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Episode 14: What Does This Make Possible? A conversation with Chris Ducker
29 Plays1 month ago
Chris Ducker built companies with nearly 600 employees, hit his first million dollar year, and was completely done. Not celebrating. Done. And then he did it again in 2021, this time landing in anxiety, depression, and phase three adrenal failure with cortisol completely flatlined. The long way back didn't start in a boardroom. It started with an hour a day in the woods, no AirPods, no podcast, no agenda.
In this episode, Chris and I dig into what it actually costs to build something significant, why letting go is the skill nobody teaches entrepreneurs, the difference between motion and momentum, and why the most successful people you'll ever meet all have one thing in common, a stillness practice that has nothing to do with work.
Chris also shares the question his mentor Dan Miller asked him that quietly restructured everything. Four words. What would this make possible? Simple enough to dismiss. Powerful enough to change the trajectory of his life twice.
Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all of this, he became a birder. Genuinely. And it might be the wisest thing he's ever done.
So here's what I want you to sit with. You're busy, you're building, and you're probably pretty good at it. But when's the last time you walked into something that had nothing to do with your output, your brand, or your bottom line and just let yourself be fully there?
Find Chris:
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Format
00:00:01
Carl Lubbe
Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of One Great Question. and i am... unreasonably fortunate with our guests today because i have no business knowing people this interesting, doing work this impactful. But as with most things, it's not really who you know, it's the friend who knows somebody else. And so Chris and I were introduced recently through a mutual friend, Jeff Goines, while we were all hanging out in the metropolis that is Franklin, Tennessee. It's not really a metropolis, obviously, a small, lovely town, but it it has an unusually large amount of writers and thinkers and um and artists. And so Chris and I ran into each other there. So Chris, lovely to have you on.
00:00:44
Chris Ducker
Yeah, that was a very, very, very nice lunch we had with each other. And um i remember,
Meeting Chris and Global Connections
00:00:50
Chris Ducker
I think we also, we didn't we walk around a mall somewhere? We walked around the fact that the factory, right?
00:00:55
Carl Lubbe
Yeah, walked around the factory.
00:00:56
Chris Ducker
Yeah, there you go.
00:00:56
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:00:57
Chris Ducker
That's right. Yeah. Oh, that's right We were looking for a bag. i always wanted to buy a bag, I think. Right. I do remember this now. Yeah.
00:01:02
Carl Lubbe
You're heavy into leather works.
00:01:02
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:01:04
Carl Lubbe
You're like, I need to find a nice leather bag. Because I think Jeff had one and you said, oh, I need one of those.
00:01:06
Chris Ducker
Nice little bag. Yeah, didn't find the bag, but did find ice cream.
00:01:10
Carl Lubbe
No.
00:01:12
Chris Ducker
So every we wants everyone's a winner, as they say, you right?
00:01:12
Carl Lubbe
Yes. Which in my world, better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, you know, the thing that instantly struck me when you and I and and Jeff were having lunch was this idea that, you know, me being from South Africa, Jeff being from the Midwest, you being from England and then converging in this spot is that the world has, you know, just gotten more and more and more interconnected and then found out kind of the work that you were doing and the things you were doing for, you people in the business space, and then as a speaker, and then as an author and helping other people become an author. So for those of us who may not yet have come across your work, Chris, I'd love for you to kind of share, you know, how do you find yourself where you are today in terms of the work that you're doing?
Chris's Work and Entrepreneurial Journey
00:01:59
Chris Ducker
So what I do today is i focus on working with leaders to become truly sustainable in whatever career path they're on So whether they are business owners or C-suite executives, CEO, CFO, COO, that kind of thing, or even down to middle management, anybody really who's leading themselves in a team is the type of individual that I will not work with.
00:02:16
Carl Lubbe
We're.
00:02:23
Chris Ducker
to make sure that they go the distance in not only business and their career, but also in life as well. um But it's it's been quite a ah quite an interesting journey over the last kind of 20 years or so running my own businesses. That's what I do today, mostly.
00:02:40
Chris Ducker
and I do it from the stage more than anything else as a speaker, but I also work with organizations privately. We do off-sites and retreats and I do private coaching and all that kind of stuff as well. But I mean, over the years, you know, I've i've got to the point where and we were we had a team of almost 600 employees at one point in in the Philippines at a call center facility.
00:03:03
Chris Ducker
and We had a large virtual assistant recruiting hub, which was both those companies had been purchased now and acquired over the last few years. So I've got nothing to do with either of those anymore.
00:03:14
Chris Ducker
and But then we've also had a company called Youpreneur, which was a personal brand education and kind of service-based business where we work with expert authors predominantly on publishing their books, launching their books, marketing their books, selling their books, and ultimately building a business around their books, right?
Lifestyle Philosophy and Social Media Presence
00:03:33
Chris Ducker
So it's been a ah pretty... pretty much a bit of a smorgasbord over the years. um But what I'm really passionate about now, Carl, more than anything else, man, is just making sure that the idea of hustle is not necessarily a bad thing.
00:03:50
Chris Ducker
Like it's okay to throw a little bit of hustle in on occasion, but it it's a season. It's not a lifestyle, right? So, and that's really kind of my major focus now is making sure people don't burn out before their time and all that kind of stuff.
00:04:04
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. One of the things I you know encourage everybody to go follow you on socials, one of my favorite things has been you know kind of learning about you from a distance after our encounter was seeing all of these beautiful pictures of birds.
00:04:19
Carl Lubbe
all your social media. And as an eight year old myself, what I love is encountering other people with what I would consider to be the whimsy and the hobbies of an eight year old.
