

So I suppose it sounds like the decision we're going to talk about. I think this is how you would characterise it. Is the decision not to retire, is that right?

00:04:22 Giles Vardy

Yes, that's correct. I did actually look at retirement and a friend of mine who was a very successful lawyer said Ohh yes, I've taken up woodworking and come and meet my woodworking chums and so on, and we went to this workshop I was about 61 years old and they were delightful group of people and this very dashing character who ran the workshop and I thought, well,  and I used to love, my father, was very keen Carpenter and DIY and I used to watch him with his laves and things when I was a boy and I thought.

Well this this is, OK, you know, we went home to his, to his family home and had a cup of tea with his wife. And she gave me a very long look and said, do you really want to do this, Giles? She said "look around you” and the house is stuffed with little stools and little pine tables and things she said, "I don't know where to put this stuff" and I suddenly thought she had a point. Actually there are only so many little 3 legged stools and cabinets and tables you can make before you drive your other half insane.

00:05:22 Áine Maguire

So you looked down the barrel of the retirement gun and turned back the other way.

00:05:28 Giles Vardy

Yeah, I mean. Two things. One is obviously fortunate I, you know, managed to make a bit of money in my career. So one had financial resources to retire reasonably comfortably.

And the other thing, of course, is 1's personal health. A lot of people, if they have a chronic condition, obviously retirement is less of an attractive proposition. But I found increasing. As I said, there were two types of contemporaries in mind, those who were curious and those who weren't the ones who are curious tend to still be working funny enough.

00:05:57 Áine Maguire

Interesting. Why do you think that is?

00:06:02 Giles Vardy

The end when I I remember earlier in my career and I joined the board of the London Stock Exchange when I was in my mid 30s. And no, I'm afraid it was largely male members of the board. There were two female members,  but they were all in their sort of 60s and one or two in the early 70s, which when you're in your 30s, these people look terribly old and they'd all bee obviously quite successful. And I suddenly realised suddenly talking to one or two of them, you know, having a villa in Spain or Portugal or whatever is all very nice. But actually it's much more fun sitting on the board of the Stock Exchange than sitting, drinking sangria. And they enjoyed the stimulation and the challenge in their 70s, so I only thought well, there must be something to this. I think the answer is the curiosity is something you have to satisfy. You can't have be curious and not do anything about it.

00:06:48  Susy Kenefick

A lot of what you're saying Giles, sounds a little bit to me like the the idea of the growth mindset that some people believe they can learn about new things and they can develop their skills and some people I suppose just inherently don't. Do you think that ageing has an impact on that for people that they become maybe a little less curious as they get older? Or do you think that's a factor?

00:07:25 Giles Vardy

I can only speak anecdotaly on that Susy, I'm sure there's research, but I think people do get set in their ways and all human beings are creatures of habit, but some of those habits become more, how can I put it, more rigid perhaps when they get older, and there are some people who they they feel like their sort of social pioneering days are over. They don't need to make new friends or meet new people and they're happy with their lot which is fine. It's probably a good thing actually if if you're not adventurours and you don't want to meet new people.

00:07:25 Giles Vardy

But I think I think, yes, there are certainly people I know of my contemporaries who have become a little bit more rigid. But for every one of those, who are a bit more rigid, there are those who are still very active and doing interesting things. Yeah, an old friend of mine as a politician, he's still very active in politics and has no intention of packing up as long as he's still in demand and can do effective things as a politician or a business person.

00:08:11  Susy Kenefick

So after you had that, that brush with retirement and you decided, no, I'm not going to inflict a lot of stools and cabinets on my wife. Not only did you did you actually not retire, but you you actually chose to go back into education and which really does demonstrate your your inherent curiosity. So maybe you could tell us a bit about that and how that that came about.

00:08:31 Giles Vardy

I think it was, as I mentioned earlier, where a lot of former colleagues get back in touch, they wanted a reference for a job or they wanted to have a chat about where they got to. And there was one particular individual who made a major change to his lifestyle in fact, as a result, who sat down and and we spent a long time. Eventually I said to him, I think I'm gonna have to charge you some money for this. The amount of wisdom I was imparting to him and he laughed.

