In this episode of The Digital Download, we’ll dive into how today’s youth can be equipped with the entrepreneurial skills needed to succeed in an ever-changing economy. From fostering innovation to developing adaptability, entrepreneurship education is preparing the next generation for a dynamic future. Bill Muirhead, Managing Director, and Rupi Drew, Head of Programmes at the Peter Jones Foundation, will share how we can work to shape young minds and enable them to thrive in this new business landscape.

Join us as we discuss questions like:

* How are traditional educational programs adapting to today’s fast-paced, tech-driven economy?

* What entrepreneurial skills are critical in today’s workforce?

* Why is adaptability essential for young entrepreneurs?

* How does fostering innovation lead to long-term business success?

* Can entrepreneurial skills be applied beyond startup ventures?

Through their work with the Peter Jones Foundation, Bill and Rupi are deeply involved in the development of programs that empower young people to embrace entrepreneurial thinking. Their work has played a pivotal role in helping the “side hustle generation” develop the skills needed to navigate today’s business challenges, ensuring they’re prepared for an uncertain future. By focusing on essential entrepreneurial skills like innovation, problem-solving, and resilience, they’re helping to mold the future of business.

We strive to make The Digital Download an interactive experience. Bring your questions and insights. Audience participation is highly encouraged!

This week we were joined by our Special Guests -

• Rupi Drew, Head of Programmes at the Peter Jones Foundation, and

• Bill Muirhead, Managing Director at the Peter Jones Foundation

This week's Host was -

• Rob Durant, Founder of Flywheel Results, a proud DLA Ignite partner

Panelists included -

• Tim Hughes, CEO & Co-founder of a DLA Ignite, and

• Adam Gray, Co-founder of a DLA Ignite

Transcript of The Digital Download 2024-09-13

Rob Durant [00:00:02]:

Good morning. Good afternoon and good day. Wherever you may be joining us from. Welcome to another edition of the digital download. The longest running weekly business talk show on LinkedIn live Now globally syndicated on tune in radio through IBGR, the world's number one business talk news and strategy radio network. Today, we're talking about how to inspire the side hustle generation. In a first for us, we have 2 special guests, Ruby Drew and Bill Muirhead, both from the Peter Jones Foundation, a UK based charity that promotes entrepreneurship for young people. And they're going to help us with the discussion.

Rob Durant [00:00:48]:

Bill and Rupi are deeply involved in the development of programs that empower young people to embrace entrepreneurial thinking. But before we bring them on, let's go around the set and introduce everyone. And while we're doing that, why don't you in the audience reach out to a friend, ping them, and have them join us? We strive to make the digital download an interactive experience. Audience participation is highly encouraged. And with that, Tim, would you kick us off, please?

Tim Hughes [00:01:21]:

Thank you, Rob. Yes. Welcome, everybody. My name is Tim Hughes. I'm the CEO and cofounder of DLA Ignite, and I'm famous for writing the book, Social Selling Techniques to Influence Bars and Changemakers.

Rob Durant [00:01:34]:

Excellent. Thank you very much. Adam, good to see you again. Welcome.

Adam Gray [00:01:39]:

Thank you very much indeed. Hi, everybody. I'm Adam Gray. I'm Tim's business partner and cofounder of DLA at night. I'm famous for writing the book Brilliant Social Media, or I was. It's a long time ago now. And I've also written a book with Tim. And it's great to be here.

Adam Gray [00:01:57]:

And this is this is a truly exciting subject, I think, isn't it?

Rob Durant [00:02:02]:

Absolutely. I am too. Yes. Thank you. And myself, I am Rob Durant. I am the founder of Flywheel Results, a proud DLA Ignite partner, and I too have written a book. I have written the social enablement blueprint, stop pitching and start selling. Thank you, Tim.

Rob Durant [00:02:26]:

Alright. As I said, this week on the digital download, we'll speak with Bill Muirhead, managing director, and Rupi Drew, head of programs at the Peter Jones Foundation. Their work has played a pivotal role in helping the side hustle generation develop the skills needed to navigate today's business challenges. Let's bring them on. Rupi, Bill.

Rupi Drew [00:02:51]:

Hi. Hello. Hi.

Bill Muirhead [00:02:53]:

How are you doing?

Rupi Drew [00:02:55]:

Hi, guys. Lovely to be here. Fantastic.

Rob Durant [00:03:00]:

Rupi, let's start with you. Let's ask you to tell us a little bit more about you, your background, and what led you to where you are today.

Rupi Drew [00:03:09]:

Thank you. Thank you, Rob, and hi, everyone. So my name is Ruby Drew, and I'm the head of programs at the Peter Jones Foundation. I guess I'm working in the role that I'm working because I'm really passionate about, enterprise entrepreneurship and young people. I've been with the Peter Jones Foundation team for coming up to 2 years. And prior to that, I was working within a Peter Jones Enterprise Academy, over at Leicester College in the East Midlands. And it was all about empowering young people to, I guess, be more in control of their futures and not feeling that the only options available to them would be working for somebody else or just going to university and not thinking beyond that. So it's kind of, you know, wanting to empower them to think, of coming up with their own sort of business idea and seeing that as a viable future for them.

Rupi Drew [00:04:04]:

I've worked within social enterprise as well. So I think definitely my values are very sort of community based, very sort of helping people, and that's what I love to do.

Rob Durant [00:04:15]:

Fantastic. I can tell this is going to be a great conversation. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you. And, Bill, same question. Please tell us a little bit more about you, your background, and what led you to where you are today.

