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Exit Paradox Podcast Episode Notes
Episode Title
Pete Henderson. War Journalist Turned Exited Founder
Host
- Anastasia Koroleva
Guest
- Pete Henderson - Exited founder, war journalist, author, and entrepreneur with a mission to combat global hunger.
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Episode Overview In this episode, Pete Henderson shares his extraordinary life experiences, transitioning from a war journalist to a successful entrepreneur. He delves into his adventures, which include building businesses in war zones, surviving a lion's attack, and his ongoing mission to fight global hunger.
Key Themes and Discussions
- Background and Early Life
- Grew up in South Africa during apartheid.
- Drafted into the army at age 19, later worked as a cameraman for CBS News.
- Experienced significant historical events, which shaped his perspective on global issues.
- War Journalism
- Covered conflicts in Angola and the Rwandan genocide.
- Emphasized the importance of technology in mobilizing aid and awareness during crises.
- Realized the limitations of traditional media in effecting change.
- Entrepreneurial Journey
- First Business: Started as a DJ, later transitioned into a successful media company.
- Sold his media company for substantial profit, reflecting on the emotional and personal impact of selling a business.
- Pursued further education at Harvard Business School post-exit.
- Mission to End World Hunger
- Developed a nutritious food bar aimed at helping displaced populations.
- Worked with global organizations like the UN to distribute food effectively.
- Emphasized the importance of creating sustainable solutions for food security.
- Life After Selling the Business
- Reflected on the psychological challenges faced after a significant exit.
- Discussed the importance of balance in life, focusing on family, health, and personal well-being.
- Encouraged listeners to take time to think and reflect after major life changes.
- Parenting and Family Values
- Discussed his approach to parenting, emphasizing the importance of passion, integrity, and giving back.
- Shared experiences of raising children in Africa to provide them with a broader worldview.
- Philosophy on Money and Success
- Described money as a tool that opens opportunities rather than a measure of success.
- Defined success through the recognition of happy moments and the ability to appreciate life.
- Future Plans
- Plans to expand the food venture and sustainable agricultural initiatives in regions like Zimbabwe and Kenya.
- Aims to create a global brand that provides nutritious food and empowers local farmers.
Timestamps of Discussion Points
- 00:00:02 - Dramatic introduction
- 00:01:13 - Pete's mission to end world hunger
- 00:10:49 - Lion attack incident
- 00:14:23 - Selling first business and attending Harvard
- 00:19:09 - Growing and selling the business
- 00:39:06 - Building a microalgae farm in Zimbabwe
- 00:58:25 - Defining success
- 01:06:35 - Regrets on selling a business
Key Takeaways
- Purpose and Impact: The importance of having a mission that extends beyond personal success, such as combating global hunger.
- Resilience and Adaptability: How life experiences, both challenging and rewarding, shape one’s perspective on success and fulfillment.
- Personal Reflection: The necessity of taking time to assess one’s life and priorities after significant transitions.
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Conclusion Pete Henderson's journey is an inspiring testament to the power of resilience, purpose, and the impact one individual can have in addressing global challenges. The episode serves as a reminder to embrace one’s passions, contribute positively to society, and continuously seek fulfillment in life’s adventures.
For more insights and discussions, subscribe to the [Exit Paradox Podcast](#).
Feedback Anastasia invites listeners to share their thoughts and join the community surrounding the podcast.
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This format provides a comprehensive overview and deep insights into the podcast episode, making it easier for readers to grasp the significant themes and discussions presented by Pete Henderson.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28Welcome to the Exit Paradox Podcast. also a best-selling author on the mission to fight global hunger. Talking to Pete is like watching an action movie. Pete, thank you so much. It's extremely exciting to have you here. I'm delighted to be here as well. Thank you very much for inviting me. Pete, when we first met, you actually shocked me with a statement. And the statement was that you were on a mission to end the world hunger. How did that happen? How did you get there? I'll start a little bit earlier on in my life where I grew up in South Africa. I was born in South Africa during apartheid, a terrible time for the history of the country, which meant I also by law had to go to the South African army and put on a uniform and travel to Southern Angola and fight against the Russians and the Cubans as a 19-year-old young man.
1:23Coming out of the army, I got a job with CBS News as a cameraman. And one of my first assignments was to go back into Angola, but this time into the officer's mess of the enemy that we'd been fighting 18 months previously to interview them. So suddenly this was an incredible experience. I was witnessing history unfolding in front of me on a daily basis. One as a white privileged South African, as a member of the sort of diabolical regime. now suddenly talking to the enemy who were now liberating their country rather than us thinking we were being invaded and it gave me the sense of curiosity thinking you know what's right what's wrong is it your where you come from or where you're going to what sort of defines you as a human being and it was a fantastic time to do that because at 21 you basically are fearless you're inquisitive you've got adventure you've got so many the world's your oyster really so i i started working as a freelance news cameraman traveling around the world and because I was from Africa clearly the stories on my doorstep were places like Somalia, famines in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Ethiopia, wars and the unrest in my own country of course as well.
