[00:00:00] Hello and thanks for joining us. My name is Richard Gerver. I have worked in education and human development and leadership for the last, I can't believe I'm saying this, four decades. In this podcast series, I'm chatting to a diverse range of people from a number of different fields from business, sport, the arts, education, philanthropy to explore what our young people and organizations really need.

Richard Gerver: In order to thrive not just survive in times of increasing change and uncertainty welcome to the learning bridge so today My guest is and for those of you that have listened to my podcast in the past You'll know what I don't do Is read out the email from a guest's [00:01:00] parents about who they are. I let them tell them about themselves, themselves, but what I will say about my guest today, Tim Bradshaw, is that I've known Tim for a while now and he is an extraordinary human being with an extraordinary, not just story to tell, but depth of insight that I think you're going to find fascinating.

All I will say about Tim, and I haven't run this past him, so he may admonish me in a minute anyway, but Tim is, for those in the States and everywhere else listening, Tim is the real life James Bond. That's what I'm going to say. You're

Tim Bradshaw: going to have so much trouble saying that, Rick. I know, I know, but

Richard Gerver: you know, I, you listen, what can I do?

But Tim, you'll find out why I say that crassly in a few minutes. But Tim, can I first of all say thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy calendar. to be with us today. It's a joy to have you on.

Tim Bradshaw: Richard, thank you very much. It's funny enough hearing you talk about 40 years. So I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but, [00:02:00] but 30 years ago on Monday, so was that last Monday I started the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst age just 19 for, for, for officer training.

So yeah, 30 years ago. And in fact, the guys that we were in that kind of platoon, if you like through officer training. are organizing a kind of bash for the end of the year, 30 year reunion. And I was, you know, kind of part of me just was to essentially ignore all of that. Deny it.

Richard Gerver: You're just in denial, aren't you really, Tim?

You know, we need therapy, I think, as we get older. Yeah. So listen, you just kind of touched on it there. Can you tell us a little bit about your own childhood and your own education experience? And what got you to Sandhurst at 19? What, what did that look like for you? Is it something you'd always wanted to, to do?

How, how did that journey begin as a child for you?

Tim Bradshaw: I think you've got to be careful, right? Cause we always, you know, is it history is always written by the winner. And I'm always, and I'm always kind of. Quite [00:03:00] suspicious of these books. You know, you read these like mega business books and at some point, the Richard Branson, I'm sorry, Richard Branson, if you're listening, I'm making it up, but the Richard Branson goes and this is the key moment where I took that decision and when it's looked at backwards, you kind of, it's made to be this kind of educated, considered decision and I'm not entirely sure maybe it was in the moment.

But I think for me, actually kind of with a little bit of retrospective look at it. I went to school. I can't have I never really got on at school, and by that what I mean is, I've never really been any good at doing anything for the sake of doing it. And we're a different generation, I'm a different generation, so we just kind of got told to do stuff, you know, history, geography, physics, whatever that might be.

And I've never really been very good at that, and I'm always questioning why, and my brain's always trying to find different ways. So, so whilst I actually like being at school, and My parents got divorced. They went their separate ways and kind of [00:04:00] that, that was what it was really. And the resultant factor of that was that my dad wanted me to stay at school.

I rode quite seriously, rode as in sort of rowing boats. And therefore the only real option was for me to sort of to start to board at school and actually it was really interesting the other day I was listening to Spencer Matthews, if I got his name right, he's just run 30 marathons in 30 days, whatever, made in Chelsea.

Yeah. And the people that were talking to him on the Highformers podcast actually were kind of quite determined to make boarding school out to be some sort of evil, you know, where you tortured, abused or whatever. And, and that certainly wasn't. Wasn't my experience. And in fact, whilst I didn't necessarily enjoy school, I absolutely love being part of something, having a purpose and a direction.

And whether that was the rowing team, the rugby team, the combined cadet forces, which, which we all did at school, I enjoyed being a part of that. But I always kind of struggled with identity a little bit. It's kind of, where do I fit in and kind of what do I kind of, what do [00:05:00] I do next? And the military seemed to be.

The only kind of avenue that ticked those boxes. So I kind of want to answer your question. I kind of always wanted to be a soldier, but really, because it, in my view, it offered that sense of kind of purpose, direction, training. I thought, well, maybe I'm going to fit in there rather than kind of just doing stuff for the sake of it.

