#25 PureGym CEO: Cancer Made Me a More Empathetic Leader

0:12Hello, welcome to Big Boss Interview. I'm Fliss Hanna and I'm joined by Sean Farrington. Remember But each week in this podcast, you can hear from Sean, Will or me, bringing you interviews with the biggest CEOs. And this episode is no different, Sean. Hi, Fliss. Yes. So today we are delving into the gym industry, particularly what has become such a major part of so many people's lives, the lower cost end of the gym industry. I've got the boss of Pure Gym, the chief executive there, Clive Chesser. and to be frank probably the most powerful thing that came out of the interview wasn't necessarily about what it's like being in the gym industry but it was Clive's story about his own cancer journey that he went through when he was working in the hospitality industry running one of our biggest pub companies at a time where he was getting a diagnosis and having to tell his family and his children and his colleagues while at the same time attempting to manage a huge deal that the business was going through.

1:17It was a remarkable story that Clive had to tell, maybe surprised both of us a little bit, the extent to which we ended up talking about it, the questions that came on the back of it. So hugely thankful to him for that. We also heard a lot about the changing scene of the gym, what it is people want, younger people, older people, women-only spaces, all of that that's been going on on so many of our high streets in recent years and the reasons behind it as well. So plenty to get into with Clive Chesser, Chief Executive of Pure Gym.

1:51Clive, thank you very much for taking your time to join us on Big Boss Interview. Good morning, Sean. Morning. If people have a glance at your CV, they might see that you potentially are reflecting what a lot of the country have been doing in recent years. You've moved from pubs to gyms. 30 years in hospitality. chief executive of Punch and the hundreds if not thousands of pubs under your watch there to now being in charge of Pure Gym. Yeah it probably does look a bit odd to some people it feels entirely natural to me actually so you know I'm a big fan of pubs and I'm a big fan of fitness so they've both been important parts of my life and actually if you look at what I do in terms of you know my career you know I see it really about providing experiences that make people's lives better.

2:35So, you know, maybe people are achieving a dopamine hit in a very different way. But people go to pubs to have the social interaction and make them feel made their lives more enjoyable and feel better about themselves. And people definitely go to gyms to get that dopamine hit very literally, and feel better about themselves. It's encapsulated a lot of what we discuss about every day on our shows, in a way, whether it's about what the high street looks like, what people are doing on a Friday night, how we think about our health. Did you notice these trends changing pretty rapidly in those final years in the hospitality trade that you had?

3:09Yeah, very definitely. I think it's very evident to everyone, but increasingly so that people, and particularly young people, so Gen Z in particular, and Gen Alpha, who are now coming through, are taking health and fitness more seriously. So undoubtedly, there's some macro tailwinds that I'm now enjoying, where, you know, we're seeing a real surge in the importance of health and fitness. And increasingly, that is young people actually spending their social time in the gym as well. So, you know, they're going to the gym with their friends, this is part of their community, and they're working out and they're getting fitter, of course, as they go, but they're also really building up their own mental health strength as well.

3:48And they're thinking about wellness in a much broader sense. So yeah, there are trends that I'm enjoying, and we're trying to capitalize on that. We're a business now that is growing fast. So we're at 456 gyms across the UK now. We opened one a week last year and we'll open one a week again in 2026. And we're starting to build our pipeline for 2027 and beyond. We're not just a UK business, by the way. So we have a big business in Denmark. We're the market leader in Denmark. We have a big business that's growing fast in Switzerland. We have a franchise business down in the Middle East. And we've recently acquired last year a business called Blink Fitness in New York.

4:22and we had three gyms historically which we tested the water four or five years ago in the US so we got to understand that market and then took the opportunity to acquire a business just over a year ago which is now a really exciting growth opportunity for us we've got around 60 gyms in and around New York and New Jersey and that is a huge market for us and once upon a time feels like we've we're well into the world where people are used to the concept of an offer like that now once upon a time it was quite a radical thing to be able to do that but it's a pretty established market now how does that change what you need to do for those customers for those generations that you talk about who now want maybe something a bit more social which lower cost gyms wouldn't have been associated in the past necessarily with being a community place place for social activities to go on it would have been look here at an affordable price you can come along get your exercise done and off you go.

