What Makes You Tick · E.117
Build Relationships Before You Need Them: 117 Episodes Later
Richard Washington · Co-host, What Makes You Tick, Tick Talent
2 Nov 2026 · 41 min · Hosted by Richard Washington and Tolu
The short version
After 117 episodes, Richard and Tolu reflect on why useful relationships start before anyone needs a favour. They explore earning referrals, learning outside your industry and building value inside or beyond your current organisation.
- Build relationships before an immediate need makes every conversation feel like a request.
- Help other people connect, rather than treating your network solely as a resource for yourself.
- Earn recommendations through useful conversations and genuine understanding, not disguised sales meetings.
- Look beyond your own industry for ideas that competitors may never think to borrow.
- Make your team's expertise visible and judge your leadership partly by how well others progress.
- Practise building something inside your current organisation if starting independently feels too risky.
A network can look healthy right up until you need something from it. Plenty of contacts. Years of working alongside good people. Then you leave a business, need a new role or start selling something of your own, and discover how much of that network belonged to the job rather than to you.
That is one of the more candid lessons in Richard Washington and Tolu Adebekun's retrospective on 117 episodes of What Makes You Tick. After two and a half years of conversations, the co-hosts return repeatedly to relationships, referrals and curiosity.
The useful point is not simply that knowing people helps. Most leaders already know that. It is that the pressure to produce an immediate result can stop us doing the things that make those relationships valuable in the first place.
The relationship starts before the request
Tolu describes a familiar problem: applying for a role through a crowded process or trying to get someone's attention in an inbox already full of approaches. More activity does not necessarily make you more distinguishable.
His response is to build relationships before there is a transaction to discuss:
“And I think one of the things that's really stuck out for me is building it when you don't need anything.”
That changes the conversation. You can be interested without needing to steer it towards a vacancy, a sales opportunity or an introduction.
It also changes what you contribute. Tolu recalls Rich Patterson connecting him with Stephen through a LinkedIn comment, simply because he thought they would get on. That small introduction developed into a friendship. No elaborate networking strategy was required.
For a commercial leader, the practical lesson is to stop measuring your network only by the people you can reach. Consider the useful connections you can make between other people. That is a contribution you can make now, without waiting for your own problem to appear.
Recommendations work because someone understands the problem
Richard's example comes from outside business. While trying to arrange a three-month stay in Tuscany, his father-in-law struggled to find somewhere affordable. A supermarket security guard he had befriended knew someone with holiday accommodation that was closed for winter.
A conversation about a problem led to an introduction, and the owner opened the accommodation specifically for them.
What made that recommendation valuable was not its reach. It was its relevance. Someone understood the situation and knew a person who could help.
That is a useful way to think about becoming a go-to person professionally. Being widely visible is different from being remembered when a particular problem arises. The latter depends on people understanding what you do, trusting your judgement and feeling comfortable putting their reputation behind an introduction.
Richard also makes a distinction between a natural recommendation and one that feels commission-driven. People can sense when a supposedly helpful suggestion is really a sales mechanism. Turning every relationship into an opportunity to extract value risks damaging the very trust that makes referrals work.
Short-term targets can crowd out long-term relationships
Richard recalls being taught the idea of selling when there is no deal on the table. He liked it. Applying it inside an intensely target-driven business was harder.
Weekly, monthly and quarterly goals kept attention on the immediate gap. Relationship-building without a live opportunity could easily lose out to something that might close sooner.
That tension followed him into starting Tick Talent. A substantial career in leadership and hiring did not mean the wider market knew the new business existed. He tried cold calling, automation and artificial personalisation, with limited success. Conversations through the podcast worked better for him.
Richard reports that roughly a dozen podcast guests subsequently became clients, with around another dozen clients arriving through recommendations from those guests. He is equally clear that there was no formal dashboard measuring this return.
Those figures are an account of what happened, not a promise that starting a podcast will produce clients. The more useful principle is that a worthwhile shared activity can give a relationship room to develop before either person needs to buy anything.
Leaders still need commercial discipline. But if every interaction has to justify itself against this quarter's pipeline, some valuable relationships will never get started.
A bigger network is not necessarily a broader one
There is another trap here. You can meet more people while hearing essentially the same ideas.
Richard describes the distinction between tunnel vision and funnel vision, which he attributes to Jay Abraham. Tunnel vision means watching competitors, pursuing the same customers and borrowing each other's approaches. Funnel vision means looking outside the industry for practices that might travel well.
For Richard, this is personal rather than theoretical. He describes mentors from engineering and property having a major influence on how he understood business and relationships after years spent inside technology.
Tolu wants future podcast conversations to bring more of that outside thinking to the audience. The point is not novelty for its own sake. It is finding an idea elsewhere that helps you see a familiar problem differently.
A useful test for a leadership network is therefore not just who is in it, but what it exposes you to. If everyone operates with the same assumptions, adding more contacts may only reinforce the same blind spots.
Curiosity matters inside the team too
The same approach applies to leadership. Tolu describes managing a team whose members knew much more than he did about the work in question. Rather than pretending otherwise, he asked for their help.