And my dad, I lost my dad a few years ago, but he was always kind of quite purpose driven. He had quite a strong sort of moral compass, if you like. So I guess, I guess that all kind of fitted together. And and at first I was due to go to university. Actually, I was offered places at Exeter and Loughborough to go and do kind of sports science and physical education, etc.

And I thought, well, that'll work. But again, frankly, I was doing it because that kind of that's what everybody else was doing. And I'd have been the first member of my family to go to university. And I now have quite strong views about university, which we can talk about later, but, and then one day I sat [00:06:00] down sort of with my dad and I was kind of thrashing, thrashing about a little bit and I kind of didn't feel completely comfortable where I was in school and what was going on and I felt like I was doing stuff for the sake of it again.

And I sort of said to dad, dad, I don't know if I want to go to university. And dad, dad was super cool. Actually, he was like, okay, fine. Sort of why and what I said, well, I just feel like I'm going through the motions. And I guess, you know, like all difficult conversations, I was kind of maybe expecting pushback from dad and didn't get that.

Dad was like, look, you've got to do what, sort of, you want to do. So we sort of accelerated my process with the army, regular commissions board, all of that kind of good stuff. I don't even know if that exists anymore. I think it's all quite AOSB now. It's a different process. But went to that and the army basically turned around to me and said, No problem.

You've passed. You can start Sanders. This is what must be August, September. It's about when you finish school, isn't it? 94. So, and, and they were like, you can start Sanders in the January. So I sort of sat down with dad and said, I've got a place and I can go and [00:07:00] therefore I turned 19. In the October that year, and then started Sandhurst January 95.

And in hindsight, way too young. I mean, my first job from school was commanding 37 soldiers.

Richard Gerver: Wow.

Tim Bradshaw: And I was still just 20, I think, at that point. And out in Germany. With, with, you know, with Dorset regiment, they sort of don't exist anymore. They're now part of the Rifles or whatever, but by the by. So I kind of look back now and go, blimey, 20 years old, commanding 37 soldiers abroad.

Richard Gerver: Can I, can I, what I'd love to do is just go back and unpick, there's so much there. I mean, we could just, from that one response, Tim, the first is what fascinates me because in some ways you and I have got weirdly parallel experiences, although very different sort of childhood skill sets. So both of us had parents who divorced when we were relatively young.

Both of us had a boarding school, private [00:08:00] school, boarding school education. I was very much, although I've been passionate about sports and physical activity all my life, I was really not very good at any of it but really passionate about the arts. But what was really interesting again was, although like you, I wasn't overly academic, because like you, I found it really And this isn't a controversial statement, I found it boring, it wasn't my thing, it didn't light my fire in the same way it didn't light yours.

But the arts really did, and that became my sense of purpose and belonging, but also I often consider myself deeply fortunate, because I'm not sure that the state system would have had the resource available to me to pursue those parts of my Education in a way I was

Tim Bradshaw: super important, right? It's what I call joining the dots and it's what I'm quite passionate about now.

And if I'm really honest, I think it's what's missing in education at the moment. So I'll give you an example. I flew helicopters for a bit and I still can fly helicopter. I've got a helicopter pilot's license.

Richard Gerver: I'm sorry. You know how you denied being a [00:09:00] real life James Bond at the moment. Every bullet point in that box.

Anyway,

Tim Bradshaw: when I was at school, you've got like physics being taught for the physics. And a helicopter is essentially a real life physics project, right? But education didn't join those dots. So, I quite enjoy physics, maths, etc. Even geography and meteorology are all absolutely intrinsically linked. into flying helicopters and yet from an educational point of view that those dots were never, those dots were literally never linked.

So therefore, I find it or found it really difficult to learn and I guess you get pigeonholed that way in, in some respects. And, and, you know, to come back to your point about kind of sport and boarding houses, what I found was I've always been reasonably resilient, right? I kind of don't quit and I can keep going and And therefore in sports like rowing, which is fairly horrendous physically, rugby [00:10:00] that kind of requires you to get sort of fairly battered, you know, I could keep going and not quit.

So therefore you, you got a bit of an identity around that. But I struggled to find that same level of resilience. When I was studying physics as an example for the sake of studying physics, does that make sense?

Richard Gerver: Yeah Sorry to interrupt I mean the interesting thing for me there is that thing about Resilience coming with a sense of purpose and something really Right.

It's interesting, isn't it? Because kids often get condemned for lacking resilience. And I remember when my son, my son's now in his mid twenties. But, you know, that was a big narrative when, when our kids, my kids were, were kind of in there. You know, tween teenage years. And I used to say, yeah, I can see what you're saying, but my son can spend six or seven hours, and I'm not advocating it as a positive necessarily, in front of a computer game, right?