5:20I think that's right Sean actually you know Pure Gym was set up we're turning 18 this year so we're becoming an adult this year and I always admire the entrepreneurs who go before me in these businesses I've never been brave enough to be a founder myself but Pure Gym was set up in Leeds in Yorkshire actually the first club opened in Leeds almost 18 years ago and I think was a really I describe us as sort of going through our adolescence we were a very disruptive child and as you say turned the fitness market really upside down and shook it and recreated it then we became quite a bold adolescent and we're now maturing as an adult and traveling around the world but still innovating as we go so you're right initially you know pure gym was taking a fitness product for actually incredible value to a world where fitness was quite inaccessible.

6:07A gym membership was quite expensive in any part of society. And it was also not entirely straightforward. You had to go to the gym, you had to sort of set up your membership in person. It was quite difficult to leave. We absolutely turned that on its head. It's easy to join Pure Gym. It's also easy to leave Pure Gym. And then it's easy to rejoin Pure Gym. And we think about our members as being either active or inactive at any time. Most of our joiners, in fact our previous members so you're right have you seen an increase in people using that facility people thinking that this month or this period of months i don't need to subscribe effectively and then and then returning back are there more people bouncing in and out than there were well actually the you'd probably be surprised that the you know the average length of tenure of a membership is way beyond 12 months it's actually about 19 months so most people stay for quite a long time and lots of our members have been members for you know for many years but you're right that some people choose to come and go they take a bit of time out of fitness for whatever reason and we absolutely facilitate that so and that's particularly true with the younger generation they are a little more transient in nature we call it fitness snacking you know they might go off and do some other fitness events they might they might join a studio for a period of time but we are there for them and we provide that overall broad fitness proposition that they keep coming back to you know if you look at the members that we've had you know obviously january is a big big month for us and it's gone very well and i was looking at the data 47 of our joiners in january were 25 or under so increasingly this is a you know this is a younger demographic coming into gyms and it's fine what are the demographics doing then if it's not quite the such a large proportion Importantly, they're still there.

7:53They're still there. The real growth is in the younger demographic, but actually our older members are actually much more, they're less transient. So the tenure with older members is longer. They tend to be less likely to leave for a period and come back or to switch around. But the younger demographic are more transient. I think in everything they do, they're a little more transient. What do they demand of a gym these days that's different to what older demographics might demand? well we're seeing actually in all demographics we're seeing some long-term trends that are playing out over time and actually right across the world so you know over the last few years we've seen a definite move across from cardio led fitness to strength training strength and conditioning training so we set up our gyms to facilitate that and that's particularly true with the younger demographics so and because they like to often come to the gym with their friends We build the gym so that they've got some spaces to train together.

8:53We have personal trainers who increasingly work with small groups of people. We have big group exercise classes as well. And so, you know, we're seeing in all demographics, I think that shift is true. We're also seeing, of course, more technology coming into play. More of our members are using wearable technology where they're measuring their own performance data, but they're also comparing and competing with some of their friends. And so, you know, that becomes increasingly important, particularly in the younger demographic, but right across all the age groups. And women is interesting. So, you know, we actually are probably providing more dedicated space to women than anyone else, probably in the world, actually, from what I've seen.

9:33So we build some women's only spaces in our gyms. We've got over 50 now in the UK. And why is that? Well, our research tells us that a lot of women prefer to exercise in a women's only space. It's, you know, there is something that we work very hard to make sure that everyone feels comfortable in our gyms. We, you know, we have first time users coming into fitness and we have weightlifting experts in our gyms and we facilitate, you know, for everybody. But one of the things we think about is making sure that new members feel very comfortable. And this is true for men and women. But often people prefer to have a less exposed area, maybe a screened off area.

10:09We have some light lifting areas that are away from some of the more heavyweight lifting areas. And actually, as I said, we've even created some women's only spaces where there are some women who definitely feel more comfortable in a female only environment. But what does that say? I mean, almost having to be honest about what gym culture can be like in the UK. What does that say about the state of the average gym? Well, it's you know, I think we have to over index on helping people feel comfortable. and so you mean sort of go up more than you ordinarily might think you'd need to yeah i think so because a lot of people are coming into fitness for the first time and that's fantastic you know we're seeing the penetration level across the market so if you look at the uk every year the number of people that are engaging in fitness and activity is growing so the percentage of the population who are members of a gym it's now about 17 and that is growing year on year so So there are new people coming into the market.