That could have felt like a loss of authority. Instead, he describes it creating a productive reliance on the team's expertise, supported by his willingness to give people credit when speaking to senior colleagues.
Richard's advice offers a complementary standard:
“your job is to make the people above you and below you successful.”
Neither contribution requires a leader to have every answer. They require the leader to make other people's knowledge useful and visible.
Tolu also talks about preparing people for whatever comes after their time in his team. That is a more demanding measure of leadership than keeping capable people dependent on you. It asks whether working with you leaves them better equipped for their next opportunity.
Build something where you already are
The conversation ends with encouragement to create something, but not with the assumption that everyone should leave employment.
Richard urges people with an idea to find someone they enjoy working with and take a chance on building it. Tolu offers an internal route: find an important initiative in your existing organisation and work out how you can contribute.
He describes making connections around a leadership transformation outside his day-to-day responsibilities. It is an opportunity to practise ownership, ask better questions and add value without first launching a business.
For leaders considering their next move, that brings the discussion back to something practical. Build relationships before a request makes them urgent. Seek ideas beyond the people who already agree with you. Find a problem worth helping with.
The network is not a separate asset you collect along the way. It grows from the way you work with people.
“And I think one of the things that's really stuck out for me is building it when you don't need anything.”
“your job is to make the people above you and below you successful.”
“Like your job is to add value and you add value by asking the right questions and getting to the right outcomes.”
Read the full transcript+
00:27Tolu Adebekun:Welcome to a very special episode of What Makes You Tick. Hello, Richard. land of Italy. So,
00:44Richard Washington:Shall I show you? I'll show you and our audience who are watching. Obviously, if you're listening to the audio, then maybe just jump over to YouTube. But this is basically Tuscany in the snow, which is beautiful. And our dog is incredibly bellow. What makes my dog tick is definitely pretending he's a husky, even though he's a tiny little Cavalier
01:08Tolu Adebekun:You
01:08Richard Washington:King Charles. So yeah, we're here. We We've taken the opportunity to come out to Italy for three months, which is beautiful. So obviously my lovely wife, Guy, is Italian her dad just lives 10 minutes down the road. And so we're working remotely and enjoying La Docci Vita, which has been raining and horrible the whole time, but today is picturesque, perfect Tuscany. As if we knew when we were going to record this podcast, guys. right? So I had an idea for today, Tulli. So we're kicking off this new year, 2026, with a bit of a retrospective, but also a bit of a a look forward. And I was thinking about this. I was going, how old is our podcast? Because I feel like I've known you for a long, long time, even though we met through a podcast and then started this podcast. but We did our first podcast together on the 1st of August, 2023. So we're two and a half years old. We are a toddler. toddlers. Yeah. Tick toddlers. ticked on this, Which I was thinking that's pretty amazing because I remember when we first set out, do you remember what you told me about what Mr. Beast said about podcast?
02:14Tolu Adebekun:At the 100th
02:16Richard Washington:It is. Yeah, exactly. Say everyone's like, you know, how do we, how do we make YouTube work? And he's like, just do a hundred videos before you even like think about that next question. Cause every single one that you do will get better. at. I had a really interesting conversation with a brilliant guy who we can do a podcast with very soon yesterday. And he was talking about how, you know, it's interesting how when you do a podcast, he's seen some podcasts and he's done some content. in the past that he now looks at and goes, "Oh, it's aged really badly. And he's like, what do you think about that? About like, you're putting this thing out, which lives forever, but, but you might, it might age quite badly and you might not like it after a while. And do you know what I said, Toli? I said, I think that's growth. You know,
03:01Tolu Adebekun:100%. I
03:02Richard Washington:Think if we look at the podcasts we did even six months ago, let alone the ones we that very first episode where like the sound balances off and the lighting is terrible. All these things. I go, the fact that I now look at that and cringe shows that we've grown. right? Yeah. What's the alternative that we look at that and go, Oh, that was the best we did. Like, how can we get back to that? We haven't
03:25Tolu Adebekun:Terrible. That would be terrible.
03:27Richard Washington:A lot of people, right? Think about like, you obviously star athletes and stuff when they reach that point where they sort of, you know, chase the glory days, and but they can't do it anymore. It happens all the time in sports, right? But it happens to all of us in our lives, but we're definitely on that upward trajectory. And so we're 116 episodes in, this is our 117th episode. So we crossed that magic Mr. Beast 100 episode thing. And I was thinking it'd be quite fun to just think about off the cuff, surprisingly, what are some of like the lessons that you've learned over those 116 episodes? H
04:03Tolu Adebekun:I think, well, I think one of the biggest ones, I think probably for me is the the relationships, referrals, that that kind of vibe, because I think over the probably, is it maybe the last six months to a year, we've had some wonderful, wonderful Americans come into our network and onto the podcast. I'm thinking like Steven Newman, Jacob Warwick, Rich Patterson, Scott Lees, like all of that, that kind of world. And what they all talk about all the time is referrals, relationship, go to network. So that for me has been one of the really, really big ones because I think, especially with the way that the whole job market has shifted, you know, back when I was a boy, you know you would just send off your, you know, you'd go into the local shop or you'd go into a local, you'd drop your. physical CV, you'd maybe meet a person. But now it's like, you know, you're sending your CV off into like a 200 person job application that's already got lots of applicants and how do you actually stand out? So that referrals that even like code outreach, you know, people's inboxes and I see all these screenshots on LinkedIn all the time about, oh, look, I've got 600 missed calls. Of course, I'm not going to pick up your call, you know, so I've I've been seeing a lot about how actually we have to just be different. And how referrals and relationships are really the way, whether it's to get a new job or to really get your foot in the door for for selling, like that's a really, really big thing. And I think that's just been reinforced over the past, probably six months to a year, quite a lot.