In front of the same computer game. Go at it, go at it, go at it. [00:11:00] Die. on the game and immediately go, right, I'm going to start again. Well, that to me is an exhibition of resilience.

Tim Bradshaw: Absolutely. Yeah.

Richard Gerver: And it seems to me that the often one of the condemnations we make of young people is they lack resilience.

I'm really interesting question to explore with you. Do they lack resilience or have they not found the sense of purpose they need to fire their resilience?

Tim Bradshaw: Or, or if we, yes, and if therefore leadership. So actually what they lack is leadership. So you know, I found myself over the years in a number of fairly horrendous, high, high pressure situations, some of which are sort of military related.

Other others aren't like being in a massive earthquake on the side of Mount Everest in, in 2015. And when people are in those situations, in my experience, what they need is reassurance and direction, right? And they need reassurance that the feeling you're having right now, anxiety, nervousness, et cetera, normal.

Because this is a, [00:12:00] I nearly swore then, terrible situation. Direction, this is what we're going to do. All of that stems from understanding kind of what my why is, what my so what is. Which to me is leadership. And at the moment, my own view is that we're not giving kids leadership. And by that I don't mean the headmaster.

What I mean is, no role model, no moral compass, no sense of direction. You know, if management is stuff, processes, systems, kit and equipment, whatever you want, right? If the exams are key performance indicators, So all that's doing is telling us whether what we're doing is working or not, then actually leadership is people, inspiration, motivation, communication.

And I think that's the bit that I think that's the bit that we're missing. I often say to people, I hate the expression man up, which, you know, given my background is interesting. It's [00:13:00] nearly as useful as telling someone to calm down. Richard, what you need to do right now is calm down. Oh, gee, Tim, why didn't I think of that?

What you need to do to win the Olympics is run a bit faster. Oh, thanks. That's literally brilliant. What didn't I think of that instead, invite somebody to be courageous, right? So say to somebody, look. This is what you want to do. Here are the risks involved in that. Here are the elements of that that we can control.

Here's the element that we can't control. You're going to have to get outside your comfort zone. You're going to feel anxious. You're going to doubt yourself. You're going to question yourself. Pre warn all of that. And to me, that's where that inspiration then comes from. And provide a couple of real role models, you know, real role models, real role models along the way.

And, you know, let's drop the old fashioned values. Let's just call them values. And if those values interpret themselves into playing a video game and keep going till you get to the next level or you become a grandmaster or or whatever it is you need to do, [00:14:00] then that translates directly in my view. But it all comes back to understanding what it is you're trying to achieve and where the inspiration comes from.

And I think that's where, not just educationally, but I think that's where we're adrift at the minute.

Richard Gerver: So, and going back to that, leadership is something clearly that you not only Demonstrate throughout your life in bucket loads, but actually spend a lot of your time working on with people in order to develop their leadership going back then to your own childhood, because, you know, one of those things that fascinates me is there you were at 20 years of age, leading 30 plus highly trained soldiers.

Where do you think, when you look back on your childhood, were there key incidents or moments or key influences and people who helped you develop your leadership skills? Because you clearly had them as almost like a natural talent. But can you track where, for you, those things evolved?

Tim Bradshaw: I think they grow, Richard.

I think I say this to everybody, you know, you and I spend forever [00:15:00] talking like delivering presentation training because we keynote speak, if that makes sense. And I kind of say to everybody, look, you can teach anybody to be a competent speaker. The top two, 3 percent is in there somewhere, right? And there's so many different forms of leadership.

And I think that I was probably quite fortunate in that what people forget, and it's funny, obviously I went on to do other stuff within the military, and in fact in my civilian career as well. But what people actually forget, for me, probably the most impressive course the military has ever run, and still does run, Is Sandhurst is a commissioning course because at the end of the day, I can't remember what the numbers are.

So a bit of artistic license, something like 20, 000 people apply for every slot that goes to Sandhurst. You're then pre selected to go through that. And sorry, for those of you in America, I think West Point. So it's, so it's leadership training. And then essentially what you go through is a 12 month residential, six day a week, two and a [00:16:00] half million pound leadership training course.

And I don't think that's ever been replicated commercially. But also what happens is your disposition, if you like, to receive training and decision making, is preselected. So that's not to say that everybody passes Sandhurst is brilliant. And I would argue that actually, I've learned more about real leadership, post military than pre military.

