February 2, 2026 – Elon Musk’s Brain Charles Steel and Get Agile Ines Garcia

0:04 Intro 1: Broadcasting from am and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration award winning school for startups radio where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion. Jim Beach.

0:26 Jim Beach: Hello everyone. Welcome to another exciting edition of School for startups radio. I hope you had a safe weekend with yet another storm. Here, we were told to expect tons and got zero. It’s so disappointing. The weather people are just horrible. Got a great show for you. Charles Steele is with us in just a second to talk about Elon Musk’s brain and how it’s different from the rest of us. And then Ennis Garcia will be with us in 30 minutes to talk about how plant life and nature can help us in business. Absolutely fascinating conversation. Let’s get started right now. Here we go. You know, there’s absolutely no doubt that Elon Musk is different from most other people. I think the numbers just speak for him themselves. As he approaches a trillion dollar net worth, it will probably happen sooner than we thought it would. I’m excited to introduce a guest who’s going to teach us a lot about Elon Musk, please welcome Charles Steele to the show. He had an amazing career, two decades at Goldman Sachs, then the Carlyle Group in Aries management. I think Carlisle group are the like if you had the most insider of the insider people, those guys, and so I hear him laughing in the background. He also worked as a senior advisor to Tony Blair, working on the Mid East, and was chair of Save the Children in the United Kingdom. He has written a new book called The curious mind of Elon Musk, nine ways he thinks differently. Charles, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

2:03 Charles Steel: Jim, I’m doing great. I’m calling in from London, and it’s great to be with you.

2:07 Jim Beach: Well, I’m very excited about your topic. It’s a fascinating one. I think all of us think about this and wonder what’s inside that head of his What did you learn? Well, first of all, why did you decide to write this book? What was the motive?

2:20 Charles Steel: Well, Jim, look, I’ve had, I’ve been fortunate to have a really, a really career that has put me in the front of a lot of really amazing entrepreneurs. I probably looked at hundreds of companies. I’ve invested in dozens of them, and then adjacent to that, I’ve also worked in the nonprofit sector. I was worked with people that talk a lot about humanity, but I’ve never seen anyone like Elon Musk. And I’ve become really intrigued with the question what drives the most driven people? And if you’re going to pick one person to write about, I can’t think of anyone better than Elon Musk.

2:59 Jim Beach: No, I can’t either. He is certainly the man of the decade in terms of so many things. Did you go into this with a large pie, a large positive bias? It sounds like you like the guy a lot. Did that happen? Did you have huge respect for him before you started research?

3:22 Charles Steel: So Jim, I’ve tried to add something to the body of work out there that’s original. There are a lot of people that love him, there are a lot of people that hate him. And I think most people, sadly, I think too many people have fixed opinions. I try to approach it, approach it with a very impartial friend of mine. Way back when I was a student, I studied history, and I really think it’s important to study people in their own terms. And so I look really closely at what Musk says, and really, I’m really dug into that I did have a gut feeling that he’s misunderstood in some profound ways. And that goes back to my own career in business, not having seen anyone like him, and in the not in the nonprofit world, not having seen anyone like him. And so I landed on this framing of nine ways he thinks differently, because I’m not telling people they should try and be like Him. God, that’s that’s a nearly impossible thing to try and do. And I’m not saying he’s, you know, the worst person in the world, unless the readers decide, but I really want people to try and understand him, and that’s why I really dig into what he’s actually said over 1000s and 1000s of tweets and hundreds of interviews.

4:32 Jim Beach: All right, let’s go and talk about some of the particulars. How How much did he damage himself becoming involved with Trump and the politics of half of America. Is that damage going to last? I saw a bumper sticker Charles that said I bought this before, and it was on a Tesla, of course.

4:54 Charles Steel: Yeah, yeah. And look, it’s fascinating, because, as I mentioned earlier, I’m based in the UK. But. I talked to friends in America, different parts of America. I went to a wedding, and some lady berated me. She was telling me that she was one of those people. I’ve been writing this book so long. I lose track of the years. Beginning of last year, yeah, he was getting a lot of pushback, and I think that was one of the key reasons that he stepped away from the administration. I think his goals are so far out there in terms of autonomous driving, in terms of robots, in terms of Mars, in terms of Starlink, I think he’s, you know, he’s moved beyond the immediate concern of consumer impression of him. It’s not going to go away. It’s a big drag. You see that in car sales volumes in Europe. But I think, from his point of view, he’s probably, he’s probably past the worst of it,

5:54 Jim Beach: all right? Charles, I just wrote a book as well. It came out two or three months ago. It was called the real environmentalist. And the thesis of the book is that the environment, I’m sorry, the entrepreneurs of the world are already solving the environmental problems of the world. And I found five great entrepreneurs who are doing amazing things to make the environment better. And it’s a really upbeat, positive story. We also to make it spicier and maybe hopefully sell better. I did an analysis on chat GPT and did two or three tricks that I could explain if you’re interested, and produced a list of the 10 biggest celebrity hypocrites in terms of the environment. And what that means is people who talk the most and do the least. I think he was number four or five. And to let you know that I was chat GPT based, it had no bias built into it, 100% real data for you know, chat GPT, he’s number five or four in the world. Also, we hear, you know, he’s blowing up Texas in not having any regard for where the shrapnel lands and the debris lands. And you know, he’s got some bad reputations when it comes to the environment. What are your thoughts on my little silly game and making him number four and his role in the environment.

