Speaker 1 00:00
What's happening at that fundamental human level? That's the thing that I'm really more
fascinated in than just about anything else. When we get together in a room, something
happens. It's not just a psychological thing; it's a physiological thing. We're sitting having a
conversation. We're exchanging molecules. There is something that happens when we're
together, and I believe that it's not just connecting with people in a digital format-it's
connecting with people in person.
Speaker 2 00:24
Where do you believe that that human connection piece becomes a real competitive
advantage?
Speaker 1 00:31
The human element becomes critically important in not falling for an AI-only approach. There is
a certain dumbing down of everything at the moment, there's a vanillaization happening out
there where people will defer to outsource their thinking and go with whatever the large
language model serves up to them. Every moment that we connect with someone is a chance
to leave them in a better place than we found them. But we're always looking for where can we
brighten their day. I really want people to walk away going, that was great. I had a great time.
That was fantastic because it just elevates them during that period of time. Can you use what
you're doing to make the world a better place? And if you can, that's fantastic.
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Speaker 2 01:16
We're living through one of the fastest periods of change in modern history. AI is transforming
the way we work. Technology is accelerating decision making. Entire industries are being
reshaped in real time. But what if the things becoming most valuable aren't technological at
all? My guest today believes we're entering what he calls the feel economy, a future where
human emotion, connection, and shared experiences become increasingly valuable as the
world becomes more digital. Andrew Everingham is the founder and CEO of Capital E Marketing
and Events, a business built around bringing people together through experiences, events, and
meaningful human connection, from navigating profound personal loss to leading through
constant change, Andrew has developed a unique perspective on leadership, resilience, and
why gathering still matters. I'm Lara Nacesian, and this is CEO behind the scenes. Andrew,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 02:27
Well, thank you so much for having me, and and congratulations on the podcast.
Speaker 2 02:31
Oh, thank you very much. This is fantastic, and it's so great to have you here live in the studio.
Speaker 1 02:38
So good, so much going on in the world. It's so busy, but we can afford to sit together for an
hour and just chat. I love this
Speaker 2 02:43
absolutely, and I think this is really the essence of what today's conversation is is about.
Because you've spoken about the rise of what you call the feel economy. For someone who
isn't familiar with that term, what do you mean by that, and why is it becoming increasingly
more important in the world that we're living in today?
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Speaker 1 03:05
It's so fascinating, isn't it? Before we jump into that whole hard layer, the first thing is we have
to, we sort of have to acknowledge just how much, how quick everything is going, and how
much information is coming at us. Coming in here today, I got out of bed. By the time I've got
here, you know, a couple of hours later, I've been hit by so much information, and I've got my
little cheat sheets here in front of me. And now they're scribbled over with all this writing
because there's so many things I've read since I got up and come here. Notes from friends,
things I've read in the news, bits and pieces that I go, we could have a completely different
conversation to what I thought we were going to talk about here. And I think it's in that context
that we have to think about this idea of the feel economy, right? So, what it's really about is in
an age, in a time where we find that we are overwhelmed by technology, that that AI is playing
such a huge part in our lives. And let's be honest, we're going to talk a little bit about AI. I can't
believe we've already said AI in this discussion already. We should have a buzzer that goes off
loud and says, "No, no more AI discussions. Like a sweager, a sweager. I'm going to be broke
by the end of this. Tell you it's crazy, but in that environment where all of that's going on, the
feel economy is that there is an opportunity for organizations who can harness the human traits
and the humanness in their industries to become more successful, and I think what's
interesting about this is while it's not a proven science at the moment, we can't we can't sit
back and say here's the absolute proof that tapping into these human traits is right. There is a
growing body of work, and we can talk about that, especially on the B 2c side of things. And our
business is very much B 2b events and marketing, but we're seeing it the B 2c world. It's been
coming for a while, and now you can see it really, really becoming evident in the B 2b space.
Speaker 2 04:47
It's really fascinating, and the thing is, is that a lot of leaders are really focused on what
technology can do, what it can enable for them, the speed at which things can be done. What
do you? Believe is being overlooked in terms of you know there's so much focus on what he can
do. What about what he can't do? What's your perspective on that?
Speaker 1 05:09
Such a great question, right? Because we don't know what it can't do. What I'm fascinated is
that is by this idea that we've been, you know, business has been developing over the last
however many 100 years, but digital business has only really been around, say, call it 30 years.
And over those 30 years, the the acceleration into this time that we find ourselves in is just it's
exponential, right? It's just been chopping and changing so quickly. So this is like the world's
most incredible experiment, and that's that's a crazy time to be alive because not only is it
super exciting, it's a little bit scary. You interview so many leaders, you must see that some of
them are up one end of the seesaw, panicking because they don't know what to do, and others
are up the other end of the seesaw, only focused on kind of keeping their head in the sand and
trying to just business as usual. I'd be right with that.
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Speaker 2 05:58
Absolutely, 100%
Speaker 1 05:59
right. So I think one of the things is that some organizations are seeing that they can tap into
these really human traits, and I wrote a couple of them down. So I think they're things like
belonging, trust, empathy, meaning, wisdom, and judgment. They're things that so far are
uniquely human, and they're not things that AI can do. They are things that AI can help with?
They're things that that AI can can maybe speed up the process of, but they they're innately
human, right? And and I think it's fascinating. I don't think there's been a time when we thought
more about what it means to essentially be human. I got to go to a really fantastic networking
group last week. I don't know if you know Ross Dawson, but he's an amazing futurist and
thinker, and he organized this this fantastic lunch, and it was about building humans plus AI
organizations, and the whole conversation was not really about the tech; it was about what it's
going to do to the cultures within organizations, what it's going to do to the structure of
businesses, how it's going to affect HR. I mean, I'm right in your wheelhouse right now, right?