05:47Richard Washington:Yeah, for sure. I think it's such an interesting point, isn't it? Because it's kind of like how it's always been is who do you know? You know, if you think before the internet and before like globalization, it was like, who's the
06:02Tolu Adebekun:Mmm.
06:02Richard Washington:Village blacksmith? You know, oh, you've got to go and speak to Giuseppe, you know? but But that's never gone away. But this like hyper globalization that happened through the dot-com boom. and obviously now with AI, it's just scaled so so incredibly quickly. and then like the whole COVID, remote working, lots of micro businesses starting, solopeners. We can work anywhere. where We've got clients all over, all over the US, Latin America, you know Canada, all over Europe. We've got clients globally. Not done anything in APAC yet, but we've not met that many of people in person. but But we somehow have built the type of relationship with those wonderful people and many, many more who we've of like become the go-to person. And a quick anecdote for you, this lovely place I'm in, in in like the very edge of Tuscany, in Italy, my wife's dad was trying to find us a place to go and stay here for like three months, but he wasn't finding anything. It was so expensive, you know, like 150 a night, like, you know. It would be an outrageous decision to spend three months spending 150 a night, but he couldn't find anywhere and he was in his local supermarket, which is called Eurospin and he was like, I just can't find anywhere. And the supermarket security guard who he'd become friends with when, oh have you met Gian Marco? Gian Marco has this little holiday thing. Maybe you could speak to him. And this guy has this shut. This is shut over winter. It's not open to the public, but it's open for us. So he's opened it specifically for us. We've got an absolute bargain deal. We're here for three months. And it happened because my wife's dad happened to build a relationship with a security guard in a supermarket, shared his frustration around a problem. And he went, I know a guy.
07:44Richard Washington:And I think it's that like, I know a guy. Oh, I I got a friend. oh I worked with someone. I've heard they're good. Or I saw this thing. If you're the person who someone recommends when someone's asking for help and sharing their problem, that's like the ultimate dream. is to be seen in that light. And I think it's just incredible that we've managed to build those types of relationships with people where we've become a bit of a go-to. And of course, vice versa, there's so many people now that I know that when someone says, I've got a problem, I'm like, let me connect you with that person. Or we did a podcast about that. Would you like me to send you a link? And it's just such a powerful, it's such a powerful reflection. Do
08:25Tolu Adebekun:You know, what I I was just thinking about what you said about how it's also always been that way, right? Because you're so right, like, who you know has always been the most important thing. I think as time goes on and as AI gets more AI, it's going to be even more important that human connection, you know, because I think you still had a bit of a chance before, right? Where like, if you didn't know people, you you might still be able to get yourself to stand out, but as AI means that now I'm not just competing locally, nationally, like I'm competing globally with talent.
09:02Richard Washington:Thank
09:02Tolu Adebekun:Building that network is just so important. And I think one of the things that's really stuck out for me is building it when you don't need anything. you know, so just just genuinely building good relationships, not because I need something from you, but just because I'm interested. And that's why I think Stephen and Rich and Jacob do really, really, really, really well. Really, really well. It's just that I remember Rich Patterson, how I met Stephen was that Rich just like, added the both of us in a comment on LinkedIn. And I didn't know anything about I just met with him. Do you know what I mean? And like, now we text and like, we're like pretty decent friends. And, you know, it just came from that kind of thing. So one thing is go and build relationships. But I think the other thing for me is help other people build relationships. right? So he referred the two of us, Do you know what I mean? For no other reason than, I think they'd just get on. you know? So that's something that I've been thinking about actually is you know, when I see, like so I saw something the other day, someone was looking for networking events. right? So I just added two people that I know that do that. Do you know what I mean? I don't get anything from that, but it's just nice to see where that can go. you know? So, not just building your own network and your own referrals, but... how can you do that for other people? you know, Because you've got people in your network who people would probably like to meet, you know, so how can you do that for others as well? It's really important.
10:30Richard Washington:Yeah, it's nice to be the person making a recommendation. It's nice to be also the person who's asked, you know, like, it's like simple things like in everyday life, like, the guy that runs this place, I'm going well, we're in a new town, I don't know anything, I could go to Google and look at the SEO, and basically pick the place with the best SEO, or the best, you know, ratings or
10:47Tolu Adebekun:Yeah. Yeah.