7:23 Charles Steel: First of all, Jen, what’s, what’s your first call? I’m gonna, definitely want to make sure

7:26 Jim Beach: I get it. It’s called Real environmentalist.

7:30 Charles Steel: Okay, all right, I’m gonna order that. Yeah. Look, I the first thing that, the first thing that Musk would say, he would probably question whether chatgpt is impartial, so you’re pulling a lot of that stuff off Wikipedia. He might say, oh, there’s a lot of negative bias towards me. But putting that to one side, look, I think Musk was early on solar. He was early on batteries, of course, my son is 10 years old. He’s doing exams, and he told me that he was asked the question, you are Prime Minister, what would you want to be? And he said he’d want to push out electric vehicles. And I said to my son, but where does the electricity come from? Felix? Of course, we all know it comes from power stations. Now, in fairness, what Musk is saying is that we should be using much, much more, much more solar. He’s doing his bit, but I think too few other people are doing that. So, you know, he’s obviously building a lot of data centers, he’s doing a lot of factories, but he’s at the same time saying we should be using solar. So I think if we were able to implement that side of things, then I think the case against him would be weaker. And then the other thing that that he says, which I think there’s quite a bit of truth in, is that the whole, the whole industrial system, is set up for carbon, and it’s really tough for renewables to get in there, because, because carbon, you know, the cost of carbon is not priced in, and we’re all set up to use infrastructure, which is there for gasoline and diesel and and so on. And so I think, I think if more people were willing to go along his, let’s push solar, then I think, I think the scales will be a lot, a lot better balanced. And just to add to that, you know, he’s the first to say, look at China. Of course, they’re using coal, of course they’re using a lot of nuclear, but they building solar like crazy. And I think, you know, we don’t, we’re not so blessed in the UK with with sunshine as you are. But I think, I think similar is a big part of the answer.

9:42 Jim Beach: All right, Charles, let’s get all of the other bad stuff out of the way, since we’re on the bad stuff right now, obviously he’s not the greatest boss, from what we’ve heard, you know, not, not, not going to, you know, stand there. And give you a tissue if you’re crying over the workload or something. What do you want to say about all the other bad things just kind of lumped together? He’s a jerk type stuff.

10:13 Charles Steel: Yeah. I mean, look,

10:16 Charles Steel: what you can do with mask. Is you can. I don’t want to sound too defensive Jim, because the book is it’s not ready to say he’s great and you should be like him. It’s kind of saying he is unbelievably driven, because he has a kind of unique in his own words, esoteric philosophy, and he traces it back to an existential crisis in his teen years, and he’s certainly got a lot of angst, and that’s combined with a lot of what I call hyper rationality. And for better or worse, he’s found a creative way to express that, and he does that in companies which don’t try and be, you know, they don’t try and be like the regular army. In his own words, they try and be like special forces. And he prizes hard corners, and he pushes to an extreme innovation, to the degree and I’ve not heard anyone else ever say this, but he punishes lack of innovation. And he says, Look, this is the way I want to run my organization, because if I don’t do that, entropy will creep in. People will stop focusing on the products and will end up losing now, I don’t think that is what most people should do. I think, let’s be honest, most people in business are not working at the cutting edge of technology, and unless you are, I think there’s very little case to do that. I also think that the only way you can get away with that is if you’re an absolutely brilliant engineer. And you know, this is something that, you know, we haven’t yet talked about it, and no one really talks about it in terms of his engineering prowess. You know, he’s off the scales. And don’t take my word for it. You know, James Wang says that, Jim killer says that, you know people that know better than me, then say that. So I think, yeah, don’t try and be like Elon Musk. The people that work with him do get burnt out, but many of them do say that. You know, that was some of their best years, and they’re just not willing to try and keep up with him. But yeah, if you’re running your own business or you’re trying to persuade people to come and work with you, don’t be like that. I, for one, could not be like that. I care too much about whether people like me. I care too much about being able to pick up the phone to someone I worked with 20 years ago and then having a nice memory of me. So it’s not for everyone, but it certainly works quite well for most.

12:49 Jim Beach: We like you, Charles, don’t worry.

12:55 Charles Steel: Oh, is that a bad thing to say? You like to be like I think it’s a human thing, sure.