And it's it's how is that going to drive organizations to adopt the technology, but bring in this
humanness to make sure that they're connecting with the constituents that they most need to
influence in the best way they possibly can. So it's a really, I think it's a fascinating time.
Wouldn't be dead for quids, right?
Speaker 2 07:22
That is fantastic. I'm curious to know, from your perspective, as businesses are continuing to
invest more heavily in AI and in automation, where do you believe that that human connection
piece becomes a real competitive advantage?
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Speaker 1 07:42
There's a couple of ways to answer that. So let me let me think about that for a second because
I think I think there's a couple of things. The human element becomes critically important in not
falling for an AI only approach, and by that I mean there is a certain dumbing down of
everything at the moment. There's a vanillaization happening out there where people will defer
to outsource their thinking and go with whatever the the large language model serves up to
them. And I think that's a real shame. I actually have I have an example of I can't name this
person, but I'm I'm such a fan of this person. They are they're a great thinker. I've worked with
them professionally, and I saw a post of theirs on LinkedIn, and it followed that crazy cadence
that you that everyone produces. And I thought, of all the people who I love hearing you talk
and you create thinkings, what came off the back of this was something that just made me feel
hollow and empty, and I felt really disappointed. And I said to one of my team, "I'm going to
ring this person, and I'm going to give them a piece of my mind. They're worth. They're so
much smarter than that. And how dare they put out this thing? And and they actually said,
"Well, don't forget, they may not have even seen it. This might have been something produced
by AI and surfaced for them and published, and they might not have even got to look at it. And
so I got off my high horse at that at that point in time, but I think the the other thing is that
organizations that can can leverage those human traits, as I said before, and bring them into
the into the process are the ones that are going to win. Right. So we're seeing really interesting
research around things like the the buyer groups. Most of my clients are in B 2b tech, so
complex enterprise level sales cycles, and and you know long term. Some of them are really
long term, and so we're starting to see that the buyer group behavior is changing now that it's
influenced by by AI. But at the point when people want to make a decision, they still want to do
business with a human, that is particularly interesting. They can go and do a lot of research.
They can they can proof it, but they want to engage with somebody to have a real human
interaction, so that they can build that trust and to make that final judgment. And what's even
more interesting, and I might have to come back and talk to you about this when the when the.
Research is published, but even this idea that someone will get a referral to a piece of
technology or a major enterprise buying decision, they will go through an enormous amount of
research leveraging AI. Particularly, they'll pop out the other end, but invariably they'll still
make the decision based on the referral at the beginning because that was the human element,
and I think that's something that we're going to see come to the surface. There's a lot more
research to be done on it, but it's it's it's it's appearing already.
Speaker 2 10:27
Absolutely, and I think that's where you refers back to what you mentioned earlier, which was
around trust, empathy, connection. You know, people are seeking that real human connection
element, and I think without focusing on that, we we lose the opportunity to really connect with
people at a fundamental human level.
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Speaker 1 10:48
Yeah, and what's happening at that fundamental human level? That's the thing that I'm really
more fascinated in than just about anything else. It's like we know that when we spend time
together, when we come together, and I know we're going to talk about gathering a little bit
more deeply in in a bit. But when when we get together in a room, something happens. It's not
just a psychological thing; it's a physiological thing, and it's you know where we're sitting
having a conversation. We're exchanging molecules as we're sitting here. There's a great Pete
Evans comedy sketch if you've ever seen it, where he talks about molecules and and the fact
that we don't know how it works, but molecules from this table are transferring into my hand as
I touch my as I touch this through my clothes through us speaking, and it's just it's quite a
strange thing. Apparently, when when you breathe in, we are sharing each other's air, and it's
something like I wrote it down: 290 quintillion quadrillion, 290 quadrillion molecules in every
breath. That's kind of weird. We don't know each other that well. Where's where's my
goodness? It's it's a strange thing, but it's there is something that happens when we're
together, and I I believe that it's not just connecting with people in a digital format. It's
connecting with people in person, and and we can we'll dive into that in a little while.
Speaker 2 11:59
Well, I think let's talk about it now, because you know you are really passionate about this
concept of you know the fact that gathering still matters. And actually, before we press record,
we were talking about gatherings and in-person connections and things of that nature. Why do
you believe that these shared experiences remain so important in an increasingly digital world.
Speaker 1 12:22
Well, obviously, because I'm in event management, I want people to do more events, don't I?
That's that's the that's the end goal. No, look, I I think that well, I think we know intrinsically
when we get together, the connection is is more it's more real. I'm fascinated at the moment by
this idea of changing the way events work, I think we're seeing that. As I said before, with with
organizations doing all their research ahead of time, there's this really I love this model for an
event where all the content is served up before the event in bite-sized chunks, where people
can can assess the the business decision, look at the product, do their comparisons. When they
come together, what they get is access to experts, to other customers, to to test out the
theory. And what that is about is building a community, isn't it? I mean, it's it's about getting
with people who are like minded that you can form a a bond with, and that you can then
leverage that collective wisdom to make better decisions, a really good friend of mine actually
gave me a nice one yesterday. That that marketing's two axes that that we're actually starting
to be able to work with are trust and judgment, and that that's they're the two axes that we're
playing with. And one of the things that helps to create trust is meeting people that you can
have an open, honest dialog with. So to me, and that that it's not just about it's not just about
business. I think that's about what happens in our personal lives and in community as well. It's
that building those communities, those those groups, those pods of like-minded people can
really help both sides of that equation: business and and community,
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Speaker 2 14:02
and for leaders who are listening to this, who want to inject that back into their businesses, into
their interactions, what advice would you give them? Where would you tell them to start when
it comes to gathering and and creating these more in person experiences?