And actually, I was telling a friend of mine about this and he said, well, why don't you get professional training? You know, if you want to advise people and mentor them, you need to understand kind of the theory, or at least some of the neuroscience and psychological trends and themes behind these people's thoughts.

And that struck me as something that that would make me more effective at the same time, I wanted to do more of it. And if you have a certain level of training behind that you're facilitating the ability to do more of that. And yes, there's helping the people. It's also actually trying to match up one's understanding of, you know, your own career.

With people's careers as they look out to the future and I felt very strongly that if I had that training as well, I could do more of what was something I seemed to enjoy doing.

00:09:46 Áine Maguire

What was it like for you to put yourself in the position of going back to do training and education, having had a very distinguished career and having amassed a lot of knowledge?

00:09:58 Giles Vardy

Well, it's a bit of a shock actually. The first thing was I hadn't written an essay in 40 years, and that was a little bit of a challenge and an awful lot was hanging off Professor Google rather than going to the library and thumbing through old paper books and so on.

But, I was very fortunate the the group of people I was with were are are very varied and and wonderfully different bunch of people. So I think all of us felt a little bit nervous to start with as how it was going to work out of course, but actually I felt quite comfortable quite quickly because the material was interesting and everyone was coming at it with a fairly fresh perspective. They weren't, you know.

Everyone had a different view of what they wanted out of the course, and that in itself made it interesting, so the sort of coffee break conversations were were very good actually with my fellow students.  Although I had a bit too much grey hair compared to the rest of them. And it is my hair. It's not glued on, I promise.

I felt it was something where they were interested in my experiences, but I was also interested in their attitudes to things that are happening and how people develop over time because you know, all of us may have the same personalities, but the way we just deploy those personalities may change over time or change because of the role we're doing.

00:11:16  Susy Kenefick

And what did you learn about yourself through that process that maybe you didn't know before?

00:11:20 Giles Vardy

I think two things, Susy. One was, I felt I I didn't feel constrained by the course, I actually enjoyed doing it and I I felt I was myself.

Where you know, I like entertaining people, but I'm also serious, you know? And one of the things I learned from being a when I was a young person. I  took up rowing at school. I was very fortunate. I enjoyed rowing and you discovered that you had to learn to trust people and a crew who were rowing in a crew but didn't have to like them.

And there's always an assumption that you need to like someone to trust them, and vice versa. 

Well, all of us have relatives I'm sure that we like or we wouldn't trust them with one euro coin and vice versa. So often you could be working with people and and certainly on the course you didn't perhaps particularly like their personalities. But they certainly had some very interesting things to say but I found that quite interesting. It was a reinforcement to some of my views but also, you know, I think I learned two things most important to me.

In the city, you had to judge people by how they behaved and their appearance, and that's very old fashioned and and I found on the course you, you know you can mistake and get it terribly wrong with people by judging them by their appearance and how they support themselves. So my insight there was never judge, a book by its cover.

00:12:41 Áine Maguire

Well, it sounds like the rules have changed quite a bit since your career started, and that maybe that education you did it was educating you as to what the new rules are or changing your outlook. Would you agree with that?

00:12:55 Giles Vardy

Absolutely. Yeah. I I would and and I think that's a good thing actually.

00:13:00 Áine Maguire

Yeah. Was it uncomfortable at any point?

00:13:02 Giles Vardy

No, not really. You know human beings underneath it all are fairly similar, and people who are difficult personalities, for example. There's always something about them where if you've proven enough or converse enough, you'll find out something about them.

00:13:18 Áine Maguire

Having made the decision not to retire, you, and I mean the decision not to do something is just as momentous as the decision to do something. You then launched yourself into a kind of sounds like a voyage of discovery. You rewired yourself. You opened up your mind. What happened then?