00:04:29
Chris Ducker
Yeah, yeah.
00:04:30
Carl Lubbe
And so ah you know, as you as you think about your work and making sure people don't burn out in my work, it's similar in this idea of coaching leaders and and owners around emotional intelligence.
00:04:30
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:04:41
Carl Lubbe
And part of it is like, don't lose the whimsy of kind of your eight-year-old version
Childhood Reflections and Entrepreneurial Inspiration
00:04:46
Carl Lubbe
of yourself. And so the first question we we like to ask on the podcast is, what is something that the eight-year-old version of Chris would be shocked or surprised or in awe of the life that you're getting to have now?
00:04:47
Chris Ducker
yes
00:05:01
Carl Lubbe
whether it's the size of your camera, because you can capture those birds, or anything in between. So it could be personal, professional, the places you've gone, the things that you've seen or done. What's something that the eight-year-old version of you be like, tell me more about that. That's wow.
00:05:16
Carl Lubbe
Wow.
00:05:17
Chris Ducker
I think there's a lot, to be honest with you, that, you know, there's there's at least a handful I can probably pick up on, but I think one or two that really stand out. A lot a lot of people don't notice this about me, actually, in the mid to late 90s, really kind of like 94 through to around 2000, I was pretty heavily involved in the Hong Kong film industry here in the UK. Distribution, putting on live events, you know, we had Jackie Chan over and Jet Li over and you know, all these other great guys.
00:05:43
Chris Ducker
I'd be going to Hong Kong couple times each year and I'd be on movie sets and shooting behind the scenes stuff on little camcorders, DVD releases and all this kind of stuff.
00:05:53
Chris Ducker
I don't really talk about this stuff so much now, but looking back on it retrospectively, that was really kind of my first, you know, pro-ray into entrepreneurship, right?
00:05:53
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:05:53
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:06:03
Chris Ducker
Like building things, uh, uh, and creating community and all that kind of stuff. And so I think my eight year old self would find it pretty cool that, um,
00:06:16
Chris Ducker
I have some really, really quite special photographs of hanging out with these superstars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li from over the years.
00:06:23
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:25
Chris Ducker
And and I think my eight-year-old will kind of geek out over that. But also I think, you know, as as as kids growing up, myself and my brother, you know, my father was a hardworking architect. My mother was an executive assistant.
00:06:37
Chris Ducker
We didn't have a lot of money, Carl. You know, like i wasn't born into any amount of money in any way whatsoever. You know, my my father had to go in the 90s. He spent almost eight years in the in the Middle East, Riyadh, Saudi, um another couple of spots as well that I probably can't remember. And I only want to try and pronounce the names. um Going out and, you know, working on sites and building these, you know large, everything from large apartment blocks to office buildings and malls and you name it. He did that.
00:07:06
Chris Ducker
to be able to gain the money needed for us to build or even buy our first home and the first home was just a little two up two down house just outside of Wimbledon right so Not a lot of money, not a lot of holidays, not a lot of travel or anything like that. So I think the other thing that my eight-year-old self would be quite happy about, quite surprised to see would be the sheer volume of travel that I've been able to achieve in my career. A lot of it for business, yes, but also a really good chunk of it for more kind of pleasure stuff.
00:07:42
Carl Lubbe
Amazing. Amazing. And as you were building this kind of life that now gives you the ability to travel and see things differently than, you know, maybe the eight year old version of you would have aspired to, where did you start to pick up this idea from going from, you know, film in Hong Kong to then building businesses in the Philippines? What was the thing that was curious about that? What was it interesting that you're like, oh, I wonder what that's about? How did you find yourself in those places in your 20s and your thirty s
00:08:12
Chris Ducker
Well, I do remember how hard my father worked. I really remember that. And I remember probably saying to myself at a pretty young age, you know, i probably 15, 16, 17, saying to myself, like, yeah, I get it.
00:08:30
Chris Ducker
You've got to get a good job. You know, you've got to get a good job. But... I think pretty early on, man, I pretty much figured out I didn't want to have to work for somebody else for any longer than I really needed to.
00:08:44
Chris Ducker
I always wanted to build my own thing.
00:08:44
Carl Lubbe
Thank you.
00:08:46
Chris Ducker
I always wanted to be able to, um,
00:08:50
Chris Ducker
ye create and launch and sell my own things. Right. And so from service based, you know, offers and and and companies right the way through to digital marketing and, you know, courses, masterminds, events, you name it, um you know, that that's the stuff that I knew I was pretty much called to do on it. from a pretty early age, but, uh, you know, life is weird, man. Like I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago at a dinner party and we were talking about how, like he was, he's pretty burnt out right now. And he was saying like, you know, ah just need a break, man. Like I just need break from all of this. And I said him, well, you know, you have to understand that you shouldn't have to break in order to justify taking a break.
00:09:35
Carl Lubbe
right.
00:09:36
Chris Ducker
but Like if you're saying, oh man, I need a break from this. Like you've already,
Burnout and Sustainable Success
00:09:40
Chris Ducker
you're already broken something not working there. So I, you know, equally never wanted to get to that point. Unfortunately i did.
00:09:47
Chris Ducker
and it was a massive wake up call and it led to the long haul leader being written. um But yeah, from a pretty early age, dude.
00:09:57
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. And then, you know, maybe you can take us down that path of going, I know that I want to work for myself. And one of the things that I jokingly when I'm coaching entrepreneurs, I said, listen, the best thing about owning your own company is not having a boss.