13:00 Jim Beach: Of course it is. Of course it is. Don’t you remember when Sally Fields won her second Academy Award and stood there and says, You like me? You like me. Or, even better, in Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer, when he finds out that the girl thinks he’s cute, she thinks I’m cute, he likes, you know, we all celebrate that, Charles,

13:25 Charles Steel: but Jim, I’ll tell you another way to there’s so many ways to come at it. Like one of them is Jim. Like, ahead of this discussion, I went online and I read your book, which I really enjoyed, by the way, the school, school for startups. Oh, thank you. And, and as you know very well, your conclusion is determination is everything. And I think that is, I completely believe in that. But I think if you look at someone like Elon Musk, it’s taken to a level that’s very hard for most people to comprehend. There’s a book that I really enjoyed by Jeff Bezos about Jeff Bezos by a guy called Brad stone, and at the end of it, he includes a letter that the first CFO of Amazon, Joe Cody wrote to him. She has worked, obviously closely with BETOs, and subsequent to talking to Brad stone, she had read Walter, I’m biography of Steve Jobs. She was very struck and similarity between the two men, and she remarked that they both seem to attract people who work on things that they can internalize and adopt as a mission. Now I think most people are not like this, but there are some people who are wired that way. There’s another there’s another startup that you know very well. Paul Graham, the essayist and founder of Y Combinator. He wrote a wonderful essay called linen. To me, is determination. And he identified that determination is the most important ingredient for startups that do well. And he has a wonderful definition of determination, which is willfulness, balanced by discipline aimed at ambition. And then he goes on to offer a definition of willfulness, which is stubbornness and energy. And I think if you look at someone like Elon Musk, he has reservoirs of stubbornness and energy, but most of us can’t comprehend. So when you think about someone like that, you have to really, you know, you have to really look at them in that context. It’s it’s not someone that it’s easy for most people to copy with that said, I do think there are some things I don’t want this to sound like. He’s He’s so far out there that no one can learn from him. I think there are some things that he does that we can all learn from, but it’s, it’s typically not the things that people focus on.

15:56 Jim Beach: Let’s dive into the book a little bit. Charles, tell me about one of the nine lessons that we can learn from his brain.

16:07 Charles Steel: So the first one is embrace uncertainty and and there are nine in the book, but one of the one of the key aspects of the book is that all nine are connected. They build on one another, and they reinforce one another. And you have to begin with uncertainty, because this is, this is the genesis of what Musk calls his religion of curiosity, but in terms of what that means to a normal person, I must say, I tried to incorporate it from some of it in my own life. So for example, when I’m writing a book, which is a very difficult, scary thing to do, and I think, you know, sometimes I’m paralyzed by faith, by the idea of failure, and I say to myself, because this is what Musk recommends, confront the fear, except that there is an outcome in which you completely fail, and then channel that feeling and try and make sure to do your dullness, to make sure it never happens. And it’s a strange, liberating thing if you, if you, if you accept that it’s going to be very uncertain and and that there’s nothing you can do about this, but what you can do is try and change the probability of that, of that outcome happened. I found that really helpful. Another thing he says is, you know, don’t try and find the answers in your head. The answers are out there waiting for you to ask the right questions. I mean, I found, I find this very true in my own career, when I was at Carlisle, one of the founders, Bill Rubens, sorry. David Rubenstein, used to say to us guys that the deals are not in the office. You’ve got to go out the office and find them. I really think this is true in business. You know, when you think about it, every time you sell something to a customer, you’re asking them a question, and the answer is whether or not they buy the product. So I think this idea that everything out there is uncertain is helpful and and what kind of brings it home is the idea that that you working with other people, can change the probabilities of these outcomes. They’re not fixed things, and they’re not binary. Either it’s not either that you win or you fail. You can actually shape them. And then when things get really hard, you should say to yourself, heck, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Because we’ve all had that feeling we’re like, you know, banging our head against the wall. What are we doing? So when I’m writing and I’m struggling with a chapter, I say to myself, no, keep going, Charles, this is a this is good stuff.

18:45 Jim Beach: You know, when you were describing that uncertainty and embracing 100% failure, all I could think of, Charles is that you were really describing his birth control methods. Yes, well, I mean, there’s never met a condom in his life. You know that? I mean, well, the kids, Charles, how does that fit into it? I’m so special. I need to have this many children.

19:13 Charles Steel: Well, here’s one way to think about it, Jim. He’s the punch line of his philosophy of curiosity is that we need to increase consciousness. And of course, he’s partly talking about growing civilization and getting us, all of all of us smarter, and developing the technology and using AI. But there’s another way, I guess, to increase consciousness, maybe the most fundamental way, which is have babies. So I guess he’s approaching it from from many different angles.

19:43 Jim Beach: Well, he certainly seems to have his own ideas on that. All right, I guess number did you slip in? Number two there as well.