00:13:37 Giles Vardy

I'm I was very fortunate. I had an individual who I'd met who is now my business partner, who's a much younger person than me, and he'd done a similar coaching course and we we'd met through a mutual contact and he specialises in in sales training, but not door to door sales, but this is like big ticket contracts like billion dollar outsourcing contracts. How do you walk into a chief executive or a chairman's office and pitch for you know something as big as that?

And we discovered that actually between the two of us, we could work together where often the senior management of the company he was coaching didn't understand the sales function and had their own challenges. And so often, and I was doing it yesterday, one of his clients,

I'm now coaching the chief executive who's just decided that he really hasn't got all the skills he needs to do the job. He's very good on certain aspects but not on others, so that works really well and I enjoy the work. I you know, it's not full time, which is fine.

So people say to me, are you retired? I say no, but I'm not working full time but I do spend a long time reflecting about how to deal with my clients.

And I have a number of female clients in particular, who, if they think there's a glass ceiling are very keen to get through it and also highly ambitious. And I and I find female clients in particular really interesting because they have a very varied set of skills, which are often very different from their male counterparts and helping them to kind of understand the game, if I can call it that is a really satisfying experience and one of them has been promoted twice in the last three years and it's got to the level where she wanted to reach. And that that that in itself is very satisfying, not because I've helped her get there on her on her own. Just that she, you know, I've been a little bit of a catalyst for some of her thinking, which has been really satisfying.

00:15:31 Áine Maguire

It sounds like after your first career, which was more about your own success, your second career is really, you're getting a lot of joy and energy from other people's success.

00:15:42 Giles Vardy

Yeah, I think what you learn there's a kind of actuarial shape to your career in your 20s and 30s, you tend to be an action person. You know you want to get things done.

If you're a salesperson, you want the deal, or if you're a a a young professional, you want to, you know, perform well and move up the ladder.  By the time you get to your 40s, it's more about judgement and can you judge people correctly, particularly if you're a senior manager and it's not so much you going and doing things, it's it's getting the right people in the right slots to perform and certainly in your 50s and 60s, I always advise people to maintain your curiosity. It's what we talked about already. And it's in that process that people who have good judgement become very successful and, you know, one of my colleagues, when I worked at the bank, he was a middle level financial controller in in our 30s, a very good one. He ended up chairman of a FTSE 100 company. But you never know that when you met him.

But why? Because he is smart, doesn't offend people, people are comfortable with him and he has very good judgement and has had a very successful career. But you, you know, if you met him in the street. You wouldn't know he was like that At all. So the other thing that's so important is is the intangibles of your of one's career. You know, people get promoted because your colleagues are comfortable with you, not because you're the top producer or you, you're you're the best person and comfort is a very difficult thing to explain. Starting to manage your textbooks.

00:17:11  Susy Kenefick

Yeah, I mean you talked there about the kinds of skills people have in the early stages of their career versus in the later stages. And I actually think there is some neuroscience evidence that there's that I that you're you're kind of the kind of intelligence that you have in your 20s and 30s is about being dynamic. And as you say, energetic and getting new places. But then as you move into middle age and beyond, it's more about that holistic, way of looking at things and about judgement and different skills and maybe this idea of what got you here won't get you there and I'm. I'm just wondering how how you see that play out with clients and how they, you know manage that transition from the very dynamic stages of their career to the later more you know as you say that that kind of comfort stage?

00:17:51 Giles Vardy

Yes. Well, I I wouldn't call it a comfort stage actually, Susy, because one of the skills about judgement, if you take judgement, there's a sort of overall category. There are subsets like timing, for example. And when you're an action orientated young person and certainly when I was a chief executive, you would have young people come into your office and say, you know we need to get this done now and I need a decision now and that and it's absolutely essential. Bang, Bang Bang  and I look at them and say I don't think it is important we need to make a decision now?

00:18:20 Giles Vardy

Why don't we leave it for a couple of weeks and see how it pans out? Because they look at you as some lazy, fat middle-aged so and so who doesn't wanna get off his backside and do something and guess what? Within two weeks there was no need to make a decision about this, it all faded away.