00:10:12
Carl Lubbe
The worst thing about owning your own company is not having a boss. Because honestly, you know this as well as I do, is now you have 10 bosses. Every client becomes kind of a new boss, right?
00:10:23
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:10:23
Carl Lubbe
You're always putting out a fine for somebody else. So where did you find kind of your breaking point? And hey, I went after this thing. i started my own companies. I was there. And then obviously we know the end of the beginning and the end of the story is like, I didn't want to work for somebody, so I started something. And then you have like the exit story, which you know lots of entrepreneurs want.
00:10:40
Carl Lubbe
But what happened kind of in that middle, or maybe it was closer to the end where it's like, oh, I'm i'm hitting that breaking point.
00:10:46
Chris Ducker
Well, actually, know ah hit break I've hit breaking point twice, very early on after just a few years of of operating.
00:10:50
Carl Lubbe
Thank
00:10:53
Chris Ducker
i remember it very vividly. I've talked about it in in in my books before and from stage before and in other interviews as well. It was very, very late 2009.
00:11:04
Chris Ducker
We'd been going for a few years building. I'd been going all out, man, like 16-hour days, you know six cups of coffee you know just just to be able to get through the days and everything. And I burnt out right at the end of 20, yeah, two yeah, 2009. And nine and um I remember myself and my wife who went away for a little staycation at a beautiful island resort.
00:11:27
Chris Ducker
And she said to me, you know, you We had just, by the way, we had just had our first million dollar year ah in terms of revenue, not profit, but in terms of revenue.
00:11:33
Carl Lubbe
Thank you.
00:11:36
Chris Ducker
And I remember saying like, you know, man, yeah, we just, we made a million bucks this year. This is great. From the outside looking in everything was very, very rosy. But from the inside looking out, I was pretty much exhausted. I was i was done.
00:11:51
Chris Ducker
And so she said to me, you know, for us to continue building this thing, there's just no way And that was the big thing I was holding onto everything. Like a lot of early stage entrepreneurs do they get going, they get, you know, from, you know, from the ground up kind of thing, get their hands dirty. They learn how do lot different things. so was like, oh, going to the next level. And because of that, they think that nobody else can come in and do it as well as them or even let alone better than them. Right. And so 2010, we hired eight different people to ultimately replace me day to day.
00:12:26
Chris Ducker
and that took us from one to three to 5 million. And we, we kind of floated around that three to 5 million for the majority of our 16 years before we were, you know, uh, acquired. And so,
00:12:39
Chris Ducker
I think the the really big takeaway here from that first burnout, which was actually a pretty simple one to get over, was that you just can't be all the things to all the people all the time.
00:12:50
Chris Ducker
That was a pretty major lesson. But then in 2021, again, ah burnt out and it was really bad this time. I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression. I was put on antidepressant meds for a year and a half.
00:13:03
Chris Ducker
I had to take almost six months off work entirely.
00:13:03
Carl Lubbe
Thank you.
00:13:07
Chris Ducker
I was exhausted and on the back end of everything from a chem's perspective, i was diagnosed with phase three adrenal failure so ultimately my my cortisol was flatlined 24 7. and cortisol is your stress it's your stress hormone right so it's supposed to start pretty high when you wake up in the morning and it goes through this little loop through the day when it kind of slowly decreases over the day before the sun goes down but mine was just completely flatlined completely flatlined the whole old day And so, you know, this was a whole different ballgame. This took me a good while to get over. And had to go through a lot of changes personally and professionally to to get over it. And a couple of those changes were exiting from the companies um and, you know, kind of rewriting the rulebook in terms of what the definition of success was for me personally.
00:14:03
Chris Ducker
But here's the funny thing through doing that and through talking to a lot of my friends and peers and other people in a lot of different industries and through doing my own research, I realized actually this was not only just my definition of success, like the idea of pulling back on things, not necessarily doing less, but just doing more of what really mattered and getting rid of all the stuff that kind of didn't.
00:14:24
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:14:27
Chris Ducker
Um, um, There was a lot of people doing this, a heck of a lot of people doing this. And that's where the idea for the long haul leader came because I couldn't find a book about this per se. So thought, well, I'm just going to write the darn thing. I've done two already. I can do a third. And so that's exactly what we did.
00:14:43
Carl Lubbe
Yeah, incredible. What would you say in 2026 that you would tell the version of you in 2021? What question would you tell him he's not asking?
00:14:55
Carl Lubbe
what What advice around, hey, you know, because in our work, it's about great leaders are the most curious leaders. And when we're not curious and we're not asking better questions, we get stuck. And like you said, now we're doing too much of the wrong thing because we're Burnout isn't doing too much.
00:15:08
Carl Lubbe
It's doing too much of the wrong thing, as you pointed out.
00:15:10
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:15:11
Carl Lubbe
So what question would you try and hand the 2021 version of Chris to say, hey, I think you should ask this question instead?
00:15:20
Chris Ducker
I think... um it It takes me back and this is, I know you're going to ask me later, so let's just do it now. Uh, the question that changed everything just to keep the, the, the flow of this conversation going.
00:15:31
Carl Lubbe
Hmm.
00:15:35
Chris Ducker
i I, actually thought long and hard about this because I wanted to give you a really good real world kind of, I guess, reality check on this for me.
00:15:47
Carl Lubbe
Yeah, the one question that changed everything for Chris.
00:15:47
Chris Ducker
Um, Yeah. and And the question I've asked on a number of different occasions throughout the course of my journey, right? However, it was my my old friend and mentor, who unfortunately is no longer around, Dan Miller, um who a lot of people in Nashville know.
