what if i don't want to be ceo? with jerry colonna and duncan morris

Reboot002_Dont_Want_CEO

Welcome to the Reboot podcast. I'm Dan Putt, one of the partners here at Reboot. I could not be

more excited about this show. I've known Jerry for almost seven years now, and without a doubt,

can say that my work with him has had a profound impact on my life. In this show, we're

opening up the couching couch to the world, bringing everyone in on this conversation around

this work. We're here to showcase the heart and soul of authentic leadership, and to inspire more

open conversations around what we consider the most important part of entrepreneurship - the

emotional struggle and hopefully opening up some heart along the way.

We are extremely grateful that you have taken the time to be with us, and look forward to this

journey ahead with you. Now, on to our conversation.

The human self has a nature, limits as well as potential. If you seek vocation without

understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly

and may well put lives in peril; your own, and some of those around you. Faking it in the service

of high values, is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes

arrogant attempt to override one's nature and it will always fail. Those words come from Parker

Palmer in his book, 'Let Your Life Speak', which really is a Reboot favorite.

Duncan Morris, by any measure, had achieved a great deal of success as co-founder and CEO of

the international, 60-plus employee, online marketing agency, Distilled. And yet, something felt

off for him. At our boot camp in June, he was touched and challenged by a question from Jerry.

"What if you could truly understand who you are and lead from that place?" In evaluating this

question, a new question emerged for Duncan. "What if I don't want to be a leader of a company

with 60-plus people?" In this conversation with Jerry, hear how exploring these questions has

ultimately changed his work, his company and his life. Now, on to our conversation.

Jerry Colonna: Hey Duncan, how are you?

Duncan Morris: I'm good Jerry, and you?

Jerry Colonna: I'm very, very well. I'm just back from sabbatical and um, and I've had a good

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summer. And as you know, we sort of re-launched my coaching businesses,

Reboot, and it's really quite exciting. So um, before we jump in, why don't

you give us a little bit about what Distilled is and what your role has been and,

what you want to talk through today?

Duncan Morris: So uh, me and my co-founder, who happens to be my best friend of about 20

years now, Will Critchlow set up Distilled about ten years ago - just under ten

years ago. We started off doing web development, building small websites for,

kind of, tiny clients. Um, our first ever sale was the hairdresser at the end of

the road. And that has grown from there. People wanted to know how to

appear on the search engines, Google particularly. We grew into, kind of, an

SEO business and then, the last few years of being that - the - the SEO

industry is in a funny, um, transition period. And we're - we're kind of, riding

that. So these days, we call ourselves more of an online marketing company,

um, helping companies of all size, get found in Google, produce creative

they're proud of, that help them attract customers. Um, a whole range of

things, but broadly in the marketing category.

Jerry Colonna: Okay, and - and uh, ten years doing this, wow! That's amazing!

Duncan Morris: Yeah, it's been fun. Um, ten years ago, I couldn't have dreamed I would be

here. Yeah, it's only when you look back and think that these things get put

into perspective sometimes. So you kind of, you can ignore all of the troubles

we have had and just go, well, ten years ago, I would have absolutely taken a

position we're in now, um, makes all - everything worthwhile.

Jerry Colonna: And how many employees do you have now?

Duncan Morris: Uh, just over 60.

Jerry Colonna: Wow! It's a big company.

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Duncan Morris: It is, it's um, made more complicated, or at least management made it more

complicated by the fact we're in two countries; so we're in the UK and

America, and in multiple time zones. So we're in London and Seattle, at the

two extremes. So there's only an hour of overlap, which makes it hard.

Jerry Colonna: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think everyone underestimates the - the complexity of

managing multiple locations. Even though things like Google Hangouts and

Skype make it easier to connect, it's still - you've got the time zone problem

and you've got the multiple office problem which is always an issue. So -

Duncan Morris: Absolutely, and I think you lose the - I think they call it the 'water-cooler

chat', you lose that - the ability to get to know people on a personal level,

which I think, makes a big difference when you have to work with them. Um,

you find yourself - it's much easier to work with people when you know - you

can look them in the eye, or you've seen that they're in a bad mood that

morning. Um, and you know that whereas someone in the - um, in another

office, it's much harder to get that kind of context around why they are saying

what they are saying or, all of that sort of stuff. It does make it hard.

Jerry Colonna: Let - let - let's jump in. What is it you wanted to talk through today?