Speaker 1 14:18
Yeah, so there's probably two tiers. This was this was one of the points that we we we we sort
of discussed online beforehand. So I've written a couple of things down that I that I think are
probably useful. But there's there's two there's two streams. There's there's for leaders wanting
to do it within their own organizations for the more like the culture of their people and and
where do they start? Just start now. Just do something, and it's so innately human that we kind
of forget sometimes to take a step back and go, "Oh, it's actually a pretty simple thing. Like in
my office, we have a communal lunch table. Right? Seems like such a silly thing to say, but the
lunchroom used to be the hub of all the culture within an organization. But now, because of the
way we work, we get stuck at a desk. Don't share. We don't eat. We might eat and talk to
somebody sitting next to us, but we lose that communal kind of discussion. So, creating spaces
where people can come together to have that ambient conversation. I think the work from
home thing has been fascinating on culture. You know, we we have a four day working week in
my company. We ask people to come into the office two days a week. Those days where we
have more people in the office, the ambient business that gets started. I guess by that I'm
talking about overhearing a conversation with someone talking about a private dining room or
or about an event that they're coming up with or a direct mail program that they're doing or
that sort of thing. That ambient conversation leads to the most amazing opening of
opportunities in discussion, right? So, and then an opportunity, and for our clients, it's fantastic
because someone goes, "Oh, I saw that. This is great. Have you seen this idea? Boom!
Suddenly, there it's gone to another level. There's a real synergy that happens, right? So, I
think communal spaces and eating together are really important. The other one I really like.
Somebody said, "Stop doing updates. No, don't stop doing updates. You need to update your
company. Don't don't stop doing updates. But maybe shift in this in this time where everyone's
running so fast, rather than just having updates. How about having some discussions where
you open it up for discussion? Now, if you've got a 30,000 person workforce, opening it up to
the whole company is going to be difficult. And if you don't do that digitally. You're in for a
crazy sort of activity, but with smaller teams giving giving the opportunity to have discourse
and conversation and be challenged with ideas, that sort of helps to develop a level of culture
within an organization that I think is is really leaders can really grab hold of that. So
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Speaker 2 16:39
absolutely, as you were speaking, it really brought me to a couple of things. Which is one is I
was actually at an intimate gathering and a dinner last night, and one of the things that the
person who had organized this event said was never eat alone. I think it's actually the title of a
book. Okay. Yeah, but it was it really kind of connected me, as you said, just the concept of
having a communal table in your office. I think sometimes people think that it needs to be
something overly complex or something that's going to be really difficult to organize. But it's
really bringing it back to these simple mechanisms and almost things that are innately human.
You know, eating together on a communal table,
Speaker 1 17:21
right.
Speaker 2 17:22
So I love that you're spot
Speaker 1 17:24
on. They're the innately human things, right? And so one of the things I notice in the event
management space, and and especially business events, and of course, business events is a is
a huge, huge industry globally. Like it's it's it's enormous, but is that we went through a phase
of trying to change event formats as a gimmick, right? Because we thought that'd get more
people in, and we would even serve them up in the invitation as a gimmick. And people would
arrive, and you know what they got? They got the old chalk and talk sort of structure, but with
a bit of fancy stuff thrown in. And that was just a phase that we went through. We were trying
to reinvigorate the event space, especially post COVID, because that was a a tough time for us.
As I know, you spoke to one of your other guests about you know the how that came through
our industry and and decimated a decimated it in some ways, but it also led us to be really
innovative and come up with with new ideas. What I see now is that marketers are being forced
to think about their events in a in a different way and in an innately human way, and as I said,
that that that idea of structuring an event where it's more about the conversation and the
networking. Julius Solaris, who's an amazing an event influencer, I would call him. He he he
talks about really listening to what your customers are saying, they don't want to sit through an
hour and a half keynote of you telling them what they need to know. They want to go and meet
other people, and they want to have experiences, and they want to be immersed in your brand,
and they want to really understand what's in it for them, what's in it for their business. How
does it make their life better and easier? Because at the end of the day, that's what we're all
driving to. And if you think about the last time you went to a really great event, I'll bet you
didn't just sit there and get talked at, right? No, you you were in an environment where you had
a fantastic experience, and you've got an emotional connection to that.
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Speaker 2 19:13
Speaking about that and the work that you do with your your clients, what other things that
you're seeing are really taking the the events, the connection to another level. What are you
seeing that organizations and some of your clients are doing that's working really well?
Speaker 1 19:29
It's definitely it's definitely the experience, right? It's definitely arriving at an at an event, and
actually it's it's it's probably more than that. To be honest, now that you ask the question that
way, I think what marketers are realizing is that we've talked a lot about the buyer journey for a
long time, and we've talked about events not just being a point in time activity, but being
connected to a longer journey that the that the the buyer or the customer is on, and so that
you you are actually connecting with them way before. They come to the event, and you want
to be connecting with them way after the event. That's why I spend all that money only to see
them for a day, right? But I think the big shift there is that people are thinking about it less
about a journey and more about a relationship, because that's what you want to have with your
customer. You want to have a relationship and one that's based on trust. So experiential is
100% one of the things that we're seeing. People want to get and feel and play and experience
what this organization can do for them, so that that comes across for our clients in in the tech
space with interesting ways of demoing the product, showing how one of their clients has gone
and done that. So there's a lot of installations and experiential kind of activities that happen
there, I think there is also a move to really listen to what the clients are looking for, what the
customer, the end customer, the attendees are trying to get out of that. I think organizations
that are prepared to put their own thoughts on hold and go and hold a little focus group, find
out what their customers would really like to get out of it, probably also end up saving a lot of
money on the things that they feel like they have to do because they really hear what a what a
customer wants to get out of spending their time with them. It's marketing. It's going to
market. So I love my my dad. His mentor was a guy from up in Brisbane called Jack Collis, great
business thinker for many years. And Jack used to say, you know, you're you're going out to
trade today. What are you trading with? What and I always think if you're asking somebody to
come to your event for a day, that's 1/5 of their of their working week. So, am I making that
incredibly valuable? I want that person to walk out of one of our events for one of our clients,
going, can't wait to come for the next
Speaker 3 21:35
one.