11:08And we know from historically that some people feel intimidated about coming into a gym. They're not sure how to use the equipment and they feel self-conscious for whatever reason. So let's try and help that. So let's try and help that by having people on hand, our personal trainers, our gym managers to help people understand how to use the equipment. Of course, there's lots of training programs and there's exercise programs that we run. But also people, you know, prefer to exercise. Some people prefer to exercise in, you know, in a more discreet way with, you know, screened off areas. And so we facilitate that, too.

11:41But the bulk of our gyms are absolutely men and women together working hard and enjoying that. And we have, you know, we have hundreds of bits of kit around the gym. So we're not talking about the world fundamentally changing, but we are just making sure that all elements of our member base feel comfortable and we do everything we can to help that. Do you think one of the things that the likes of Pure Gym have spoken a lot about in terms of their business model, how they work, is being low staff and not having so many people around as maybe historically people might have thought in a gym? Does that potentially play into people's thinking that they might not be as comfortable in a gym?

12:22We measure the feedback from our members all the time and it's getting stronger and stronger. So we know that, you know, that what we offer is landing really well. And we've got in the UK, we've got 1.8 million members and that's growing fast. So we know that, you know, that the model that we provide is very well received. We one of the reasons it's very well received is that we're able to keep the cost at a very compelling level. So the average price of a membership, as I said, is less than a pound a day. It's 27 pounds in the UK. There's a bit of a bit of a range depending where we are in the country.

12:51but we work really hard to keep that headline price at a really compelling level and one of the ways we're able to do that is to keep our cost space down so we absolutely have teams of gym managers and we've got thousands of personal trainers who are who are brilliant to provide brilliant support but we operate 24 7 and it wouldn't be economic to operate 24 7 through the night with a full team of management so we do use very well developed processes and technology to enable our members to feel and to be safe on a 24-7 basis. We have secure door entry. We have a very extensive network of CCTV. We've got a team up in Leeds who are monitoring that all the time.

13:31We've got help points and great safety processes in place. But actually, you know what, Sean, more than anything, the communities that use our gym, you know, I'm forever amazed how respectful they are and how well they look after our gyms. You know, people are brilliant at putting the weights away behind them. And if someone doesn't, another member will come along and help with that, often before our own team get to it. So, you know, these are communities that look after each other in the same way I saw in the community pub world. You know, exactly the same. People are very proud of their gym.

13:58They're very proud of their local community. They help each other. And within that, given the advent of people wanting to film so much of the stuff they want to do themselves, whether they actually see themselves as influencers or just for their own record, Is that something that you are having to manage, whether it's using that CCTV, just being more aware than you were, taking more action? Yeah, safety is paramount in our business. So the safety of our members and our members feeling comfortable is the most important thing. So that comes first. So we do have some rules and policies around filming in gyms.

14:34It's true that a lot of people like to film their form. They like to post social media. We love that, you know, but it's important that they're not involving other people in that. So we have some communication that explains what is OK and what is not OK. And you know what? Our members follow that really well. And if somebody just oversteps the mark a little bit, then, you know, normally a tap on the shoulder and a polite request absolutely solves that problem. Given how much you've talked about the price point, the whole industry, particularly your part of the industry, talks about the price point quite considerably.

15:06considerably with everything you're having to manage with your expansion plans with the aims of providing the customers with what you say you want to are you able to make increasingly amounts of money from those customers is that that margin as we'd call it on those customers is it does it get bigger does it get smaller most importantly we've got more and more members so our you know our growth model is is uh we're seeing more members coming to our gyms and we're opening in new markets as well so we are you know we're in a great growth curve we're expanding fast and uh is that the way to grow though expansion rather than getting people to pay more is that the environment is we the priority for us is to get more people into our gyms and that is happening so our you know we're seeing more people joining we're opening new gyms and then we obviously we live in a world that has an increasing cost burden we mitigate that very carefully and we move price on very judiciously.

16:05Actually, if you look over time, you know, the relative cost of a pure gym membership actually in real terms has got cheaper, not more expensive. And one of the things that we look at is the affordability. So I get a bit nerdy on this, Sean, but I was looking last week, actually, if you break down average cost per visit of a pure gym, and then you equate that to the to the national minimum wage actually equates to 18 minutes of working on the minimum wage rate. So we think about that all the time because our mission is to make the world and the nation a healthier place and to make people feel good about themselves by having the ability to get fit and healthy.