00:16:04
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:16:07
Chris Ducker
He was a Nashville native. Um, I worked with Dan, I was friends with Dan for 12, 13 years or something. And I remember I was, I was, we were on a zoom call with each other. And this must've been about 2016 ish, something like that. And he I was moaning cause I'm British and we love to moan. Uh, and I was, I was moaning about the fact that there was no peer group in the Philippines and I was getting bored living in the Philippines and I'd done everything there was to do in the Philippines.
00:16:37
Chris Ducker
don't get me wrong, Philippines, beautiful country. People are incredible. But when you were living there as an expat for as long as I was, you have really genuinely kind of done everything you want to do. And so I was moaning about that. And he said to me, some move, you're not a tree.
00:16:58
Chris Ducker
You're not rooted there. like Like, move a little bit. And I was like, well, what would that happen? you know And then he followed up with ah with a question that he became pretty much synonymous with in in the leadership world. And that was, what would it make possible?
00:17:13
Chris Ducker
And that's the question that I you know i answered back at that time. that led that That actually led to us leaving the Philippines. And moving back to the UK in 20, we bought a house 2017, renawed it completely moved in
Health, Wellbeing, and Nature's Influence
00:17:28
Chris Ducker
2018.
00:17:28
Chris Ducker
um And then in 2021, when I got all that bad news, oh yeah, you got anxiety. Well, yeah, tell me someone I don't already know, doc, right? You're also going to be on antidepressants and you've got phase three adrenal failure. You know, you're to have make all these changes if you want to recover from this.
00:17:45
Chris Ducker
And I could have, and I probably did, you know, realistically, man, for a good week or two, I probably got even more depressed about the situation because, you know, realistically, I probably knew that I was in that spot, but I was kind of avoiding admitting it. um And then I asked myself the question, what does all of this make possible?
00:18:05
Chris Ducker
And I started making notes. I use these amazing little pocket notebooks. I don't know whether you've seen them. and um I'll wave them up here, field notes.
00:18:11
Carl Lubbe
Yeah, field notes. Yeah.
00:18:13
Chris Ducker
I've been using field notes for well over a decade. And started making notes one day in a coffee shop. And a lot of what I'm doing today came from that initial kind of brainstorm of what does this situation, what does this make possible?
00:18:32
Chris Ducker
And so um that's the big question, I think, that's probably, it's genuinely probably created more change and opportunity in my life than any other question I've been asked.
00:18:44
Carl Lubbe
I mean, it's such a good one. What does this make possible? And as you're forecasting now into the future, what are the things you're adjusting now or the questions you're asking now that are making the next thing possible?
00:18:58
Chris Ducker
I think, you know, I'm in my early fifties now and I know you're going to say, no, don't look a day over 35, Chris.
00:19:03
Carl Lubbe
No chance. No chance.
00:19:06
Chris Ducker
um
00:19:06
Carl Lubbe
No chance.
00:19:08
Chris Ducker
I'm in my early fifties now. I have always said that, you know, we have, we have our company Youpreneur, which is just celebrated 10 years.
00:19:15
Carl Lubbe
Congrats.
00:19:16
Chris Ducker
And thank you. Thank you. And I have always said that I want to turn it over to my daughter when I hit 55, she's been our COO at Youpreneur for two years already.
00:19:26
Chris Ducker
And so I got three years, man. I got three years to to realize that dream of ultimately, uh, turning it over to her. And I think, you know, that's kind of, that's, that's a big focus for me.
00:19:39
Chris Ducker
And I think it's, it's a big driving and factor for the decisions that I make day to day, the things that go on my schedule.
00:19:39
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm.
00:19:39
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:19:46
Chris Ducker
And I'm a big believer of the old adage of, you know, show me, show me your calendar. I'll show you your priorities. You know, I'm a, I'm a big believer of that. My good buddy, Mike Hyatt often says, you know, if it doesn't get scheduled, it doesn't get done.
00:19:59
Chris Ducker
And so everything that is important to me first and foremost gets put onto my schedule. And that starts number one now with me, selfishly with me. So whether it's exercise or whether it's cold plunge or red light therapy or a massage or a chiropractic adjustment or, you know, blood work, I do blood work every 90 days and that changes my supplementation regime.
00:20:21
Chris Ducker
you know, for the next 90 days to see kind of, you know, how to be able to kind of optimize everything. Somebody called me a biohacker the other day. And I said, what are you talking about? I mean, I've heard the term, right? I didn't really look into it. And then I looked into it and i thought holy crap, I'm a biohacker.
00:20:37
Chris Ducker
ah but I thought I was just doing everything to kind of like get over adrenal failure, but no, I'm actually probably hacking a certain amount of biology.
00:20:37
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:20:44
Chris Ducker
Right. And so I, I think that's just the big thing, man, is like, for me is just to focus on these kind of what I call these, these little micro moves where things get better by 1% here, here, here.
00:20:55
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:21:00
Chris Ducker
and if i can do that consistently, And stay in that rhythm, wanting to take off those micro moves. Then I know a year from now, three years from now, five years from now I'll be in, you know, best shape ever, not just physically, but mentally as well. And that's a big important factor for me, obviously.
00:21:19
Chris Ducker
And the birds, you joke about it. The birds actually play, ah have played a very, very big part in all of this recovery.