10:49Richard Washington:Ask why. So I got a list of five amazing restaurant recommendations, and we're going to work our way through it. It's just that type of thing. But he you can see like, when you ask someone about that, the way they light up they light up because it's like they're fun and they get to share these sorts of things. and And a lot of the time when you're on holiday, you ask like, let's say you're doing a tour guide, you know, and you've ever been on those tour guides around Egypt or somewhere and you're going through the pyramids and you're on a bus and they're going, oh yeah, just go to, we'll just stop at this place. And you're like, yeah, I know you're on a commission to take me to this jewelry shop so I can buy some Egyptian gold. And you feel it. in and I'm like, I walk in and I'm like, oh I don't like this. It's horrible. Whereas the opposite is like this very natural organic like I'm going to recommend you. So I love asking the question. I love getting the recommendation. He loves giving it. And it's just the way it works in life and in business. I think it's only going to grow. And I really do think that there's a massive opportunity. It's like, but but like you say, the way I was taught this concept in sales is selling when there's no deal on the table. And I was like, I really loved learning that, but I learned it in the context of an incredibly target driven company with weekly targets, monthly targets, quarterly targets. The yearly target was almost like so big that we didn't really ever think about it. We just worked in like really short sprints. So you were always focused on the gap that you had, where you were, like what you needed to go and build the longer term thinking about building relationships. I really, I really only God, I really only clicked when we stepped outside of the business and we've had that conversation before about how we left businesses after 12 years and went, Oh sugar.
12:20Richard Washington:We don't really have And it's the same like when, you know, we started the business tick talent, we were like, right, well, we're starting this business. We've got a good network over a sort of 12 year career of leading teams and hiring people. But outside of that, no one knows where exists. We're starting to build a business from a spare bedroom in a house. with no investment. This is a bootstrap business in in every sense of the word. How do we get ourselves on the map? And we tried every type of business development activity you could possibly do from me doing massive cold calling sessions to trying some automation and like, you know, fake personalization. And I hated all of it. we had very limited success, but what worked really well was starting to meet people through the podcast. So the podcast for us has changed everything because it it's given us a way to have access to people. And it comes back to that core word that was that in our very first episode that we talked about in August, 2023, which is entrepreneurs. We were both entrepreneurs. And I was thinking about this, Steve Jobs said something on a video that I saw just the other day where he talks about what makes Nike. so great, Nike never show shoes. Shoes is a commodity. They never talk about, you know, the soles and the bounce and the bubble. They talk about, we honor great athletics and we honor great athletes. And I think what we do as a podcast is we honor great leaders and we honor great leadership. M and
13:56Tolu Adebekun:And I think even the whole the whole premise of the podcast is curiosity because it's about understanding what makes people who do great things, what makes them who they are, what makes them do what they do. you know So the whole premise has always been about curiosity. And I think that's that's probably what I've loved the most is really just getting to understand really cool people.
14:20Richard Washington:Yeah, yeah, for sure. And there's so many more that we've met. Right. I know you only mentioned a couple, but what's also quite interesting is that if we look at the podcast guests that we've had on, we've now had like a dozen clients from podcast guests and a dozen more who have come from people that they've recommended. So it's actually become a really great business development tool for us that we've never ever. measured that we've not got a dashboard where we talk about the ROI and the cost versus the, you know, the return that we've got. It's just, it's just, it's a by product of doing the right thing. But if we think about that line, which is we honor great leaders and we honor the intrapreneurs, what does it mean to you that the, what does it mean to you that we, we honor great leaders and we honor intrapreneurs?
15:08Tolu Adebekun:That's a really good question. I think I think for me it's about it's about making space, right? So we give people that space to share their journey, to share their influence, to share their wisdom. And that that for me is like, that is how you can really honor people, especially in this, like our attention and our time is like the only thing we can't really get back. You know, like, yes, money, you can make it lose it, whatever stuff you can buy it back. but like your time and your attention once it's once it's gone, it's gone. You know, so for me, it's like it's a really big thing for when we because we always talk about like, do we want this person on our podcast or not? Do you know what I mean? Like we really like assess it. It's not just we want as many people as possible. We're quite selective, actually, with who we bring on our platform and who we share with our audience, because we value our audience's time. right? We want to bring them value. So for me, it's that thing of making that space, giving people that that opportunity to really share their journey and doing that with great leaders. You know, We only have people who who are great leaders on the podcast. That's That's been the thing that we've been really consistent with.
16:26Richard Washington:100%. We actually say no to way more people than we bring onto the podcast, which, which, which feels quite harsh, but it's the same in recruitment, right? You know, like we we'll speak to the top 10 % and the only the best one to 2 % of people that we speak with and find whatever go through to a client. It's just, it's the reality, right? There are, there are lots of leaders out there. Only a few are really truly exceptional. And I think that it's one of the things is that they're just people. So one of the things that I think that we do when we honor great leaders is that we find out about the human behind the title. And I remember when we first started it, we were thinking like, right, you might be doing an interview with a CRO or a CEO and you're like, wow, you know, this person's on this pedestal straight away. But actually there's just a person who took some big bets and made some decisions and has definitely had a load of failures certainly a load of lessons that we can learn from. So I love the fact that we find out very quickly the person and it's never about title. And it's never about, oh, they're in this really interesting company. So we want to get them on. It's like this person's had a really interesting career. I'd love to understand how it wasn't a straight line, how all the sort of the ups and downs that they had. And I think that that human connection that we formed with people is, is what it's all about. So
17:39Tolu Adebekun:Huge.