But what it does is it gives you this incredible sense of values of moral compass. Maybe it's a story for another day. But for me, at the moment, I watched I don't it's like in UK, now, you can't have a Christmas party without appointing welfare officers. And I kind of can't quite get my head around the fact that you can trust somebody to be on the board of directors of a business, but we can't trust them to have a Christmas party.

I'm not getting into legality of that. I'm saying are we [00:17:00] selecting the wrong leaders? Because there's a huge moral component to leadership in terms of set of values and beliefs and And that's not some huge high ground thing. It's just like a, this is where culture, if you like, this is, this is kind of what we do.

So I think Sanders gives you that as a, as a starting point. And then it equips you with. A huge amount of physical and psychological training, looking at history, decision making, all of those kind of things, which, which actually I think just don't exist really anywhere else.

Richard Gerver: It's interesting, isn't it?

Because so much of that you're speaking to aptitude, you're speaking to something much deeper than just the academic training of leaders, which I want to unpick in a minute in its own way. And actually you're talking a lot. About those human qualities and so when we're talking about education I just wrote down for example the word learning and then did that thing where I just put loads of circles around it because You know what you're talking about.

The comment you just made that [00:18:00] fascinates me is I learned way more about leadership once I'd left the two and a half million pound training program at Sandhurst than I did whilst I was there. Now, there's an absolute argument that says what Sandhurst gave you was the knowledge and context to be able to absorb what you then did.

But actually it was only when you started to experience the world and experience life. That you were able to use that knowledge as a magnet to pull stuff in, right? That actually, you have the academic side of leadership, but it's only then when you're out there in the field, so to speak, that you start to build

Tim Bradshaw: Yeah, it's the nuances, Richard, right?

So, by that what I mean is, and I guess I was super young as well, right? You get used to, like they always say, right? You don't fail Sanders for making the wrong decision. You fail Sanders for making no decision, right? And indecision is arguably more dangerous than wrong decision making, right? Again, a story for another day, [00:19:00] maybe.

But, but, but therefore it was inherently built in the age 19, 20 years of old, make a decision, make a plan, work through it, execute that plan, kind of get that job done. So, so I guess there is a fundamentals. We were also, maybe it's a different time and era, but we were told we had to be a role model. So we were told.

If you're asking your troops to be smart, you have to be smart. If you're asking your troops to be fit, you have to be fit. Right? Simple as that. And no one's, you don't have to be the fittest or the smartest, but you have to live and breathe what you're talking about. And then the team is much more likely to follow you, right?

And that's quite black and white up to that point. Really, and you're, you know, it's not real in some respects and obviously I went on to do special duties stuff. And I often say to people, it's where some of my counterparts, I won't mention any names fall over. Because actually, if you look at special forces, special duties operations, not normal people, right?[00:20:00]

They're already in the military. They've then probably done 12 or 18 months worth of personal training to get themselves on a 12 month selection course that is frankly miserable. To then do a job that's more dangerous and more miserable than the selection course was. So, so what motivates those individuals is never going to be the same as what's going to motivate, sort of, you know, Bob and Mary who just want to go to work, do their job, go home again.

And there's a key lesson in there around doing that. And actually the really gifted leader, I think, commercially Is the one that knows how to push the buttons and motivate the people that just want to go to work on time, come home on time, do their job to the best of their ability and do whatever it is they do at weekends.

And to me that's the real skill. And I started to learn some of that when I moved into the sphere of human intelligence. Because, and by that I mean human intelligence operations as opposed to my personal human intelligence. Because all of a sudden. I'm working with [00:21:00] these people that are risking their lives to provide intelligence back again, only I'm actually not stood with them.

Does that, does that make sense? I'm working with them, but I'm sending them back into their organizations, whatever it was they were doing before, essentially alone to take enormous risk. Now, don't get me wrong, on occasion, that risk is pretty real to me as the operator or handler as well, but much more them than me.

And then all of a sudden you start to think to yourself, why would this person do this? What can I say to this person to make them or to affirm that they think that this is a good idea? So all of a sudden, rather than talking to A soldier who calls you sir, and there's a very physical rank structure, and that's the way it is.

Suddenly you're talking to somebody that doesn't have to do anything you tell them to do, [00:22:00] and in actual fact, could decide to drop you in it. They could go back to the organization, usually a terrorist organization, that they were working for before and go, I'm gonna sell you this British agent, right? So, all of a sudden, you're now really You are not only enabling resilience in them, you are leading them in terms of motivation, inspiration, communication, because they just don't have to do anything you tell them to do.