16:45So, you know, we want our gyms to be full and we're building more of them. We actually, you know, we can move on price. I think we could move on price much more than we do because we take a value first approach. Do you think you might move more on price because people are willing to pay more towards their health these days than maybe they would have done in the past? People definitely are willing to pay more for their health. We see that when people list the things that they will, their discretionary income, where they'll spend it, gyms are very high on the list of where they will choose to spend their money.

17:20but we don't take that for granted and and the economy is difficult right now and so you know we will we will always focus on trying to keep that price point is it difficult to you know to be sort of almost branded as a low cost gym is it difficult to move away from branding yourself low cost are you are you sort of are you taking steps in that direction we we have no intention of moving away from branding ourselves as low cost because we are low cost and we're proud to be so You know, I look at the disruptive, you know, low cost operators in other industries. You look at the hotel markets, you look at the airline markets, these businesses that solve problems for people, they make life easier and they provide something at surprisingly good value.

18:00You know, I used to travel around the world, travel around the country as a member of Pure Gym. And I would stay in, you know, unmentioned brand budget hotel and fly on on a budget airline because it was easy. It was convenient. When I got to the town, I knew there'd be a Pure Gym there and I knew it would be open 24 hours. I'm often training at silly o 'clock at night or in the morning and it worked for me. So we're very proud to be part of that low cost world and we'll do everything we can to stay in there because fundamentally it's very well received. And the growth that we're seeing in our business and the feedback we hear from our members tells us that this is what they want.

18:36I guess in some of those in that hotel world, in the airline world, they may still be the lowest cost airlines out there. They may be at the lower end, but the actual cost for that hotel or for that flight might be, people will have noticed, it might be a fair bit higher than it was 10 years ago. Are we going to be heading that way in the gym sector, do you think, where you may well be the lowest cost around, but actually the relative cheapness of it won't be as it once was? Well, I hope not, Sean. I hope not. We work very hard to mitigate cost increases. Of course, we have cost increases. We've been through the energy crisis.

19:14We've had the increased cost of employment with the national insurance increases. We work really hard to mitigate those because we want millions of more members. We want to help the country and the countries in which we operate get fitter. So we will keep mitigating those. We'll keep the price point at a compelling level of value. And our members will tell us if it's not, you know, absolutely. So, you know, we've no intention of changing that strategy. How does this year feel compared to last year? It feels good so far. You know, we just had January. That's actually the biggest month of the year for us.

19:47In fact, this week is the busiest week of activity in gyms. Oh, is it? In the calendar year. So this week, just for those that may be listening further down the line, subscribers to Big Boss Interview, we are talking about being in the middle of February at the moment. Yeah, middle of February. So, you know, obviously we have a lot of joiners that come through in January and people are piling into gyms right now. And, you know, through January, they're working off the Christmas success and they carry on. And so this is absolutely peak time. So, you know, we're not seeing any slowing down of the rising demand that we've been enjoying for the last few years.

20:24And in fact, we think it's getting bigger. You think it's getting bigger? And looking at the economy as a whole, so not necessarily just the gym offer, can you detect anything from your customers about how they're feeling in the year ahead in 2026 compared to how they were last year yeah you know i this is an incredibly resilient industry and we're and you know we're an incredibly resilient business and you know obviously you know levels of consumer confidence nationally are still at a low level not quite where they were in 2022 2023 they've improved from there but they're still at a low level but our business keeps growing and i think it keeps growing because of the value that we provide and no doubt we see some people trade down from the from more premium offers or the mid-market into low cost and we see new entrants coming in to low cost and maybe joining a gym you know the ways they hadn't before so we're in a change in any of those trends in the last couple of years because we've had a couple of very big budgets that have shaken businesses shaken customer confidence at certain times but people are wondering now you know many months away from the next budget but what 2026 might hold does it feel to you people are still nervous or does it feel to you people are willing to have a little bit more confidence and do you know what i would have given you a much more precise answer in my previous life in hospitality and in the pub industry where the sensitivity to consumer confidence levels and and disposable income was much more marked from week to week and we could sort of feed data into treasury and saying this is how the country's feeling this week jims is a is a much more resilient member base we do see obviously you know people leaving and joining every month but really we are we are increasingly important in people's lives penetration levels at a macro basis are growing we're opening more space and we're seeing more and more members come through so i'm not the best person i think to try and decipher exactly how consumer confidence levels are because actually we're we're we are bursting through that and we're very much in growth mode that's interesting just from a chief executive's perspective was that a was that a change you sort of realized you were going through as you went from a boss of a pub business to a boss of a gym business did you realize that maybe you weren't going to be so exposed to the day-to-day confidence from the economy i i knew that i was going from some macro headwinds into some macro tailwinds so you know and i'd be lying if i didn't say that you know that was part of the appeal you're really getting into a into a sector that is in very much in growth mode so how do you think about things differently then there'll be a lot of people listening in fact you know on our on our shows it's remarkable that how often we can have two consecutive businesses maybe not in that different sectors one is very optimistic because they're growing and they feel you know that they can get bigger and bigger and another maybe has been around for a while is perhaps struggling to fight against those headwinds at that moment in time so how do you approach it differently we well we don't take anything for granted by the way so you know what do we have to do we have to keep providing a product that the market wants to buy so and we have it we work in a competitive world, a competitive environment.