Bill Muirhead [00:04:29]:

Thanks, Rob. Hello, everybody. So, yeah, I'm I'm managing director, as you said, at the Peter Jones Foundation. We've been, I've been there 7 years, for as MD. And I joined, having worked at Coca Cola for 10 years. And my my role at Coke was, part of that sort of corporate social responsibility running community and education programs. So that space between business and education, actually, probably about 20 years. And it's it's something that I'm really passionate about.

Bill Muirhead [00:05:01]:

I think that passion for me started a little bit before Coke in my late twenties when I worked in the welfare to work sector, and I ran a a center in Brixton in London. And that was quite a tough area at the time, and the center had about a 150 unemployed people on our books and we were based on various challenges. And in that role, I really saw right up front people who are kind of falling through the cracks of the education system who weren't yeah. We're maybe being failed a little bit by, by education. And I began to get really sort of passionate about how can we address that, how can we solve that, where does that kind of failure failure start? And it's a complex question to answer. It's not all about what happens in schools, of course, but that was really the start of my journey in terms of supporting, eventually, young people, which is what Peter Jones Foundation does. So, I haven't written a book in my papers at all, but, we're we're very fortunate to have, quite a well known founder, Peter Jones, who who who many listeners will know. And, yeah, he shares that passion, thankfully, for us.

Bill Muirhead [00:06:22]:

And I've done lots of other bits around around the edges, Been a little bit of entrepreneurial in that time as well, but, that that will probably do as a bit of an interruption.

Rob Durant [00:06:35]:

Excellent. Thank you. Bill, I heard you say I haven't written a book. What we like to say here is I haven't written a book. Yet

Bill Muirhead [00:06:42]:

yet yet.

Rob Durant [00:06:43]:

There's an awesome story in there. No doubt. So, hopefully, we'll get to read that one day. Alright. This, as I mentioned, is the first time we've had 2 guests. So I want you to decide amongst yourselves how to go about answering questions. And and, please, this is designed to be your typical water cooler talk, so jump in anytime, anywhere. I am going to start with a foundational question.

Rob Durant [00:07:11]:

Either of you are welcome to to take it on. How are traditional education programs adapting to today's fast paced tech driven economy?

Bill Muirhead [00:07:27]:

Oh, that's so Yeah.

Rupi Drew [00:07:28]:

You you you can take that one, Bill. I'll defer to you.

Bill Muirhead [00:07:36]:

Well, look. If I'm honest about it, as a foundation, we feel and I'm talking about the UK here. Right? We're a UK based charity. Things, I'm sure are very different in different geographies. But here in the UK, we, as a foundation, would say that that schools systematically aren't doing enough to prepare young people for this for this new world and really to help them develop core essential skills in a more broad sense. Around about this is there was a survey that was carried out by, the Prince's Trust recently that identified that over half of young people have never been taught about a new business, But at the same time, we see sorry. How to set up and run a business. But at the same time, we're seeing a dramatic rise in side hustles.

Bill Muirhead [00:08:30]:

That's 2% increase in side hustles in the next 10 years. And a lot of that is being driven by tech and the opportunities that new technologies give for young people to set up businesses, yeah, more easily. If you look at, you know, just simple things like ecommerce platforms or platforms like Canva, where you can kind of develop, you know, logos and and and what have you or, you know, crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter. It's so much easier now to for young people to go out and get that funding to get the core elements of their business. But they're not being taught about it in schools. So I don't think, the school system has really sort of caught up with the desires of young people and the interest of young people in business and entrepreneurialism, and, and particularly in how that they can harness technical innovations to to realize their their ambitions in that in that sense.

Rupi Drew [00:09:33]:

Can I add to that, Phil? I I think also there is, obviously, there's a real lack of funding as well. So whilst we've got, you know, massive technological advancement, and even if you were to look at just having iPads, you know, every classroom and all students really should have access to all sort of tech all, you know, types of technology. But there is a lack of funding, which means that, you know, you know, you can only do the best you can with what you have. And even just simple things like having, you know, access to laptops and things, you know, there's a lot of sort of, you know, digital poverty. So I think that, you know, let's definitely not do a disservice to schools. They do the best that they can with what they have, but it's a question of kind of upskilling teachers so they do have the latest tech, you know, AR, VR, AI, and all that sort of stuff that they can, you know, empower young people to really harness that and, you know, to to help them kind of along the way. I mean, obviously, you know you know, at home, kids might have access to all sorts of tech, you know, with their moms and dads. But, you know, when they're in school, sometimes it's quite a different sort of thing.

Rupi Drew [00:10:45]:

So I think that there is just a real lack of funding as well in that space.

Bill Muirhead [00:10:50]:

Yeah. I mean, Rupees are absolutely right, and I totally echo what she's saying. It's not, you know, it's not about, being critical of teachers at all. It's more, and I think teachers would agree the the rigidity of the system and the lack of funding, as Ruby says, that can really create barriers to helping young people develop. And certainly, like, digital poverty is something that was, highlighted during the pandemic. And we, as a charity, worked with organizations to kinda help address that and get devices out to to young people who who didn't have them. But, yeah, it's it's it's it's something that could be done better.