Duncan Morris: So, um, I've actually, um, after going on the boot camp that you, um, went

through a whole bunch of thinking and with um, lots of chats with Will, I have

actually stepped down as CEO. So I have been CEO of Distilled for the last

five years and have stepped down and taken up a kind of a two-pronged role, I

guess. A chairman role, um, and also a - back to my roots, I'm coding. So NO-

R [Unclear 0:06:00] and just writing some codes. Um, Will has taken over as

CEO so there has been a bit of a transition there. And yeah, it'll be great to

talk about that transition, the decision making, um, at the future.

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Jerry Colonna: Mmm, wow! It's it - that that - that's a big shift. You said you made this

decision after you attended the boot camp and you know, and we did the boot

camp in June in Tuscany. What was it - what happened?

Duncan Morris: Um, well so the week after boot camp, I went on a holiday with my wife and

my son. Um, we spent a [Unclear 0:06:36] where we were camping, I think.

And just spent a bunch of time - I was on my own, and I guess for some of it.

So I had time to think. We went on walks, that sort of thing. And one thing

that you said on one of the days at boot camp had just stuck out in my mind.

We were talking about um, diving into the wreck, kind of, radical self-

enquiry, working out who you are. I think the phrase you said was something

like, "What happens if you could really understand who you were and lead

from that place?" And the more I thought about it, the more I worked out that

who I was didn't really want to be a leader, certainly not of 60 people with all

the challenges you talked about; like the multiple offices, the time zones. That

was something that - it was just really, really draining for me. I was

[Technical difficulty] as spending five years trying to be someone I'm not, and

that's just tiring. Um, so it was that realization that I didn't really want to

[Unclear 0:07:39] it and I ought to be much happier, um, I'd be much more

fulfilled doing something else.

Jerry Colonna: Wow! You know, just hearing you say that, I mean, it moves me profoundly.

Um, you know, you - you referenced diving into the wreck, and that's the

Adrienne Rich poem, in which she sort of - she likens the exploration of an

undersea wreck with really an excavation of who we really are. And, one of

my favorite lines from that poem is, "The wreck itself, not the story of the

wreck", all right, "Not the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives and the

- the things that create us, but this - but our life itself" and it sounds like you

went on a - on a fairly profound existential journey to, kind of, discover who

you really are.

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Duncan Morris: I think so, yes. Um, I'm not sure I understand who I am yet, but um, yes. It

was - it was definitely a journey. And it's hard to know like, I've been

speaking to people and they've been saying, "Well, who knows what we'll be

like in two years. Do you think you'll regret it?" And I have no idea how to

answer that. But all I know now is I feel amazing. I - I wake up every morning

refreshed and energized. And I think more importantly, I go to bed as not

feeling exactly the same. We, me and my wife, we recently - we just started

watching 'The West Wing' again and there is an episode at the end of series

one, I think it's called, 'Let Bartlett, be Bartlett' or something like that. And he

goes - he's talking about um, of all the staff are teasing him because he woke

up really energized. And the - towards the end of the episode, he says

something like, "I really did wake up energized this morning." Um, and then

he's like, but I never seem to go to sleep energized. And it was exactly the

same for me. There were days when I woke up and I was ready to conquer the

world. But when I put my head on the pillow and shut my eyes, it was always

kind of a relief. The day was over, it's a relief. And then, maybe I would wake

up energized even the next day, um, maybe I wouldn't. But these days, the last

few weeks, I've been going to sleep raring to get up the next day, kind of, full

of ideas of what I want to do. I've worked later than I used to, um, I get kind

of, lost in code, lost in what I'm - kind of, what I'm doing, lost in the

excitement. And yeah, it's been life-changing. Um, and long may it continue, I

guess.

Jerry Colonna: Wow! You know, uh, there are - there are instances when working with a

client or working with someone else just sort of blows me away because there

is a truth - there is a profound truth in what they're saying, and I feel that. You

know, I am connecting back to two things: one is the name of that episode

was, 'Let Bartlett be Bartlett', and your statement that for five years, you

weren't really being your authentic self. And, you know, last night I did

another talk, and as usual, you know, I sort of opened up and sort of midway

through, just sort of revealed some stuff about my own life and where I am in

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it. I explained to the group that what I came to understand is that if I - if I live

from an inauthentic place, there is a direct correlation between that and

depression and stress that if I spend my days and my - the hours of my days,

um, pretending to be someone I'm not, no matter how skilled I am at it, there's

a cost. And I think you're going to bed at night exhausted, and waking up

exhausted or conversely, going to bed energized, and waking up energized is a

reflection that for whatever length of time we're talking about, right now in

this moment, this is what you needed to - to really be yourself.