19:56 Charles Steel: Number two is, is. Idea of you can’t answer everything in your head, yeah, you’ve got to engage with the world. You’ve got to test and learn. And you know, maths calls this the physics framework. It’s more generally known as the scientific method. And funnily enough, I make the argument in the book that it flows through everything he does. His approach to engineering the way he thinks about AI, the need for AI to be max, maximally truth seeking. And you can even argue that it kind of influences the way, the rather unusual way he thinks about about politics. But this is the Hyper, rational side of his brain that gets married to the angsty side, which somehow has been able to harness in a in a productive way.

20:55 Jim Beach: All right, do you really think that he wants to go to Mars, or thinks that that’s realistic. I’ve seen a lot of analysis of it, Charles and there’s just no way it happens. And the number one problem is the human body would, from what I understand, the gravitational changes that would happen to your body while you were making that journey, that when you came back, gravity would crush you here on Earth, you could never come home, and a lot of other problems. And you know he’s talking about takes nine rockets to get the fuel to go to the moon, which sure does surprise in 1969 What do you think Mars is just PR at this point?

21:38 Charles Steel: No, absolutely not. I think he 100% believes it. And, you know, a really reliable source, when you’re looking at Elon Musk, is Gwen Shotwell, who basically runs SpaceX day to day. And she says, you know, this is not, this is not kind of made up cookie stuff. It was foundational to the company. It’s what drove them to develop reusability and rockets. And Musk would say, you know, some of the problems you’re applying to Jim, we don’t have the answers them today. But the whole point of engineering, the whole point of scientific method, is to find ways to do things that seem unimaginable today. You know, pushing technology to the limit. So I definitely think Musk thinks there’s a path there, whether it’s something that, whether he wants to go here, there himself. I don’t think that’s the key thing. I think he feels that if he paves the way, and that future generations will travel down that road, that would be his biggest legacy. And I honestly, I’ve spent a lot of time like looking at the guy, Jim. I honestly think he’s sincere that he thinks it’s a good thing to do. And it frankly gets him up, working early in the morning, working at late at night, which comes back to where we started, by just how driven he is. A person

23:04 Jim Beach: driven by what? What is it? Is it his desire to be the richest man? Or is it purely technical, and the money is secondary?

23:13 Charles Steel: I think you go back to that child who is very, insanely curious about the world and and they go also, they go through some real ruptures in their life. That’s a very difficult thing to deal with. As a child. You have to kind of we piece together how you think the world works. It sounds really bonkers, but there are some people who think on a daily basis about what is the nature of reality, what is consciousness? How does the brain work? What happened before the Big Bang? This is why I say he thinks differently, and in case that sounds in case that makes him sound like a total oddball. There’s another brilliant entrepreneur and scientist, Dennis hacibis, who founded Deep Mind and is running Google DeepMind, the whole AI effort of Google at the moment. And he was on a podcast just recently, and he said, I think about this stuff the whole time, and I just don’t understand how other people don’t think about it. Another example would be Jack Dorsey, you know, he openly, sort of ponders about the nature of consciousness. Another person, I think, would be Steve Jobs, who from a very different angle, from a sort of Eastern philosophy intuitive approach, I think, was really trying to wonder what, what is, what is the meaning of life? So strange as it sounds, I think this is, this is the core to understanding musk. And when he talks about it, yeah, people roll their eyes. It sounds ridiculous. I tried to make the case that he’s just more different than you could even imagine.

25:07 Jim Beach: Give us another one of the nine, please, Charles.

25:12 Charles Steel: Another one of the another one of the nine would be used markets. So we build on this idea of you’ve got to go out and test you’ve got to make things. And Elon Musk would say the hardest thing to do in life is to be useful at scale. And I think if you do want to have a big impact on the world markets, are just a phenomenal way to do that. I say this partly as someone who’s worked in government a bit, and as someone who has worked in the nonprofit sector, you know where, obviously the profit incentive is missing. It’s much harder to get feedback as to how well you’re doing, because you’re not given price signals as to, you know, whether the products and services you’re providing are good. Of course, there will be examples when markets don’t work, when you have natural monopolies. But I think if you actually want to have a positive impact on the world, traditionally, people have gone into government, they’ve gone into public service, they’ve gone into religion, they go into charities. But I think increasingly, you’re seeing people use companies as a way to be purposeful. And I know Jim, I watched the podcast that you did where you were a little bit skeptical about that, and you said, well, purpose is sort of the icing on the cake. And I think that is true for most businesses, but I think there are some people who, yeah, they might as well. Have to ask them on the cake and the cherry too.

26:45 Jim Beach: And I think I don’t know the reference of that exactly, but I think I hope I was referring to small business. I do believe that large business has a social responsibility. I don’t think that a small businesses get that yet.

26:58 Charles Steel: So you were, you were, I apologize.