Richard Gerver: Can I, I mean, just to, again, two things really struck me. The first is something you've talked about there quite powerfully, which is the potency of authenticity. So authenticity is everything and one of the things i'm sat here as a former educator listening to the parallels, right thinking actually the utopia for an educator Is and I often would say this when I used to work in education to teachers If you took away the status [00:23:00] Would young people still behave for you and learn from you?

And actually, that's what you're talking about, right? It's that. So I'd love to just unpick that a little bit more with you. When you were working and developing those relationships with people, what were you looking for? What were you trying to cultivate in them to get to that point where they didn't have to bloody listen to you because you weren't their teacher.

You weren't their boss. You were what, what, what was the process for you?

Tim Bradshaw: I think you've got to remind me, we'll relate this back to school. I visited in Glasgow. We will not say the school, but it's about rewarding the behaviors you want to see again, right? And I think we're getting that wrong at the minute.

Okay, we've got to relate back to my previous point. We're managing too much and we're leading with the KPIs, right? The key performance indicators. We're leading with the numbers in the maths, right? Which doesn't work. It doesn't work in education. It doesn't work in business, and it definitely doesn't work in the intelligence world, right?

Okay. All they are is affirmation that what you are doing is working or not. They, they're not the bill, [00:24:00] the be all and end all. And all of a sudden what you have to do is you actually have to pay attention to the other person. Right? So you actually have to, you be careful of empathy. You know, if I say to you, I know how you feel, Richard, what's the first thing you tell me?

Richard Gerver: You no idea.

Tim Bradshaw: Yeah, right. No you don't. Yeah. So you'll be very careful around the language, but actually what you've gotta do is take a walk in somebody else's shoes and go. If I was Richard right now, why would I do that? Why would I want to help? What, where is it I want to get to? And I always say you've got to translate the communication back down.

We talk about translation usually in terms of languages, right? Or taking text speak into normal speak or whatever. But actually you've got to translate. beliefs and motivations to individual people. I mean, if you, yeah, if you want a brilliant example at the moment and cut this out, if we're way off base for all of those living in America, this is not a political statement, right?

Caveat. But Donald Trump, the billionaire, [00:25:00] has built rapport with the poorest members of America who are voting for him. And the way he's done that is he's built rapport based on values and beliefs, because what he's saying is, Life is tough right now. I'm not getting what I want out of life. I want my country to be brilliant.

Well, those people could not be more misaligned echo economically or socially to him. But they're building rapport on a shared belief of motivation, but it's all a bit tough right now. And we want life to be easier. And it's, it's a brilliant example of kind of how that works. And, you know, in an education situation, you know, that's what that's what you've.

That's what you've got to do. You've got to align yourself with helping Richard achieve what Richard wants to achieve. And therefore, along the way, we'll tick the boxes that I need to tick, if that makes

Richard Gerver: sense. There's something that struck me that I'd really like to dig a little deeper into, which I think is really fascinating.

Because [00:26:00] earlier on, you talked about, as a leader, You know, in order to, to inspire confidence in others, you need to be as fit as you want them to be. You need to be as organized as you want them to be. All those things, you know, that you have to be the role model you were talking about. But also there's something interesting there, isn't there?

That if you are too perfect, if you, and it's finding that balance, right? Because if you're too perfect, they can't identify, like if Trump just waltzed around going, I'm a rich billionaire. You know, look at me, you can be like me, that wouldn't have worked, would it?

Tim Bradshaw: Well, I mean, and again, great example, right?

There's a really there's an interesting, at the moment, there's quite a lot of evidence that elite sport, right, is not motivating young people. So, let's be honest, I don't know how many people ever sort of think about this, but the reason we kind of fund elite sport is because actually what it does is it helps things like obesity.

Child [00:27:00] crime, because if people are off doing sports, then they're A, healthier, B, they're probably not doing, or they're doing maybe less alcohol and drugs and, and also they're not kind of fighting on street corners. That's kind of the theory. And the belief always was that you, if you watched the game on Saturday, whatever that looked like, or the, or the.

Athletics, whatever you want, and you go, wow, look at that. I want to be just like that. But there's quite a lot of evidence at the moment that actually what's happening is we turn on the telly and we see, I don't know, I can't think of a sprinter or a runner right now. And we see them do that, you know, whatever it is, 14 minute, 13 minute, 5k run.

