#195 Your Brilliant Best - Entrepreneurship with Jim Collins and Anne Boden

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**Sarah Ellis** (1:05)
Hello, and welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast. I'm Sarah Ellis, and this week we're continuing with our Being Your Brilliant Best Self series. And you're going to hear two interviews with amazing guests. First, you'll hear me talk to author and researcher Jim Collins, and then the founder and CEO of Starling Bank, Anne Boden. Before I introduce today's episode, I just wanted to let you know that our TED Talk is going ahead on the 6th of February, which is great news, and we really do appreciate everybody who's already supported us by buying a ticket to join the virtual event. If you do come along, you get the opportunity to hear from 14 different speakers, and the TED team have done an incredible job of creating this brilliant virtual experience that I'm really excited about being part of. There are theoretical physicists that you can hear from, human rights barristers, climate activists, psychologists, poets, drag queens, and us. I feel like we are the least interesting in that list there, but it's going to be incredible. We had our rehearsal yesterday, and I can really promise that it will be insightful and really inspiring. So I really hope we can see some of you there. The team have worked incredibly hard to still make this happen virtually, so the more people we can get there, I think just the better I feel for everyone who's worked so hard to make this happen. So on to today's episode. First up, you're going to hear me talk to author and researcher Jim Collins. I've been learning from and influenced by Jim's ideas and insights for what feels like my whole career. One of his books is called Good To Great, and I really remember reading that and reflecting on how I led my kind of leadership style, what it meant to be a brilliant leader, and then things like his book Beyond Entrepreneurship, which I think is a Bible for anyone starting out in their own business.
He has a concept called the flywheel, which you'll hear us talk about in today's episode. Our business model for Amazing If is based on this idea of a flywheel, and so far, so good. It seems to be working out okay for us. Jim approaches his interviews in a way that I think reflects his work. Deeply thoughtful, considered, and curious. I was incredibly impressed by how much time, effort, and energy he invested into preparing for, and then the kind of conversation that we had together.
As a result, the conversation you're going to hear today is slightly longer than our usual podcast episodes, so you might need to take two walks to listen to it, or spread it over a couple of days, as I appreciate people have got a lot going on right now. But we really wanted you to benefit from as much of Jim's wisdom as possible, so I hope a slightly longer episode works okay.
I hope you enjoy the first part of this podcast, and I'll be back shortly to introduce Anne.
Jim, thank you so much for joining us today on the Squiggly Careers podcast. I'm really excited about our conversation.

**Jim Collins** (3:59)
I have really been looking forward to it ever since I heard your voice in my ears from this marvelous podcast the two of you have created.

**Sarah Ellis** (4:09)
Oh, thank you. That's really kind. I actually want to start by exploring this idea of what it is to be an entrepreneur, because these are people that you have spent lots of time with. You've kind of dedicated your life to really, what does it take to start businesses, to grow and sustain successful businesses?