00:18:35 Áine Maguire

And what do you think you've learned about yourself, or about life, or what's important in in the this second career that you've had?

00:18:44 Giles Vardy

Ifs all about the people. And if you if you don't know how to manage the people, you won't succeed in your career, whatever your career choice is, or for that matter your retirement choice because I think the more senior you become, particularly, it's all about the people.

And when you look at historical events, it all boils down to personal relationships in the end.

When Margaret Thatcher came back from Moscow and said to Reagan 'can do business with Gorbachev', that started the whole end of the Cold War. It was a personal relationship to start with it. I'm not saying she did it per single handed, but but the process that was kicked off.

So in the answer to your question, the answer is more, more important to understand the people and deal with people.  Handle them correctly and trying to support yourself in a reasonable way, because rather like the Bible, you know, he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. You know, if you treat people well, I think by and large you get treated well back.

00:19:41 Áine Maguire

What does that mean for you?

00:19:43 Giles Vardy

I enjoy people's company. I enjoy good fellowship in the broader sense.

00:19:46 Áine Maguire

And this second career gives you that?

00:19:48 Giles Vardy

 yes. I mean, I have clients I started looking after six years ago who still ring me up and have a chat and or they want to tell me how they're getting on or even how am I getting on? And. And that's quite nice to have that kind of relationship. In the city I had maybe 3 clients who I kept in touch with on a on a friendly level because we'd done business together.

00:20:07 Giles Vardy

But I found on the coaching side because it's much more personal and much more focused. I think you know, one in particular rang me the other day and said actually, you know, I do think you changed my life because I now I've got the lifestyle I want. I've arranged my career the way I wanted it and I'm with my family rather than being away from my family, thanks a lot.

00:20:31 Giles Vardy

And when when people say thank you it's really quite touching. Because in most careers, no one ever says thank you to you.

00:20:37  Susy Kenefick

And with those clients to you coach and mentor when it comes to their decision making in their careers and in their lives by extension, what do you think are the big obstacles for them in getting to where they need to go?

00:20:49 Giles Vardy

Often it's other people.  It's colleagues who perhaps don't recognise their skills or are not comfortable with them. As we were saying earlier. And how do you how do you persuade someone who's are not comfortable with you, to be  comfortable with you? Very difficult. Sometimes that's impossible. Can't be done.

But I think also it's understanding motivation of people too and alot of people don't take time to find out what motivates people. You talk to anybody. I used to find even in business, “Tell me about, you, what you do?”  People love talking about their jobs. They love talking about themselves. But no one spends the time to listen to them.  And I think you know, you know, you, rather like the politicians now who have to have instant response to every issue. I would applaud any politician who, when asked a question by a journalist saying 'I'd like some time to think about that before I answer that question.'

Probably they think they're gonna get slated for doing it, but that I would say at last someone's reflecting and thinking about something.

00:21:49 Áine Maguire

And thinking about the future, what do you think the future holds for you in terms of career and this non retirement that you've launched?

00:21:59 Giles Vardy

I think it's, when I started out in the financial world in New York, the chairman of the company stood in front of all of us trainees, I was a trainee, He said 'We expect everyone this company to be current and competent'. And I always thought that was quite a good encapsulation of what you would expect from a you know, your the people who represent you in your firm. If I can't be current and competent with my clients, then I need to pack up. And I'm hoping that as long as I keep my marbles I can be current and competent in helping them for a few more years yet. I think when I'm 90 I may not be as an effective coach as I am now in my late 60’s but you never know

00:22:38 Áine Maguire

What helps you stay current and competent?

00:22:40 Giles Vardy

Curiosity about world events, humm I still would like to keep in touch with people I know from various businesses to find out what's going on. You know, certainly in technology businesses, you know, if you look at the value of a company nowadays, it's not buildings, it's not inventory, it's brand, online presence, it's software and the quality of people who work for the company. Those are the intangible that, I mean, I think 50% of the SNP 500 is intangible assets,

And you know, one of the big intangible assets is, is your brand, your culture, your people. And I think, you know, being curious about how you maintain the quality of your brand when you're so intangible is an interesting challenge. And I like talking to people about it. How do you do it? How do you make? How do you keep your brand, you know, at the right level?

