“Our brains run in channels and rivers, and sometimes by jumping out of them, as Edward de Bono famously said, we can find that big solution to our big next problem. Hey, thanks for listening. We’ve been starting growing and leading businesses for over 50 years between us.

Along the way, we’ve met lots of amazing people doing the same. We started to collect their wisdom, things they’d seen, real experiences that had taught them something, things they’d read that had inspired, and things they’d learned, the principles they’ve applied in growing their businesses. We call these Founder Hacks, the real experiences of real entrepreneurs growing real businesses.

And this podcast is to share them with you. Welcome to Founder Hacks.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Founder Hacks, our podcast where we share learnings from entrepreneurs and people growing and leading real businesses out there in the big wide world. As always, let’s start by saying an enormous hello to Antony Enright.”

“Hi, Ben. Hi, Alex.

And an equally gigantic hello to Mr. Alexander Moore.

Hello, you two. Nice to see you both again.

Hello, both of you. So this week, we’re gonna be sharing some experiences we’ve gathered and collated on the theme of opening your brain. I don’t know about the virtues of opening your brain, but this is something that it felt interesting to us, I think.

Having a more open brain is probably a good thing. Does it make sense to you guys?

Sounds painful. Sounds a bit painful.

It does sound a bit surgical, doesn’t it? Yeah.

But it’s not. It’s not. I think it’s gonna be an interesting one to debate.

We had a good chat, didn’t we, when putting this one together?

We had a good chat. We’ve got some really interesting stuff to go through. So yes, we’ll jump into it, I think, in terms of opening your brain.”

“We had a good chat. We’ve got some really interesting stuff to go through. So yes, we’ll jump into it, I think, in terms of opening your brain.

We’re not talking about trepanning here, so it’s not the surgical guide. It is simply the sort of psychologically keeping your brain ready to receive all the stuff that’s gonna come at you as you build and grow your business. So if we’re all happy with that, I know we’ve got some great stuff.

So Mr. Enright, I believe you’ve got something you’ve seen that you think will benefit us all.

Yeah, so something I’ve seen, there’s a saying, what got you here won’t get you there. And something I’ve seen a lot of lately is as founders, entrepreneurs are growing their business, it’s that continuation of what’s your role within that, as the founder. And what you did to get your…”

“And we’ll just use the financials as an example, but every business of course is different. But what do you need to do as a founder to take your business to a million turnover? And then what do you need to do as a founder to get your business to two million turnover?

And then what do you need to do to five million, 10 million, 20 million? Because actually your role in that is very different. Each step of the way, it’s very different.

And what got you here won’t get you there. So the role that you play to get to one million, your role is going to have to be very different on the part that you play. So as a result, you’ve got to reinvent yourself each time you hit a particular milestone.

And that’s a challenge. And I’ve seen some founders do it really well and other founders that have struggled to have had to bring very specific people in. And as a result, almost not lead their business anymore.”

“I mean, clearly as you grow a business, you need to bring others in. But it’s whether you remain at the forefront as the leader and founder and growing that business. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a lot of other people do it very successfully.

But what I’ve noticed is that when they do that, the energy, because of course, when you start a business, you’ve got huge amounts of energy, haven’t you? Huge amounts of ideas. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re doing, but you are working so hard and so determined.

And what I’ve seen from those people that have successfully been the founder at 1 million and continue to be the leader and founder at 20 million, is that as they reinvent themselves, they have to keep up that drive and determination. That’s the one thing that you can’t let go of as you go forward. So I just thought it was interesting because there may sound to be a fair amount of judgment there, and there’s no judgment if you decide that actually what the business now needs to get to 5 million isn’t what you have, I think it’s just recognizing it.”

“Because if you can’t reinvent yourself, that’s when it becomes very, very difficult. Alex, what do you think?

Yeah, I love this one. We were talking about it earlier, because it struck a chord with me both on a personal level and other people I’ve worked with subsequently. And for me, my journey, and I got to this point, I took a business from 0 to 1 to 5 to 10 to 15 million.