Speaker 1 21:36
That's what I want.
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Speaker 2 21:37
Is it a valuable energetic exchange as well? Because I think when it comes to what we're
talking about, you know, we're always constantly looking for speed, efficiencies, how to make
more time for things, which I think is another really interesting concept that I read about of
yours while I was doing my prep for this interview. But it's like, what is it that would actually
want to keep someone engaged in an experience like that? What would make someone want to
give up their time for a whole day or week or whatever it might be? It is a big ask to ask
someone to exchange their time. So, I think when you think about it in terms of the energetic
exchange and the value that they're receiving from that experience, it really changes the the
way that you start to think about these kinds of experiences.
Speaker 1 22:26
Yeah, spot on. I mean, it is. It's about what am I getting out of being here? The value plus the
fun. Like fun is such an underutilized kind of idea. If if you can combine a really fantastic,
wonderfully uplifting experience, and something that's really fun with learning. The lock-in off
the back of that is just-it's second to none, right? And because people have only got a certain
amount of time, as soon as that wanes, that's the time to pull it. Don't just keep people hanging
around like it's changing. The way that we want to engage with brands is is changing. You you
you snuck in the more time thing, and I think that's really interesting because, you know, there
was a time where we just expected clients to rock up for a day. You know, they would come up
and spend a whole day with us, and now there is so much pressure. And I would hazard to say
that AI is putting more pressure on on teams that they actually have to do more, do more, do
more. But as you said, there's no more time. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, so it's it's
really not about gaining more time. It's it's not about time management. It's about activity
management. It's what am I doing within that time? So if you start applying that lens to your
day, that your team's day, is what they're doing valuable, and are they enjoying it? Because
obviously, if it's not fun, you're not doing it right. Is one of my core mantras. Like, if it's if it's if
it's blocking, you're not going to be able to create that flow. And flow is the state in which
amazing things happen. So, if you're asking people to commit time with you to come to your
activity, to your event, then you absolutely need to make sure that they get value and that
they have a good time. So that's special source, right? Yeah,
Speaker 2 24:08
no, absolutely. And you've described these as some of the most amazing, dynamic times that
we've ever lived through. What excites you the most about the moment that we're in right now.
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Speaker 1 24:22
Well, goes back to that that question I asked you. That you know there is definitely people who
are quite afraid of what's going on here at the moment. There's people who who are finding
that this is this is a very scary time. So I I know what how I was going to address this. I wanted
to say I had the pleasure of hosting a panel in Singapore about AI in the events industry, and
we're looking at how that's changing the world. And it's not my it's not my intro, but I I think
Saleem Ishmael actually had this, and he I asked the audience, I said, put your hand up if you
think that everything is moving faster in the world than it's ever moved before, and every. Put
their hand up, and they all nod. And I said, "Great. Well, here's the scary thing. This is as slow
as it's ever going to get. And you just see people go, "Oh, gosh, really? Are you kidding me?
Because it can't slow down. We're on this. We're on this exponential speed of of improvement
in some regards, but just in the the speed at which we do things, and then and then I said to
the the audience, "This is the thing: we've got huge economic uncertainty, fear of collapse.
We've got rapid technological change, massive geopolitical instability, the rise of new
ideologies and power structures, global war. You know, it's there. It's these are these are real
existential stakes, aren't they? And everyone in the crowd was nodding along. And I said, and
of course, this is this was you know what was reported as the vibe in the 1930 s and 40 s.
Everyone sort of. I said these these are words that people were using back then during the
were during the World War during the Depression. People were really fearful, and so they were
all things of people relating to how they felt right now. These aren't these aren't just existential
crises. These this is you know people are genuinely afraid of what's going on at the moment.
Some people, but the point is that for leaders we have to recognize that this stuff is quite
cyclical. So the these things come around. I remember the panic that seemed to be setting into
the business community when cloud computing came along, and everyone was like, "Where I
remember speaking to somebody that said cloud will never work. I'm staying with the system
that I that I'm get paid to implement. I'm not moving. And within like six to 12 months, they
were like, "Yeah, no, I've I've jumped across. So these things come at us in waves, and it's it's
about being able for leaders. I think it's about finding a way to get the objectivity to be able to
step back and almost look in on the situation and and make the important decisions not not
through fear and uncertainty but through respecting that these are dynamic and and
challenging times. I always think fear the the fear that you feel is-it's evidence of the fact that
you haven't done your homework and that you need to get in there and really get to the heart
of what's going on. That's how you get rid of the fear. You take action.
Speaker 2 27:10
Action is the antitheses to fear. Yeah, absolutely. Because I think a lot of the time, it's the the
thought of something is scarier than actually dealing with the thing itself,
Speaker 4 27:21
yeah,
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Speaker 2 27:21
it's the feeling thoughts that we have surrounding the thing that make it feel so scary.
Speaker 1 27:26
Yeah, absolutely. And one of your listeners can message us back in and tell me what the name
of this strategy is. There's there's some military strategy that I heard someone talking about,
which is do something in that point where you feel like you're paralyzed because all these
things are happening and changing around you, and that and it's all happening. Don't freeze.
Don't sit still, or you're a sitting target, and and it'll go part. You know what you need to do is
do something, take some action, and the action, as you said, is the antithesis to the fear.