00:21:27
Carl Lubbe
Yeah, how so? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:21:28
Chris Ducker
Well, so one of the things when when I was diagnosed and everything, one of the things that I was working with the naturopathic doctor and and nutritionists and things like that at the time, and something that one of them said to me really stuck out. I said, like, do you spend a lot of time in nature?
00:21:45
Chris Ducker
And I'm like, well, I live in the countryside. I'm surrounded by it, you know? And they said, yeah, but do you spend time it? That's the thing, like actual time walking around in it.
00:21:55
Chris Ducker
And I said, well, you know you know, I take the dog out and, you know, what do you do when you're walking around? Well, I'll listen to a podcast or a book or something like that. Okay. So this is what I want you to do, Chris. For the next 30 days, I want you to go out on your own, not with the dog, with nobody else.
00:22:12
Chris Ducker
for an hour every day. It doesn't matter when you do it. It could be morning, noon, night, whatever it is, but spend an hour for the next 30 days out in nature, no AirPods, right? No podcasts, no audio books, just walking wherever. I mean, you're in the countryside, wherever you want, like forests or woodlands or nature reserves or whatever it is and see how you feel after the month.
00:22:35
Chris Ducker
Report back to me. Okay. And let me tell you, it was dramatic, Carl. It was dramatic how much change it brought about in such a short space of time.
00:22:42
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm.
00:22:47
Chris Ducker
I think after maybe seven or eight different walks, I started, I would come back from the walk into the house more restful, more content,
00:22:59
Chris Ducker
And I started talking to my wife about all these different birds that I was seeing on my walks. And she said to me well, you know, we've got this old DSLR. Why don't you take the darn thing out, start taking photos of these birds so you can I can actually see them instead of just trying to imagine them up, you know, by your you by your somewhat, you know, flimsy descriptions. And so um that's what I did. I started taking this old camera out and long story short,
00:23:25
Chris Ducker
became ah birder quite literally overnight. Did not see this one coming. I've always enjoyed nature and being outside. And, you know, i was the nine-year-old boy that brought back the hedgehog from Wynwood and Common.
00:23:36
Chris Ducker
My mother was mortified. My father thought it was hilarious. um And, you know, two nights he lived with us, Henry, um and ah to henry Henry the Hedgehog, very imaginative name for a hedgehog, in a little cardboard box in the kitchen, two nights.
00:23:43
Carl Lubbe
Henry, did you have
00:23:50
Chris Ducker
And then he escaped from the house, which means my father let him out into the back garden.
00:23:52
Carl Lubbe
a chunk?
00:23:54
Chris Ducker
But nonetheless, Um, always like nature, never really engaged with it purposefully. I don't think, but now I'm a very proud birder and I talk about it.
00:24:01
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:06
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:24:06
Chris Ducker
I talk about it with everybody that i meet and, you know, I've, I've got my life a list and I'm on e-bird and, you know, I'm doing all this stuff and it's awesome. I love it. And it has brought about a lot of just stress-free contented, um, you know,
00:24:25
Chris Ducker
time and renewed energy. I make time. I make time pretty much every day to go out now with my camera. Pretty much. Yeah.
00:24:35
Carl Lubbe
I think one of the things that you're solving in that is I think one of the great tragedies of the time in which we live now is that most people like the idea of things.
00:24:46
Chris Ducker
Mm-hmm.
00:24:47
Carl Lubbe
Don't actually like the thing itself, kind of like you're talking about if you live in, you know, beautiful countryside, but I'm in the car or I'm in my AirPods or I'm in my office looking out the window of the thing. I like the idea of the thing, but I don't actually like the thing.
00:25:03
Chris Ducker
Mm. Mm.
00:25:03
Carl Lubbe
And I think this translates. into our interior life then, right? Because we're so used to liking the idea of things. And also in our culture, criticism is much more elevated than creation. It's like, it's easier to critique some things because it always has been as a human, that we are in this muscle of like, oh, I don't like that, or I don't like this, or this is fine, but I don't really love it. So that it engineers in our culture, this idea that, well, it's dangerous to like something.
00:25:32
Carl Lubbe
to really like something.
00:25:32
Chris Ducker
anna
00:25:33
Carl Lubbe
It's dangerous to become a birder in your 30s and 40s and then go, no, no, no, I'm like, I'm the business guy. I run multimillion dollar companies and I you know coach executives.
00:25:44
Carl Lubbe
And they're like, no, man, you're on a slow walk with birds. And well, what will that say? i'm not I'm not at this age or in this culture allowed to actually like things.
00:25:55
Carl Lubbe
I can only maybe like the idea of the thing.
00:25:55
Chris Ducker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. i'm I'm with you. It's interesting when, when, when I got into, uh, when I got into the hobby, let's not go down too much of a rabbit hole here.
00:26:06
Chris Ducker
But when, when, when I got into the hobby, I, um, I, I was like, there's gotta to be a movie. I mean, there's a movie on everything, right? Like there's gotta to be a movie on birding.
00:26:17
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:26:17
Chris Ducker
And I discovered a ah movie called the big year with, have you you seen the movie?
00:26:20
Carl Lubbe
So fun.
00:26:22
Chris Ducker
Okay. So Jack Black, um, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson.
00:26:22
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:27
Chris Ducker
And what I love about this was the characterization of these three main characters. And there were obviously other recurring characters in the film, but I really, i really, um,
00:26:40
Chris Ducker
I remember watching it with my son who who also comes out quite regularly with me now, my 17 year old. um And he's quite honestly a much better photographer than me, which is horrific to admit, but nonetheless.