2:38So I came across some terrible tragedies really from famines to wars to disasters and there were three things that basically filled me every time I saw that. I saw people who were displaced. They were always scared. They were cold and definitely hungry. And it always bothered me that I never had enough way of helping them. I could make a film and I could tell the world about it and I could mobilize, you know, actually mobilize huge events. We were the first people into Rwanda, for example. I was in Johannesburg and we were filming the inauguration of President Mandela, who was becoming the first black president of South Africa.
3:20And this really polite gentleman walked into our edit suite with, in those days, a VHS tape. And he gave it to me and said, put this in your machine and have a look at it. And I did. And I was astounded because there were these bodies floating down a river and going over a weir. And I counted like 30, 40 bodies a minute just flowing down this river. And I could see the tape hadn't been edited. There were no jump cuts or anything. and I said to him, where is this and what's going on? He said, this is Rwanda. There's a massacre going on in Rwanda and this is a little border town called Goma. You guys need to get there.
3:55Nobody had heard about this at all and so the next day I got two guys to fly to Kinshasa. We picked up a French Alouette helicopter with the French Foreign Legion and we flew into this dusty town of Goma and it was stranger than witchcraft to most of the locals as we set our camera up and turned the film, the camera towards the border crossing, where literally tens of thousands of people were just falling down at our feet and dying because they had been massacred by the Hutsi and Tutsi war. I felt really guilty. I felt I couldn't really do anything. And then two days later, I saw the runway being extended, Hercules planes landing, the UN getting involved, blankets, water, food.
4:38we mobilized the world's attention really because of the fact that we were now witnessing this and broadcasting this event to the world so in a small way I started to give back through technology through exposure through our contacts you know I picked up the phone to Steve Cassidy in Atlanta on the CNN news desk and I'd say hey Steve it's Pete in Goma this is what's happening and I put the pictures up on the satellite and then CNN would broadcast it globally around the world and then everybody else would sort of follow suit. So in answer to your short question with a very long answer that was the first time that I recognized our ability through technology and access and understanding of the environment that we're in we could make a difference.
5:27So we were saving people's lives through sharing what was happening. Later on in life when I had sold the business and done And other things, I look back on that time and I thought, well, actually, if I could find a way to help feed people a better product, that would make a massive difference to many, many people's lives. And during those early days, if we were in South Sudan, in a place called Juba or NewSight, you'd look up in the sky and a Hercules would be flying over you. The back door would open and 25 kilogram bags of maize would be thrown out the back of the plane. Now, if one of those bags didn't hit you on the head and kill you, and you're lucky enough to pick it up, it was too heavy to pick up.
6:11You know, two or three kids would have to carry it. They'd have to find water. They'd have to cut down a tree, make a fire, make a pot of food. They would then eat it. They'd get really full. They'd have a carbohydrate spike. And they would go to bed exhausted and wake up hungry. There was no nutrients at all in that. and when I invested a few years later in a protein production farm in Poland I saw that we were making spirulina, a microalgae and I thought wow that's a high form of protein if we could create a food bar that would be really nutritious and doesn't need water, doesn't need heating, cooking, refrigeration and we could put 7 ,500 of these on a pallet we could pop that out the back of a plane and these people would have instant food so having created now what i regard as most probably the healthiest thing on the planet that somebody who's displaced or in an emergency needs um the the food bar we now need to work with partners to have it um distributed around the world and you know obviously the best people to do that are united nation organizations world food program unicef undp iom all those different people.
7:25Getting into those programs is pretty tough. You have to go through an interview process, you have to send them your ingredients, it has to be verified, it has to be checked. And we've now got to a point where we've just been sent a request to register as a supplier for sending food into Gaza. So one of our challenges now is saying to the UN, guys, we've invented something that's really unique and different and new it's nutritious it's good for you it's great um let's find a way to work with you where you can take advantage of this opportunity rather than lose out while you wait for us for another two years to you know sell to other people so i'm looking for ways to work with the government bodies un agencies organizations i mean a perfect one would be Andrew Mitchell from the UK government.
8:15They've just sent a plane load of aid to the Middle East. We're a UK company producing UK food. There's no reason why we shouldn't be on that aid plane. And that to me would be a great way of the UK sitting forward, getting involved and making an impact together. It's perfect because actually it shows why you're doing what you're doing now. But now I want to go back and explore this a little bit in a greater detail. If you don't mind, I really want to know what your parents expected from you when you were a child. My father died when I was 10 years old. He was a prisoner of war during the Second World War.