Adam Gray [00:11:37]:

Although I I assume that there is also an element of the curriculum and the way things are taught is quite rigid and structured. You know, my son has left school now but when he was at school he did business studies and he was taught business studies from a textbook, You know, and it and the textbook didn't reflect the way that businesses now operate. It was taught by somebody who was a lifelong educator rather than an entrepreneur and a business leader. So I I guess that there's also a bit of a disconnect there, isn't there, in terms of yes, there is digital poverty and in fact another friend of the show who's been on as a guest, is a digital inclusion officer for one of the councils in the UK. And absolutely, you know, one of the things that she flagged was this huge poverty and you said Ruby about, moms and dads at home maybe potentially having the tech and actually there's an issue that in some houses they simply don't have tech at all so kids don't get any access to that and and the launchpad for that. And it causes all sorts of issues outside of business as well. But, but is is there an initiative that needs to take place in schools which is about teaching the teachers to be more entrepreneurial and inspire the kids? Because particularly if, and and you said, Bill, about, working in a a center with a 150 unemployed young people, if if the expectation is you're not gonna be able to get a job, actually, maybe the thing to do is create your own job. But you need to to believe it's capable to to happen, don't you?

Rupi Drew [00:13:19]:

Yeah. No. Absolutely.

Bill Muirhead [00:13:21]:

You get you get it, Ruthie.

Rupi Drew [00:13:23]:

Yeah. I mean, there's it it's quite interesting. So so part of my role is we have, a number of Peter Jones Enterprise Academies, and they specifically you know, they teach either a BTEC in enterprise entrepreneurship, or we offer a wraparound service to business a level, sometimes economics because there's sometimes there's an overlap in some of the content. And often, there is a problem with staffing, you know, quite simply when you're up against it and you need to find teachers to pull in to teach a particular unit or, you know, a particular topic, you know, you you don't always have the right teachers at your fingertips, so you have to pull in people who have expertises in other areas. So I would say, I think nowadays, I think you have to be so agile and you've gotta be really creative, and you have to look to your own networks and see who you might know that is running their own business. I mean, certainly, you know, in my previous role at, a lot of the teaching team would often bring in people that were friends or connect to them in some way. And I think that you I think just as people nowadays tend to have portfolio careers rather than just going for that traditional, they're gonna have that one job that will, you know, last them for, like, 15, 20 years, I think similarly, teachers have to be really creative and think about how can they be more entrepreneurial? How can they bring in a bit more, you know, guest speakers or other aspects of enterprise entrepreneurship to bring in if their, expertise isn't business?

Bill Muirhead [00:15:03]:

Yeah. Just to build on that, and, Adam, you make you make some really good points there. But, you know, Ruby Ruby is absolutely right. You'll you'll go into a school and you'll find, you know, a a PE teacher who's been brought in to teach business studies because they haven't got the people on the ground. Yeah. And that's a problem. So a big thing that we do as a foundation is bring that real business voice into the classroom, be that kind of virtually or through guest speakers and so on. And that's so important, A, for the teachers to give them that support, but B, just to put entrepreneurship on the radar of some young people and to give it, the real face.

Bill Muirhead [00:15:43]:

And, you know, what I mean by that is if you stop a young person in the street or in the school yard and ask them to name an entrepreneur, I guarantee you here in the UK, they'll say Elon Musk, they'll say Richard Branson, they'll probably say Pia Jones, they might say Alan Sugar. All of them are super successful. All of them are male, all of them are white. And for a lot of people, that that means entrepreneurship is this sort of intangible, I'm never gonna be that person. And, that might seem obvious to us, but to a lot of young people, it's not obvious. And the first step is sometimes getting them to appreciate that there are, you know, thousands of entrepreneurs that look exactly just like them just down the road. You know? Yeah. Lifestyle entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and the and the rest of it.

Bill Muirhead [00:16:38]:

And also thousands of really successful multimillionaire Ospreyers who look just like them as well. So it's it's about, exposing them to those those relatable, that's the important word, role models. And on the teacher side, it it's about giving them that support of of great case studies and, a bit of teacher training that we do as well, work docs and so on. So that if they haven't had any business expertise or entrepreneurial expertise themselves, then, you know, we can we can plug that gap a little bit.

Tim Hughes [00:17:13]:

So so what is the the objective and the mission of the Peter Jones Foundation? I I would be interested in that. And just just so people know, Pete Peter Jones is on a TV program here called Dragon's Den, and in the States, it's called shark Shark Tank. Just so people could can understand, we're talking about, a person that's actually, he's on the TV every week, but he could be the equivalent of Mark Cuban or someone like that. So what does the so to my question, what what's the objective therefore and the mission there for the Peter Jones Foundation?

Bill Muirhead [00:17:49]:

So so our mission is to support young people, underserved communities, number of underrepresented groups. With developing essential skills for self employment or employment. That's our sort of mission statement probably word word for word. And so we're talking a lot about entrepreneurship, but, actually, we believe those essential skills. And and, you know, by essential skills, I mean, all of that good stuff from teamwork to leadership, to financial capability, digital skills, problem solving, communication, creativity, innovation, resilience is in there. I'm trying to list our framework. Yeah, all of those essential skills that are gonna help you whether you go down that entrepreneurial loop or whether you go down a more traditional career path. And you might call them life skills.

Bill Muirhead [00:18:42]:

You know, at the end of the day, financial skills are as important for household budget as they are for a p and l. So that's what we're about at a very sort of core, So that's what we're about at a very, sort of, core level, but we do that through programs that give young people the opportunity of setting up and running a business in school, as well as in some sort of settings outside of mainstream education.

Tim Hughes [00:19:06]:

Have you got any examples of of, businesses that, your pupils have set up?

Bill Muirhead [00:19:14]:

Oh, got loads. I'll let Ruthie take that one.

Tim Hughes [00:19:16]:

Go on, Ruthie.