17:39Richard Washington:I absolutely love that. I love that. If we think about, looking forward then, so we are now recording this on the seventh of January, 2026 after starting on the 1st of August in 2023. What are you most excited about for 2026?
17:59Tolu Adebekun:I'd say more great conversations and also just seeing this referral thing really work. you know, because I think it's just been really cool seeing who we've had referred. And as we get more and more referrals, like the reach of different types of people that we would have never been able to connect with or even knew existed, it's just going to be, yeah, it's just going to be amazing. And I know you joined the Outliers, is it Outliers Project or Outliers Network?
18:27Richard Washington:The Outlier Project, top, yeah.
18:29Tolu Adebekun:The Outlier Project. And like, even just we were talking about doing like that Outlier series and just bringing in some really different people. So like we did, we had Christina on the podcast where actually she comes from quite a different discipline and bringing in some of those thinkings and those mindsets into what we do. Because I think that's when you look at all the the great people, whether it's like, you know, like a Steve Jobs or an Elon Musk, you know, hate him or love him. Like he's built some amazing things. What they're really good at is getting a really wide birth of understanding of different things in the world and then bringing that back into what they do and taking principles from one thing and bring it into another. Like Kobe Bryant, for example example, he studied animals to see how they attack and then he brought those angles and different things into basketball. Like who does that? Like that's crazy to me. But actually that's that's what we can start to do with some of those Outlier episodes for example and just having very different people on the podcast I think would be really, really valuable for our audience to be able to then just take little bits here and there. Do you know what I mean? take one thing from each episode and apply that one thing and I think it will make a massive difference.
19:43Richard Washington:Yeah, I love that. I love that. So, Jay Abraham, who is Tony Robbins, big mentor says that there's tunnel vision and funnel vision. And so most businesses operate with tunnel vision. It's like, who are our competitors? You know, we we've got these rivals that we're going after. We'll steal each other's staff. We'll copy each other's strategies. We'll try and win the same customers tunnel vision, but he has funnel vision, which is he's looking beyond the industry out to all different. All different industries to take ideas. And he's got a book called the 93 referral systems where he's like looked at all different industries, like, you know, beauty and dentistry and engineering and worked out how do they go and get new customers? Cause referrals is the best, most effective, cheapest, fastest way that you could possibly ever win business. But the things that are common and just the way you do it in a certain industry are revolutionary in another. And so I love this whole like tunnel vision, funnel vision. I had an interesting reflection last year where I was thinking about whether I you know, continue in Pavilion, which has been amazing for a couple of years. I still might go back to Pavilion actually. I really loved it. But joining the Outlier project after we had Scott on, I was going, if I think about it critically, two of the people who had the biggest impact on my life, my business mentors, after I left the business that I was in of 12 years of being like the most tunnel vision person in the universe, is one was an engineering leader. I'd built an engineering electrical engineering business and has become an amazing friend and and an incredible mentor to me. And another one came from property. So, and I was going,
21:15Tolu Adebekun:Yeah.
21:15Richard Washington:I learned more from those two people than I did in my 12 years about business and about relationships and about how to be. And there was a lot of unlearning I had to do from my tunnel vision birth and rising Yeah. in technology and in leadership. And a lot of that came from speaking to people outside of my industry. And so I think you're right. Like whilst this is what makes you tick tech leaders, career stories, I think there's always going to be this. The overall thing is we want to honor the leaders who build businesses, be that the entrepreneurs or the
21:47Tolu Adebekun:100%.
21:47Richard Washington:Intrapreneurs, particularly the intrapreneurs, because they're the sorts of people who don't really get the public praise. They're working incredibly hard to build businesses, often like us tunnel vision inside a business. And then at some point they might want to start their own thing, or or maybe it's just nice for them to share in a, in a non-quarter and quota type, you know, scenario a bit about their story.
22:12Tolu Adebekun:Definitely, And I think also because you know the podcast is always evolving, right? So when we started, we just had what makes you tick, but now we've got what makes you tick, what makes revenue tick, right?
22:20Richard Washington:And the best bits.
22:23Tolu Adebekun:And the and the best of it is, right? So there's an increasing number of forums where actually you know what makes revenue tick is that really sales focus side of things. You know That's that really tactical, practical, like, okay, this is what we can do about this specific problem. And what makes you tick is where actually we can bring in some of that wider thinking and really start to say, okay, what makes great leaders tick? And you know what can tech sales leaders take from leaders also in other industries as well as tech sales leaders? right And best bits is let's give you like a really quick hit of something great. you know So there's lots of opportunities within that to really like broaden our horizons and add very different types of value.