And I thought I could have got it to 20. I thought I could have got it to 25. And something you said earlier when we were bouncing this round is the same amount of energy is needed to get to each threshold, but different sets of skills.

And that really struck a chord with me. I reckon I could have stayed on and got it to 20, and 25, but I probably arrogantly thought that. But I just thought that maybe the best thing for me to do was to let somebody else do that, and ended up almost entirely let exiting the business.

So it’s not sort of re-skilling. It was time for me to let go. And I believe quite strongly in that.”

“And I see a lot of founders of businesses, and you think, okay, my business is a bit broken. What’s the problem? And the problem is them.

And that’s a bit brutal, but it is. And often I think, you know, especially when you get to the 10 year mark where I was with the business, and again, it’s a pretty, I’ve seen this a lot. A founder gets to 10 years, honestly, what after 10 years of running a business, what have they got, what new ideas have they got to offer?

What skillset, what energy, what’s something different? What a different perspective to change, take their business to the next level. I believe up to 10, it’s a law of diminishing returns.”

“There is not so much that they can bring. Not saying that I can’t work, but for me, go. 10 years, don’t know, Ben.

Yeah, it’s really interesting. Before Ben comes in, it’s really interesting because actually, Alex, my experience was that for my first business, for the first two or three years, I did that really well, grew and reinvented myself. And then I got really stuck between year three and year 13.

So for 10 years, I was really stuck. Managed to keep the business going, but oh my goodness, it was so hard, it was stressful. And it was only really at that point, lots of things were happening, lots of things happened in my life at that point.

And I just realized that, oh, I’ve actually got to reinvent myself. I mean, that’s quite a hard lesson to learn, right? In 10 years.”

“So I think you can, you know, it’s horses for courses, isn’t it? And you can do both. But for me, the opposite was true, that actually for 10 years, I struggled and then the penny dropped.

And then I realized, and ultimately really realized what role I had to play in order to take it to the next level. And as a result, the next three to five years after that were sensational because I was actually in a role that really, really allowed the company to grow and scale.

Yeah, it’s the word that comes up for me is capacity and self-knowledge. You have to be able somehow from what you guys are saying to sort of assess that in yourself and maybe open your brain so you can really see what your business needs and whether that’s actually in you. And if it is great, if it is, if you’ve got the energy to reinvent yourself, as you said, and then go for it.”

But if not, that’s okay. But kind of knowing is important.

I’m fascinated by whether you’ve seen — what happens if you try to reinvent yourself and fail? Because that’s the challenge, right? You think, yeah, I’ve got this. And actually, no, you don’t.

No, you don’t. And I’ve seen that, I think, as well. So it’s a big challenge.

It’s a big challenge, I think. And maybe this is where — we’re going to talk about it later — but making sure you do things deliberately to keep your mind open and keep that perspective and external view. Maybe there’s something in that.

Because, yeah, I think it’s — I think it’s probably one of the toughest things, right? And it’s cultural too. So, you know, we always hear about the Americans, right, who take their businesses to a — you know — 12 billion pounds or some magical number, versus sort of European entrepreneurs who tend to get out at around that sort of slightly earlier stage.

Yeah, yeah. Be interesting to study that, wouldn’t it? It’s like — what does it take to do that each time?

But I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there — is you’ve got to be — it’s awareness, isn’t it? It’s awareness. Have I — have I reached a point? And I think that’s, for my own personal experience, I didn’t have that awareness for that period of time. But the awareness that actually something needs to change, and then what do I change? How much time do I have to test and see what changes need to be made? Who do you trust to tell you that, right? Who have you got in your life who’s going to tell you? Because that’s tough, and you’ve got to be willing to hear it.

Yeah, you might not be ready to hear it. It’s brutal.

