I am delighted to introduce Dan Lowes, a former RAF Fighter pilot and Executive Officer of the world-famous Red Arrows. Dan has made it his life's goal to consistently operate at a world class level and is immersed in the power of effective communication and the art of debriefing. 

In today’s episode, Dan talks about:

• The importance of self-reflection when creating a high-performance culture
• Mentally preparing for flying at 1300 mph
• Why planning is important
• Fear of failure
• Tasting failure, accepting it and preparing for it and moving on from it
• How self-reflection can make you highly motivated
• How you can learn from people in your field that you admire
• Three principles to live by when you're a Top Gun graduate
• How his attitude and mindset earned him his place in Top Gun school
• How he stays grounded and humble
• What you can learn from a Red Arrows debrief and how you can apply it to your business
• The importance of communication

Listen Out For:

• I would not be who I am now or achieved what I have achieved if I hadn’t failed. I accepted failure, I learned from failure, and I moved on.
• I pinned my life ambition on joining the Royal Air Force and being a fighter pilot at 18 but didn’t get into the Air Force on my first interview. I had to go away and reassess what was important for me in life and what I really wanted and grow into that which meant that one year later when I reapplied, I was successful.
• Failure is just a data point on a journey towards your overall goal. It depends on what you do with it which ultimately determines whether you achieve the goal or not.
• I love reading about the people who have been there and done it already.
• I have clearly defined goals and aims. I work out how I can get there. I then choose someone that I really respect in the area and then I model myself on them.
• To be the best in the room, you don’t have to shout about it, you don’t have to hang banners, you don’t have to have badges, you don’t have to have the big office and you don’t have to have the big car parking space. You just have to be the one that everyone knows when the chips are down, you are going to come running through.
• Do not make assumptions. You have no idea at any point in time what is going on in somebody’s life - how they left the house that morning or what information they had or did not have. It is all about asking the right questions before you jump to conclusions.
• Do something that you love and when you stop loving it, work out why and find something else even if that means you have to do something completely different. You need to constantly love what you do because that means you will relentlessly pursue it to the highest levels.
• When you expect something from someone, expect it to be the same all the time. Be consistent across the board which will mean that expectations can be managed and people understand how to operate to the best of their capacity.

About the Host
Director and Founder of Simple Scaling, Brendan brings 25 years’ experience of scaling businesses. Previously, Brendan spent 16 years as a global business leader with CDE, 12 of those as Group MD, steering the company through the global financial crisis to considerable strategic growth success with offices now in 6 continents employing almost 700 people across the world (from 15) and 25X revenue growth.

https://simplescaling.com/meet-the-team