27:03 Jim Beach: No, you didn’t. You did. I was just hoping I was being consistent. I think businesses, big businesses, do have a priority and a mandate to do more than just the shareholders in today’s world. I just wish they did in an apolitical way, straight down the middle. I don’t like my company’s choosing a side. I think that’s a mistake for a company. But anyway,

27:33 Jim Beach: Charles, give us a second a minute on what Tony Blair was like as a person. You see lots of movies that he’s a character in, and you have different actors who’ve played him. There’s an actor called Michael, something that’s played him in several things that I’ve seen that I like a lot tell us about Tony Blair up close.

28:00 Charles Steel: So he’s a remarkable politician, and I was lucky enough to work with him for two years based in Jerusalem and doing stuff in the context of the Palestinian Israeli situation. This was back in 2010 and 2012 so this was away from the context of British politics. What I can tell you is that he operates at so many different levels at the same time. On the one hand, he’s a very mission driven person. He doesn’t talk much about religion, but it’s a much more important driver for him than most people would know. In fact, he wrote a whole book on leadership last year, which I read carefully, and he didn’t mention faith once, but I can tell you, when he stepped down as prime minister in 2007 one of the first things he did was to change to the Catholic faith, which was the faith of his wife. So he has this high level, kind of mission driven side to him, but he’s also intensely practical. He thinks being in politics is about being in the business of government, and he looks about achieving objectives that try and improve the livelihoods of the citizens. But so he’s mission driven, he’s practical, but he’s also very frank. He often in conversation, talks about politics, politics with a small p which is basically getting stuff done. It’s bringing people along with you. It’s been really good at communications. And so he’s operating at all these different levels. And you know, I think it’s why he’s the only person who’s century in the UK who’s managed to win three elections in a row. And it doesn’t make him perfect, though. I mean, lots of people will point out that being mission driven and pragmatic can sometimes cause you to make big mistakes, which is a contentious area, but I must say, it was a pleasure working out close with him. I’ve worked with quite a few. Two kind of prime ministers, and I will say of all of them, he behind closed doors, is the most down to and the least pompous, which is something that I really appreciate.

30:13 Jim Beach: I do too, Charles, I could spend all afternoon speaking to you about this absolutely fascinating topic, but we are very much out of time. How do we get a copy of the book? Find out more about you.

30:26 Charles Steel: Thanks for Jin. The book is available on Amazon from February the 24th and from major retailers. If you want to know about me, I have a website, charlesfield.com which is my name, and I’m on x as well. So I hope this has encouraged people to learn a little bit more. I think

30:46 Jim Beach: it has. I’m certainly going to read this one. Charles, thank you so much for being with us, and we’d love to have you back to defend the Carlisle group.

30:53 Charles Steel: Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it,

30:56 Jim Beach: and we will be right back. You.

31:09 Charles Steel: Introducing the real environmentalists, the bold new book by Jim beach, it’s not about activists, politicians or professors. It’s about the entrepreneurs, real risk takers, building cleaner, smarter solutions, not for applause, but for profit. The entrepreneurs in the book aren’t giving speeches. They’re in labs, factories and offices, cleaning the past and building clean products for the future. The real environmentalists is available now because the people saving the planet aren’t the ones you think go to Amazon and search for real environmentalist. Thank you.

31:39 Jim Beach: We are back and again. Thank you so very much for being with us. I’m very excited to welcome to the show someone who is just doing some really advanced thinking. Please welcome Ines Garcia to the show. She is a speaker, an author. She’s an expert on the circular economy, agile and climate coaching. She also writes about biomimicry and is in the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame. He has four books out, I think, and the most recent one is called nature’s blueprint for business, harnessing the hidden power of edges. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

32:21 Ines Garcia: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure. I’m all right, Jim, how are you?

32:25 Jim Beach: I am well though. All right. Explain the book blueprint for business. How does nature get involved with business?

32:34 Ines Garcia: Well, over time, working with organizations as internal communications, I end up falling into what’s called circular economy, and so how we can keep our products and materials in place, and one of the principle is regenerate natural systems. And that really caught my attention, and that’s what all the book is about. How can we tap in the power of edges, where we normally see boundaries in organizations, to help us in how we innovate.

33:03 Jim Beach: Okay, when we think of nature, you know, we think of snowflakes and things like that that are each unique. I don’t know how edges fit in, though. I don’t see nature having many edges.

33:18 Ines Garcia: Okay, so let me explain a little bit there. So the original title of the book was just the hidden glue of your organizations, and now we normally think of boundaries that create silos and sort of like the outside limit of where a team starts, where a team ends, roles, departments in nature, edges, the boundaries are the most higher exchange and very productive spaces. So that really make me think into our the difference, into our artificial ones, the boundaries that we create in organizations that is just a cognitive creation right to help us to understand the diverse reality we live in, versus how nature taps and gets the most out of those edges, for for productivity, for innovations, for exchange.

34:14 Jim Beach: All right, interesting. And then how does biomimicry fit into this? Biomimicry is copying, right? Isn’t that what mimicry means?