00:23:29 Áine Maguire

We're coming to the end now, but one question we always ask is about would you do it all the same way or would you do things differently? Looking back over your career?

00:23:40 Giles Vardy

One always has regrets. I probably made one or two decisions. My wife is convinced I should have been a lawyer, and I ask her why and said well, because you're very good at arguing with me.  No, but on a serious note, I did actually originally apply to university to read law and then changed my mind.

I enjoyed the variety of my career. Some people have done nearly 20, 30 years in one particular company, obviously got satisfaction and fulfilment from that, I got fulfilment from variety, doing different things and working in different industries and certainly on the board level, but they had their ups and downs, I mean there was 1, 2 or 3 jobs where I was on a hiding to nothing and you just have to acknowledge the fact you're facing a brick wall and it’s time to walk away

No one you know, life just move in straight lines, and most of us have careers that are rather crab like, you know, we move from side to side and then move forward.

00:24:31 Áine Maguire

Hmm.

00:24:32 Giles Vardy

I think I've been fortunate in the sense that I've by and large enjoyed it, and when I reflect on the bits I really enjoyed, it was normally because of the people I was working with.

00:24:42  Susy Kenefick

And I think with all that really varied experience styles, it does sound like you have a very unique vantage point from where you are now to look back on your career and also to assess the state of the workplace today. Which, as you say, has changed dramatically and modernised in some ways. But also it sounds like there are some sort of, you know, fixed things that have remained the same. And I think it's important for us sometimes to return to those old fashioned values. And as you say, that idea of being competent and current, the two qualities that somebody needs, I think to succeed in the workplace.

So it's a nice note, maybe for us to conclude on, but thank you so much for coming in to talk to us today and telling us about your decision. And of course your wealth of decision making experience across your many and varied careers and to wish you best of luck with your new venture.

00:25:30 Giles Vardy

Thank you very much Aine and Susy. Thank you much, it’s been the real pleasure.

00:25:34 Áine Maguire

Likewise.

00:25:40 Áine Maguire

Well, Susy, that was quite a Tour de force. What do you make of that?

00:25:43  Susy Kenefick

Great. Yeah, well, fascinating to get Giles's perspectives on that non decision as we called it the decision not to retire. And there were a couple of things that really stood out for me in in what he said there. The first one was around curiosity and he used that word alot and mindset I think.  And I just think for  lots of people when it comes to, you know, carrying on at a point when other people have maybe got to the end of their careers.

It is essential to have curiosity. That's the thing that drives you forward and making a decision like that to actually start a new career in later life. Having that curiosity to, you know, to go back into education, as he said, you know, not having written an essay in 40 years, but being interested enough and, you know, motivated enough to learn new things at that age. I think that that really just spoke a lot his decision making process.

00:26:30 Áine Maguire

Yeah, I agree. I thought the really kernel of the story was the whole woodwork workshop situation where he looked at, you know, a life with chums doing woodwork, and I think realised that he was of a mindset that that wasn't going to be satisfied by that and that he needed for him to continue to be vital, and to live in the way he had lived, he needed things that were meaty, that were chunky, that he could get, you know, he could get interested in.

And curiosity, I think, is probably also a word for learning. And I think something that work does for us is learning. I mean, I often say to people when they tell me they're considering, uh, stopping work.

I often say, well, who's going to help you to work out how to use the next mobile phone you have? Because often as you get older, it's a young person that you work with who tells you what the least technology is or helps you with your printer or your mobile phone.

00:27:26 Áine Maguire

And I think often we don't think about the consequences of not being around a mixed peer group and not being able to access other people's advice and insights into things like technology that might be not so interesting for us. 