Rupi Drew [00:19:19]:

Okay. So we we have, 2 competitions that are part of our programs. One is our flagship competition, which is national entrepreneur of the year. So, obviously, a yearly competition where our kind of top entrepreneurs get a chance to pitch their business idea directly to Peter Jones. So we're just coming up to, announcing the finalists of this year's competition. So I can't let you know who those people are. But certainly for last year, we had a range of business ideas. 1 was, well, the winner was she kinda she she was a fashion designer, and she made, she upcycled clothing and made them into really beautiful clothes.

Rupi Drew [00:19:59]:

And it was all about kind of sustainable fashion. And so she wanted to buck the trend with kind of fast fashion, and it was kind of a luxury slow fashion brand. And she'd made really beautiful clothes out of denim, out of curtains. So she won £5,000 of investment for her business, and some of that money was put towards creating a sort of a 20 piece capsule collection for her business. And then we had we had another student who had a great idea, which was all about kind of, mountain biking. And he was a keen mountain biker himself, and he wanted to kind of create a sort of a mountain biking community. And he sort of devised an app, and there was, like, a reward system. He had his own clothing.

Rupi Drew [00:20:45]:

So every time somebody bought his clothing, they'd be given points, and those points could be put towards something, and there'd be a leaderboard, and it was all part of this app. And then the other 2 finalists were one was gender neutral baby clothing. So typically when you have baby clothes, I didn't know that this was a thing, but it was I think it's called sort of a Spanish baby clothing, which is all your typical kind of ruffles and frills on baby clothes, and she wanted to go into kind of the gender neutral market with that. And she actually wanted to become the UK's first wholesaler in gender neutral clothing. So quite ambitious, but she identified that there was a market for that. Yep. And she herself was, you know, a young mom of, I think, 3 3 very young children, so it was kind of tried and tested. And then another business idea was kind of making candles, but in the shape and form of desserts.

Rupi Drew [00:21:40]:

So when she pitched to Peter, Peter sort of came up with the idea that, you know, she could have some sort of a dinner party, you know, where she would sell her candles and they would all mimic, you know, desserts and things. A bit like a a mad hatters tea party sort of thing. So that's kind of our national entrepreneur of the year, and then we also have our tycoon enterprise competition, which has its own finalists. And I think we have quite a few service based ideas as well there, fixing and upcycling, computers and then leasing them out to the local community, creating, clubs for the elderly, after school clubs. So ideas that kinda bring people together. So it's a real it's a real mix, isn't it, Bill?

Bill Muirhead [00:22:21]:

It's a real mix, and, you we could take up the whole call because we're very we really love our beneficiaries. There's nothing more nothing we like more than telling sort of beneficiary stories. I've gotta throw one into the mix and then maybe a couple of reflections, on what of what Rupi was saying. But the one I want to share was actually in the summer holidays, me and my son went karting. Don't know if any of the audience have been karting, but I've never done it before. I loved it. We had a great time, and there was a little camera on the helmet as we went around this karting track. And at the end, there was a QR code you could download a film.

Bill Muirhead [00:23:02]:

Download the film, and I was really chuffed to see that it was from a company called Viewpoint Videos. And Viewpoint Videos, was set up by a guy called David Humston who, 10 years ago, went through our Peter Jones Enterprise Academy program and pitched that idea to Peter Jones, and got a £5,000, contribution. And I always say contribution rather than investment because there's no equity in it. It's just here's £5,000. We love the idea. Go for it. And, yeah, you'll speak to David. He's a lovely guy, and he'll he'll pinpoint that moment.

Bill Muirhead [00:23:39]:

He's been quite pivotal in his journey. And that business is now valued at 10,000,000. He's, you know, one of our one of our success stories, obviously. But just listening to repeat, one of the things you might have picked up on is that what we quite often do is honing on a person's passion. And, yeah, particularly if it's a person, we work a lot in kind of areas that are quite, you know, disaffected. Part of our mission is to help people who are facing the greatest challenges in communities across the UK. And quite often what you see is a a real poverty of aspiration. And, you know, young people who can't sort of see beyond, you know, possibly unemployment, possibly a fairly sort of low wage job down their local high street.

Bill Muirhead [00:24:29]:

But if you can kind of tap into something they're really passionate about, it could just be a hobby like playing the guitar or dance or fashion as as, as one of the examples Rupee gave, you know, one of one of the girls who's really interested in fashion. If you tap into that and say, look, it doesn't just need to be a hobby, you might be able to monetize it, you might be able to turn it into a side hustle and begin to develop those skills around it. Then that poverty of aspiration begins to flick and begins to flick and and turns into kind of self belief and self confidence. And, you know, if you take them on that journey, it can it can lead to to real kind of success. So but that's very much part of what what we do and

Adam Gray [00:25:14]:

it's kind of at the heart of part of our programs. So how do how do we plant those seeds at scale? Now, obviously, it's a fair few years since I was at school, but I saw lots of instances of people that had passions being told, well, you you need to focus on insert academic subject here because you'll never get a job doing whatever it is they love. Now, obviously, there are there are extreme examples of people that have followed their passion irrespective of the advice they were given, people like JK Rowling or Tony Branson. Yeah. Richard Branson. And and those are incredibly heartwarming. But I think to your point, Bill, the a lot of the challenges, people think, well, that that won't be me though. So how do how do do do we plant the seed that actually anybody can do this stuff, you know, and you you may be an accountant by training, you may quite enjoy your job, there's no reason you can't become an accountant in your own business and be entrepreneurial around that.

Adam Gray [00:26:19]:

You don't have to have a weird and wacky dream or to be first to market with something.