8:57And the Red Cross very kindly gave him hundreds of cigarettes every day to sit and smoke. So he got lung cancer and died when I was 10. And I was furious. I really felt that life had been unkind to me. I didn't have a father to play in the football match or build go-karts or play cricket with. And I went to my grandmother and I said to her, you know, I'm really annoyed by this. And she said to me, I wouldn't be annoyed. This is a blessing. I said, how can losing your father be a blessing? She said, you have a guardian angel. And I said, what's that? And she said, look over your left shoulder. You may see him.
9:32I looked over and there was nothing there. And she said, he's an Irishman and he's going to allow you to do whatever you want to do in life and look after you. if your dad had been alive he most probably would have wanted you to go to Oxford University and become an engineer you now have the opportunity to invent whoever you want to be and go wherever you want in life and always feel secure that there's somebody looking after your best interests and then did you go to Oxford no in fact I had a I went straight from the army to becoming a cameraman seriously excited because I'd been accepted to go to the Los Angeles film school as a cameraman and on the last weekend that I was in South Africa I was visiting a primate game reserve and I went with the person I'd met the night before at a party and we went up to this game farm and the big highlight of the day was to go and film some baby lion cubs so we got out the Land Rover walked over to where these cubs were and there was an enclosure between us and the lions but i got my camera out and i was filming these baby cubs and next thing i got whacked like so hard and so violently that i thought that somebody had driven the land rover into me but as i turned around the lioness mother had basically come back and i was between her and her cubs and she felt threatened and she pounced to me i put my hand to protect myself and my hand went right in her jaw and her teeth went through my arm here bit this finger right off smashed this soul hound and now has been eaten alive by this lioness.
11:07Jill grabbed me by the arm, Vili Jbert had me around the waist, the lioness had me by the arm and there was this tug of war going on between us and I couldn't imagine this amazing noise. I didn't know where I was coming from until I realized it was me screaming and it was like so loud and there was a white flower with a yellow center on the floor that I was just looking at and this whole thing of oh my god I mean eaten alive by a lion and let go of my hand because I want to hit it on the nose and anyway the lioness luckily let go and it all fell over in a heap and I picked my finger up off the floor, stuck it back in the hole.
11:37All my tens had come out so I wound these tendons around and I looked at my head and thought oh that's pretty unlucky. Well it took six hours to drive me to the closest hospital and on this undulating dirt road all the way down towards Pretoria I was going in and out of consciousness. I was really really painful as you can imagine because all my tendons were exposed and anyway I got to the hospital eventually onto the operating table and he just put the drip up and the surgeon came along and he like looked at this and he said I'm going to amputate your hand I said what the whole hand he said yep six inches above the wrist I'm going to chop your hand off I said isn't that a bit severe do you think I could have a second opinion I went to the reception and I said can you give me an ambulance to take me to another hospital I said no the adult hospital You can't use it, I think.
12:24You'll have to call a private one down the hall, use the call box. I called my parents, and luckily my brother answered the phone. I said, Stuart, I've been eaten by a lion. He said, what? Anyway, he sent a private ambulance. He got me to a different hospital in another city in Johannesburg, took another hour to get there. And then when I woke up in the morning, I thought I'd made a terrible mistake. So you feel that? You're one of the few people in the world that's touched my groin. Because they're stuck behind, it's my leg. And my leg kept my hand alive. And my whole leg was basically keeping my arm alive because it was so badly mauled and eaten.
12:59It was called a full groin grab. And then they basically eventually, after a few weeks, they released it. And I was in hospital for about nearly nine months, basically recovering. But the interesting part of this whole story is during those nine months, I had no right hand that I could use. So I played table tennis left-handed, shaved left-handed, all that kind of stuff. And then when I eventually got out, I started kicking a football left-footed. and I'd gone from being dominant right to dominant left. And then I became creative from being technical before I was a cameraman. And then suddenly I was now creative.
13:31You're kidding. And I started producing and doing production and doing other stuff and writing that I'd never had before. And I'm now not good at giving directions if I say go that way. It's a bit confusing. But I survived being eaten by a lion and now I'm left-handed. That's incredible. I love this. Thank you so much for the story. this is so cool and then I built up my business and after 10 years I sold it and I always had a bit of a sort of inferiority complex I've never been to university so somebody said to me why don't you go to Harvard I said Harvard are you mad they'll never accept you at Harvard this will just try apply so I applied and I think I got in because I applied from Kenya and they probably hadn't had very many Kenyans apply.
14:18But I was accepted and I did a three-year executive OPM course at Harvard Business School. And frankly, that sort of changed my life. I did it at a time when I'd sold my company. I was 40 years old. I had had many years of adventure and fun and accumulation of wealth and purpose. And I'd got to a point where suddenly at 40 I thought, well, what now? You know, I've lived 10 lives, I guess, compared to most people. But yet I was married, still married happily, with three kids. It was six, eight, and ten. But I had accumulated enough money in the bank to pretty much do anything I wanted to do. And it was a big question.