Duncan Morris: Absolutely. Um, and what popped into my head, um, other things we talked a

lot about at boot camp, was being present and, I think that - that energy, that

energized has translated into my personal life as well. Um, so I've got a four

year old son who starts school in a week actually and uh, two weeks after I

went to boot camp, something that I - I'm sure it's going to turn out to be an

absolute nightmare, but something that at the moment - at that time was

absolutely magical, happened which was Edward, for the first time in

probably ever, walked round the bed. So my wife sleeps closest to the door of

our bedroom. Edward walked round the bed and woke me up rather than

waking my wife up because for the last few weeks, I have been really, really

present with him. I've been playing - I wasn't put in the same room as in

playing, but checking my email, checking my phone, I put my phone in

another room, I turned it off. I was crawling on the floor playing Lego - he

loves playing Lego farms and zoos and all sorts of things and - yeah, he woke

me up and I just remember thinking um, that was the most magical thing ever,

because he had chosen for me to go down with him that morning and so that I

could play with him. And that's continued; like 80% of the time he wants me

to read him stories at night. He spends a lot of the time with Suzie, my wife

and he always used to want her read stories. And you can understand, but

yeah, it's - it's such a joy, it brings a smile to my face that he chooses me, I

guess. And again, that's all down to the stuff that we talked about at boot

camp, being present um, and it - probably one of the biggest life changing

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things that has happened, like the CEO switch is being - is probably what has

caused a lot of the energy change and it's caused what - has caused the energy

level to be better. But the thing that I'm going to remember, the thing that in

five years' time has going to have made a massive difference is playing with

Edward, playing with my son.

Jerry Colonna: You're going to make me cry.

Duncan Morris: [Laughs] Yeah that will serve us right. You have made me cry plenty of times

at boot camp. So -

Jerry Colonna: [Laughs] You know, it um - the image of Edward coming to you and waking

you up and wanting to be with you, and - and, you know, what I'm not hearing

is him choosing one parent over the other, but him choosing both of his

parents. You know, expressing a desire for his Dad and not just his Mom, or

his Daddy. Because at four, that's what you are. And - and he uh - I'm just

remembering some of the things you've shared about your own journey. Your

physical challenges as a result of some of the stress and tension and your own

relationship with your dad and, you know, what I'm seeing is a man choosing

to be a man in a way that's best for him. Does that resonate?

Duncan Morris: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you mentioned my dad, because one of the

things um - one of the things that gave me a massive amount of validation

when I was um, kind of deciding whether staying as CEO was an option, um, I

rang up my Dad and we - we talk - I mean, I see him regularly, it's not like

we're um, not like we don't talk. We're close, we just don't talk, if that makes

sense. Um, and I rang him up and said, look, I'm - I'm not sure CEO is right

for me, it - it's hard for all of these reasons, what do you think? And he just

said, well, you probably didn't know this about me because I probably have

not told you but, that happened to me. I was - I happened to - he was CTO at a

certain company, um, I just walked into HR one day and said, "Look, this isn't

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for me. Um, you're finding me a new role, or I'm leaving." Um, and he said it

was the best thing that ever happened to him. And suddenly, I got that extra

validation, and like, I got a bit closer to my dad as well. Like we had - we had

a conversation about something that probably happened when I was 10 or 15,

I'm guessing. Um, but he just didn't really talk about it at the time. And, yeah,

that was a massive validation for me. Um, it was an - uh, yeah, that makes

sense and, he did - he echoed what a lot of people have said which is one of

the benefits of running your own company is that you can choose what you

want to do in that. Um, and if you're not happy, then that's crazy. It's crazy

that you've designed a company, designed a role for yourself within your own

company where you're not happy. Um, and yeah, I mean, we've probably only

spoke for 10 minutes, but it - it was probably the most we - the most we'd

spoken or the - we'd spoken of the most substance for a long time. And it was

a big validation for wanting to make some changes and, yeah. I'm not sure

what would have happened if he just said, no, stick it out, you'll be fine, tough

it through. Yeah.

Jerry Colonna: What a gift you gave each other.

