5 Connections, 5 Insights: 46-50 of 100

Project Horizon is a global conversation experiment by executive coach and high-performance consultant Tim Dutton. It aims to uncover diverse human perspectives by connecting with 100 remarkable people worldwide, linked through six referral-based chains.

ON THE GO? LISTEN TO THE INSIGHTS 🎧

46. Physiotherapist dealing with a busy family life

47. 22-year-old Indian who built a business whilst at university

48. Liverpool’s first female Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt (also an accountant)

49. Former UFC fighter, doorman and philosopher

50. Co-founder of a luxury creative agency that’s breaking the mould

I won’t go into the specific details of this call. It doesn’t feel right as the person was in the middle of a stressful time in life and shared some private challenges in confidence.

With that in mind, I then found it challenging to formulate an insight which would be impactful to read, and also respect the person’s privacy.

Here’s what I’ve landed upon.

I noticed something funny a few minutes into the call. Funny in an ‘oh that’s interesting!’ kind of way. This person and their referrer had grown up together, and I’d spoken to them both. I’d noticed they both had exactly the same ‘thinking face’. It was an interesting idiosyncrasy (well, maybe not so idio!) where they’d look upwards, and endearingly screw up their mouth and nose. As far as I’m aware, there’s not a genetic sequence which codes for such a facial expression, but I may be wrong. Let’s assume it’s nurture rather than nature.

Cheekily, I pointed this out to the second connection, curious to see if they realised. They weren’t aware that they did it or that it was a habit they shared with their referrer.

Writing this now, I wonder what I have picked up from the people closest to me that I’m not yet aware of… for better or for worse.

Connection 47 absolutely owned his ambition.

“I just want to be number 1. I want to be on top.”

This was his response when I asked him what excites him about his business over in India. When we connected, he was 23 and had started his i-Gambling (internet gambling) company whilst at university. He said that soon he will have a product that’s “never been seen before in [India]”.

His boldness took me by surprise. Of course, this surprise arose from my incorrect assumptions, underpinned by my prior experiences. I hadn’t heard many people, especially in the UK, where I grew up, declare so openly their ambition to be ‘the best’. There seems to be a stereotype of British people that, generally, we’re more ‘reserved’. I’ve heard sports teams and organisations say they want to be the best, but very rarely individuals. But is this unique to the UK?

It got me thinking about ‘tall poppy syndrome’* as a way of understanding more about this. Tall poppy syndrome takes its name from the idea that the poppies which grow above the others in the field get chopped down. It’s a social phenomenon whereby individuals who are perceived to be successful, talented or ambitious can experience resentment, criticism or be ‘cut down’ by others in their community. It appears to disincentivise people from striving to be their best selves for fear of social disapproval.

When I read about the idea, the internet suggested the UK, Australia and New Zealand as places where it’s common. Then I found a Japanese proverb which touches on a similar idea: “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down”. Following this, I found a similar aphorism or proverb for China, South Korea, Russia, France, Italy, Sweden, South Africa, Mexico and even India, where Connection 47 is from. Maybe tall poppy syndrome is widespread.

One particular psychological mechanism seems to feed into tall poppy syndrome. People often evaluate their self-worth through social comparison. As such, when another person’s success or ambition threatens our self-esteem, it’s common that we try to diminish that person to make ourselves feel better.

I’m taking away a few ideas from the connection. First is a (hopefully) improved awareness of when I, or others around me, fall foul of this unhelpful ‘cutting down’ behaviour. And second is an encouragement to have even bigger ambitions. To care less about what others might think about what I’ve already achieved and what I’m aiming for.

I wonder what each of us would try and achieve if we broke free of those imaginary shackles and were slightly less concerned with fitting in.

*Not a real medical syndrome. It’s a sociocultural phenomenon.

“Liverpool’s first female Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) black belt.” She cringed at herself saying those words.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say she was likely also the UK’s first female accountant to gain their BJJ black belt. It’s just a statistical probability. She said people are often surprised that she’s an accountant, given her athletic background. She’s also multilingual, currently learning German, and has recently taken up playing the guitar.

What impressed me about her was that whenever anyone told her she couldn’t do something, she took it up and chased after it to prove them wrong. In a cheeky, but determined, kind of way.

Prior to the call, I checked out some of her BJJ training and fight videos on YouTube. I remember thinking ‘she’s an absolute animal’. I noticed in the video that she was training with men (and dominating them). When we spoke, she told me she’d achieved over 50 wins in submission-only competitions. She told me she found it really helpful to train against men who tend to be stronger and more powerful, as it means she has to find new ways to solve problems in the physical battle. This means she can bring additional weapons into her armoury when fighting females.

For me, she’s a high performer. She has a high-performance mindset.

And this got me thinking that ‘high-performance’ is a phrase that’s thrown around a lot these days. It’s often a label that is lazily slapped on any environment which seems to have ‘consequence’. It’s a slippery term. One that’s hard to pin down.

In my experience, high-performance is comprised of a range of elements, but tends to include:

• Consistency and efficiency in the completion of complex tasks,
• Completion of those tasks at, or above, an established standard of excellence,
• And performing under conditions of pressure, variability and uncertainty.

I’ve been surprised many times when working in environments which I’d been told all my life were high-performance. Many weren’t. Often, they just had pressure, variability and uncertainty. And a whole lot of resource (money, staff, equipment, facilities).