And rather than go, wow, I'm going to train really hard and work really hard and do that. We go, well, I could never do that. And don't try if that makes sense. Which comes back to joining these dots. So for me, I always say it's about, you know, somebody I worked for a long time [00:28:00] ago said to give respect is to earn respect.

So what I'm basically saying is, I can't sit here on the sofa with my feet up on the desk, telling you to go running. If I come out running with you. That's the indicator that we need. So, I don't necessarily excuse me, need to be a brilliant runner. I don't necessarily need to be faster than you. But what I do do is I need to respect your level of integrity and I need to come and offer up that same if you're out, I'm out.

If you're doing it, I'm doing it. So it's not so much the performance, it's the mindset behind it to say I'm prepared to put myself in the same position that I'm asking you to put yourself in. And often that can be uncomfortable if that, if that makes

Richard Gerver: sense. No, I mean it's interesting because the word that keeps coming back to me is fallibility.

You know, as a leader or as an educator or any of the fields that you and I work in, if as a leader you try to project that you are perfect, that you're not vulnerable to anything, that [00:29:00] you're infallible, you absolutely alienate the people you're trying to lead, educate, work with. Because they're doing exactly what you've just said, they look at the footballer on the television earning 200 grand a week and think, yeah, but I'll never do that.

So I'm not going to rock up on Sunday on a cold, wet Sunday morning and play football because I'm never going to end up being like them.

Tim Bradshaw: Yeah. And actually, yeah, the reality is hand on heart. honesty moment, which is I'm incredibly fallible. I've, I absolutely sort of struggle with my own demons. And, and, and now we come back to what the real essence in my view of kind of high performance teamwork and stuff, which is actually, you know, covering each other's blind spots.

So. You know, I've always suffered with kind of anxiety and that can sometimes lead to depression. I get hyper focused and every time I've ever tried to talk to anybody out there because always you've been to war three or four times. I'm like, no, it's nothing to do that at all. In fact, ironically, in those environments, I find operating easier because my [00:30:00] mind works fast at detail and actually weirdly in those environments, I feel like I fit in.

So you get sort of pigeonholed into these boxes. But the secret I've always found is to be utterly honest. And people say, well, do you want curing? I don't want curing. I certainly don't want drugs. Because actually the thing that causes me a problem over here makes me pretty good at doing this. over here.

So therefore, it's just a question of understanding that this is me. This is the positive window of that. And this is the negative window of that. Allow your team to cover your blind spots over here and therefore enjoy the positives over here. And as long as you're all honest with each other and the kind of this outweighs this, then, then in fact, the whole thing works.

And in fact, for me, I think it's incredibly empowering. When I get so ironically, you know, my wife will laugh at me, but I'm things like tax returns and admin and money. I [00:31:00] literally hate it, but but I get it. It brings me out of sweat, but but I get other people then that perhaps see you because, you know, you stand on stage.

You talk about special duties and helicopters and mountains and I put on my goodness me. That's amazing. But those people actually then quite like it when you go to them for advice and say, Look, I'm really bad at this and this is great. creating me real anxiety right now. Could you help me with it? And it actually empowers people to go, Oh, wow.

Like, so it's, it's kind of just a different skill set. If that, if that makes sense. I think, I

Richard Gerver: mean, I think what you said is so potent and such an important lesson for young people and people that are working with young people. Resilience is not a superpower. What it almost what it is, is having the courage to be honest.

About who you are, what you are, and your weaknesses as well as your strengths. And, and being able to come to terms with that, which is ironic because I, I often say to people, I think I was in my 30s before I was able to look in a mirror and go actually I'm [00:32:00] quite happy with who I am, warts and all. And my, my, and that meant I was comfortable in not having to pretend what I wasn't anymore.

That actually I was quite comfortable being able to say. Because it's interesting, you know, you talk about I, I'm exactly the same as you this time of year and we're recording this at the start of January and in the UK we're coming to the end of the kind of self-assessment tax year, right? This is by far my maximum moment of stress in the entire year.

Nothing, nothing makes me sleep less than coming up to tax return time. I mean nothing. And it's exactly the same. As you and so like you say it's really interesting because whether you're a leader an educator whether you're working in the military In any field actually when people see you stand on the platform of the thing you do that makes you excel They assume incorrectly You're the finished, polished article and you must just be perfect and mentally together on everything.

And it's, I [00:33:00] think that fallibility and vulnerability is so incredibly important.