Duncan Morris: Yeah, absolutely.

Jerry Colonna: You know, to connect and - and I'm recalling times in which I would - I

remember when my father lost his job. I told you that story. And, you know, I

was 10 at the time and it so profoundly affected me, but it was really only

recently that I began looking at that experience not through the lens of a 10-

year old boy, but through the lens of a 40 or 50-year old man, thinking about

what it would be like if I were in his shoes. And one of the things that I think

you and your dad did was empathetically reach across the generations in the

time and really share the experience of being a man and having to face these

sort of choices. And what was it like to learn that that had happened to him?

Not the validation for you.

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Duncan Morris: Yeah, I guess it made it seem normal somehow. Um, I think it - it also - it was

a bit of a shock, um, like my dad is actually in a - does a very, very similar

role to me. He's very, very technical, he programs, he's all of that everything

that kind of, is me. He's very similar. Um, we share a lot of traits like, I don't

like the label 'introvert', but we are both very um, private. He - he comes

round to my house and sits in the corner and he has a conversation in some

senses, but um -sorry, I've lost track of where I was going.

Jerry Colonna: I was asking you about how - uh, what was it like hearing that that experience

is similar and you had said it was kind of - I mean, the word that popped in

my head, was it kind of normalized it. That is, you know, you could relate to

what - what he had gone through.

Duncan Morris: Yeah, and it was probably one of the few times that I could actually relate,

even though the roles we have are - on the surface, look very similar. Um, it

was the first time that I actually, it's the first time I remember um, kind of,

understanding that he had gone through similar things like, his work for him

was always this big um - it was always a big part of his life and I think,

looking back, he did that absolutely for the family. Like he had a - a important

job. He was - he spent a week out of every month in America so he wasn't

always there. So work was a massive thing because for a week out of every

month when I was growing up, my Dad wasn't there. Um, but it kind of puts it

into - yeah. It - it did. It just made it normal. It made it feel like we - we'd

gone through something similar. Like my travel was nowhere near - I go to

the States three-four times a year, um, I would cry relatively infrequently,

which will be a surprise to you given boot camp. But um - but the one time

that I always feel closest to tears is when I shut the door and walk out of the

house to go to the airport, and leave Suzie and Edward on the doorstep, kind

of waving and blowing kisses, and generally embarrassing me on the street.

Um, it's the one time that I've got tears in the corner of my eye, because it's

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just hard and - kind of, you reflect back and actually realize that my dad had

to do that once every month and it must have been really hard for him. And I

never really saw it from his position. I guess, looking back, I just always

remember at times, not the times he wasn't there, but that there were times he

wasn't there.

Jerry Colonna: When you were a kid, how did you feel about those times that he wasn't there?

Duncan Morris: It's not so - to be honest, it's not something that I have a strong memory of, I

have memories from my - my mom always tells the story - when I was at um,

early school. So I was probably five or six, we had to write a diary every

morning. We had to spend ten minutes writing a diary and um, it's - I think

this diary must have got sent home somehow. And I wrote in the diary, uh,

'my dad came back today'. And the teacher just put at the top, 'thank God for

that.' Um, and it's always been that kind of - that joke is like, clearly I was

different. Clearly I was grumpy or a troublemaker when he wasn't there. Um, I

think my dad had been away for an extended period of time, that time. But it's

not something that stands out from my childhood, but um, that - that it clearly

affected me. There are stories about what I was like when my Dad wasn't

there. Um, yeah I'm - I'm not sure. I wouldn't - until now, I never really

thought of it as a big part, or a big influence in my life, but I guess, it is. Like

it - it was probably was a long period of my life and it probably did influence

me in ways I don't really understand.

Jerry Colonna: You know, one of the things I've - I've come to understand about my own

journey in becoming a parent, one of the things that I had to, uh, really grapple

with was the way in which my over-identification with my children would uh,

affect me. So when I was of - a younger venture capitalist, a young venture

capitalist and I would travel often, I would often have that tearful goodbye

which I would hold on to and not actually share. Uh, telling myself that I did

not want to upset my kids. And in those moments, I think what was happening

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to me was that I was both the parent and the child in the same moment. That

is, I was reliving the feeling of watching say, my mother and my father leave.