I’m reminded of Daniel Priestley’s work actually, because his work on the epochs that businesses go through is really interesting. It hits on exactly those points you mentioned. And it might look slightly different — revenue’s just one measure, right — but whether it’s zero to one, and then one to five, and then five to ten, and then ten to a hundred, you kind of go — in each epoch there’s a totally different kind of leadership that’s needed, and a different kind of culture in the business often. And there can be these sorts of layers of permafrost that you have to punch through — often through that founder reinventing themselves, or a changing of the guard, in order to successfully do it. And a lot of businesses, I think, do get stuck at those epochs, and you risk ending up with that sort of slightly zombified business that’s just stuck — and they’re not always very pleasant to be a part of, which I’ve definitely seen.

But I do — I mean, looking back, Alex, do you regret it? Are you happy with it? I mean, you did it, right?

No — yeah, I’m not. I’m not happy — I’m not. I’m very happy about it. I’m very happy about my decision to leave when I still loved it. And that was something I do pass on to people, especially this ten-year rule. So all of these things, I’ve tried to break — sometimes I have my little belief systems and I try and break them, and I just can’t. This one — ten years for me, ten years — leave before you hate it, and get the business into a state where it can jump, it can maintain its accelerated growth, but with somebody else running it, with, you know, keeping a little eye on it. But yeah, no regrets. I mean, I did — I’ve met a couple who have. I met a guy who exited at 20 mil, and then, like, within — got fully exited — and about five, six years later, the business sold for 150. And it was like, oh, I think he was a bit regretful. Could he have done it? I mean, that’s the question, isn’t it — could he have done that, could he have got it? Who knows, right?

And I think you’re probably better — psychologically it’s probably better, isn’t it, to kind of just go, look, you’ll never know. You’ll never know if you’re right or wrong until the end. When’s the end? It never comes.

It’s — you’ll never know. The trousers of time — when we make those decisions to go one way or the other, we’ll never really know. The business I was talking about is doing 60 million now, but I don’t —

But look, who knows? No regrets from me. Still got a chunk of it — a big chunk. Some skin left in the game.

Just drop that in there. Just drop that in there. Very good.

Well, look — a fascinating one. Thank you all. But I think we better move on. Next up is our read. As we know, we like to read, and sometimes that reading is worth sharing. And I think this week, Mr Moore, you’ve read something that you think we should all pay attention to on the theme of opening up our brains.

Yeah, and it’s really sort of a subtopic to that — was keeping an eye on things that are happening far away. And it’s an article — big fan of Nicholas Taleb, Black Swan — reading The Economist once a week instead of the newspaper every day. And I still do that, I still practise that.

And I read The Economist, as you know, because I do talk about The Economist quite a lot to you two over the years since I’ve known you. And there was a fantastic article about the low-altitude economy in China. So this is everything that happens between zero metres and a thousand metres. And there is this directive —

When you said that, I had no idea what it meant, right? So do you want to explain what you mean by the low-altitude economy?

So it’s all the things that are going on in tech, and all the things that could happen in that airspace, if you like — robo-taxis, drone deliveries, medicine deliveries, communications. And they have tried to cut red tape wherever there is. They’ve set up a government department called the Low Altitude Economy Development Division.

Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it, guys?

But they are there, slashing bureaucracy, making it happen. Whereas, I think, in many Western countries, including our own, there would be health and safety directives here and there, and you couldn’t do things. And the red tape to set up some kind of drone delivery company — can you imagine, in London? I mean, it would just send you bonkers. Here, they have special zones where they fast-track all these types of things and rules. And I just thought this is interesting because out of nothing — just space above your head — it’s going to turn into this massive, massive — some of the numbers were mind-boggling. And China have decided they want to be at the forefront of it.

And I just thought that is really interesting because this thing’s going along at pace, and I think this is something that the Western world will have to catch up with pretty quickly. So keeping an eye on where this is now — regardless of what type of business you’re in — we’ll unlock some ideas later, I feel, as a founder. And I think being open to what else is happening outside your own sphere, outside your own industry, outside your own country, outside your own continent — there is merit to that. I don’t know if you guys agree. Sometimes we agree too much on this thing, but let me have it if you don’t.