Tim Bradshaw: I always say to people, it's right, so I've got a couple of clients that I've worked with over the years, you know, they sort of joke and they go, Tim, I hate you. My wife says that quite a lot as well. Tim, I hate you, you know, you're good at everything you do.

And I say to people, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't do the things I'm bad at. And there is a fundamental difference in those two statements. And that's what people forget. But, you know, I said I'd talk to you about school. And to me, what we're missing is we're not rewarding the right behaviours. We're not allowed to have those conversations.

And more importantly We are not rewarding the behaviors that we, that we wanna see again and without. Yeah. One of my pet hates his keynote speakers that make up science, but, but, but, but, but at the end of the day, we have a fight or flight mechanism that triggers, right. And, and the, the fight or flight bit of that, walking along a original line on a mountain getting shot at in Afghanistan, whatever that might be, [00:34:00] that's a chemical reaction, right Richard?

That, that's hormones and adrenaline and cortisol and all of that good stuff. The positive side of that, the reward system that the body has. is driven by us. So things like dopamine hits and all the rest of it, but that's driven by us. We, we inspire that. And that's what's missing. So as an example, we'll not tell you when, but I went to visit a school's visit, as you, as you know, we run a charity and we go and talk to school kids about resilience.

And it was a pretty punchy school in the middle of Glasgow, thousand pupils. And we got there and Dakar rally thing with a motorbike. And we got there, we took the motorbike with us, etc. And we were told, right, you're going to get to talk to these six really naughty kids. And I was a bit like, okay, but there's nearly a thousand, there's a thousand kids in this school.

Yeah, you're going to talk to these six naughty kids. I'm like, okay, now's not a time place for this discussion. We'll do that afterwards. These kids are so naughty. That, or [00:35:00] not, as the case may be. They've got every label under the sun. And they only go to school essentially half of the time or thereabouts.

And they get like their own shooters and all sorts of stuff, right? And it was quite funny because I took one of my colleagues with me. And you know, we both have a background and a proven track record of being able to handle ourselves, shall we say. So, they were like, do you need a minder? Do you need physical minders?

And I was like, no, I think we're, at the end of the day they are 14, so I think we'll be alright. So, anyway, here we go. And we have these kids for maybe, I don't know, four hours, right? Not a peep out of them. They were brilliant. They were literally brilliant, these kids. Okay, when we first started, there's a bit of this, ba ba ba.

You know, and one of them was like, well, I'd rather be boxing. In a Glaswegian accent that I can't do. So I said, absolutely no problem, go get some gloves and a gun shield, and we'll do three minutes. And it totally blew him away, because he thought he was being clever, that I was prepared to stand toe to toe with him, if that's what I needed to do.

Needless to say, he was less enthusiastic at that point. Anyway, so we did what we did, but by giving him a reasonably [00:36:00] kind of strong role model, setting the ground rules out This is what I'm taking. This is, this is, if you want to sit here and talk about motorbikes and other stuff, then this is how that works.

You will participate, you will do this, you won't do that, you will do this. Fairly strong. I'm oversimplifying it, right? But for four hours, we had no problem with these kids. They were brilliant. They were doing mental arithmetic, right? We were, we were, which they hate, maths. But if you want to navigate a motorbike across the desert it's all mental dead reckoning, compass headings, fuel headings, all the rest of it.

So suddenly these kids were interested in maths. Why is that? Because we joined the dots, and they thought they were rally raiding, not doing math arithmetic. So again, it's talking about, it's bringing together all of the things that we've been talking about.

Richard Gerver: Yeah.

Tim Bradshaw: More importantly, Richard, right, we dealt with that, we let them go.

And I turned around to the teachers and said, I don't understand what's happening here. Why am I only talking to these six kids? Oh, we've got to be inclusive. I said, sorry, what are you talking about? We've got to be inclusive. Okay, so what's inclusive? What about the other 994 [00:37:00] kids or whatever that, that I'm not talking to today?

How is this being inclusive? And I said, and whilst we're at it, it's all this perception all the time. And I said, and whilst we're at it, you know, you're rewarding the wrong behaviours. And they said, what do you mean? I said, well, that would be me. I would be in this class to loop back to childhood because what you're essentially saying is if you're a bit naughty at school, kick off a bit and you only have to come half the time.