At the same time, as I was the parent who was leaving, I was both the

abandoned and the abandoner. And it was confusing. Um, I think what

happens to us is we get into, you know, that early parenthood age where we

are not quite, no longer a child and we're not quite fully a parent but we're in

this sort of in-between state. We have the capacity to empathetically feel what

our kids are feeling, and to begin to feel what our parents felt. And I think that

it's in that empathy that we have that opportunity to begin to heal. I know,

again from myself that once I began to internalize what was it like for my

father to have lost his job and, in my instance, for me to see him cry for the

first time in my life. I no longer saw it only as a ten-year old boy, frightened

that his father was crying, but I saw it as a man who was frightened about

caring for his family and being the breadwinner. And it shifted the experience.

It shifted the memory, and it made me feel closer to him. Unfortunately he had

died, by the time I had reached that conclusion. He died when I was 30 and I

never really got a chance to tell him that I understood. So, I'm going to be a

little paternalistic with you my friend. You can just say to your dad, at the risk

of making him feel all uncomfortable because he's British, that you

understand that what he went through.

Duncan Morris: Now it's - what you're saying is resonating on a - on a slightly different level

as well. Um, I - I am sports-mad and I remember growing up always wanting

my dad to come out to the garden and help me catch, help me learn to be a - I

was going to say slip fielder, but you guys don't watch cricket. So that will

make no sense. Um, but, um, like come and play hockey with me, come and

play soccer with me, come and play this, come and play that. And I remember

him - like he clearly did. I remember lots of - in fact all my - most of my

happiest memories are when we go down to - we went to play cricket and he'd

come down to the net so and - and, yeah, a lot of my happiest memories are

playing sports with my dad. But I also remember the times when he said no, I

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can't come and play that with you now. I'm going for exactly that now with

my son, that he just always wants to go and play tennis or swing ball or soccer

or hockey, field hockey. And it's - I kind of love it, this is the child in me

wants to go and play with him and then at the same time it's like, oh but I've

been playing swing ball with you now for two hours, and I really want to just

go and have some time on my own and - I start understanding what my - like

you said, it changes the memory of when that happened when I was a kid.

Um, and you start seeing it from both sides that actually my dad went a long

way out of his way to drive me to the local cricket field so - I don't know how

often it was, every weekend to go and play in the nets with me. And that's -

that was a big ask of him, especially because I've got three sisters who were

also demanding his time and, yet it changes the memory. It absolutely does.

Jerry Colonna: So here`s a thought. When you were 10, and your father said no, was there

anything that he could have said that would have made that no, easier for you?

Duncan Morris: Um, I don't know, is the short answer. Um -

Jerry Colonna: Something like, perhaps, I can't right now, but I will tomorrow, Duncan. And

then live up to that. The reason I ask is, in - in this switching of identities,

using empathy as the currency, you get to not only give Edward what he really

needs, but you get to give yourself what you needed when you were 10, by

giving it to Edward.

Duncan Morris: Yeah.

Jerry Colonna: Because the - the truth of parenting is that we're not always going to be able to

make - to -to meet our kid's needs and we're not always going to be able to

discern whose needs are actually being met in that moment. But I have found

over time, and it took me a long time to understand this, that if you take the

time not only to be present, but to actually communicate from your heart,

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from that same place that I called you to lead from, you can deepen that

relationship. And even if you can't get on the floor and play Legos, you can

still give him what it is that he is looking for, which is actually not Legos, but

a feeling. And the feeling is -


Jerry Colonna: - my father loves me and will be there for me.


Jerry Colonna: Does this make sense?

Duncan Morris: Yes, it's just - like he's at that brilliant age where he's an amazing negotiator -

Jerry Colonna: [Laughs]

Duncan Morris: - because he'd say, 10 minutes [technical difficulty] okay, no 20. And then

you say, okay, how about 15? And he says, no 30.


Duncan Morris: Um, [technical difficulty] quite understood negotiation and then you get into

that - I don't know whether 'cool to be kind' is perhaps not the right phrase, but

um, I'm not very good at saying 'no' to him. And part of it is probably kind of

what we're talking about now, that actually I just need to get better at saying,

not now, maybe tomorrow, or in an hour or yes, I can do it in a minute now.

Jerry Colonna: Not maybe, not maybe. Not maybe in an hour, or not maybe tomorrow.

Definitely.

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Duncan Morris: Yeah, definitely.