You've you've you've converted that anxiety and fear into some step, and it might be wrong,
but it's easier to change direction when you've got motion than if you're standing still, right?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 28:03
I want to ask you: How did you cultivate that level of self trust within yourself as a leader, as
someone that's the founder of a company? To even if you were making a step that wasn't the
right decision, how did you gain that confidence and trust to be able to lead and make
decisions in the way that you have.
Speaker 1 28:25
That is such a great question, Lara. I don't, I don't know that I've got a really succinct answer.
I've, I've always just, I think I've just always believed in just having a crack at things, you know.
And and if it's if you not not being so worried about making a mistake, that if you if you if you
stumble and fall, it's it's it's a failure. But a failure is another step to success, right? So I really
believe, and I absolutely clearly have not made all the right decisions. You know, I think
everyone thinks that leaders have got it all worked out, and and because quite often when you
appear on a podcast and you talk about your theories and the way people go, that's very
clever. But actually, it's what you've decided to talk about on the day. Every leader that I meet,
when we get a chance to talk about it, their fears will be different but similar to mine. That's
perhaps one of the answers. There is that that I'm I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by some
just absolutely brilliant people who are willing to give their time because I'm willing to give my
time, and we share and we learn, and you take some of it and you knock some of it back. But I
think it's it's being brave enough to to try something and fail, and if you fail, try and fail fast
and cheap.
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Speaker 2 29:40
Absolutely, and I'm curious to know from your perspective as well. How can leaders create
space for things like reflection and contemplation when it feels like everything around them is
demanding speed and urgency?
Speaker 1 29:57
I think you mandate it. I think you. To you actually have to create space for yourself, and again,
I feel like I'm borrowing from a lot of your podcast guests. But is it? It's an Angelique from
Canada, the EV one. Yes, she's also in event production.
Speaker 2 30:13
Yes,
Speaker 1 30:14
yeah, she was great. She she said you must make time to be able to create that space for the
thinking time. I think she said 40 minutes or like more if you can, because it's in those quiet,
reflective, still moments that you allow your brain. And it's it's you know it's been proven
scientifically that you need to allow your brain to relax so that it can. And it's not just sleeping
to relax so that it can can process some of these challenges. If you're always doing things, you
don't ever allow yourself the opportunity to have have that space. So you have to grant your
brain the agency to be able to process what it needs to process, and that's so different for all
different people. Some people meditate. Some people exercise. Some people just take time
quietly. I think the challenge is right now back to that that activity management rather than
time management, because all of these tools are driving you to be more and more efficient.
There's a fear to fill that hole with more stuff instead of giving yourself the time to step back
and allow the creativity to wash over you, to allow you to to have the time to to maybe see
things that you won't see if you're moving too quickly, right? So I think that's the biggest
secret.
Speaker 2 31:30
What does that look like for you in practice? How do you create that space?
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Speaker 1 31:35
I think for me, it is about booking in time. I love to just go for a walk. We're right here near the
park over here, and and and and my office is down the street. So I love to go just out on a walk
and just leave. Sometimes it's half an hour. Sometimes you only need five minutes just to clear
the air, and other times I'll disappear for two hours, and I'll come back and I'll be like, "Ha,
that's great! It's all just reassembled. It's like a Tetris game comes back in. Also, and I won't
jump to the your last two questions, but for me, physical exercise has become a big thing, and
and committing to that in that time when I'm when I'm doing that, I find that a lot of things
process just because of the muck that's running around in my system, having to pick heavy
things up and put them down again. So, exercise just time away and time in nature, I think, has
got is vastly underrated. Time sitting with nature is just is proven to slow you down, to
stimulate hormones and and the chemicals that you need to be able to create a space to yeah
to be able to think through things. I think is it's terrifically important. The
Speaker 2 32:41
greatest ideas come through that spaciousness when you're not having to do, but you get to
just be.
Speaker 1 32:48
Yeah, yeah. And I think we, unfortunately, we spend a lot of the between times where we used
to walk to a meeting. I mean, I think this is the other thing. We spend so much time connected
online with each other. There was heaps of time where back in the day, where I would walk
from one from one office to another office to have a meeting, and if I was on my own, I'd be
processing, but I'd be just walking and processing. If I'd be with somebody, I'd be connecting
with them, and we'd be thinking about things. But it wasn't. I wasn't walk. I wasn't working.
Whereas now we're so locked in, where we're walking along on our phones, or listening to a
podcast, or being everything's always injected into us that we don't have those quiet times just
to let stuff process.
Speaker 2 33:26
It's that distinction between consuming and creating, and how do you distinguish between the
two? How much time do you want to spend consuming versus allowing yourself time to create?
Speaker 1 33:37
Yeah,
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yeah.
Speaker 1 33:38
And how do you set those parameters for yourself. Like I'm always fascinated by the ability for
people to consume, and I think sometimes you get that back to the lunch table. We'll be sitting
around with my team, and we'll be talking about what shows they're watching on Netflix, and
everybody's, "Oh, I've seen that! I've seen that! I've seen that! I've seen that! I'm like, "When
do you have time to sleep? If you've consumed all of this stuff, and you're listening to four
podcasts, and you're still getting your work done. Where is your quiet time? Because all of this
is coming in. I think it's again, it's a very personal thing, and it could be to a degree
generational. Some people just I I see a lot of younger people just always on. There's not
there's not the moments of you know we talk about one of the things we've lost in humanity is
our ability to be bored and to just be not doing anything, just being bored, and I um I find that
fascinating because in those times of boredness is where you again you have that ambient
thinking, right? And but people talk to standing in a queue waiting for a coffee when there used
to be a time we would you would just look around and see what was going around you in the
world, but now you don't. You go straight for your phone and you you lock into the phone. You
catch up with something that you weren't doing, which is convenient and maybe great for task
management. But somehow we're losing we're losing that that space that we need to to
process.