15:02It was quite a tough question. What next? How do you actually go from having done so many things that other people couldn't imagine that you could do, To a point where now you're in a position where you could do whatever you want. Let's go back to the very first business you built. Why did you do that? My first business was, I was basically a DJ. Excellent. Why? At school, I don't know. I thought it would be quite cool to stand behind the turntables at the school dances and play records. And I realized that was quite a cool business because I got paid to have fun. and then I rented a little town hall in a seaside resort of Canton on Sea.
15:44I think it cost 30 rand for the whole thing and then we had like 200 people arrive each paying a rand to get in and I realized, wow, this is extraordinary, you know, getting like having fun and doing well. So I had my mum working for me in those days. So that was my discotheque that paid for my university and basically taught me that if you can imagine, you can do it. and then once I got into my television business after working as a freelance cameraman I realized that a camera earned more money than the cameraman now a camera in those days cost fifty thousand dollars that was a big amount of money it was more than a big house you know cost so I went to the bank and I said hey guys I want to borrow fifty thousand dollars and they said sure what house you're buying I said I'm buying a camera what are you gonna do with it I'm gonna take it into sweater into the township on your bike mate so after i went to three or four banks i was really disappointed and i went back to the nbc bureau chief a woman called heather allen i said hey heather i can't supply my own camera and be a cameraman for nbc she said have you got a passport i said yep and i said jump in a plane go to london go to tottenham court road meet rachel she's got my checkbook go to barclays i'll pay you fifty thousand dollars go to bazingstoke and speak to Peter Christmas, get a camera and be back in South Africa on the weekend, you're filming in a township.
17:03So I couldn't believe my luck. I hardly even knew this bureau chief. Anyway, nine months later, I paid her back every cent for lending me the money. And I said, how much interest do I have to pay? And she said, No, there's no interest, you just have to pay forward, help somebody else one day. And I was overwhelmed. I mean, you know, she had really taken a chance on me. But suddenly, I had a camera that was earning$500 a day. I was earning$250 a day. And I saved up for another camera. And now I was getting$1 ,000 a day. And then another camera. And then suddenly, I started having like eight or nine or 10 cameramen working for me.
17:39And then by this stage, I'd left South Africa and moved to London and really like it. So moved to Cyprus in the Middle East. And I had a media company based in Cyprus, providing camera crews and equipment to CNN and BBC and German TV and all these different people. And the one thing we did is we then bought a satellite, and we were doing live television. So when you saw Peter Arnett on the roof of the Orashid Hotel in Baghdad, we were broadcasting live television back to CNN. And suddenly, we were selling our television by by the minute and so um you know from five hundred dollars a day for a camera we were now you know maybe you know five hundred thousand dollars a day for all our services after that so very quickly the company by the time i sold it was generating over 380 million a year so it was a very big business and um that that was how it grew from nothing and no debt just from a camera been lent to me by Heather Allen.
18:37Incredible. How long did it take? 10 years. It took 10 years and it was an incredible adventure and it didn't really even feel like work. It was just like, you know, there was a group of people who went from covering the Olympics in Seoul to covering a riot in Rio to a war in Afghanistan. And we were all mates basically having fun, traveling around the world, doing extraordinary things, you know, from Chechnya to Russia to, you know everywhere Bucharest I mean it was an incredible journey amazing fun so when it was over can we go back to that moment you sold the company you got your big fat check how did you feel so I walked out of my office with a cardboard box with a couple of photographs and got into my then convertible Mercedes sports drove home to my big house in Surrey that you know had horses and indoor swimming pools and tennis courts and I felt on top of the world but I also felt oh my goodness what what happens now and I think any advice is just take a rest don't don't rush don't think you have to reinvent yourself don't think you have to go and do it all again too quickly I think just looking up looking out looking around taking a deep breath of oxygen and actually looking at the other quadrants of your life which is your health your well-being your mental health your family your kids the environment other people all of those things you tend to ignore in your first business because it's all about accumulation of me me me me and us more more more but when you get to that other point think wow actually you know what i've missed out on quite a few things and i remember walking down the beach once and i met an old friend of mine who was a farmer and i said hey trevor how are you doing he said oh i'm really cross and i said why and he said well, my rugby team just lost the rugby.
20:31And I was like, I wanted to tell him everything I'd done for the last 10 years and where I'd been and who I'd seen and all the presidents I'd met. But yet his life was just a farmer on a beach and his simplicity of being annoyed because his rugby team had lost made me actually realize that life is not all about being 100 miles an hour accumulating all the stuff. It's about actually being in the moment. And I'd been so busy coming from and going to, I'd forgotten to just be. And so when I sat and thought for a second, I'm just going to be, it was an incredible feeling of enjoyment, really. You just think, okay, I deserve to be here.