34:26 Ines Garcia: Yeah, Jenny venues describes it as innovation inspired by nature. And there are things that we have been doing all along, like, for example, Velcro is an invention, just by looking at the process that nature will solve a problem. And one of the things I think is very helpful is this way of looking at the problem. We often just grab tools, frameworks that we have been kind of upcycling for years. If you think of org chart from the 1800s and that’s all, we haven’t evolved. And instead, what I’m asking people is to use this land. Start asking, When confronted with a challenge, how does nature solve this? And think of this like a function is an exchange, is a flowing of information. So really thinking about function and how can we then learn from basically 3.8 billion years so far and the I really think it’s an archive for us to dive into.

35:22 Jim Beach: So each chapter in the book has a problem that the chapter is dealing with. I think, can you walk us through some of those problems and the natural solutions?

35:33 Ines Garcia: Sure, like, for example, if I look at the garden here, just looking at a boundary or an edge of a train, there is just so much going on, like the exchange in between birds or different species, you can say, quickly, pioneering plants covering the ground. And therefore there are this idea of the activities and boundaries, and how can we focus better than the elements, the teams, the individuals, the roles within our organization, but enabling and creating the conditions for those spaces in between? What happens if we tap into those spaces instead, like music is also the spaces between the notes. So I think there is a it’s a great opportunity for us to tap into that we don’t tend to think about,

36:27 Jim Beach: all right, interesting. And when we are using this, how does agile come into this? Or is this a separate topic? I know you talk about agile quite a bit. Is that relate to this?

36:41 Ines Garcia: For me, it has been a journey from one thing to another. And I really think Agile has its play, right? We want to increase predictability and reduce risk within our organizations. And for example, one of the things that agile often talks about is this ability to adapt to changing conditions and infusing feedback loops. And that’s exactly one of the principles of the life principles like we are governed by natural laws, how can we be locally attuned and adaptive to our changing conditions? How can we maintain integrity by our constant self renewal? And I think the two kind of go nicely hand in hand, one would imagine that nature has much more to tell us, than just an agile and a fluidity in the way that we deliver,

37:25 Jim Beach: okay, and then Salesforce congratulations on being one of their biggest partners. Talk to us about your relationship with Salesforce and the work you did for their clients. My understanding, you buy Salesforce, and then you have to hire another company to fix it right?

37:45 Ines Garcia: Well, I work for myself, and my journey into Salesforce was working for relatively big hospitality company in the UK, and the CEO was relatively new. Used to work for PepsiCo and China trust, and one of the things he said for the CRM program that we were designing is we’re going to get Salesforce. And you can imagine we looked at each other like we’re going to sell what now. And for me, it was a really interesting journey. Coming from communication background, I’m very architectural. I really like to get tucked in and understand how things work, how I am not going from tech background, I quickly could do things that enable people to focus into their most input and avoid wasting time with like copy pasting or really tapping into automation. And this idea of citizen development, it really hooked me into the Salesforce ecosystem, if I may say. And since then, I’ve done a lot of different projects, from startup, like to people company to one of the biggest utility companies here in the UK.

38:48 JIm Beach: Very impressive. I, I’m not impressed with Salesforce. I think that selling a product that has to be fixed immediately, I just don’t get it, what are your thoughts?

39:04 Ines Garcia: I think that the most powerful thing that you can do is look at what are your strengths, and how can you tap into this, and how can you leverage your existing ecosystem to to reduce the input of effort of other things that you may not be as strong. So I think the solutions exist out there, and there is a viability of options. And it’s important that we remind ourselves that our time is perishable. Where are you going to get the most return from? So put your focus over there.39:39 Jim Beach: Circular Economy. I took economics, and the first day, he put a big circle on the board, called it the donut of economics, and drew arrows and pointed out how it was circular. How does Circular Economy relate to your work? And what have you written about with circular economies?

39:58 Ines Garcia: Yeah, so I did sometimes. Back an executive program with Cambridge University around sustainability and circular economy, and it really clicked to me this idea that we we are not making the most out of what we do and what we use. So for example, we waste 90% of the materials that we put in our products. So Should any be better that one, we don’t put them there to start with. Or two, we gain them back at the end of usage. And really opens an opportunity of, how do we innovate in our finite planet? How can we keep our products and materials in use for as long as possible? How can we reduce waste and pollution? And that principle I was talking about of, how can we regenerate natural systems, like, how can we tap into free ecosystem services, clean weather, clean air, clean water. I think it’s a great opportunity, and it’s really time for us to to tap into the existing potential that we’re wasting across the value chain.