Speaker 2 34:52
Absolutely, Andrew. Something that I read about in my preparation for this interview is the fact
that you have now. Profound personal loss in your life, and I was just-it was really
heartbreaking to to read that. I'm curious to know what is it that you can share about that
experience, and how has that really changed the way that you think about life and leadership,
and the way that you you do things now.
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Speaker 1 35:21
Yeah, it is. It's a. It's definitely a core part of what makes me who I am. To be honest with you, I
think everybody handles grief and loss and pain in different ways, and I think it's it's
interesting. There's a myth out there that sort of 80 or 90% of couples divorce after the death
of a child, when in actual fact it's a lot less than that, but it's still like one in five or one in six.
So it's it's a big it's a big deal for my wife Tracy and I. the The result of of our daughter Grace
dying was actually a um, it was a galvanisation of our relationship, and it was a strengthening
of a resolve to just live the happiest, most full life we could. You know what I mean. So I think
for some people it's too much, and they they can't bear it, and and so it it can break them. And
for others, it it just is a it's a step along the line. You know, for both of us, it was it was kind of
our way of honoring Grace's short but amazing life was to go. Let's just make sure everything
else that we do going forward is going to be fricking awesome, right? And we're going to have a
great time. And so we, as a family, the the four of us are. That's something we're really
committed to. I think for me professionally, it also led on to this idea that business can be a
force for positive change, and not only can it be, it should be. And so, you know, I worked for a
period there for for Salesforce, which, as an organization, has always had a very strong
philanthropic heartbeat, and and that attracted me to going and working there because we
were not only forging a category, we were we were doing all this amazing good out there in the
world, and that was that was wonderful. And so, when I started Capital E, I wanted to make
sure that was part of what we did. So, we signed up to. Do you know the 1% pledge model?
Yeah. So, 1% of time, 1% of profit, 1% of product goes to charitable activity. And so, I think
building that into the heartbeat of what you do is is really important, and that's putting back
into community. But I also think that professionally, my job gives me the opportunity to meet
with people every single day, and I've got this this deep belief that that we can every
interaction you have with someone is a chance to leave them better than you found them,
right? And so that's what I try to do. You can't be 100 for 100, you know. But if you even go in
with the intention of trying to use every opportunity to better the world in the way that you can
do it, I think you're winning for a start, right? So I think that's that's the thing. So tying it back
to the question, I think the loss just for us galvanized galvanized that, and just means that
everything we do, we can we can go back to that north star. You know what I mean? So which
is which kind of kind of special.
Speaker 2 38:13
It is really special, and it's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I'm curious, like what what did
that experience and and going through such hardship in your life, what did it really teach you
about what really matters the most?
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Speaker 1 38:28
Oh, I mean, just everything it took me everything about what really matters the most. I mean, I
I had a great upbringing where I think the the things that were important in in life, we're we're
kind of at the forefront. It's like friends and family, obviously. But the fact that we get tied up in
so much day to day that's really not that important. And if we can find a way to get that
objectivity to those things, again, it's that space, right? To be able to look at the toughest
situations and hindsight's such a wonderful thing, isn't it? Like you look back at those times
when things are super tough, and you go, "I actually wasn't that bad. But when I was in that
storm, it felt like the hardest, the hardest thing. A great story. My dad had said to my wife
Tracy when when we were going through this, really the white hot trauma of everything. You
know, kid. This this two will pass, and it's so amazing because I think some time afterwards, he
he he's an artist. He's quite a quite a talented. He's an incredibly talented painter. He's he's
made his whole life being an artist, and had a painting that he realized he'd written. This two
shall pass in it, and he gave it to Trace as a gift, and it now hangs at home on the wall, and it's
just this lovely reminder that no matter how complex and and difficult things get, if you can find
a way to just step back and go, you know, the clouds will clear, you know, it's probably a
reward at the end of this. There'll be a rainbow if you're lucky, you know, but just keep at it,
keep working at it. And and I think that resilience is is something that we as we as a species
probably need to remind ourselves we actually have and and to try and foster and engender
that in other people around us.
Speaker 2 40:12
What a beautiful perspective! Thank you for sharing that. You want listeners to recognize that
their professional journey is also their personal journey. Why is that such an important lesson
for leaders to understand?
Speaker 1 40:28
I think it's an important lesson for everybody to understand because I think we've become so
binary about my work life and my home life, or my personal life, or whatever you choose to to
describe that that we we we somehow switch life off, go to work, switch it back on when we're
outside, and because we segregate it so badly, I think we miss out on a huge chunk of our life.
Right? What you're doing every day is what you're doing every day. We we at work we talk
about having a a life work balance, not a work life balance, because it's let's put that first. And
look, we're in event management and marketing, and when it's on, it's on thick and fast. My
team right now are amazing to start with, but they're um they are just
Speaker 2 41:15
in the trenches. In the trenches,
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Speaker 1 41:17
it is. Everybody is working so hard right now. It's it's there's so much. It's great. We're doing
amazing work, but it's so intense for them and for for leaders of large organizations, for people
who are working out digging trenches literally in the day. How do you make sure that that is
part of you and part of your life, and that you don't just block out that time like you're alive
during that period of time? How do you how do you squeeze the marrow out of that and make
sure that everything that you're doing is allowing you to to live your life to the fullest? It can
sound really wishy washy. I know it can sound sometimes like it's a bit, but but I actually think if
you if you're not thinking about it that way, what are you here for? We're not here for a long
time, right? At the end of the day, we are a blip on a radar, you've got to make the most of
everything you've got. That's what I think. Yeah,
Speaker 2 42:05
absolutely. When you think about the work that you're doing through the events company and
through that side of the business, what really is the purpose or intention and the driving force
behind all of that? What is it that you want to make people feel
Speaker 1 42:22
at the risk of sounding like I'm I'm repeating something, I I say to my team at my purpose is the
word I always come up with is elevation, right, and that is that that every chance every
moment that we connect with someone is a chance to leave them in a better place than than
we found them, and that sounds funny because you you look at the idea of running a a tech
seminar day, and it's like it might be quite dry the information that you're getting across. But
we're always looking for when those people first come in contact. If we've got some sort of
leverage or control over the the whole relationship or the journey that this person's going to
have, even at that moment, where can we brighten their day at the moment when they find out
about the the event, or find out about the if it's in the invitation. Is there something in there
that where we can use some levity or create an opportunity to brighten their day at that point?