Bill Muirhead [00:26:26]:

Yeah. It's a tricky one, and, you know, we've been banging this drum for kind of 20 years. It's our 20th anniversary next year, and for us, it it has to start at the top. It has to be a sort of cultural systemic shift, and it's about embedding enterprise and entrepreneurship education in the curriculum and, you know, moving it from that nice to do space that we talk about. You know, lots of great kind of enterprise business clubs happen, you know, outside of the main curriculum, but it needs to be embedded. And, you know, there are some countries where you, you know, fundamentally, you will set up and run a business as part of your education, and that happens quite a lot in in Scandinavia. And so everyone has that experience. Everyone has that exposure to, to entrepreneurship.

Bill Muirhead [00:27:18]:

And as part of that exposure, everyone gets to gets gets a deeper understanding of what an entrepreneur is. It's not just that person on TV, that Richard Branson, that Peter Jones or whatever. There are lots of different, ways that, yeah, entrepreneurialism can can help you in terms of your, you know, your life to our system and what we do as a career. And, of course, it entrepreneurialism is part of that being a successful, employee. So, I think it has to come from your top. It has to, come with with funding, and, I don't think it's easy because unless you choose business studies, it's not then you can easily go through your whole kind of school career without getting too much exposure to to these sorts of things and without it being given due consideration as as a career path.

Adam Gray [00:28:19]:

Yeah. Well, I know when I started my first business 20 something years ago, I I took a a redundancy package from the company that I was at because I had a new child. And then 6 months later, you know, I had no money left and I thought well I need to do something. So I thought I'll start my own business. And it's like in those days there was there was no resource to go and find out actually what what do I need to do? Well, you know, here's here's a list of accountants, go and choose 1. Well actually that's of no help to me, I don't know what I'm choosing. And there was no kind of start your business 101 type resource out there. And I guess that even today people are largely in the same space if you're at school, as you said, but if you're at school and you you you take a business studies course, you have some grounding in the basic dynamics of what a business is.

Adam Gray [00:29:14]:

If you've been employed and you've been a, you know, PAYE and then you've left because you want to or your circumstances change or whatever it may be and you decide that you need to set up on your own, what happens first? You know, where do you go? Where do you learn this basic stuff that you know because you're with it all day and we know because we're with it all day, but that doesn't mean anyone else knows.

Bill Muirhead [00:29:40]:

Yeah. Yeah. I yeah. I totally agree. And, you know, the the the two things I'd add to that are, you know, there's a shocking number of young people in living in poverty in the UK. Maybe something like 4,300,000. 30% of children are living in poverty. And, you know, entrepreneurship is a way out of that for some.

Bill Muirhead [00:30:04]:

There's no there's no doubt about it in my mind. If you can give them the the the skill set and the toolkit, you know, some of those children might think I'm never gonna get a good job, but some of them might think, actually, you know, I could be a great entrepreneur, you know, if you can break down those barriers and and and provide some some stepping stones. So I think it's much needed. And then on the other side of the equation, you know, you can yeah. Entrepreneurship is really at the heart of wealth creation and job creation. I think, you know, around about 78,000 jobs here in the UK are created by new businesses. So it it's it's important sort of whether you look at it whatever angle you look at it from and, yeah, it it definitely needs to be addressed.

Rob Durant [00:30:57]:

So we're here to inspire the side hustle generation. What role does failure play in developing entrepreneurial skills?

Rupi Drew [00:31:13]:

Yeah. That's that's a I'll give you I'll give you a break, Bill. So, you know, Peter Jones, his mantra is, you know, it's not failure. It's feedback. You know? And he himself, over the course of his career, you know, he's had, you know, some bumps along the way, and that's definitely one thing that we, you know, we absolutely, you know, relay and convey to students. I was at a school a couple of days ago, and, we we sort of set we have these things called flash challenges, which is sort of bite sized competitions that we develop with entrepreneurs, other organizations, where students have to kind of do a bit of brainstorming and problem solving. So for the first one for this term, it's about them building a personal brand. So they have to look at the skills that they've got, the skills that they want to gain, how they're gonna go about gaining those skills, and to kind of put together a short sort of 30 second 30 to 60 second elevator pitch.

Rupi Drew [00:32:10]:

But part of that, I sort of said to them, is that you need to come up with your mantra that kind of underpins where you are right now and what you believe in. And I sort of said that, you know, Peter Jones believes that it's not failure. It is feedback, and it's about having that resilience and, you know, knowing knowing when to to give up on something if it really isn't going to work, but then also, being really contrary and saying, you know what? I don't care. I'm gonna just give it everything I've got and keep going with it. So it's definitely something we believe. Sometimes it's easier said than done because when something doesn't work out, it hurts and it hits you hard, and you have to find the strength and kind of pick yourself up and dust yourself down. But, yeah, it's it's something that we, you know, that we really do, get that message out to out to any young person that we that that is on any of our programs that it's just feedback. You know, keep going.

Rupi Drew [00:33:08]:

It's it's not about failing. I guess, look, it's semantics, isn't it? It's kind of how you position it. It's whatever works for you, but it is about you've gotta keep going.

Rob Durant [00:33:20]:

It's absolutely about semantics. I know myself, right out of college, I tried my hand at running a venture. And what I'd like to tell people about that time is, yes, I ran a small business into the ground. You know, that mindset really kept me from trying again for a long while. I learned more in the year and a half that I was trying that than I had in the 5 years it took me to get my 4 year degree. But with the right mindset, had I looked at it as feedback, I think it would have been, a very different approach going forward. We do have a question from the audience. I wanna bring this on screen and and share.