23:04Richard Washington:Yeah, I love that. The bet. Yeah, it's really interesting because we we started making revenue taking year two in the sort of the middle of year one, probably. And then we started the best bits only about four months ago. And that's been really fun to go back through the old episodes and bring these like five to 20 minute clips. Some of the goal that my goal, you know, might've been 45 minutes into an hour long conversation that people might have missed. Cause I mean, our channel has gone from like, you know, 200 subscribers at the beginning of 2025. We're, we're just like, just shy of a thousand now. And we're doing like, you know, we got 127,000 watch hours on the podcast. Like it it's incredible how much we've got, in terms of traction, how many people are seeing this stuff is outrageous. And if we think about that, some of those people you've mentioned, number one podcast last year, Jacob Warwick. Yeah. He's had like tens of thousands of views. And then we had like Rich Patterson with his bio coding. So again, he's an entrepreneur. He's like going down a bit of an entrepreneurial journey. He has had like 6,000, Stephen Newman, his referral effect where he's doing a book about it. He's going on a a tour now to speak to businesses all over
24:09Tolu Adebekun:Yeah.
24:09Richard Washington:Europe and all over the world. That was like, a you know, another 5,000 person episode thousand, 5,000 view episodes. It's just amazing to see these people go and build these things in public after so many years of building it inside businesses. What I think would be quite fun, Tala, is what makes you tick has a bit of a tradition, which is the tick fire questions. Why don't we run tick fire for our listeners and then we can button up this wonderful retrospective.
24:40Tolu Adebekun:Sounds good. If you started your own podcast tomorrow, who would you pick as your first guest, dead or alive?
24:47Richard Washington:Oh, interesting one. Right. Do you know what? I know it's like incredibly cliche to say, but I'd love to do Steve jobs. Like every, all those clips you still see across all social media platforms. You watch it was the most engaging speaker. His ideas were so contrarian at the time. And like I just mentioned about the Nike story, like I would just really love to understand how he thinks and what makes Steve jobs, the person tick. I think that'd be What about you? Who would you pick dead or alive?
25:18Tolu Adebekun:And actually my grandma who I never met. So I met three of my grandparents, but my grandma I never met, so it'd be her. Oh
25:24Richard Washington:Wow, that's a beautiful, beautiful thing to say and I love it. Same.
25:32Tolu Adebekun:In terms of AI's impact in the world, what are you most excited and cautious about?
25:37Richard Washington:Yeah, excited about the fact that people with ideas can leverage them to go and turn them into reality. So thoughts become things, it's now a real reality from for everyone in the world. I think that's just the most incredible thing. What I'm most concerned about is its use in the wrong place. So for example, in recruitment, I think it's being used in in a terrible way right now to automate the connection between individuals. And so this you talk about, you know you apply for a job with two 200 applications. That's probably a le low amount these days. You might get 2000 or a lot of jobs. So what they do is the problem is we've got too much volume. Let's put AI to screen people so that we get this highly qualified list of people. I'm going, what does that mean from an experience point of view? These people are looking for work, right? Like, so you're only ever going to like, exp like explode this problem if you try and... automate the connection between people and recruitment. Like a lot of things in sales, it's about empathy. It's about understanding. It's about building excitement. It's about alignment and you can't use, get empathy and alignment through automation. How about you? What are you most concerned excited about with AI? I
26:48Tolu Adebekun:Think excited about is just like the advances that it can make even for just stuff like healthcare and like we don't we can't even fathom like when it becomes like AGI and when it like I don't think we can quite fathom the world that the good side the upside of what could be created it's like unlimited potential I think what I'm concerned about is one people are gonna become really dumb right like you Yeah, one people are going to become really dumb. The impact on our brains, like they're already finding that. And I think the other thing is that people don't really understand how AI works. And so, for example, when you're applying it to recruitment, what people don't understand is that it's it has built in biases, right? Like if you don't understand how it works, you don't understand how to mitigate some of those things. And actually what you're doing, is you're scaling those things exponentially, right? So for me, that that's really what I'm concerned about is that people are going to become really dumb because it's going to do everything for you. Two, we don't understand this really powerful tool that we're using. Like we need to be really mindful.
27:58Richard Washington:Yeah, yeah, it's true, isn't it? Humans are these creative, caring, curious individuals. And without that creative, caring and curious side, what we get is the greed, right? It's like, how can we get more? Get more, get more. Yeah, agree.
28:12Tolu Adebekun:100%. And they've already been doing tests and stuff where AI actually like blackmails people and stuff when it's threatened with being turned off. So yeah,
28:21Richard Washington:Mmm.
28:21Tolu Adebekun:We've got to watch out.
28:21Richard Washington:Thank
28:24Tolu Adebekun:When you're coaching new leaders, what's one piece of advice you always share?
28:29Richard Washington:So it's been a little while since I've built a leadership team, but it was my favorite thing that I ever did is to find those people who wanted to become leaders and then taking them through a journey to become leaders. And and a lot of people talk about like servant leadership. and And I do believe in servant leadership, but I also believe it's like, it's just not focusing on your own success. So the lesson I learned from an amazing... mentor of mine from when I first started in my leadership career was your job is to make the people above you and below you successful.
29:01Tolu Adebekun:100 I love that.