Come on, I think it’s dead interesting. I mean — this could be the next trillion-dollar economy. It could be a flash in the pan and go nowhere. We don’t know that yet, right? And, you know, again, I kind of go — my god, the slashing of red tape — you could go so far on that, and it could be a 20-year backlash because people start to die, you know what I mean? It’s like the bicycles for hire that at the moment we’re all very familiar with in London — I won’t name them. And there is a new phenomenon in the NHS right now, which is called — I won’t say the name of the bikes, just in case — but it’s the ‘something bike leg.’ Those bikes are constructed in such a way, allegedly, that should they fall on you, it will tend to break your femur. And I saw an article recently saying, effectively, what’s happening here is the NHS is now subsidising Silicon Valley — because the NHS is spending a fortune fixing people’s broken legs from these bikes, which is effectively subsidising what they’ve done: cutting the red tape out and just going, ‘we’re just going to do it.’ Actually what’s happening now is hundreds of thousands of pounds being spent to fix broken legs.

So I don’t know if it’s always a good thing to do it this way, but where I do completely agree with you is — absolutely, who knows where the next huge idea is going to come from, and we’ve got to stay across them, right?

And was it The Economist this was in?

Yeah, talked about it before — as a recommendation, a bit more depth than the sound bites you’ll get on social media, and some real deep dive is fascinating.

Well, it makes sense as to why the bikes — why they’re stuck in the middle of the pavement, because nobody moves them. And I’ve got two or three schools around by me, and I just saw people pushing prams around onto the road rather than move one of those bikes. And then I moved it, and they actually weigh quite a lot. There’s clearly, obviously, a reason why people don’t.

I think for me on this — I get a bit scared. I don’t watch that much news any more. I don’t take note too much, certainly not on a regular basis, as to what’s going on, because it seems to move so quickly and it can cause a huge amount of anxiety. So for me it’s about controlling the controllables — what’s in our gift to be able to control. So as always, I think the answer is balance — it’s great to see what other people are doing and where’s the opportunity for us, but not becoming so obsessed that we get distracted from what’s in our gift and what we need to do.

And there’s also that thought process that if they’re doing it in other countries, we’ve probably missed the boat already — the technology’s there, the process is there, and it’s just a case of who’s going to be able to implement that in other countries and other regions.

So yeah, there’s a greater truth in that, I suppose.

Yeah, by the time it’s in the press, it’s too late — done, finished.

No time to get on board. But yes — I always remember, actually, when I used to do a lot of bid work, and every bid I used to fill in — this is a number of years ago now — it would always ask, who are your competitors and what’s going on with your competitors? And I see it in the sports teams that I look after as well — they turn up and start looking at the opposition as they’re warming up, and it’s like, what really matters here — is it what’s the opposition doing, or what are we doing? So for me, I’ve always had a bit more of a philosophy of, let’s really concentrate on us and what we’re doing, as opposed to obsessing over what the competition are doing. And I know I might be wrong in that, but I’ve always felt — let’s all come together and go, let’s just be confident about what we’re doing, and let’s see if we can be game-changers, as opposed to worrying so much about what the opposition are doing.

Definitely a balance there. For me, it’s all about keeping an eye on what other people are doing and then localising it — saying, that’s really interesting, in China they’re doing it this way, oh, this could be interesting to adapt and do it this way in this country. So for me, it sparks ideas — it sparks original ideas, rather than, oh, why don’t we copy this? And that sort of moment of serendipity, when you hear something or read something — that’s taken me down some really interesting routes in my life, and I want to keep doing that. I want to do that more.

Yeah, do you know what — in defence of that, there is a serious body of research that generally the market leaders in most categories, when new categories emerge, tend to be the second mover, not the first. The first spends all the money to learn the space and has had to invest hugely. But then someone comes in and goes, well, we’ll just now do what you do, because you’ve done all the hard work — we can see exactly how to position this. So they’re able to go faster, because their money is spent on accelerating and selling and customer acquisition. All the R&D costs go to the first mover. So it’s an interesting risk.