00:26:46
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:26:51
Chris Ducker
um And, and I remember thinking I'm, I'm between the extremely successful, almost at the age of retirement, Steve Martin character, or pretty much at the age of retirement, Steve Martin character, and the slightly foolish character of Jack Black.
00:27:10
Chris Ducker
Like I'm in between these two characters and I fell in love with that movie. I must've watched it five, six times now, I think.
00:27:17
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:27:19
Chris Ducker
But there's a this recurring there's this recurring theme in the movie for Steve Martin's character where his team is trying to get him to come back into the office. do these deals and you know come away from doing his big year of birding and all this kind of stuff and at the end of the movie they say like you know do you really want like are you ready to go into the abyss that's the line like are you ready to hang it all up and go into the abyss and he looks around at several photographs i think in his office or there's flashbacks or whatever and it's like him and his grandchild that's just been born and him and his wife and him and his kids and
00:27:52
Chris Ducker
I'm thinking, you know what? I am pretty much almost ready for the abyss myself.
00:27:57
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm.
00:27:57
Chris Ducker
So I'm actually really happy to just do my thing. um And you would be really surprised actually on how many people, when I get into this concept of voting with people and what it does for me from a mental bandwidth standpoint, in terms of being able to switch off and recharge,
00:28:18
Chris Ducker
some actually pretty deep conversations have taken place with some very, very successful
Cultural Critique and Mindfulness
00:28:23
Chris Ducker
people. So, um yeah, umm I'm quite, in fact, actually, um the other hobby that I have is bonsai.
00:28:26
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm.
00:28:32
Chris Ducker
I've been a bonsai practitioner for a long time as well. And Michael Hyatt's daughter, Megan, is now into bonsai because of me. And so, you know, it's one of those, you have these conversations and before you know what's happening, you're buying a friend a book.
00:28:47
Chris Ducker
and going out and getting their first little baby tree yeah
00:28:50
Carl Lubbe
Yeah, which which I think is also such a good encouragement to anybody listening or watching this that anybody whose life you might admire a piece of, because it's very difficult to admire every piece of somebody's life, their wealth, their business, their family life, their physique, all these things.
00:29:08
Carl Lubbe
It's hard for somebody to, you know, matriculate in all of those environments. But I would say that anybody who you admire has some sort of stillness practice where their life slows down,
00:29:18
Chris Ducker
Mm-hmm.
00:29:20
Carl Lubbe
Um, you know, my, you know, if you were going to put the greatest of all time, when it comes to entrepreneurs who have like been, uh, married for a long time, whose kids love them, who seem to be very present.
00:29:32
Carl Lubbe
Um, the person that comes to mind for me with that is, uh, Richard Branson and, um, was recently invited, um, out onto Necker Island, uh, wasn't able to go.
00:29:45
Carl Lubbe
And so my friend who did go sent me pictures cause he's, you know, a jerk, um,
00:29:50
Chris Ducker
He's no longer a friend.
00:29:51
Carl Lubbe
god ah we're We're still good friends. We're were those kinds of friends. We're like, we're not actually friends if you don't send me this picture. make And it's a picture of him just playing chess with you know with with Richard Branson.
00:29:59
Chris Ducker
right run Right, right,
00:30:07
Carl Lubbe
And it was this idea of a mean chess player.
00:30:08
Chris Ducker
a pretty mean chess player, apparently, Branson. Yeah.
00:30:11
Carl Lubbe
And you know it went viral a couple months ago because somebody, you know I think it was an an athlete or a musician, somebody who you might go, oh, they're not like a you know, top tier chess player went and beat him.
00:30:22
Carl Lubbe
And it was like the highlight of this person's life. And, and you know, Richard's like, all right, replay, rematch right now. um But it was this idea to me that what's so impressive about that is, you know, there's billions of dollars on the line.
00:30:31
Chris Ducker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:35
Carl Lubbe
There's always another meeting that you can have. And the people that I find I'm trying to learn something from always have a stillness exercise, which allows them to be more present to themselves.
00:30:49
Carl Lubbe
Because my thought around this is the greatest gift you can give yourself or anybody else is to be as present as possible right now. Everything else is an illusion. The past and the present don't exist. and And by the way, I mean that quite literally because Jerome, my brother, is a functional neurologist and he's like, your brain doesn't know the difference. It's all one thing. Everything is the present. This is why, excuse me, when we have a very deep memory like you and I were talking about before the podcast of Wimbledon, you growing up there, me wanting to go. And right now, if you smelled the lawn at, you know, the at the old England club, you would be there. You would be the eight year old version of yourself immediately.
00:31:34
Carl Lubbe
And it's also why anxiety does its number on us.
00:31:34
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:31:36
Carl Lubbe
Right. Because it's forecasting what might happen. And so we're feeling the ramifications of something we haven't even a loss. We haven't even suffered yet. But our brain is going, I'm cataloging that currently as if it's happening to me.
00:31:48
Chris Ducker
Yeah. There were two, you know, it's funny you mentioned the smell of the grass. You know, I went to women in a number of different times as a kid. There was two, and it might not be the case nowadays. I'm not being since I was a kid, but there was two smells.
00:32:00
Chris Ducker
very, very clear smell. So the first one was lavender because there's a lot of lavender around because of the purple color, right? um So that one I want you to to sniff out when you're there.
00:32:09
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. okay
00:32:11
Chris Ducker
um And the other one was strawberries because a serving, we're talking thousands of pounds of strawberries on a daily basis.