29:02Richard Washington:And if you just focus on that, like my job is I want to make the people that I'm working for and the people that I'm working with successful. You don't have to worry about yourself. And the other thing was like, make yourself easy to lift. Like if you want to rise through a business, you've got to make yourself easy to lift. And I think if you do those two things, then you can be infinitely successful and and actually everyone benefits. And I've never seen that not work. And when people aren't focused on those things. They're focused on their own success. They're difficult to lift. It causes conflict across everyone and and no one enjoys it. So for me, those are principles I've I've always held really close to my heart.
29:44Tolu Adebekun:I love that.
29:45Richard Washington:How about you? When you're coaching new leaders, what's one of the first lessons that you teach them?
29:50Tolu Adebekun:I think it's, you don't know what you don't know, right? So be willing to ask lots of dumb questions, right? And and I think it comes back also to that thing we talked about earlier with referrals. Like, so for example, when you have a team, you know, often there is that power dynamic, but what I found, so I had to lead a team where I didn't know lots, right? Like my team were way better than me at that particular thing. And... because I was, I'm like, dudes, I don't know. Like, you're gonna have to really help me and support me, right, in this thing. And that actually opened up a really nice dynamic where I can rely on my team, but because also I don't glory hog, right? So when I go and talk to the above people, I say, look, Sam from my team is who is really good at this thing. And this is what he's such, like, I pass the glory through, right? Like, it's not for me, it's for my team. So that thing of you don't know what you don't know, you'd really. open and curious with your team. And it creates a really nice like reliance dynamic where they feel like they can add value to me because they are, because I don't know what I don't know, you know. But they also know that I'm going to add value to them because I want to make... But I love that thing about, it's your job to make everyone look good. Like That's literally why I exist. right? I exist to make the person that hired me look like an absolute rock star, right? to make my team look amazing because they're not going to be in my team forever. You know, And I I tell them when I'm getting into my team, like, you're not going to be here forever. Like, As much as we love each other and we work well together, at some point, this is going to end. right?
31:23Tolu Adebekun:Either I'm going to leave or you're going to leave. So my job is to make sure that when that end comes, you go into your next thing amazing. right? And kind of combining, because you've combined two questions, which is the advice that you got. Mine was, one of my managers really early, he was like, look, I want you to be like a minister without portfolio. right? Like, Don't worry too much about titles and and that kind of stuff. What I want you to focus on is being able to go into any situation, right? Ask the right questions and get to good outcomes, right? So be comfortable with ambiguity. Like you don't have to have a set job description. Like your job is to add value and you add value by asking the right questions and getting to the right outcomes. Like at the core of it, that's your job in any job, right? Is deliver value. So. that for me was just, it made me just really comfortable. where actually like, I don't really care what I'm doing. Do you know what I mean? Like, let me ask some questions, let me add some value let's get to some good outcomes. Like that was probably the best advice, but I'm going to add, be easy to left. love that.
32:28Richard Washington:Yeah, nice. Tick tick boom.
32:31Tolu Adebekun:Tick tock. Yeah. Which book would you choose to add to a library for our listeners?
32:39Richard Washington:Love and Work by Marcus Buckingham. It's the book I recommend most to people and it had a really profound impact on me. I think a lot of people struggle to find work that they love and they end up doing what we call grey threads. So things that they can get paid to do that they're very good at, but they drain them, they procrastinate over them and time drags as they're as they're doing them. But if you can find your red threads in life, things that you naturally volunteer for that energize you and time runs away when you're doing them, you're in flow to back to quote Mihi, Chick sent me high. That for me is, is totally possible through work. And so I think if you read that book, you'll learn about how to find your own red threads and do work that truly fulfills you in your life. And I just don't think many people talk about that. this whole like work and, know, do a job that you love and you never work a day in your life. It's true, but how do you find the red threads and how do you identify the things that you could do and could make money about? But at the end of your career you'll go, I wish I'd been a bit braver and a bit bolder to go after what I truly love.
33:42Tolu Adebekun:I also think it's a bit of a myth that you'll never work a day in your life and I think people are scared of work but work is actually good for us in a in a weird way. Like cuz you see when people retire and they're not working anymore you see like their brains deteriorate, their bodies deteriorate. Like it's not always the dream that we think it is but it's like what is that relationship you have with work because actually like that's we're built to create stuff and to build stuff and to do stuff. So yeah I think figuring out how you can do that and it be something that you love. I think the issue is most people hate what they do for work.
34:15Richard Washington:Exactly. The great and a lot of the time it's because there's great threads. I think it gives you language. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think it's totally true. And it particularly is a British thing, right? How you doing? Not bad. How's work? Yeah, it's right. Could be worse. You know, not met many people. And then social media and particularly like LinkedIn makes us go, "Oh, look at our amazing life. And it's like, no, it's flipping hard. But like the passion side, like passion, the word passion is about suffering. I'm prepared to suffer for this thing. the suffering of Christ, right? And it's like, you, you, you better love something to do it, to go through the hardship because you're
34:50Tolu Adebekun:40 hours a week at least like you about it. Yeah. So I think this whole
34:53Richard Washington:Like interest proceeds talent and then we should do things that we're prepared to suffer for. for me, that that doesn't mean it's easy. It just means that we love it and it's worth it. And we're prepared to suffer.