And I’m reminded — I used to know somebody who ran a courier company, and the courier company was not doing very well. Then, during Covid — I saw him just before Covid, and I think he thought that was it, the business was over, that there was no longer the need for courier-type companies. And then you have lockdown, and you see what Amazon are doing, for instance, right? And all of a sudden — what’s he going to do? He was not going to compete with Amazon. But actually he spotted the opportunity to say, you’re going to need local people to deliver these products for you. So he doubled down, bought another ten vans, and — oh my goodness — his business tripled overnight. Because what he saw is somebody taking to the market, knowing — actually, I can’t compete, but what’s the service they now need of me in order to support that. And that’s where he took advantage. And certainly when I saw him last, he was in a very nice brand-new car.

So fair play to him — success is a shiny car, well.

For some, I accept.

I think we better move on. Fascinating topic. But I’ve learned something this week, chaps, and I’d love to share it with you to see what you think on this topic of opening your brain. So if I may, I’ll share what I think I might have learned.

So just back from some time away, and for the first time in ages, actually, I sort of went on a bit of an adventure. Went to lots of different places — we were in the south-west of France. We just sort of didn’t really have everything quite booked, we just kind of left it open, and ended up having some extraordinary and weird and wonderful experiences, turning up to little villages and just seeing all these different things.

And as I come back to the saddle of work, I kind of go — oh, something’s happened to my brain. I think my brain has been rewired slightly, or it’s been sort of shaken up a bit, just by having those experiences. And it made me think — maybe my learning here is that it can be so hard when you’re growing a business — because, as you said earlier, this obsession — I do get, upset, I get completely obsessed with what I’m doing. I get completely tunnel vision on it. I do, I know I do. And, of course, although I might not feel it at the time, that is creating a kind of tunnel vision — I can only see what’s straight ahead.

And I remember — when I was very, very briefly, in my early years, I was very nearly considering being a professional actor, and a director once said to me, you know, the more life experience you have, the more useful you are. So if you’re going to be an actor, go and get life experience — do whatever, go and work as a server in a restaurant, go and be a chef, go and work in some random office doing a random thing, absorb all that life experience, and you’ll be more useful, you’ll be better.

And I wonder if that’s kind of true for founders as well — that actually if you just expose yourself to these sort of random different experiences. You know, I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs — when they get a little bit further, they’ve got a bit of money, they sort of live quite luxurious lives, and I go, what are you missing out on by that? You know — no, go and stay on, as I did last week, a random little houseboat in the middle of France, where the boat next door accidentally screwed up their refuelling overnight. So we woke up to our boat being entirely surrounded by diesel, which was just terrifying. Woke up with headaches — oh my god — and had to literally bolt across town to find a different place to stay.

Yeah.

But navigating that in a foreign language — I just thought, well, that’s a really cool experience, actually. It’s made my brain better, having to do that and work out these things. I think as we progress, maybe that’s something you can do on purpose. I don’t know — what do you think? Should we make sure that as we grow as founders, we keep our brains open by doing random things? Mr Moore, you’re a fan of random things, I believe.

Random things — yeah. And I’m sure there’s some podcast, I can’t remember, but some brain scientist talking about — when you learn a new skill, it sort of rewires your brain, and lots of other benefits happen. She used an example of learning a brand-new language. As a result of learning a brand-new language, your brain has to rewire itself slightly differently. And the consequence is, you might end up playing golf better.

And that blew my mind, right — why on earth, by me learning French, would I suddenly become better at golf? But the science was pretty interesting, and I just thought — yeah, this is it. And you meet older people, and I think this, for me, it’s remaining curious — it’s the desire to want to learn French will rewire your brain, it will lead to something else that makes you better at golf, we’ll teach you something you didn’t know, we’ll take you on an experience down a path you’ve never taken, you meet somebody you’ve never met.

And I think, you know, nearly all my close friends are all very curious people, and I think that’s why I like them. And I think that — there’s something connected to — I’m going to sound like a bit of a hippie now, but why not, because I am — although I don’t have the long hair, but anyway — this whole thing about energy and keeping yourself positive, and positive karma and good things happening to good people, and being alert, being on top of things — that really is interesting. And again, a lot of founders I meet, they have that energy that drives their businesses, and a lot of that comes powered by curiosity — wanting to build things, change things, do things differently. And that desire to constantly be open to things and rewiring your brain is perhaps a really common thread that I’ve seen in so many people that I like, most of whom happen to be founders of their own businesses.