00:27:39  Susy Kenefick

Yeah, I think when Giles told that story about the woodwork shop it evoked for me, that idea of a a men's shed. That's quite a quite a popular thing in this country and but he just decided that that that wasn't a fate that was he was quite ready for

The other thing that he talks about quite a lot, which I think will resonate with lots of people is he's clearly somebody who does have quite a benevolent view of others, and he's worked in different roles over the years that he's worked with people. He's been, as he said himself, in charge of a lot of people's careers. But he has a very positive view of people I think, and that is something that obviously is vital to his work as a coach and mentor.

But you know when you have spent your entire career being with people, making decisions collectively, and having that social contact and being responsible for people which he clearly was very comfortable with, with doing in in some of those really big roles that he had it.

It spoke a lot to his values for me that he is somebody who believes in th, ,I suppose the basic goodness and benevolence in people and in their potential, and he just wasn't ready to step away from being involved with people to having that social interaction and to helping people. I think that is also something that speaks to his values and that probably says something to me as well about how he makes decisions. It is a lot of its values led, and it is about being in service to people.

00:28:57 Áine Maguire

I think being in service to people is very important. I think that's what when you are in a professional job that that is the case I was like in America when you when someone introduces themselves to you, they always say I serve on the board of or I'm I serve in my company and I think that idea of service is something that that you know, is part of being in the in the wider human community that we're all in, that we're all serving each other by taking up the cudgels and knowing bits and pieces about things that are important to all of us. So so I really like that idea

00:29:30 Áine Maguire

I thought I was reflecting there when you were talking there and I was thinking a lot of his, you know, he emphasised relationships, you know, the personal touch and how important that was. And I thought he made an interesting point about how maybe we've kind of lost that in the sort of, you know, a fuzz of technology that we operate in now.

But for me, what that came from really and maybe the decision not to not to stop working came from an incredible sense of confidence that maybe has come from success.

And the benefit of having a, you know, a successful career is one does have confidence and maybe at a decision point where he could have said, I'm done with that. He had the confidence to continue on in a new career because he'd had such a fulfilling and successful career before that. What would you say?

00:30:19  Susy Kenefick

Yeah, that actually struck me as well. And obviously this is a podcast about decision making, so we do have to comment on the flavour of the decision that we're seeing with our guests. And I think in this case what was quite clear is that he isn't somebody who is beset by fears and doubts when it comes to his decision making.

And that may be a feature of his experience. And having been in these very, very senior and high profile roles, but he is somebody who has conviction and he's somebody who goes with his gut and I think is quite confident in executing his judgement around how he makes decisions which you know, we we've seen with different people and we will see with different people that we talked to on the podcast, that's not always the case.

So it's just something worth reflecting on I think the the role that conviction and confidence plays in people's decision making because not everyone has that and not everybody can have that, but it is probably something worth trying to cultivate if you want to be a more effective decision maker

00:31:10 Áine Maguire

I agree, and I think you've just brought out another point, which was his decisiveness and maybe that does come from having a career as a banker where you've got to decide things fairly quickly and it's maybe quite a factual decision making process you go through.

But I think he, he, he made decisions quickly, decisively, firmly. And as you point out, kind of gut decisions they weren't decisions that he sat down and analysed with a bit of paper. He didn't write pros and cons, although he talked about doing that. He knew what the pros and cons were and he just went for it. And maybe that does come from the confidence as we said. Or maybe that's just uh and knowing yourself and knowing in your gut what's right for you.

00:31:47  Susy Kenefick

Absolutely. And as a millennial, obviously, I have the very unfortunate reality to face that I'm never going to be able to retire, so I am very glad...

00:31:54 Áine Maguire

I'm not sure about.

00:31:56  Susy Kenefick

..To take Giles’s advice with me in my stead that as long as I remain current and competent, I never have to pack up my working shoes. So with that, maybe we can come to a close.

00:32:07 Áine Maguire

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Susy Talk to soon

00:32:09  Susy Kenefick

Thanks Áine

Ending music playing quietly behind for final wrap up

00:32:15  Susy Kenefick

Thank you for listening to the 37%. If you want to know more about us, what we do and how we might be able to help you with the key decision you're considering, check out our website at www.persuasion.ie.