Even if it's just this could be really good for me, this could this could make me more successful.
That's great, whatever that might be. But when we've got them in our hot little hands during
that time of the event, I really want people to walk away going, "That was great. I had a great
time. That was fantastic. Because it just elevates them during that period of time, and that ties
back to the idea of what you're doing every day. Like, can you use what you're doing to make
the world a better place? And and if you can, that's fantastic. And if you can't, then maybe you
need to adjust your thinking about what it means to make the world a better place.
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Speaker 2 43:42
Yeah, absolutely. And you've spoken about the power of community in helping people navigate
periods of change and uncertainty. What role does community play when businesses and
individuals are facing those periods of uncertainty?
Speaker 1 44:00
Yeah, we come together, don't we? I mean, we're starting to talk here about gathering, and and
it's kind of one of the the oldest human activities is to come together, whether it was for
warmth or security or safety, or whether it was to do with ritual or whether it was to do with
anything really. You find that there's there's very few groups of humans anywhere in the world
that don't commune and come together, and especially when you're challenged with
something, finding someone else that you can spend time with and that you can compare and
get empathy with, and then find that security-it's absolutely human. It's it's that it's one of the
most deeply human things I think we've got so whether that's at a at a community level or
whether that's at a business level, I think that it's it's about it's about bringing people together
for the purpose of learning and growth and dare I say just human enjoyment. It's just great
getting together with people, you know.
Speaker 2 44:58
Yeah, and that leads me. To my next question is the fact that you're currently building and
developing Gathering Matters without giving too much away. Whatever you can share with us,
what sparked that idea, and and what conversations are you hoping that it will ultimately
create?
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Speaker 1 45:15
Look, I'm happy to give it all away. It's great. There's no there's no secrets. It's it's more about
the it's more about the exciting gates we're reaching along the along the way as things
develop. But I've always believed purpose is is deeply rooted to what you do professionally,
personally, and I know a lot of your guests talk about service being really important. And I
guess I was I was trying to think about what the the deep root of the things that I do around
purpose are. I ran a charity here in Sydney for about 11 years. We were able to to stand up a
thing called Sydney Homeless Connect, which was at the town hall. It was about bringing
people together to access services that they needed to get out of the condition of
homelessness. So when I was thinking about that and what what I it all sort of came together
one morning after a very lucid dream where I went, you know what? It's actually all about
getting people together and bringing people together in in gathering. Whether it had been
through hospitality in my early days, and then marketing, and then events, and then all of this
stuff, it's always about bringing people together. And and I started thinking, I said, what's that
about? And it leads back to the science behind it, and why, when we get together, do we seem
to leave those gatherings feeling better than where we came in? And there's a huge body of
work around that. So, I managed to come in contact with an amazing gentleman called Tim
Kripsy, who's in upstate Michigan, and we met at actually one of the CEO retreats, and I was
explaining this fascination I have with it, and the fact that this was a body of work that I was
that I'd been focusing on, and we just kept coming back to the conversation. And about I don't
know, maybe it was a month after we got back from the from from the offsite, he rang me and
he said, "You know, I've been thinking about this thing. You've been talking about this
gathering matters, and you know, do you want to really do something with it? And can I can I
jump into the ring? And I was like, "Yeah, let's do that. That sounds great. And he's just the
most beautiful man. And and what's happened is organically, all these people have been
attracted to it, and the the people that come out of the woodwork and some of the things that
have happened. But look, in its essence, what we're trying to build is an organization that that
non for profit that is about informing people and educating them about why gathering is is
important and and showing them the facts of what it means, sort of scientifically as well as just
from a societal level, to create a resource at a second level where people are able to access
where around them they can get they can get gathering and we and because technology is
going where it's going we're able to get out there with our little spidey fingers and bring all that
stuff into one place so that if you're sitting in Canberra and you're a 25 year old and you want
to find a community we want you to be able to go to this resource, and we want you to be able
to to dig into that, and and then find the connections that you want to that you want to go and
access. And then, thirdly, we want to build initiatives that help people together. So that is a
that is sort of a an evolving and interesting beast in itself. But we we want to focus in initially
on that sort of 16 to 25 year old cohort, where we see people in that space who are a little bit
lost in community and society at the moment, and we think if we can if we can help that cohort
first, then they can, as they grow, they can pass it on, and then we can look. Once we once
we've nailed that one, we'll move on to the rest of the world.
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Speaker 1 48:43
But yeah, it's just it's great, and it's accelerating exponentially every time we have a meeting.
And I'm yet to meet somebody that says that gathering is not the antidote to loneliness. And
and given that we're in this loneliness epidemic, and it's and it's causing an enormous amount
of damage and costing governments and countries, you know, billions of dollars around the
world, billions and billions of dollars, feels like a worthy thing to throw ourselves at. Oh
Speaker 2 49:10
yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. Capital E was recently recognized as B 2b
Agency of the year in the B 2b Marketing Hall of Fame awards. Congratulations! When you look
at where the industry is heading, what do you think that that recognition reflects about the
future of marketing and engagement?