And what do you think, mate?

Well, I think the other thing you get as well is when you put yourself outside your comfort zone, and maybe do something that you’re not expecting, isn’t planned, or you find yourself in a situation where you have to react — like Ben, going, oh my goodness, what do we do, I’m meant to be relaxing on holiday and I’ve woken up with these — I’d love to hear more about that — and then when you start working outside your comfort zone and start tackling these things, you build confidence. And for me, connected to some of the other things we’ve been talking about today, is that, especially the piece around when you get to a certain point, then you have to reinvent yourself — reinventing yourself is all about having that confidence, knowing that I can do that, because I’ve had these experiences, I’ve been outside my comfort zone. I’ve actually got the confidence to know I can back myself, because I’ve been in those sort of scenarios in the past, and I can cope, and I can overcome, and I can do the next thing. So for me, I’d focus more on the confidence side of things that you can actually gain from those kinds of experiences. So when something else happens, you go, well, actually, I’ve been in a similar situation, it was far worse, I can deal with this.

Thank you both. And, I fear, on that note, we’re at time.

So, some amazing learning today, I think. Probably, I don’t know — up to you, dear listener, to tell us if you think it’s pretty sure, or of any value. But I’m certainly going to take some stuff from this. I’ll do my best, as I always do, to summarise.

So — what got you here might not get you there. Antony has seen founders hit certain thresholds and need to be different, reinventing themselves. This takes energy, and those that succeed may be those who manage to maintain that passion and drive for the business itself throughout. Equally though, recognising your capacity might mean that you time the passing of the torch to perfection. And where does that come from? Maybe it’s opening your brain enough to realise what your business really needs, and whether that is truly in you. Could this be a healthy discipline that we can nourish?

Alex believes it’s important to open your brain and pay attention to what’s going on far away — in this case, China’s emerging low-altitude economy. Now, whether or not this is the next trillion-dollar industry or not, maybe just opening our brains and paying more attention might be where that next idea or inspiration comes from. Perhaps there is some risk of becoming obsessed or overly focused externally, but if you can manage it, perhaps you’ll just spot, out of the corner of your eye, that next great idea to supercharge your business.

Finally, I’m wondering if there’s some virtue in subjecting ourselves to random experiences. Whether just subjecting yourself to difference and out-of-comfort-zone experiences, or just being curious and continuing to learn and change and grow, has fringe benefits. Could learning French improve your golf? Could dealing with an out-of-context problem — be it diesel on the water around the houseboat you’ve just rented, or something else entirely — help you find that thorny business issue?

Our brains run in channels and rivers, and sometimes by jumping out of them, as Edward de Bono famously said, we can find that big solution to our big next problem.

Thank you both. I hope that was some slight summary of our learning today. It remains to say, as always, an enormous thank you for the wisdom, insight, and general loveliness of Antony Enright.

Thank you both.

And equally lovely, wise, and insightful, Mr Alexander Moore.

Thanks, as always, guys, for teaching me a few things. I love doing these things with you so, so much. So — thanks.

And, of course, thank you, dear listener, for joining us. I really hope something here is going to help you have a new idea, or do something different, to help your business be even better than it already is. And of course, we would love to hear from you — you can always drop us a line, check out the show notes for our contact details to share your stories. Or even if you disagree, and you think we’ve said something that you think is completely not of value, please let us know — we’d love to hear from you.

Until next time, I’ve been Ben Thomas. This has been Founder Hacks, and thank you very much indeed for listening.

Founder Hacks is brought to you by Atomex — bespoke support for the startup-to-scale-up journey. Editing is by Paul Stevens, and music is by Reuven. Join us again soon for more Founder Hacks.

From #founderhacks: S4 Ep1: Opening Your Brain: Founder Reinvention and External Inspiration, 4 Mar 2026. This material may be protected by copyright.