Jerry Colonna: Alright, so it's structure, it's container - It's not unlike, what we talked about at

the camp in terms of being a leader, it's - it's giving him clarity. It's giving

something for him to hold on to. So, you know, one of the things I used to do

is take out a calendar with my kids and say, okay, daddy is going to be back

on this day, and I'd point to the Thursday. Right, and then I'd mark on the

calendar, you know, some red mark or something like that, so that they can

look at the days and say, okay, this is what's going on. Or sometimes I would

tell them what cities I was visiting. So they - so they had a sense that I wasn't

just disappearing but I was going to some place and I was going to come back.

You know, my therapist once taught me the power of peak-a-boo. I don't

know what you call it in the UK but --

Duncan Morris: Okay.

Jerry Colonna: So one of the reasons why peak-a-boo is so powerful for a parent and child to

play, is that in peak-a-boo - and it was a British psychologist who really

explored this, D. W Winnicott; in peak-a-boo, what the parent is teaching the

child is that the parent can go away, but the parent will come back and

learning that the parent or the CEO, or the leader, or the dad will come back,

is just as important as any other feeling that we can get. Because the anxiety

that gets induced when the parent disappears is so profound that really the

resiliency that we want to instill in people is - is the ability to self-soothe by

knowing something of what the future will hold. So, if you just hold that

image of peak-a-boo, I go away but I come back. I go away, but I come back.

Very powerful.

Duncan Morris: I [Unclear 0:31:43] that's one of the ways that I struggled as a CEO or as a

leader is, people would come with hard questions, I wouldn't quite have an

answer to them, and my natural tendency is to kind of stew on things, or to

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mull things over until I'm kind of really, really certain. And quite often, you

don't get that. Like, I remember reading, 'once you've got to 70% confidence

in a decision, you're probably wasting time getting much further.' Um, but that

made me really uncomfortable. So, quite often I would get to most of the way

to an answer, but never get confident enough that I could kind, of tell people.

So, I can see - yeah, people would kind of, ask me something, I play peak-a-

boo, but I wouldn't come back; they'd have to come back to me. And that's

one of the things I was trying to push myself to get better at, which is one of

the things that was so draining about being someone you're not, for so long is

like, there's just lots of small things like that. Um, in any given day, it's not

that it's so tiring, it's just that doing that constantly with lots of different, small

things you want to get better at was just draining um, yeah kind of.

Jerry Colonna: I think the linkage you have just made is - is profound, it's brilliant. Um, yes,

there is a quality. I mean, I'm thinking of a client now, who in his, uh,

performance review - he's a CEO, one of the feedback or pieces of feedback

that he got was that people would email him and his replies would be

inconsistent. Sometimes he was instantaneous, and sometimes he would take

weeks and weeks to get back, if at all. And they never really understand so if

you use the peak-a-boo analogy, what's happening is, 'sometimes mommy and

daddy come back, and sometimes they don't.' And that's really, really

destabilizing. But if you simply said, in those instances, "I know you sent me

an email two days ago, I know I promised you a reply, I'm still mulling it

over; I will get back to you." It's kind of like - going back to the peak-a-boo

analogy, it's kind of like, opening the hands and showing that you're still there,

but closing them up again. And even more, if you give the employee, if you

give the other something to hold on to, "This is what I'm working on, I'm

struggling to get to 100% percent. I don't like speaking when I'm 70% sure."

Now yes, great, in an ideal world, you make a decision when you're 70%-80%

sure, yes but not all of us are capable of that, and certainly not in all decisions.

But if you give the other something to hold on to and communicate, then you

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are addressing their underlying feeling which is as important, maybe even

more important than actually giving them the answer to the question that they

asked you.

Duncan Morris: Yeah, what I'm thinking now is it's - it's amazing how a lot of these problems

seem so simple, like when you talk them through someone like yourself, and

then you start - I think this is one of the demons I'm going to have to face in

the future is, did I give up too early? Um, should I have just worked a bit

harder at - there is a somewhat - not necessarily easy answer, but there is a

very concrete answer to one of the traits I struggled with um, and like, in some

senses, leadership, being CEO in any sort of thing, it - none of it - it's not

rocket science, it's not hard. It's just continually doing the right thing and um,

yeah, at some point, I might have to face the 'did I give up too early?' 'did I um

- could I have toughed it out?' but right now, it's not something I'm worried

about because I've - like I said, I feel so energized in not having to do all that

stuff, being able to be myself, I think.