21:11And I've got a lot of people around me that are important to me that I'm going to take care of. And I'm going to just, I'm going to think for a while, because if you don't think, you make mistakes. You don't remember where you've come from. You can't imagine where you're going, but most of all we don't really appreciate where you are. How long that healing, that just being lost, before you started feeling that you actually wanted to do something else? I don't think I felt anxious to do anything else since then. It's basically just been I do what I enjoy doing now. And I enjoy spending time with people that I like being with, people who are positive, people who don't drag you down, people who aren't negative.
21:49so I surround myself with positive people who have a reason for being and it doesn't have to be selfish being it's just giving more than anything else people who slightly enlightened to lateral thinking I mean one of the happiest somebody said to me Pete what makes you happy and I thought that's a really tough question and after a while I actually figured it out and and it's it's recognizing happy moments that makes me happy so if I see a kid running across a park and hugging their mother and I acknowledge it as a happy moment or the sun shining or something beautiful is happening around you or somebody says something that's nice basically acknowledging happy moments enough times during the day makes you feel happy when you go to sleep at night because life's not like a bank account you can't just take take take and expect it to be there forever you need to give back a little bit you need to give in a way that can be as simple as writing a letter to somebody who you haven't written to for a long time or donating some money to somebody or driving an old person to the store but just actually being considerate to others and giving back is a really important part how long did it take you from the sale of the first business to start a new business I think it took six months.
23:05Oh. And the reason was we sold the business. We moved to Kenya. We had a beautiful house on the Nairobi National Park. I was going to watch kids play sport. And I came home one day in the middle of the afternoon. My wife said, Pete, I married you for better, for worse, but not for lunch. I said, what do you mean? She said, well, I'm going to do something. I'm actually going to do something with your day. Like, are you going to get a job? and I said I was quite enjoying this not having to work she had too much of you by then so she said you know surely you must be doing something so a friend of mine called me and said he was going to South Sudan to interview John Garang the rebel leader of South Sudan would I like to go I thought that'd be fun I used to be a cameraman for the BBC once a long time ago so I took my camera and I flew into South Sudan and met with John Garang the rebel leader and I was interviewing him thinking I'd sell the video to the BBC and that would be my job while we were talking I was intrigued because here was a man running an entire war in South Sudan with virtually no communications and I said how do you communicate he said on the radio and I said you don't have an email he said no I said you have a phone he said no I said that's nuts you should have a 20-foot container here you should have german high-speed broadband us dial tone and you should have a command center and he said well how do i do that i said well i can do that and he said okay how much would that cost i said i'll give you one i'll give it to you for free and he said how long will that take i said a couple of weeks well i must let him because it took me four weeks i went back to nairobi i got a 20-foot container filled it up with all the equipment and we drove it back into south sudan across the bush and when we got there we didn't quite know how to unload it because it It was a big container on the back of a lorry.
24:56So we took everything out and we tied a big steel cable to the back of it and tied it to a tree and we drove the track out and collapsed in the dust and we put all the equipment in. And John Garang and I sat in this happy box and I got JohnGarang at Yahoo.com. Got him in his first email. And they loved it. This thing just changed their lives. He was calling his sister in Australia. They were calling America. They were having the most amazing time. And he said, I now want one of these happy boxes in all the villages. and I don't want to walk into the box. I want to walk and talk. I said, well, that means you need a GSM mobile phone network.
25:29He said, okay, well, let's do that. I said, okay, we'll be partners. Done. I said, how much are you putting in? He said, what do you mean? I'm the rebel leader. I don't put money into these businesses. I said, well, if you want to be a partner, you have to put money in. I think I'm the first person ever to get a million U.S. dollars out of the South Sudanese Liberation Army, the SPLA, because they put a million dollars in. I put some money in and we formed this network called Network of the World Now. So I flew back to Nairobi and said, hey, JJ, I'm now in the mobile phone business. I said, good.
26:00So I set up the first mobile phone network in South Sudan, and it was during the Comprehensive Peace Agreement talk. So I was under a huge amount of pressure to actually get a signal out of the South before the peace treaty was signed because they needed to have their own mobile phone network operational before that. So we opened in this little town called Gay, and we had the first phone ever ring in this village. And this old man was given the task of opening the event, and he was the elder of the village. And he came in with his big sort of feathers, and he blessed the occasion and was screaming at all the demons in the bushes and picked up the phone, and we gave it to him and said, do you want to call your son who is in Canada?
26:39And he hadn't spoken to his son for 12 years because of the war. And his other son who lived there dialed his brother's number, and this guy looked, and the son answered, and he was inside this plastic box. It was like, wow. And he said, this is your father, over. He kept saying over. And the tears were just pouring down his face. And I said, just keep the phone, you can have it. But that was the impact we had. Suddenly from having no phones, within two or three days, we had kids running around selling scratch cards, we had shops opening, we had bicycles going around selling stuff, we had things coming in from Sudan.