And when you do come, you get to go and talk to the blokes with the motorbikes in the rallying rather than go into classes. So you are rewarding the wrong behaviors. So I would a hundred percent do that. That would've, that literally would've been me and probably was me. Yeah. 'cause I was very fortunate and I went to a school where that behavior, if you like, was rewarded with rowing and playing rugby and et cetera, which, which we view as constructive.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, stood me in good straight later on for sure. The military and, and all the rest of it. But essentially, I honestly believe we're rewarding the wrong [00:38:00] behaviours, right? I'm not saying we shouldn't look after those kids, but surely it should be their way around. Do really well and you can come to this because I would have sat there and gone.

I'm going to play up So because I want to go meet the motorbike And

Richard Gerver: I think I mean I think what you're also saying which is really potent to me Is that the example you gave these kids didn't think they were doing maths and they were thriving at it Because it was, it was connect for me, the one thing I'm going to take and I've got a wrap here because I can't we've we've completely kind of towards the end of our time.

I think the most powerful thing you've kept repeating to me is joining the dots at every level of what you've talked about. And I think if there's a lesson for me here, it's that, that we've got to stop pigeonholing and we've got to start on a human level, on a leadership and development level for young people or people in the workplace.

You know, for example, the person that works in the accounts department, right? The problem is all too often their job is sales. I [00:39:00] think that's such a powerful lesson in terms of

Tim Bradshaw: it's the best quote of all time, which isn't if you've got American listeners, the JFK thing, right? You must have heard it. So the story goes, doesn't it?

That the president is going to see the moon people, space flight people. And the story goes that he's walking across the hangar to see And the janitor is there sweeping up, and the president turns around to the janitor and says, I guess your job's to keep the floors clean. And the janitor says, no sir, my job's to put a man on the moon.

Richard Gerver: Yeah,

Tim Bradshaw: brilliant. And it's the so what, right? It's the joining the dots up.

Richard Gerver: Exactly.

Tim Bradshaw: And I, to end on, the world's most simple example for you, right? I use it all the time in a corporate setting, okay? You're a junior professional, right? Teacher, doctor. Accountant, lawyer, doesn't matter, right? And you come into work one day, and the boss, grumpy old Richard, turns around and goes, make six cups of tea.

How do you feel right now?

Richard Gerver: Yeah, absolutely belittled [00:40:00]

Tim Bradshaw: and Worthless, belittled, undervalued. Why am I even here? I've chosen the wrong profession. Same scenario. You're a junior, you walk into the office, and the grumpy old boss, Richard, turns around and he goes, Tim, I'm so glad you're here. The boys have been up all night, just after you left the, just after you left the office last night, blogs and blogs phoned up, we haven't been home, the boys, the team haven't really had any sleep, any chance you could grab six cups of tea.

How do you feel now?

Richard Gerver: Oh yeah, absolutely, valuable, important part of the team.

Tim Bradshaw: Put your cape on, right, put your cape on, you've saved the day. And, and it is literally that simple if we're trying to influence people. You asked right at the start today, how do you influence people? And that's it. I understand the so what.

Deliver that communication.

Richard Gerver: Love it. And that's so powerful because it's about having the confidence and time as a leader to listen too. So on that note, Tim, first [00:41:00] of all, a huge, huge thank you. Because I hope people find that even a tenth as interesting as I have. If people want to find out more about you, and I really hope they do, because there is such depth to your work, both in terms of your education foundation as well.

Well, as your, your, your, your day job, if you like, and your keynote speaking, how can people connect with you and find out more about you and what you do?

Tim Bradshaw: So two things really, I'm always on LinkedIn as are we, are we both really? So Timothy Bradshaw on LinkedIn. It's the only social media that I leave the notifications on, frankly.

I'm not that interested in what people have for breakfast. So always find me, find and follow me on LinkedIn. Always ping me a message, and if I can get back to you, I will. Or simply enough, timothybradshaw. net is the website. And actually on the website, there's quite a lot of stuff there around the foundation, what we do with schools.

And obviously all the masterclasses and the speaking and that, that we do.

Richard Gerver: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Tim. And I'd like to [00:42:00] say thank you to all of you out there for joining us. And if you'd like to find out more about me, please check out my website, richardgerver. com and subscribe to this podcast so that you don't miss any future episodes.

And we have got some absolute. Corkers both online now and coming up in the future

Tim Bradshaw: And i'd love to hear from anybody that thinks they can cover help cover any of my blind spots, please There's a challenge

Richard Gerver: for you guys every one of you and until next time Apart from coming back to tim and covering his blind spots.

Can I just say here's to the future? Thank you all and take care.

Tim Bradshaw: Thanks guys