Jerry Colonna: Yeah, I -- I'm going to - I'm going to amend something that you just said. I

think it is hard. I don't think it's complicated. I don't think it is as complicated

as our anxieties make it out to be. But I think it's incredibly hard. You know,

I've been lately doing this talk called, 'Being Fierce', which is about speaking

truth and saying what needs to be said and uh, it's really hard. That doesn't

mean it's complicated, it's - it's just hard. The reasons it's hard, are

complicated but the action itself is straight forward. And - and with regards to

the doubts that creep in, unfortunately, and this is also hard, no one can really

say - we can't A-B test your life. Right? We can't say, what does Duncan look

like if he decided not to stay, not to give up the role? And what does Duncan

look like if he did? So the best that we have is to go on what our experiences

are right now. And, you know, when I was learning to be a coach, one of the

things I struggled with was - and I would talk to my supervisors with, about

would be - well, I don't know if this is working or that's working. And one

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supervisor used to say to me all the time, well how did the client feel? And I

said, well they felt better, and they got clear, and he said, well then it worked!

[Laughs] You know, and in this case, you're both the coach and the client.

And, you know, I remember that you have somatic expression, that sometimes

you have stomach problems. How has your stomach been?

Duncan Morris: With one exception, much better. Um --

Jerry Colonna: Yeah, say that again. I had a feeling it was going to be that way. [Laughs]

Duncan Morris: Yeah and there's a whole bunch of stuff in that as well, but I think one of the

reasons it's better is - well last night is the first night I went - hockey training

has come back. Field-hockey again, not ice-hockey, which isn't a girl's sport

by the way, just for all the Americans listening.


Duncan Morris: A very, very good man's sport. Anyway, let's move on.


Duncan Morris: I - I bought myself a bike and I've done a couple of um, trips out on the bike. I

don't know who invented cycling up-hills, but they need to be shot.


Duncan Morris: 850 runs, like, it's all tied in. I'm doing things that would naturally make my

body more resilient to that anyway. But I think that is because I feel more

energized. I can get home in the evening, and I'm energized or I've got

motivation um, like, the house has never looked as good as it um, as it does

right now, because I've fixed a whole bunch of stuff that's just been bugging

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me for ages. And it's just like, well now I'm going to fix it. Um, I've got the - I

actually have the time to do it as well. I took some time off, um, but I think it

was more - it was more important than just the time. It was the motivation to

actually make things better. And, yeah, it's all related. And actually, the one

time when my stomach, um, didn't play so well is when I went out for drinks

with Will, the new CEO, my best friend and probably drank more than I

should have. So it's entirely my own fault, and probably nothing to do with

how I was feeling, just the amount of alcohol that was consumed.

Jerry Colonna: Yes. Yes, I - I - I would - I would second that, you know, the - the 'Being

Fierce' talk that I do, I talk about how I learned to ask myself the question,

what am I not saying that needs to be said, in response - and I was taught that

by my therapist in response to my ongoing migraines. Now my migraines

haven't disappeared; there is no question about that, but they went from once a

week to once every three or four months, which I will take any day of the

week, you know. Um, it's a profoundly different experience, you know. Life is

a profoundly different experience. Um, the other thought I had was that, it -- it

still amazes me the degree to which - so I do it myself - the degree to which

we separate the inner and the outer. And - and, you know, when you first

described, well, you know, I'm exercising more, so that's probably having an

effect on the internals. Yes, it probably is. And yet, as you - as you noted,

you're more energized. By shifting the inner landscape, you shifted your

ability to deal with the external landscape. All of a sudden you have "more

energy", which means you will then exercise more, which then reinforces

what's going on internally. This is why, you know, the work we talk about,

whether it's rebooting your leadership or rebooting your life, which is our

tagline, is really about looking at both the inner and the outer, simultaneously.

You know, I like to say that if - if transformation happened only by cognitive

awareness, no one would smoke, no one would over-drink or over-eat or

gamble away their life savings because we all know that that's not good

behavior. The problem isn't changing the externalities; the problem is shifting

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the internal landscape. The problem is going back and diving into the wreck -

Duncan Morris: Mm-hmm.