27:11In six months, that little dusty village was now a town just because we had put a mobile phone network into it. So we created this incredible impact from nothing. In six months, we had a GSM network in place. What happened next? So the Chinese came in. And they looked at South Sudan, they looked at oil, they looked at telecoms. And they came to the government and said, we'll give you all this money and you can build a Chinese network and you don't need PEAT anymore. So it's been quite a roller coaster up to that point. So you're back with your family. What happens next? So, I mean, I still had some other good businesses.
27:47I had a mobile phone business, which was satellite phones. And that was a good business because our clients were the UN. And with all those businesses, the phone doesn't work unless you pay up front for your airtime. So we would sell the phone to UNDP or UHDR or whatever, and they'd buy the phone. And then they'd pay us for the airtime. And then we'd make like 20 % profit on every call that they made. So that kind of business was good because every morning when you woke up, you're slightly wealthier. than when he went to sleep because there was an accumulating revenue constantly going on. So there was a bit of stability on that.
28:22Is it something you started? Yeah, I started it. So mostly because I had no internet in my house in Nairobi. So I went and got a satellite dish and I stuck it up in the garden. All my friends said, how did you do that? So I set up a company called Indigo Telecom and I gave all my mates the internet. And then the UN said we're going off into southern Somalia. and I said well I went to Dubai and I got satellite phones and I basically set up this satellite telecoms company. I think the best part about that time was I lived in Kenya with my kids and I watched them grow up so they were from you know six to 18 so I went to all their football matches and their swimming lessons went on safari we climbed mountains we worked in orphanages And that 10 years was most probably from a family point of view, the most valuable and enjoyable.
29:16But when we came back to live in England, because now all the kids were boarding school in England, and my wife and I were feeling sort of isolated in Africa with the rest of the family here, coming back to England was tough because it wasn't an entrepreneurial environment with the ability to take helicopters into South Sudan and build mobile phone networks. It was far more sophisticated and less entrepreneurial. And that's when I think I started to look globally rather than locally at what I could do next. I met a Polish man, Leszek Sibek, who was staying at one of our hotels in Africa. and he said to me what do you know about solar energy renewable energy and I said nothing but it's a great idea and he said Poland is one of the filthiest countries in the world it's got black coal energy there's virtually no solar energy and he would like to start investing in that and would I be interested and I'd sort of learned going along the lines that I didn't really want to invest in other people's companies any longer because I didn't have control over it and I wasn't guaranteed it would be successful.
30:29So I went out of interest more than anything just to have a look. And when I got to Poland, I recognized there was a really, you know, sort of young market that was about to take off. If I looked at all the other markets around Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, everybody was full of solar panels, but there was nothing in Poland. And that was mostly because of the strong mining unions, etc. But things were changing. So we started to build together a solar farm business and we built up around 128 megawatts of solar, which is like two or three football fields for solar, which we built up and sold to the Portuguese.
31:09And we carried on developing more projects. And along that journey, we came across a Polish-German professor who was growing microalgae. And I looked at this and what the hell is that stuff? And I realized that he was not growing spirulina that was the highest form of non-animal-based protein. So he needed some investment. My partner and I invested in his factory to create this green powder. And then when I looked at it, I thought, well, there must be something better to do than put it into yogurt or sell it into pharmaceutical or animal or fish feed. And I went back to my roots as a cameraman thinking this is the ingredients that I need for my food bar because it's like really super healthy and really good high protein.
31:52So I basically set up another company called SITE, which stands for Sustainable Impact Trading Ecosystems. So it's SITE. And SITE's ambition really is to feed people around the world very nutritious food in the best possible way, as large as we can possibly get around the world, making an impact. This company is very young. It's only been going nine months. So nine months ago, somebody said to me, what are you going to call this protein bar? So I got no idea. And they said, well, why didn't you ask your Harvard mates? I thought, wow, that's great. They're far more intelligent than I am. So I put out a short message, sort of slightly apprehensively, saying, guys, I'm making a protein bar.
32:35What should I call it? And then one very bright woman in Australia, Anna Shepard, she sent back a short message saying, mate, just call it food. So I said, you can't call it food. I mean, like, how do you trademark the word food? She said, it's no bullshit. but it's just food, mate. And I thought, well, actually, every time I've been in a truck going into a refugee camp or somewhere, the kids are all putting out their hands and their five words that they all basically say. They say good, okay, food, water, and blankets. Those are the five things that are important to them. And as a result, it's been phenomenal.
33:06We're getting huge branding awareness. I'm getting messages from the World Food Programme saying we want to send food to Gaza. And I say, yeah, our food. So it's like got a bigger personality the idea of what it was originally established for. I love that story. Yeah, it's cool. It's amazing. Okay, so what's the plan now for food? So I've seen too many philanthropic projects around the world fail because there's no business model attached to them. I mean, there are lots of really, really good causes. Don't get me wrong. And there's a lot of people who do real impact and do well. But if you want to do well for a long time and be successful, then have a business model around it at the same time.