23:50So fundamentally, these things are the same. You are winning market share, you're providing a product, a proposition that people want to invest in and spend their hard-earned disposable income in, and you're trying to grow market share. The fact that we're in a macro growth market actually is enjoyable, but it brings different pressures. You know, we're investing, you know, a lot of money in opening new gyms across the country. You know, we invest over a million pounds every time we open a gym, and we like to see that return come through within two to three years. So, you know, it creates its own pressures.

24:21And, you know, we need to capitalize on the opportunity in front of us. But fundamentally, what are we doing? You know, we're running a business that is delivering against targeted metrics, and we have to keep doing it better and better. Do you expect to have a closer relationship with the NHS in the years to come? Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. I think, you know, what I'd love to see is a more joined up approach. We can really help. And one of the things that struck me actually, since joining pure gym and joining the fitness sector is I think there is a lack of a joined up sort of partnership approach with the NHS.

24:53We have, you know, 456 gyms across the UK with, you know, lots of capacity and lots of space. And we've got, you know, incredible equipment. And it feels like we're able to help more than we do. In reality, you know, we kind of take matters into our own hands. And we support a lot of charitable initiatives, which are keen to talk about, But I'd love to see a more joined up strategic approach, actually with government more generally, in partnership with business. I think there's some missed opportunities here. Where would you see that happening? How could a person's day to day, year to year association and dealings with the NHS be different and involve companies like yours?

25:32Well, if you look at the 10 year NHS plan that was launched last year, you know, I think it. Well, there's some absolute merit in everything they're trying to achieve. and in particular the move from sickness to preventative care. We can very much play a role in that. And there is a problem to be solved here, Sean. You know, we have a problem with inactivity in this country. 25 % of adults in this country actually don't undertake any form of exercise. You know, the definition of that is moderate exercise for 30 minutes a week and 25 % of people are not doing that and there is an obesity problem.

26:08And if you go further, four out of five adults are not meeting the recommended levels of activity. So there is a problem to be solved. And I don't think that the 10-year plan goes far enough in working through strategic ways to make people active. And we are. I think we are doing more than any other organization to get the country fit. We have millions of workouts in our gym every week. And so I think, you know, we can play a role in teaming up with government initiatives, with the NHS, in having really constructive partnerships, perhaps with physios, with people who are coming out of treatment and need rehab.

26:48You know, we can play a role to help with that. Is the government speaking to you about this kind of thing? Well, I wouldn't say that the government is not speaking to us, but the government is not speaking to us coherently in a joined up partnership approach enough, in my view. And we're trying to do, we need to do more in that sense as well. And working with the industry body, UK Active and the other big fitness companies, we're all very keen to do that. I've got a meeting in number 10 in a couple of weeks where we're putting forward some proposals. And we'll also tell them some of the things that we do.

27:18We work closely. We've got a huge partnership with the British Heart Foundation. We're very proud of that. And that's longstanding. We partner with Parkinson's Movers and Shakers to support people going through Parkinson's. Parkinson's we're just doing some work right now to support the Doddy Weir charity for motor neurone disease and we've also got a really important partnership that's very particular particular importance to me personally with Sir Chris Hoy who has been a long-term supporter of Pure Gym for over 10 years actually he really bought into the mission of what we were doing to create accessible fitness for the masses and has been a big supporter and ambassador of the business over the years and of course you know he's an incredible human being and sadly now diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer and so we've supported Sir Chris in his activities his tour de four charity initiative late last year I was on a bike riding around up and down hills in Scotland and that's that's also really important for us and in fact last week I was down at the Institute of Cancer Research and thinking about ways that we can support the cancer community more generally and on a broader basis and what can you explain why that you say that's so important to you personally?