40:57 Jim Beach: You said 90% of material

41:02 Ines Garcia: are wasted. Yeah. So, yeah, exactly. So think about all the packaging that you put, the effort that you put through transport. There is a year ability of materials that we put in our products and services. They they could be one, not put in there to start with, or to fetch back at the end of the life cycle, it just affects your piano in a positive way. Think rare earth materials. Like nowadays, we have quite a lot of constraints in the ability to get certain products or certain materials. So it’s really, really a time for us to tap into these things that we already have functioning. And how can we develop them in a way that is easier to bring them back into into your value chain,

41:48 Jim Beach: go back in your experience, in your work history, and tell us some of the things that you were the most proud of and the most excited about, the things that we haven’t talked about that you want to share. Tell us about some of the things that you’ve done that we haven’t talked about yet.

42:08 Ines Garcia: Oh, wow, how long do we have? Yeah, I mean, maybe I could talk to you about one of this idea of, I call it triadic connection. And if you think about the capillary systems in our head, even use this way of every element of just other three points. And why is that important? Because we either don’t communicate enough, for example, or we communicate too much, and having a lot of lines of communication generates waste. So it’s this idea of, how can we streamline in the way that we operate, where we create a little bit of redundancy by default, and we tend to think of redundancy as a negative thing, but redundancy is a strategy from nature that creates resilience, redundancy, decentralization and priority. And so this idea of triadic connections, at the moment, I’m working with an organization that we are testing this within. So think of each module, each individual has a very strong relationship in the way that they operate. So if one part falls or whatever happens, then we can continue to operate. Nature does this in many ways, like think how ants go and explore. Ants always go in three or four, just because of that idea of three. So you can still operate and look after your colony, whatever happens and this idea that things are going to change, we need to be able to adapt to changing conditions, and do that by default. So how we organize ourselves, the structures, the communication, those spaces in between, can really give us an edge, competitive advantage, which I like to argue, tell us about, birds, nerds and turds.

44:01 Ines Garcia: I love you. Found that, yeah, so what to say? I love games. I love board games. And one day, coming back after work, on my way, I was suddenly this idea sort of pop in my mind of this game. It’s a pack of cards, and yes, you guessed it, inside there are many birds, many nerds and many turds. And essentially it’s a way to work within your team in how can you do what you do, and do that pattern like often, we have these conversations, call it retrospective or postmortem, and we sit down, and those can get quite tense or boring. And, you know, life is perishable. We shouldn’t be doing boring stuff. So this game helps to one level up the playing field, because you’re always in a team, gonna have some people that are very happy to give their opinion quite early on. And that sets the same for the rest and why it’s a. Voices, so it’s the sign in a way that avoids that to happen. And second, have a little bit of a laugh. We all on this together. So that’s the game of that.

45:12 Jim Beach: I love it. I love it. That sounds fun. What’s your favorite board game?

45:17 Ines Garcia: Wow, that’s a very unfair question. Okay, I can tell you that my latest addiction is a game called Daruma. Is a Japanese inspired, I think it’s a French game with some dice. And, yeah, it’s, it’s ever changing. Every time you play. Change a little bit, and it’s quite fun. What about yours? Risk. Oh, why?

45:45 Jim Beach: It’s just the ultimate game, take over the world, way game, you know. So you get to lie, cheat, make deals with other people. So, yeah, it’s gotta be rich,

46:01 Ines Garcia: interesting, yeah. Have you tried pandemic?

46:04 Jim Beach: No, pandemic. Yeah, it’s you

46:07 Ines Garcia: also look at the board of the globe, but you are racing against, well, it’s a collaborative game. You either all lose or all gain. And I think that’s quite interesting to say, like the social viability depends on who you play, and it really feels like you’re playing against something, essentially playing against the game itself. So you can die in like seven different ways and only one way to win the game. But yeah, I will highly recommend it, and it will give you another edge of playing with others, like together.

46:38 Jim Beach: Well, it does sound like good one, very interesting. Well, you have an absolutely fascinating life, and as I said, you I think you’re just way over my head. You’re doing stuff that is a lot smarter than I am. So pretty impressive, and I love your just ability to work in so many different areas, all sort of related to the same thing. So it’s very interesting. Anything else in this we only have about a minute left.

47:11 Ines Garcia: Well, thank you. I’ll argue that they are very smart, and I really appreciate those words. But life is full of flavors. Why work wouldn’t be and, yeah, I will just encourage everybody that whatever the challenges think of the function, don’t just wrap a pre made tool, because frameworks don’t have your best interest, because they don’t know you. They can. So context is everything and and I think together, we’re moving from that competitive advantage to collaborative advantage. We want to go far. We better go together.

47:45 Jim Beach: How do we get in touch with you? Find out more about you, get some books.

47:50 Ines Garcia: Just head over to Inez garcia.me, I N, E, S, G, A, R, C, I A, dot, M, E, it’s

47:58 Jim Beach: a good URL, good one. Why are you hiding your face behind your book?

48:05 Ines Garcia: Oh, okay, a little bit shy, but the most important thing is not who wrote it, but what it contains and what can enable.