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33:47So we have a philosophy that we are a for-profit company, but we're going to have a very, very strong track your impact element to the philosophy of our business. So when you donate money to buy a food bar, it'll be like Amazon, pretty much. You get confirmation your money's arrived, you'll get confirmation the bar's in manufacturer, it'll be on a ship going around the Suez Canal around the Horn of Africa, it'll be in say Mogadishu and it'll be delivered to somebody in Africa and there'll be a confirmation to you as an impact donor that your bar has made an impact and it's arrived. The second thing is for us not to be restricted by politics, religion, territory.
34:33We really want to be a global brand that's good for everybody. So we've appointed so far 20 food ambassadors. Like Taylor Swift has her Swifties. We have our foodies. And again, I went back to my Harvard HBS group and said who would like to be an ambassador. And we've got this incredible network of people who are passionate about giving back. And we've so far got 20 folks from South America, Central America, to Asia, to Africa, to all around the world. And right now we need some like-minded founders who've been in different industries, who've got industry experience, knowledge and entrepreneurial flair to become ambassadors, to become food ambassadors.
35:18So one of the great opportunities, if you would like to get involved, you can donate a container of food to South Sudan, for example. That's 150 ,000 food bars. So if you think of South Sudan, there's like 7 million people who displaced. They had a terrible war in the north, and women and children ran south. And they're now sitting in an environment across the river with no shelter, no food, no income. they're pretty much a forgotten group of people, but they all desperately need food. So what we're trying to do is set up a donation platform, which allows you as a food ambassador to make a donation through an American charity called United Way.
36:04You get the normal tax relief and all the benefits and due diligence of using U.S. charity. That money then is sent to our factory where we manufacture the food and we send it to Kenya. We would then like to invite you to join us for the impact part we call it track your impact where you fly to Nairobi we meet you at the airport we take you out to lunch in Nairobi and introduce you to a security specialist he's an ex seal actually and married to a wonderful woman who them as a family have adopted a couple of south Sudanese kids so they know everything about the area the territory the safety the security and after an interesting dinner in Nairobi and spending the night there we'll fly you the next day to South Sudan.
36:49That's approximately an hour and a half on a 12-seater turbo prop, a King Air. On arrival in Juba, we'll introduce you to some really interesting people, possibly get you a meeting with a minister or with a couple of UN charities and groups so that you can get a feeling for what people are doing in an environment like South Sudan, which desperately needs help. We'll then film the bars being dispersed to the community that are benefiting from it. You'll have the chance to talk to them, speak to school teachers, speak to the mums who are perhaps breastfeeding and having the benefit of their food to help their kids.
37:26And you can really see the life-changing impact that the food bars give the people who are receiving it. We'll spend the night in Juba, which is always fun and interesting. and then the next day we'll fly you from Sudan to a very nice safari game reserve in Kenya where you'll have a chance to perhaps do slightly more touristy type activities, go on a game drive, see some elephants, some giraffe, maybe some lion if you're really lucky, have a sunset around a fire, drinking a gin and tonic, reflecting on your couple of days that you've just had in South Sudan. and then the next day we'll transport you back to Nairobi for you to fly back to the States.
38:06So you'd most probably leave America on Friday night and you would be back in the States the following weekend. So it's a week of your life going out and having an adventure that certainly will make a massive impact on the beneficiaries of your donation but will also give you the chance to see firsthand and track your impact and be able to share your story with others and hopefully encourage others to do the same and join you. And we can do it in groups of two, four or six, depending on how many people in your party. And it's very selective. And we'd love to talk to you and work with you on what your needs are and how to support your giving back.
38:43But we'd love to have you as a food ambassador. But the second part of our business is to have a development and upliftment program that allow people in their country to become their own growers of spirulina. So, for example, a HBS friend of ours from Zimbabwe, he's got a very successful business. He's implementing a billion bricks into Zimbabwe. He's donated some money through a charity, through United Way. It's an American charity to send money to Zimbabwe to build a micro-algae farm on the outskirts of Harari. And this micro-algae farm will be in a school, so we'll get the kids involved and the teachers and people start to learn how to become farmers.
39:29We'll have two 40-foot containers. We'll put some solar panels on the roof, some raceway ponds fill up the water, and we'll teach and train these people how to grow spirulina. And we can feed 550 people a day from one pond, giving them each five grams of super protein. You would need to bring your production facility there, though? We'll build a factory in that country, and we'll teach the locals how to become farmers, and they will harvest on a daily basis enough protein for 550 people to have a spoonful of protein powder in their existing food. So they'll put it into their satsa or their mealy meal or their tsukumawiki, whatever they're eating.
40:10So it gives them that protein that's really important for humans to have. What they don't consume themselves, we'll buy back. So we'll actually pay them money, then we'll buy the products, and then we'll put them in our protein bars and sell them around the world. So what we're really doing is we're creating a very sustainable development, upliftment, education, and income-generating project at a local basis to help people who otherwise may have been deprived and have no income and no possibility. It's a fantastic model, and that's scalable. Because once you've done one, we've just applied to USAID in Kenya for a$48 million grant to basically put these all across northern Kenya.