So, my takeaway here is around holding myself and others to higher standards, more of the time, and being more efficient about it. And being more selective about what I label high-performance.

The description below of Connection 49 is copied and pasted verbatim from my WhatsApp chat with his referrer. I know they won’t mind me sharing this absolutely glowing review.

“Visionary. Mystic. Far out dude. World champion grappler. Jiu-Jitsu black belt. Door man. Contestant on The Ultimate Fighter. Arm wrestler. Pro wrestler”

And it didn’t disappoint. The hour we spent together touched on a wide range of interesting areas. From his time with Dana White at the UFC to stories of being Liverpool’s answer to Batman (my characterisation, not his).

What stood out the most was the strong moral thread which ran through his stories. It seemed like he’s always tried to do the right thing and stand up to the bad guys. It just turned out that violence was his language of communicating with the baddies.

The first example of this was when his local area was being terrorised by youths driving scrambler bikes on the footpaths. People had been tragically killed, yet the police were hamstrung in their efforts to address the issue due to not being able to intervene if the rider wasn’t wearing a helmet. So, the scouse Batman took the issue into his own hands. One day, when driving down the road, he saw a scrambler bike headed for an old lady. He steered his car between the old lady and the bike, sending the rider flying over a nearby fence. To make sure the message was received, he picked up the bike and threw it at the rider.

The second example of his strong moral code was evident in a story about protecting a girl in a nightclub. He was working security in a club when he saw a girl getting pushed against a wall and sexually assaulted by a group of men. He intervened to stop them, allowing the girl to escape, but he slipped over on the wet nightclub floor in the process. As the men began to run off, one of them kicked him in the head. Being a man mountain who’s used to fighting, he got up quickly and ended up ‘communicating’ his displeasure with all six of the group at the same time. Unfortunately, with insufficient evidence of the alleged sexual assault on the girl, the court charged him with one count of assault and 5 counts of grievous bodily harm. He was particularly annoyed with the female judge for the lack of appreciation for his intervention.

Reflecting on using his physical force on people, he said: “Violence is a language both wealthy people and poor people understand in equal measure.”

Whether the Scouse Batman did exactly the right thing in each situation, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. The law didn’t seem to think so. But what I certainly admired was his moral fortitude. Trying to do the right thing, protect people and not let others be bullied and abused on his watch.

Maybe he’s not the hero Liverpool asked for. But, for a moment, maybe he was the one it needed. (I hope you get my Dark Knight reference.)

Anyway, the insight is… have moral integrity. Simple.

Connection 50 has gone from growing up in a battered women’s shelter to building a successful luxury design agency. His clients include multi-billion-dollar international organisations.

From what I could tell, there are a number of factors contributing to his and his company’s success. Firstly, he’s a great salesman. Before starting his company, he made his previous employer millions with his sales skills. There’s no point having a great product if you can’t sell it.

Secondly, now that he’s running his own enterprise, I got the sense he’s operating from his ‘sweet spot’. This is where his interests, values and strengths align with what he’s working on each day. Imagine a three-circled Venn diagram. The intersection of these three circles is where we feel most inspired and could work all day long on a task. It’s one of the foundations for sustainable high-performance.

Thirdly, I’ll point to his attention to detail. And this doesn’t mean attending to every detail. It means attending to the right details; the things that really matter. He said, “The way we talk to our clients is that we are a luxury brand. [They’re] very much buying into our taste, how we see the world, where we eat, where we travel, where we stay, who we hang around with”. It sounded like refinement and elegance were really important details for him and the company.

He explained that the customer’s sensorial experience is critical. Giving an example of ‘bad’, he highlighted Topman, where the clothes are strewn everywhere, and its utter chaos. The experience is stressful. By contrast, when you enter stores like Thom Sweeney (I had to Google this brand), there’s a Diptyque candle burning, it’s nice and slow, someone offers you a drink, and they ask about your family. All of the senses tell you ‘this is high-quality’.

Curious to hear more about the sensory experience of a business, I asked him what his company would be if it were a taste. He said, “Parmesan, because it’s umami… concentrated and used sparingly.” When I asked what it would sound like, he said, “Nothing. [We] move in silence.” He then pointed to something called ‘invisible transactions’ to explain this further: “It’s like when the waiter fills up your wine glass without you even noticing”. He also highlighted the easy wins organisations can achieve. Like when you’ve gone to the spa, you’ve had a massage and are feeling super relaxed. Then, suddenly, the experience is dampened by having to pay afterwards. Just take the payment beforehand.

Apart from this being an utterly fascinating conversation in and of itself, one of my favourite takeaways was to be more cognisant of and intentional about customer experience.

“It’s how you are spoken to, how you are treated… that’s what you remember.”

These five conversations reminded me that we’re constantly shaped by the people around us, often in ways we don’t notice, and that ambition is nothing to apologise for. They showed me that true high performance isn’t just about pressure or prestige, but about consistency and efficiency too. They also reminded me that moral courage can take many forms, and that success often depends on how well we understand the experiences of those we serve.

Next week, to mark the halfway point for these insights, I’ll be releasing something a little different. It will be a summary of some of my learnings from running the project itself. Some behind-the-scenes stuff. Hopefully, this will provide some insight into how you can start your own Project Horizon. Even if you’re just interested in growing your network, it may be useful.