Rob Durant [00:34:07]:

Andrew Slessor asks, is the biggest fundamental change needed to be the mindset in how the education system works and is funded? The opportunities to learn these skills need to be available to all areas within the country to allow us to find the next Peter Jones, Richard Branson, etcetera.

Bill Muirhead [00:34:29]:

So it's I mean, the short answer for me is yes. I think that's a really good way of phrasing it. It is a mindset. And I don't wanna I don't wanna make out that, you know, there are some amazing schools out there, right, who are doing this really, really well and have managed to embed enterprise education and and nurture, you know, an entrepreneurial mindset and the rest of it. So there are definitely great examples. So it's not it's not a question that it can't be done. It's just it's not. It is a systemic thing, and I think it is a mindset in terms of, you know, the the messages that are sent to schools.

Bill Muirhead [00:35:10]:

And, obviously, Ofsted's being looked at at the moment, And I think that's an opportunity, actually, to to revisit enterprise and entrepreneurship education and how that's looked at in schools, and to change that mindset. And I think the new government here in the UK is also putting a greater emphasis back on project based learning, which is something that we we champion as a charity that kind of learning by doing, if you like. Because, you know, a lot of the young people that we work with aren't, let's say, naturally academically inclined. But if you give them a project, if you give them something to sink their teeth into, and then you show them that they're learning and developing these skills, then, you know, you get some great outcomes. So, yeah, I think it needs to evolve, and I think I think a different mindset is a really nice way of articulating it.

Adam Gray [00:36:07]:

I think there's also the the how it's framed. You know? So we went through a phase a few years ago where nobody was allowed to fail, nobody was allowed to lose. And I think that there's a big difference between you failed, then you are a failure, or you lost, you are a loser. And actually, failure is part and parcel of the real world and children need to be introduced or young people need to be introduced to that early. But, you know, it's like you did a bad thing does not make you a bad person. You did this wrong, doesn't make you a broken person. And actually that's a really important message to instill, isn't it? So that the as you said, Ruby, people can dust themselves down and have another go because they know that actually it's not something inherently wrong with me, and that's that's quite a big shift, isn't it?

Rupi Drew [00:36:54]:

It is. But, you know, I'm also wondering, like, you know, the I think the the education, the culture is, you know, exams, exams, exams. Right? So, you know, it's all about doing the best that you can, working really, really hard to get the grades that you need to pass those exams to get on to the next level. And I think that is very much part of our culture. So how can you then switch that part of your brain off and then think, right. I'm gonna do this new venture or I'm I'm learning a new skill or I'm, you know, learn learning a new hobby, and it's not quite working out. How can you still be resilient if that doesn't work out when, you know, you've been trained to think you cannot fail your exams? So I think there's a bit of disconnect, isn't there? Because you put your all into not failing your exams, but what about failing other things that you can keep keep going at?

Rob Durant [00:37:51]:

Is this gonna be on the test?

Adam Gray [00:37:54]:

It's in

Tim Hughes [00:37:55]:

the exam.

Rob Durant [00:37:56]:

Right.

Bill Muirhead [00:37:58]:

It's, I think yeah. It's it's I think there's an imbalance at the moment. Right? I mean, yeah, exams are important. No. None none of us would kind of discount exams, but they're too important, and skills are not important enough. And there's there's an organization here in the UK that does great work called the Skills Builder Partnership, and they're trying to work not only with school. They've got about 80% of schools signed up to their framework of essential skills. And interestingly, they did a bit of work that identified that if young people that there was a a 22,200,000,000 cost of UK economy of young people not developing those essential skills.

Bill Muirhead [00:38:44]:

But the important piece they're now doing is try to in trying to engage employers so that the the same skills framework is used in the context of professional development. And with that, you're gonna get more of a systemic change because if skills are held in high regard against the framework by employers, then that, to my mind, will have a trickle down effect to to the education system. But, you know, we're we're certainly seeing a lot of employees wake up to the fact that the skills aren't there and, you know, say simple things like, look, we'll we'll get people who've come out of university and they can't stand on their own 2 feet and deliver a presentation or write a decent email or or whatever it is. So, you know, it's a very, you know, it's a difficult nut to crack, but and and there are lots of elements to it. But I'm still encouraged by some of the work that that that's going on and some of the changes that are taking place recently.

Rob Durant [00:39:45]:

Can you talk a little bit about adaptability, its importance, and how you might instill that in today's youth?

Bill Muirhead [00:39:59]:

That's a good one. I can certainly talk to our our our tycoon program and and and, Bupi, do chip in and and tell me if you agree, but, our tycoon program is our supplementary level program if you'd like. And we have, you know, kids as young as 6 doing it in primary school, and, you know, they're setting up and running a business sometimes just within a term. And sometimes it's like an arts and crafts business or cupcakes or big wash or whatever it is. But at a very simple level, they're beginning to understand the fundamentals of what running a business is like. And it's a competition, and it's run through a digital platform, and there's a leaderboard that shows your profit. And so you can see how you're doing against other student led businesses in your age category across across the country. But to come to your question, whilst it's a competition, it's not based on profit at all.

Bill Muirhead [00:40:55]:

It's very much based on the business journey, and and what we encourage the young people taking part to do is to periodically reflect and run a business that's quite iterative. So that involves them, going back to the previous question, making mistakes and learning from those mistakes and not seeing those mistakes as failure, but just seeing them as part of a journey that ultimately will, lead to some some level of reward. And that necessarily involves adaptability because, you know, you're identifying what's gone wrong. You're thinking, okay. Well, yeah, how can we change that? Maybe we didn't get the pricing right or maybe, you know, if we look at ourselves as a team, maybe we're doing different, you know, the wrong roles, maybe we switch it up a little bit or whatever it is. So I think that adaptability or that that skill to kind of identify what what's going wrong and and make the necessary changes if you like is is actually quite intrinsic to that program. And one of the things that we we, find is appealing to the program as as a learning as a learning journey.