48:12 Jim Beach: I guess still, you should take the book down. You want to know

48:19 Ines Garcia: there is enough pictures of me out there. Okay, thank

48:23 Jim Beach: you so much for being with us. Great stuff, and we’d love to have you back. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Jamie. It’s been fabulous, and we will be right back. You. Me.

48:49 Intro 2: Well, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a wonderful question, actually, Jim, oh my gosh, I love the opportunity to do this. Thank you, Jim, wow, that’s, that’s, that’s a great one. You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question, and I don’t have a great answer, that’s a great question. Oh, that is such a loaded question, and that’s actually a really good question.

49:09 Jim Beach: School for startups radio, we are back and so very appreciative that you are still with us. We have another brave contestant willing to play the quick 10. We just interviewed her, and so I think I don’t know where I’m going to air this in relation to the show, but anyway, the guest this show, Ennis Garcia, is going to play the quick 10. Ennis, thanks for being with us to play the quick 10. How you doing?

49:36 Ines Garcia: All right, looking forward to it. Let’s see what the match is.

49:39 Jim Beach: Yes, do you want to accept the standard wager? Sure, great. There’s the attitude I love. Number one, what is your favorite creativity hack?

49:50 Ines Garcia: Look outside and ideally go outside.

49:53 Jim Beach: Number two, boots, your favorite bootstrapping trick,

49:57 Ines Garcia: start small and learn fast. So you’re moving from, would you build? Would you buy this to how

50:03 Jim Beach: many you want to buy? Number three, name your top passions,

50:08 Ines Garcia: food, joy, community, nature and always be learning.

50:14 Jim Beach: Number four, the first three steps in starting a business are,

50:19 Ines Garcia: first, have a client before you go gung ho. Second, less is more. Frugality can be a superpower. And third is outlining the business plan when not to do the non negotiables that’s going to drain your time and effort.

50:35 Jim Beach: Number five, the best way to get your first real customer is build

50:40 Ines Garcia: it for yourself and for an existing customer.

50:44 Jim Beach: Number six, your dreamiest technology is the one

50:47 Ines Garcia: that creates conditions that are conducive to life.

50:52 Jim Beach: Number seven, best entrepreneurial advice.

50:56 Ines Garcia: Quiet down our cleverness and ask, How does nature solve this?

51:02 Jim Beach: Number eight, worst entrepreneurial mistake,

51:05 Ines Garcia: favoring tools over function. Don’t get distracted with flashing your things.

51:12 Jim Beach: And number nine, favorite entrepreneur and why?

51:16 Ines Garcia: My great granddad? Because after the Civil War, I’m survived from being almost killed by both sides. So the opportunity of a bodega, sort of corner shop, which has been evolving since over more than 80 years, is on its third generation.

51:31 Jim Beach: And Number 10, your favorite superhero

51:34 Ines Garcia: mycelium, is the fungal network underground, because it connects entire forest resources, communicates danger, and we just know so little about this super organism.

51:45 Jim Beach: Ooh, interesting choice. All right, while we calculate your score and find out the winner, how do we get in touch with you? Tell people about the book. Give us a minute.

51:55 Ines Garcia: Yeah, please head over to Ines garcia.me. And yeah, my latest adventure is publishing this book with Taylor and Francis, which is the intersection between business, design and nature mechanism, because we have 3.8 billion years of R and D that we rather tap into.

52:16 Jim Beach: I love it. Where are you right now? Where are you falling from

52:20 Ines Garcia: in the UK. Is Devon, southwest of the UK.

52:23 Jim Beach: Okay, and where are you from? Originally from Barcelona. Oh, I love Barcelona. Thank you. I used to I spent a summer, actually three or four summers in Denia.

52:36 Ines Garcia: Oh, wonderful. When was last time you were there?

52:40 Jim Beach: 1980 1987

52:46 Ines Garcia: When are you going back?

52:48 Jim Beach: When you invite me and have me? Okay, hang out with you for a week.

52:52 Ines Garcia: Sure. Let’s do that before 2030 okay.

52:55 Jim Beach: Oh, this, I have bad news. Oh, this is so I just got your score, I think the German judge dinged you, and so you got a 94 which is a great score, but you have to have a 95 to win. I know perfect song. So you owe us a Tesla, because you had the wager. You owe us a Tesla. All right. All right, there’s all right, you send that away real soon, sure.

53:25 Ines Garcia: Yeah, we will discuss the details of what the Tesla could look like. I’m made, made of Okay, excellent. It is.

53:32 Jim Beach: Thank you so much for being with us. You were a great participant. I love some of your answers, and excited to have you back on the show soon.

53:40 Ines Garcia: Yeah, thank you, Jim, looking forward to it.

53:44 Jim Beach: We are out of time for today, but you know what we do? That’s right, we come back tomorrow, be safe, take care and go make a million dollars. Bye. Now you.