00:32:14
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:32:18
Chris Ducker
It's insane. So I just remember these two things, you know, incredibly. in in And it creates a kind of visceral connection to that place, that time, those memories, right? But to your point,
00:32:30
Chris Ducker
The idea of just being very present in something that is not what you do day to day is incredibly challenging for most people.
Balance, Succession, and Improvement
00:32:40
Chris Ducker
In fact, the majority of the very successful people that I know feel guilty when they take time away from building their businesses, running their teams, whatever it might be.
00:32:49
Chris Ducker
It shouldn't be like that at all. It really should not. um Society has led us to believe that burnout is a badge of honor. It isn't. It's a warning sign, right?
00:32:58
Carl Lubbe
hundred percent
00:32:59
Chris Ducker
And so, you know, I'm i'm just a big, but they're like, A week and a half ago, I was birding. There's one particular bird I could hear. It's called a Chetty's Warbler. And it has this really high-pitched, very, very loud um song.
00:33:13
Chris Ducker
But you rarely see the darn things.
00:33:15
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:33:16
Chris Ducker
They're in the reed beds. Like, you just can't find these bloody things, right? And I went on a mission. I followed this this this sound for about 45 minutes to try and see the Chetty's Warbler. Let me tell you something.
00:33:29
Chris Ducker
I wasn't focused on anything else, Carl. Nothing else was popping into my head. All I was doing was looking for movement in those reads and listening out for the song. And guess what? I still didn't find the darn thing.
00:33:42
Chris Ducker
Still didn't find it, but I can tell you something right now. I was all in.
00:33:47
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:33:47
Chris Ducker
on that me time at that time compared to being, you know, mentally still in the office or whatever.
00:33:49
Carl Lubbe
see
00:33:53
Chris Ducker
So I think it's, you you make a very, very clear point.
00:33:53
Carl Lubbe
yeah
00:33:56
Chris Ducker
And I think it's something that should probably be the biggest takeaway from this conversation, if nothing else at this point anyway. And that is to find something that allows you to truly have that, that white space in your day, because it can lead to a lot of really good stuff.
00:34:14
Carl Lubbe
Wonderful. um So for you, as it comes into this now season of you've got birding, you've got these other hobbies that are making you slow down like bonsai, you've got succession plans with your daughter, you're still, you know, semi raising your 17 year old now more in a, you know, mentorship advising season than we are when we're dads with young kids, because mine is still 10 and 12.
00:34:37
Chris Ducker
m
00:34:38
Carl Lubbe
So I'll be knocking on your door for advice very quickly. Because I do have a son who's like already interested in taking over the family business. It was actually quite funny this week. He said, I think I should start something here in the neighborhood just so I get a feel of what it's like.
00:34:54
Carl Lubbe
And this is my 12 year old. And I said, all right. So I helped him like create a business plan and we shared it out in the neighborhood Facebook group and people in the neighborhood were giving feedback to it. And I told them, I was like, you're at this very sweet little spot right now because for you to be 12 to 15, it feels like, oh, this is endearing and we wanna help you. And so your product's gonna get a lot of grace.
00:35:14
Carl Lubbe
And then after that, it's going to seem like if can sink or swim. But the joke when he was telling the neighbors that he was wanting to learn businesses because he's you know either preparing for the natural succession of curiosity, of my company, onto him or a hostile takeover.
00:35:30
Carl Lubbe
He's like, you know, I'll let dad decide. and Charlie's got a good sense of humor and everybody did like you did. It's like, all right, Carl, you got to watch out. And I was like, no, I'll just give it to him. i No hostility.
00:35:39
Chris Ducker
yeah
00:35:40
Carl Lubbe
It's all his.
00:35:40
Chris Ducker
yeah ain't taking it. I'm giving it.
00:35:41
Carl Lubbe
yeah it's all is It's all his.
00:35:42
Chris Ducker
Right. Yeah.
00:35:44
Carl Lubbe
So I'm curious for you, you know, and I'm sure the, you know, people listening now with kids, it's, you know, same kind of seasons as you look to the horizon, remaining present in the place that you are in planning for the place that you will be.
00:35:56
Carl Lubbe
Um, what's maybe one question that you would give other people to ask maybe the next people in their life, whether it's in the company and there's a natural succession happening or with your daughter, the COO, and you're like, hey, we've got three more years until kind of I hit a number and then we'll decide, is that the number for you or for me or do we move on or what are we doing here So what's the thing kind of rattling around in your head that you think set you guys up for success when it comes to being able to hand something?
00:36:16
Chris Ducker
Mm-hmm.
00:36:22
Chris Ducker
I, I, I, this is a really simple answer to this question, but all the best answers are always simple. I have started to answer a lot of or or I've started to ask this question quite a lot recently, both from a business standpoint with, with my daughter, Chloe and you, but also in, in kind of friendships and, and relationships in the house with my you younger kids and whatnot.
00:36:48
Chris Ducker
And that is like, how can I do better? like how can i make this easier for you how can i make this more special can i can make this more memorable how can i do better that sort of thing um and you'd be quite surprised that the types of replies that you'll get like i asked my wife um probably no more than maybe a month ago and i said to her like you know
00:37:00
Carl Lubbe
who
00:37:14
Chris Ducker
Like, you know, we do the weekly date night thing and we go away twice a year, just the two of us for a week or just under a week, you know, we do all these things together with the kids. But how can I like, how can I, how can I make the time we spend with each other better?
00:37:30
Chris Ducker
Like we always already have a great time.
00:37:30
Carl Lubbe
Yeah.
00:37:31
Chris Ducker
Like how can I do it better?
00:37:34
Carl Lubbe
Mm-hmm.