28:26Yeah, sure. I guess in the spirit of disclosure, if I just tell you a little bit of my own personal story, because I think that's important in the context of fitness and also how it's kind of shaped me as a leader and probably more importantly as a person, actually. So if I give you a quick summary of a two-week period, if I take you back to December 2021, Sean, so if you think what the world was like then, we come out of COVID, we were just sort of back on our feet although in fact we had Omicron coming around the corner and you were running pubs in the hospitality industry I was running pubs in the hospitality industry I was absolutely living and breathing that world and in fact I contracted Covid myself that summer and and on the back of that had some symptoms that I was noticing which were either extended Covid or long Covid sort of shortness of breath and tiredness and we were also in the business working up an important deal for our company to be sold from one private equity owner and acquired by another private equity owner and anyone who's been through those kind of transactions knows that they're they're pretty all-consuming and you know it was exciting the business was doing very well actually on the back of covid and you know we were you know we were very excited and positive about the deal that could be constructed for both of the seller and for the buyer but as i was going through that i was also getting increasingly tired and i started to feel some swollen lumps in my neck my lymph nodes in my neck and eventually I'm lucky enough to be in a surrounded by a very medical family and my brother's senior doctors both married to senior doctors and they quite rightly forced me to go and get tested properly which I did actually just before we completed on the deal which of course is even more tiring but we're very proud of the deal that we were able to to complete and this was just before Christmas waiting for my diagnosis results to come back actually on Christmas day life got even more complicated and difficult my father-in-law passed away on christmas day while my wife was actually at home isolating with covid herself and then got to the other side of christmas and received my diagnosis i had a phone call that after a few minutes i ascertained that actually i was being told i had i had cancer a cancer in my lymph nodes in my neck that had spread from my tonsils initially and also a cancer in my thyroid so you know this was this was quite a shock although I probably should have sort of seen it coming when you hear the word cancer it still absolutely hits you hard and and and is very difficult to absorb we then of course had the sort of go through the difficult family circumstances of a funeral for my father-in-law and we chose to keep it quiet until after that rightly or wrongly I think it probably intolerable pressure for for my beloved wife and then the following day undoubtedly the hardest thing I've ever done were sitting down and telling our three teenage kids that I'd been diagnosed with cancer because of course you know that it's a very scary word in reality everyone's cancer diagnosis is more personalized and nuanced than that and I was being very well reassured by absolute experts that I'd be able to go through treatment and get through it but it's very difficult to you know tell your children that and then actually confronting the wider world and thinking about how you tell your colleagues how you tell your new owners by the way who were very supportive but still very difficult And of course, my colleagues were brilliantly supportive and doing a little bit more work dealing with Omicron, which did arrive in the business before then going off to start my treatment.

31:49Spoiler alert, I was incredibly well treated and I'm fit and well and I'm running a fitness business. But why why do I tell that story? Because two reasons, really. One is fitness. I was at the time I was running marathons. I try to run a marathon every year and I was marathon fit. And I know I know for a fact that enabled me to take on more treatment. So your higher levels of radiotherapy, you know, maybe one or two more rounds of chemotherapy, all of which improve the odds of a full of a full recovery, which thankfully I was able to achieve. So I know that fitness played an important role in my treatment.

32:28It also played an important role in my mindset and the positive mindset I was able to go into the treatment with. And I'm sure that helped me in the recovery phase. Did it play a role in a remarkable story? And thank you so much for sharing that, because as you tell a story so intricately like that, it no doubt takes you back to a lot of those moments. Do you think it played a role in your decisions to leave an industry that was had headwinds and to look to one that had tailwinds as you to use your words? I know it played a role. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, consider exercise and fitness to be a wonder drug, because in my own experience, it absolutely was that.

33:12And, you know, really, a number of things struck me, you know, actually, you know, I was very humbled by the kindness of people around me and the stories that people had and all their shared experience. But it absolutely did shift the paradigm for me about what is important in life and the sense of purpose. And I felt a real sense of purpose actually in the pub industry and in the community businesses that we ran. But the sense of purpose in fitness is even stronger for me and more compelling. So when I got a call from a recruitment company saying there's this job at Pure Gym, I jumped at it. I said, absolutely.