Rupi Drew [00:42:14]:

I think to to echo that as well, Bill, I think certainly in terms, you know, of our you know, any finalist that kinda goes through to, you know, to kitchen to directly to Peter, you know, we'll have feedback for them. And so we may make some recommendations on look. It's really great. You know, you did really well with your semifinal pitch, but we really think that you should consider x y zed for your business, whether it's, you're trying to do too much, try to focus on one particular thing, or you're not quite ready to franchise it yet, scale it back, see see what, you know, you can do in the next sort of, you know, one to sort of 2 years. So I think also, I think that when you're working with young people, you know, they can be really possessive and really passionate and quite stubborn with with their vision and their idea. You don't wanna take that away from them, but they they also have to consider that there might be other that other feedback might help them to, improve their ideas or to refine it. And so that when they are presenting to, you know, the ultimate dragon, you know, they're in with the best possible chance. So, you know, sometimes, you know, students find it quite hard to take on that feedback because they really don't they wanna protect and preserve whatever idea they pitch to us.

Rupi Drew [00:43:36]:

But, you know, there is definitely that adaptability where they've kind of gotta let go of what they've have been thinking is a really great aspect to their business, but actually rethink that's not really gonna fly. It's not really gonna work. It's not viable. It's not feasible. So yeah. Yeah. You know, it it can kind of manifest that way as well.

Rob Durant [00:43:56]:

We have another question from the audience. I'm going to read it, and then I'm going to paraphrase what I think is being asked. Bruce Saint Claire asks, completely understand that you're not psychologists. I'm hearing some messaging pertaining to codependent thinking. Can you address this when it comes to having a genuine interest in starting your own business with that insecurity? And me paraphrasing is how can I start a business if everyone else is telling me you shouldn't start a business?

Bill Muirhead [00:44:35]:

Oh, I'm thinking do you wanna take that one, Ruthie? I'm thinking about it.

Rupi Drew [00:44:39]:

Yeah. Yeah. No. Absolutely. Well, I mean, there's look. There's 2 there there's 2 ways to kind of approach it. Right? The first is the real practical, you know, what what work have you done that makes you think that your business idea is viable and it's feasible. Right? Have you done, you know, any market research? Have you tested your product or your service? Have you had any feedback? Or is it just something that you, just been dreaming of since you were really young? And as you've gotten older, it's just never, you know, left the back of your mind, and you just really wanna do it.

Rupi Drew [00:45:12]:

But whoever you speak to says, I really don't think that's gonna work. Right? So you could just go for it, but that doesn't mean to say that, you know, you could potentially lose all your savings by investing into it. Start small and start you know, maybe look at it look at look at the first phase as a bit of testing, a bit of market research. And at least that way, you're still doing it even though people perhaps are saying that you shouldn't. I mean, I don't know. If you have set up your business and you wanna keep it going despite perhaps the odds are stacked against you, then that's, you know, maybe something a bit different, but, you know, it kinda depends what it is.

Bill Muirhead [00:45:54]:

Yeah. I I I'm just trying to think of the typical barriers. You know? Sometimes it's it's, I can't do it. Yeah. That that's too scary for me. I haven't got the skills. Sometimes it's I've got the skills, but my parents don't want me to do it. You know, they want me to go down the more traditional route.

Bill Muirhead [00:46:12]:

Sometimes it's, I wanna do it, but I don't know where to start. All of those things for me have answers and solutions to. Yeah. If it's the can't do, then it it you know, that that is going back to what we're saying earlier. It's about kind of instilling that self relief and that can be through mentoring or providing role models or just as Ruby was saying, start start small. Start with a little side hustle, see how it goes, get a bit of confidence, and so on. And that side hustle approach can sometimes be a way of softening any kind of parental resistance as well. If it's like, look, this isn't gonna derail my studies.

Bill Muirhead [00:46:53]:

It's just on the side. Let's see how it goes sort of thing. So I think it's kind of different approaches for different circumstances. But, often it's about that kind of self belief. And and that in itself is an interesting thing to to mull over because, yeah, we all know that kind of anxiety, mental health issues, and that's to be on the rise in turn in young people. And and and we'd say that if you can get entrepreneurship education right, that's another kind of route out of that. It's not the solution to the kind of mental health crisis, but it's it's, yeah, potentially part of the solution. Because if you can give a young person who who's feeling a bit sort of down and anxious and is in in a bad place, something to kinda believe in, and and something to invest in.

Bill Muirhead [00:47:49]:

And hopefully, something that, you know, begins to get successful and give them that confidence and self esteem. It can be a really powerful thing.

Rob Durant [00:47:59]:

To those of us on the panel and those of us in the audience who might not be considered youth, where can we start? How can we inspire the side hustle generation? What is one thing that you could suggest any one of us do to to start that process?

Bill Muirhead [00:48:26]:

What? We we would say our our former CEO, to give to give him credit rather than to steal this from him, always used to, draw a parallel between, essential skills and health. You know, no one's gonna argue that you should have a healthy diet, that you should take exercise, that you should look after your body, etcetera, etcetera. And he used to say that you should think about skills, in a similar way. You should, yeah, always be looking to develop your skills, to become a better communicator, to become a better leader, to become, better at digital skills, or to keep abreast of technological advances. Doesn't matter what age you are. You can be 5 years old. You can be 85 years old. So, yeah, health is important at any age.