Speaker 1 49:35
Yeah, that's a fascinating question. I think to us that was lovely recognition because we we'd
submitted a an award there on behalf of one of our clients and the work that we'd done with
them, and I think they deeply understand the relationship between gathering and and
community and the idea of doing good while you're doing good, right? So that so they're very
successful as. Organization and so we were able to sort of ride high on the shoulders of giants
in some ways, but the work there was really beautiful. So what I what I think it shows is that
certainly when you talk to people in the in the B 2b marketing and event space, while there are
definitely challenges about what's happening within the marketing world and the business
world, as you know, we see a lot of people being laid off. We see we see a lot of restructure of
organizations. We see jobs being replaced by AI. What I see is that there's there's an element
of that being that that cyclical nature we spoke about before, where people recognize that this
too short path. We will we will move through through this, and at the other end, there's going
to be a different future, one that we don't understand now. But while we're going through it, we
still need to concentrate on this. Is term the human in the loop, right? It's that we we need to
concentrate on the fact that at the end of the day, we're not talking just about tech; we're
talking about people, and it's about creating experiences and engagement with with humans in
a way that resonates really deeply with them. I think people get that right; they're they're
going to be the winners on the other side. Does it make sense? It makes one of those one of
those tricky questions because there's so many ways you can answer that one, but I, I just
really believe that that's that's where they are, that's where those that rise to the top are going
to really have their success. I think when they really recognize the humanity and all of this
stuff.
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Speaker 2 51:31
Yeah, it's fantastic. What will future you wish you'd done today, besides being on our podcast,
of course,
Speaker 1 51:41
most important thing. I mean, this this was everybody should do this. What will future me?
Future me will make sure that he goes to his gym session this afternoon, so that future me
feels like he's done the right thing. I I I tell you what I think future me needs to do is listen to
today me's advice. I think. I mean, well, my future me wants today me to listen to my advice. I
think there is so much noise out there that what what I need to do today is what I advise other
people to do is to find that space, find that quiet, be able to allow the decisions and and the
direction that you will intrinsically know is right to come to you because you gave yourself
space. It would be very easy in the environment we all find ourselves in to rush and to try and
make decisions quickly and to to move, move, move, taking time to settle, get it right, then
take the risk. I think is is what future me wants today me to look after.
Speaker 3 52:46
It's
Speaker 1 52:47
a confusing conversation. I wonder whether yesterday me agrees with what future me wants
from today me. That will be the real question. I'm going to need AI for that answer.
Speaker 2 52:57
Could you imagine? Yeah, I don't even want to know. I don't even want
Speaker 5 53:01
to
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Speaker 2 53:01
know. I don't even want to know. Andrew here at CEO behind the scenes, we do wrap up all of
our interviews with the same two final questions. So the first question I wanted to ask you is:
What is one thing you've changed your mind about recently, and why?
Speaker 1 53:16
I've sort of blown my content on this one already. So, um, you know, I loved. Is it Jared from
Yellow Canary that was on the podcast? He spoke. I think it's Jared
Speaker 2 53:25
Marcus.
Speaker 1 53:25
It's Marcus, was it? So I loved the comment that that what he hadn't changed was that this idea
of exercise being so important. What I have changed is my attitude that exercise is so
important. For many years, I just was not in that that mind frame. I didn't like gyms. I didn't like
doing structured exercise. And I have I have changed my mind in the last two years, and I've
become quite an advocate for. I think the the need to to keep this this whole machine moving
and active. It I have seen the results of that, and and it's so important for your thinking. And I
think when you do that, you you also recognize the need that while you need to keep it active,
you need to give it time to be quiet and just be peaceful. I'm not a particularly quiet person, as
anyone will tell you. My my dad often likes to tell people that he's never found the off switch on
me, which is I don't know if that's polite. I'll have to have a word with him on that. But I
definitely believe that that that keeping the machine moving and making sure that you have
that availability is pretty important. That's something that I've changed my mind about
recently.
Speaker 2 54:31
Good answer. And question two: What's one thing that you've not changed your mind about? A
belief that you'd want to share to help others lead or live better?
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Speaker 1 54:41
I'm going to go back to this idea of elevation and the chance to make the world a better place
in every interaction you have with people. I I really do believe that, and it doesn't matter what I
go through, it doesn't matter what trauma or challenges or heightened wonderful experiences I
go through. It always comes back to me that that the chance. To elevate in any opportunity is
great, and it's just so awesome because it's win-win, right? Because you feel great after you
leave someone else feeling great, and and they feel great. So it's this. It's just a the the double
positive in there is just so it's it's such an awesome way to be, and I I just guess if you can
tweak it, if if you're not hardwired that way, I do believe you can still you can still take
advantage of the of the approach. For me, it's just I would much rather go positive than
negative whenever I possibly can. So yeah, that's probably my. I'm not I'm not changing that
one. I'm not gonna not gonna lose that
Speaker 2 55:39
one. That's fantastic, Andrew. I've so enjoyed this conversation and having you on the show. It
has been a real pleasure and privilege to have you with us today, and your insights around all
things to do with connection, community, events, really keeping that at the forefront of our
minds is is really quite powerful. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you.
Speaker 1 56:04
It's been absolutely delightful. Let's do it again.
Speaker 2 56:06
Let's do it again
Speaker 1 56:07
next week, same time, same place.
Speaker 2 56:09
Enjoy. It'd be a pleasure to have you back anytime you like. Thank you for being here, and to
our audience, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and found value in
Andrew's insights and wisdom that he shared with us today, please be sure to share this
episode, subscribe, rate, and review. And we'll see you next time on CEO: Behind the Scenes.