00:37:34
Chris Ducker
um And she said to me, she said, you were, you were already doing so much. I don't need you to do it any better. I just need you to carry on doing it. Like the consistency, like stay in that rhythm, you know, just keep doing it kind of thing.
00:37:45
Carl Lubbe
yeah
00:37:47
Chris Ducker
Cause it's, it's one thing to, to do it for a short period of time, but you know, we, we don't want to ever, um, we don't ever want to get to the point where we confuse a little bit of motion as momentum.
00:38:03
Chris Ducker
Right. And so I want to keep that momentum going with these things. So yeah, like, how can I do, how can I do this better? How can I make it easier? How can I make it more special? Those are the types of questions I, I enjoy asking at the minute.
00:38:17
Carl Lubbe
I love that. And your wife, obviously, I know is very wise. And the thing that I love in her feedback of this was she was praising effort, not outcome.
00:38:28
Carl Lubbe
And i think the biggest mistake I see leaders making, parents making, friends, spouses, is that we will double down on praising the outcome. Great job on the grade. Well done getting the project done and the client. You know, we won the, you know, the the RFP.
00:38:46
Carl Lubbe
And what, you know, lots and lots of good neuroscience has taught us is that we as humans respond over a longer time with greater vigor if we are praised for our effort. Like, hey, I just I love seeing the consistency. So let's just keep up all of that effort because that's what means the most to me and the outcomes will take care of themselves. And so I love that she has seen that and spotted it and built language around it because that has to be amazing. And how long have you guys been together now?
00:39:11
Chris Ducker
She celebrated 20 years.
00:39:13
Carl Lubbe
Oh, come on.
00:39:14
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:39:14
Carl Lubbe
That's incredible.
00:39:14
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:39:15
Carl Lubbe
Man. what ah what Listen.
00:39:16
Chris Ducker
Clearly I'm doing something right.
00:39:18
Carl Lubbe
Hey, listen. Yeah.
00:39:18
Chris Ducker
I'm punching so far above my wealth my weight right now. I mean, you know, I've always said that from day one. So I must be doing something right. Yeah.
00:39:25
Carl Lubbe
Well, the the beauty, I think, of all great relationships is that both partners think the same thing, right? It's like, oh man, I got the better end of this deal.
00:39:31
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:39:33
Carl Lubbe
And we keep on showing up because you and I both know after two decades in a relationship, there's no such thing as 50-50. It's like, listen, I'll show up and I'll give as much of my hundred
Engaging with Chris and Future Projects
00:39:42
Carl Lubbe
as I can. And in the words of Brene Brown, I'll let you know some days where i'm like, I got like 17%.
00:39:48
Carl Lubbe
So can we just like lower any and all expectations until I have more than this? But yeah. You know, the expectation is if I try and give 100 and you try and give 100, then the math will math and and this thing will be great.
00:40:00
Chris Ducker
Yeah.
00:40:01
Carl Lubbe
So, Chris, I would love to know from you what are places and ways that people can engage? I know there's books. I know there's speaking. I know there's I wanted to come to your event last year and we couldn't make the calendars work. So what are the best ways for people to come across your work and and and benefit from it?
00:40:17
Chris Ducker
Well, they they can go visit chrisducker.com. um You'll find a whole bunch of stuff over there, books and speaking videos and all that fun stuff. You can also subscribe to my newsletter, Future Proof, at the bottom of the homepage as well.
00:40:30
Chris Ducker
um And then, you know, if they're interested in the long haul leader, just go to longhaulleader.com or find it on Amazon, pick up a copy. And yeah, you know, follow me at Chris Ducker on all the socials, nice and easy.
00:40:41
Carl Lubbe
Yeah, for all things wisdom and business and all things birding and bonsai.
00:40:47
Chris Ducker
I don't think I'll be writing a book on birding anytime soon. um
00:40:51
Carl Lubbe
I think there's people with a lot more free time on their hands in that world who are writing those books. So I think that's probably wise its on your part. You're still a little too busy to go and really influence the world of birding.
00:41:00
Chris Ducker
Yes, just just a tad, just at the minute, yeah.
00:41:03
Carl Lubbe
But maybe there's a future book on the things that birding taught me that I wish I knew earlier in my business.
00:41:08
Chris Ducker
You know, it's interesting you say that. I was talking with a good buddy of mine who's a wildlife photographer. And um we were we were actually talking about the potential of collaborating on a children's book and trying to, with with me writing and him illustrating, because he's a digital illustrator as well.
00:41:20
Carl Lubbe
Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:26
Chris Ducker
uh and sort sort of trying to trying to focus on the next generation of you know conservationists and nature lovers and all that kind of stuff so i like the idea actually of of maybe doing something like i like the idea of maybe doing like a little pocket guide of you know birding business rules or something along those, something fun, something that if it only sells 50 copies, I'll still be equally happy that I put it out into the world. So you never know. And that maybe that Chetty's Warbler will be, ah that story will be in there in some capacity in terms of staying focused on the task and not being discouraged if you don't complete it
00:42:06
Chris Ducker
I have seen one once before, a couple of years ago, but they are elusive little buggers, those Chetty Warblers, I tell you.
00:42:12
Carl Lubbe
<unk> Well, Chris, I deeply appreciate the time. And I appreciate the great questions you added to the thing. And most of all, I really hope you find your warbler.
00:42:21
Chris Ducker
Thank you, mate. I appreciate that.
00:42:23
Carl Lubbe
All right, man. I'll talk to you Cheers.
00:42:25
Chris Ducker
You got it.