Bill Muirhead [00:49:17]:

Developing your essential skills are important at any age. We should all think like that. So we're certainly not as a charity saying that side hustles are only for young people. That's the first point. We just off focus as a

Adam Gray [00:49:30]:

charity sort of young people.

Bill Muirhead [00:49:33]:

I think in terms of how older people can support younger people and and help get with addressing some of these issues that we talked about. Yeah. There's so many ways. I mean, you know, a first step might be just to kind of introduce yourself to your local school and go, Yeah, hey, you know, I'm a kind of a successful entrepreneur or business person with an interesting story. If you've ever got like a careers day or you wanna talk, I'm your man. So you think, well, bear me in mind, you know. Or, you know, maybe that's a starting point and that can lead to kind of becoming a mentor. We've got some fantastic mentors connected to our programs who who have supported young people on their journeys.

Bill Muirhead [00:50:21]:

I don't know. Ruby, you could probably think of some other Yeah.

Rupi Drew [00:50:23]:

No. I was gonna say that, you know, schools are always crying out for, guest speakers to kinda come in and speak to students and share your experience. I mean, it might be that, you know, you've got a school in your area that is, you know, do you know, taking part in the tycoon enterprise competition, and they may need somebody to come in and just help them with their business planning or with their sales techniques or, you know, you might have your own sort of connections. You know, students might wanna set up a pop up store trading day, you know, in their local, you know, community center or whatever it is. I think that I think collectively, you know, with your experience and with your knowledge, with the books that you've written, I think that you could definitely there's gonna be a lot in there that teachers and I think young people would really benefit from. And then as Phil said, you know, that could you know, I was gonna say mentoring, but, you know, you've already sort of covered that, and it can lead to that. And that's the beauty of it, I think, is when you when you once you've got that relationship with the school and with a teacher who's really, you know, really passionate and really keen to kind of embed enterprise in, you know, into into the school, that that in itself can lead off to so many opportunities.

Adam Gray [00:51:40]:

So a a a quick question here. Side hustles. Why now? You know, when I was a kid, there was no such thing as a side hustle. Well, not in the way that there is now where everybody's got some kind of side hustle going on now. So why now? Why why is it, a, acceptable and, b, fashionable or even glamorous to do something away from your career?

Bill Muirhead [00:52:11]:

Well, my answer I mean, I think that the side hustle thing was was massively sort of accentuated by the pandemic, but I I think my my main answer would be would be technology has just made it a lot easier to, you know, set up a side hustle and do some ecommerce on the side or set up your own website in your free time. And, I think, really, technology's been the big enabler in terms of, people setting up side hustles. I think there's there's probably been a bit of a cultural shift as well, and maybe it's slightly being driven by young people as well. As as Ruby said earlier, that sort of interest in in portfolio careers and, you know, looking at YouTubers and influencers and the rest of it, we're earning a tidy sum by just doing something on the side. So that's what young people are seeing a lot of and it's saying, oh, look, I, you know, I don't need to have all of my eggs in one basket. I can have several baskets. And we think that's a really healthy progression, by the way. You know, we think, you know, you don't want anyone getting made redundant and having no income.

Bill Muirhead [00:53:24]:

So if you've got several incomes, it's a safer place to be.

Rob Durant [00:53:30]:

Ruby And

Bill Muirhead [00:53:31]:

I don't know.

Rob Durant [00:53:31]:

Bill, do

Bill Muirhead [00:53:31]:

you what do you guys think? But that might not be the right answer.

Tim Hughes [00:53:34]:

I I I think nowadays, portfolio careers are are gonna move the way forward, and I think that's also because quite often, it's not just technology. Well, technology being a being a musician, for example. You know, what the the advice now about being a musician is that you you're a musician and and you're something else because, you know, you're you're not able to make the money that may maybe that you were able to do in the in the past. And so I think sometimes also, it there's a through necessary, you're you're actually gonna require to do a couple of jobs.

Bill Muirhead [00:54:08]:

Rob, do you

Tim Hughes [00:54:09]:

wanna pick up LinkedIn users' comment before you do the wrap up?

Rob Durant [00:54:14]:

Sure. A LinkedIn user says, I found my first gig in college by cold calling service organizations, asked about their pain points, and offered my help as a learning opportunity to help their business. Excellent.

Bill Muirhead [00:54:34]:

Yeah. Great. Just

Rob Durant [00:54:37]:

Ruben, Bill, this has been great. Thank you so much. Where can people learn more? How can they get in touch with you?

Bill Muirhead [00:54:48]:

Well, we're online at petajonesfoundation.org. You'll find our contact details there. Reach out to us as a foundation or to us as individuals, and, yeah, we'd love we'd love to have the conversation. Excellent. And it's been a pleasure, by the way, being being Thank you so much.

Tim Hughes [00:55:04]:

For coming on. Thank you so much.

Rupi Drew [00:55:06]:

Thank you, guys. I've missed my water cooler conversation. So, this is, more than made up for them. Thank you, guys.

Rob Durant [00:55:16]:

We now have a newsletter. Don't miss an episode, get show highlights, beyond the show insights, and reminders of upcoming episodes. You can scan the QR code on screen or visit us at digital download dot live forward slash newsletter. On behalf of the panelists, to our guests, to our audience, thank you all, and we'll see you next time on the digital download. Bye. Thanks, Ruby and Bill.

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