35:05Tolu Adebekun:I think that's the other thing, right, is that we look at someone like like sports stars and stuff like that, right? Yes, there are some people that are talented, but talent isn't really what gets you to that level. It's the fact that actually I love this thing, that I'm willing to do the boring stuff for this thing over and over and over and over again to get to the level where I just look insanely talented. Like LeBron James, yes, he's a freak of nature. Yeah. There were other freak of natures who didn't make it to his level, but he loves the little things, the boring details that most of us just we're not that interested in. So that thing, interest precedes talent. Like if you're interested in something, you will do the reps and the work to get to that talent level. Like it's just, yeah. I think the book that I would recommend is like anything by Alex Hormazy because like that man is just like a beast of mental thinking. And like what I've really learned from him is the amount of work it takes. to be really good and like fall in love with the work, like fall in love with the things you need to do to be really good because then it's very different. you know, it's like I'm I'm chasing being good at what I do rather than just the outcome. You know, so for me it's anything by Alex Wormaisy. Like he's, yeah, he's a savant.
36:24Richard Washington:Nice, I like it.
36:27Tolu Adebekun:Last question, what's one thought you'd like to leave our listeners with today?
36:33Richard Washington:My thought would be after someone who had most of my professional career career inside a business is, is if you have an idea for something is find someone who you love to work with, like you in this podcast and just like, see if you can start something, even if it's in your part time, but bet on yourself, bet on yourself. Like,
36:59Tolu Adebekun:Hm.
36:59Richard Washington:I know that I'm working recruitment and we help place people inside permanent roles. So there's a dichotomy here to deal with. But I believe that at some point in most people's life and everyone's life, even if it's, you're not doing it for money, but you're doing like, we want to create a foundation or an organization or some kind of amazing thing. Do it because you can absolutely do it. I think the resourcefulness that people have inside them, that they don't truly utilize because they just don't take the time, take the chance and take the risk. I think if you find someone who. shares a passion with you, who you can work with, bounce up bounce ideas off, share some of that load, bring ideas to each other, support each I think you can achieve anything. and I think it's it's a real, we would never have this podcast if if I hadn't met you. You know, I I wanted to have a podcast. I thought it would be a good thing to do, but what we've created together has been a million times better than I could possibly have imagined it's taken on a life of its own. And I just, I love that. So I would suggest anyone to find, find their TOLU and, and, and just go and go for it and don't care about the outcome. Just know that the fun part will be building this thing and turning this idea into a thing.
38:11Tolu Adebekun:And I think something, if we go back to the intrapreneur thing, right, is that often people are going to think it's really risky to do this outside, right? But even within the company that you work in, there are opportunities for you to build something, right, as well. So you can almost like I was always I was told that your your job is your investor, right? So stop treating it like I'm an employee and start thinking like I'm an intrapreneur. And actually, how would I build my business within this marketplace, right? That is my job. You know, so actually, for example, where I work now, there's a really big leadership transformation that's happening, right? Nothing to do with my day job. Nothing at all. But I've started making connections with the people that are doing that to see like, okay, how can I add value there? Right? How can I help build something there? So if you think the idea of starting something outside is really scary, just start something within within your company. you know, Add some value where you already are. And that's really good practice for when actually maybe you do start something out in the big bad world. Like Why not? But that that entrepreneurial thinking and like taking ownership of like if this was my company, what would I want to see different? And then go and do that. th Those are the stepping stones to actually doing that outside. you know, Because at some point you're going to leave that job. Like You need to be preparing yourself for when you actually leave your job. Like You just have to. You have to.
39:39Richard Washington:I love that. I'll paraphrase a Chris Voss interview question for you. So he said his favorite question to ask as a candidate in an interview is how do I make sure that I'm actively involved and adding value to the most important strategic projects to this business? And it's like such a beautiful question because it shows that you're caring about the overall mission. You want to play an active role. You want to have an impact, but on what's most important to the business. And I think if we ask that question in an interview, but constantly through our time in a business, then naturally people will know that you're the type of person that they wanna be around. And I think that that's totally, totally true. Yeah, 100%.
40:16Tolu Adebekun:Absolutely.
40:16Richard Washington:Amazing.
40:17Tolu Adebekun:Absolutely.
40:18Richard Washington:Tolu, it's been a pleasure.
40:19Tolu Adebekun:Always a pleasure, mate. Never a chore.
40:21Richard Washington:Thank you for being part of this story since from whenever you joined from maybe the first episode in the first of August in 2023. Or if you found us more recently, it's been a pleasure. We'll continue to roll this through 2026 and beyond. And we really appreciate your your time and your attention.
40:39Tolu Adebekun:Absolutely. Thank you.
40:41Richard Washington:Everyone else
40:41We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks so much for joining us for the What makes you tick podcast. I hope you enjoyed listening as much as I enjoyed having the conversation. Yeah, there's so much value in hearing other people's career stories. And if you're someone focused on growing in your own career, check out our growth magnet newsletter on LinkedIn. We'll put a link in the show notes. And we
41:00Richard Washington:Will see you on the next episode.