Jerry Colonna: - and saying okay, what actually is going on for me? That radical self-enquiry

part. And, you know, you've done that. You know, I am so admiring of your

bravery. You know, you opened up both at the camp, but afterwards. I mean,

you did the work. And, you know Duncan, I don't know, I mean I don't know

if you'll ever be a CEO again. Uh, I thought I would never be a CEO again

and here I am being CEO. And, you know, I've got three partners, and they

look to me for things and, I was complaining last night, it's like, I'm a lone

wolf. What do you mean you actually have to look at my calendar and make

decisions about things? That's not fair. And yet, here I am, doing more than I

was ever able to do before. Things like this podcast, things that I wanted to do

but really didn't allow myself to do because I didn't have the time. And now, I

have time. So, I don't know if you will ever be a CEO again. You might, I

have a feeling though, that you are not going to go back to being the way you

were as a father, or a husband for that matter. So - so what's next for you in

this journey as you transition? Are you - um, how is the business doing?

Duncan Morris: The business is doing well. Um, I think, whether it's me stepping down, I

think a change of leadership has done it a - perhaps not a world of good; I

mean, it's just another one of those demons where the more credit I give to the

change in the business, the more credit I give to Will, the more it makes me

feel like my role was kind of - that I was the fault and there's - there's a

balancing act there. But no, business is going well. Um, still things that we

need to work through. And I guess, I started off by saying that the industry is

going through a bit of a transition; we have to um, make that transition as

well. I think that's going well, but it's hard; there's people who, um, who - who

joined us when we were a very different organization to the one we are now.

Um, but no. I mean, I think we are set up for all the exciting things we want to

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do. Personally my journey, I think I'm going to continue to work with Will.

We probably get to work better together in a slightly different role. Um, we've

- we've had a ton of conversations and I think this puts us up the -- the way

that keeps our friendship as strong as it can whilst keeping the business as

strong as it needs to be. Personally I'm going to - I'm working with our R&D

team. So I like sitting in the corner writing code, which I need to be a bit

careful of. Oh, I don't want to permanently just be the bloke in the corner that

no one really knows what he's doing. But right now, I'm absolutely loving it.

Um, one of the reasons I feel so energized, I'm doing something new every

day. You're saying, you can't split test - you can't A-B test life. You can A-B

test when you're writing code and I - I love that kind of - that very, very quick

validation. What I did this morning either works or it doesn't work. And if it

doesn't work, there's probably a line in a log report somewhere that tells me

which line is broken, and it's very easy to go and fix it. Whereas, if something

is not working as a CEO, you have to - you just don't get anywhere near the

same level of information as to what went wrong, or how to fix it. So, I'm

loving that kind of, very quick feedback loop. Um, I'm loving getting back to

actually why I started Distilled. Um, when Will and I started, I uh, sat at my

desk all day writing code. I was writing websites, um, I did computer science

at University, um, like I've been a coder as long as I can remember. And for

the past five years, I haven't really written a line of code. And in the last two

weeks, I've written like, loads and I'm absolutely loving it. So um, yeah. I

think my journey is just going to do that for a bit, and hopefully do that for as

long as I feel like, and add value whilst doing that.

Jerry Colonna: Well that - what a wonderful story. Will you stay in touch with me?

Duncan Morris: Absolutely.

Jerry Colonna: You know uh, it's such a pleasure and delight to connect with you on this and,

to get caught up and - and see where you are and, uh, I may be coming to the

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UK. Uh, it looks like I'll be in at least in Dublin in November and we may put

some events together either in London or Dublin. So, I'll definitely reach out

to you and - and -

Duncan Morris: Yes.

Jerry Colonna: - say hello, and see if we can grab a cup of tea or something.

Duncan Morris: Yeah. And if there is anything I can do, let me know.

Jerry Colonna: I will, I will. It's really a pleasure.

Dan Putt: So that's it for our conversation today. You know, a lot was covered in this

episode, from links, to books, to quotes, to images. So we went ahead and

compiled all that, and put it on our site at reboot.io/podcast. If you would like

to be a guest on the show, you can find out about that on our site as well. I'm

really grateful that you took the time to listen. If you enjoyed the show and

you want to get all the latest episodes as we release them, head over to iTunes

and subscribe and while you're there, it would be great if you could leave us a

review, letting us know how the show affected you. So thank you again for

listening. And I really look forward to future conversations together.

[Singing]

“How long till my soul gets it right?

Did any human being ever reach that kind of light?

I call on the resting soul of Galileo,

King of night vision, king of insight.”

[Singing]

[End of transcript 0:48:13]

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what if i don't want to be ceo? with jerry colonna and duncan morris

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