40:52So we could impact 200 ,000, 300 ,000 people's lives if we get that contract. So it's new farming, it's new technology, new way of doing it. But ultimately, a human being needs four things to survive. They need sleep, they need water, they need oxygen, and they need protein. Food. Yeah, food. And if you give them that, their life's going to be better anyway. so what are the biggest hurdles for food right now the the hurdles it's the world did pretty well without you before you're right and what's the world before and after you so it's education you need to promote present and convince people this is a good good idea and a good product.
41:34You need to get family, friends and investors to invest in the early stage of the business. So it's a very interesting time now because my kids are now in their 20s. They're all living independently. They've got girlfriends and boyfriends and they don't need me as much anymore. And you almost lose a little bit of purpose for being because you've done your job you've given them their wings and their freedom and they're independent but it's almost a more enjoyable time because you have the ability to focus on a bigger picture it's no longer just people who are totally dependent on you you can then open your eyes and look out and look around and think well what's important to me in the world and for me personally I have three things that are important one of them is renewable energy because I think the world's just killing itself with its carbon footprint.
42:35Food security is a very big thing for me because there are too many displaced people who are not being fed properly and carbon reduction. So with this current business, we're meeting those three elements that are important to me and making an impact at the same time. So I wake up in the morning. I look forward to continuing doing what I believe in, having fun with people that I surround myself with. and the other thing is having youthfulness on your side as well you're as young as you feel and the people who I'm working with are in their early 30s mostly and I love their energy and their their imagination they can take on the world and I encourage that and support it and things great fun well I think you have more energy than most 20 years like a fountain of youth and energy so can we talk about your kids for a bit so what was important for you based on your experience in in terms of parenting so i think for me it was to give them what i was given by my grandmother the ability to unconditionally do whatever they loved doing and there was one word in my vocabulary and that was passion follow your passion i don't mind if you're successful or not but when you wake up in the morning if you look forward to what you've got ahead of you and you do it with passion and enjoyment, then that's going to mean that you're ahead of most of the people in the world already.
43:57So follow your passion, obviously, integrity and honesty and, and consideration to others is really important as well. But I think the permission to make mistakes without us being too, too sort of dictatorial on where they should go, what they should do, or how they should behave. so you need to give them their freedom. So I felt with my kids, if I could give them a good education, they all went to really nice schools, they did really well, and they're all decent people. Most of all, they can walk into a room and present themselves confidently. And that means my wife and I have done a good job.
44:37How did you ensure they didn't grow up as spoiled, wealthy kids? I was driving down the road in Farnham in my Volvo with my Wellington boots in the back and my barber jacket with three kids who were 6, 8, and 10, arguing whether Verbier or St. Danton were better ski resorts. And I thought, oh, I've screwed up completely. And I came home after dropping them at school, and I said to JJ, my wife, I said, darling, we're moving to Africa. And she said, what have you been smoking? I said, no, our kids need to float down rivers, climb up mountains, work in orphanages. They need to get the freedom of Africa rather than being restricted by the environment that they're in now.
45:18and it happened to be I was 39 years old it was the same time I was selling the company so it all just clicked at the same time it was sell the business go on an adventure focus on the family and get the kids to have a slightly different outlook on life so I think with them arriving in Africa they'd never you know come across people who didn't wear shoes or didn't have running water and working in orphanages was fascinating for them and they went to you know a multiracial school, they got to learn different cultures. And as people, they became broader thinking and more considerate of others. So I think that was a very big, a big help for them.
45:58When my one son who went to Eton College was interviewed by the intake person saying, so what do you like about living in Africa? He said, driving the Land Rover, sir. And I said, but you're 10 and a half years old. He said, yep. And he said, do your parents let you drive the Ladd Rover? And he said, yeah, they're normally on the roof having a beer and I'm driving. So our kids would all suddenly get exposure to things that other kids weren't getting. Ethan really liked the idea of having a kid like that. Yeah, they did. It was quite funny because they said to him, I mean, they asked them some tough questions.
46:34They said, don't you feel guilty living in Africa with all those poor people and your dad's got so much money? And he said, well, you obviously don't know my dad because a lot of African people have got much more money than he has. So it was kind of an interesting question for a 10-year-old to have to answer these hard questions. Why did you decide that they should go to British boarding schools after that childhood? I think in Kenya, at the age of 12, the schools weren't really good. So the junior school where they were was fine, but nearly all the kids either went to South Africa or to England to school.
47:11And because we had already been in Africa, I thought being educated in England would be better for them. Because then they'd have the sophistication of an English education with the passion of growing up in Africa. So they would sort of have one foot in Africa, one foot in the UK, and they'd be more interesting people. And I went to boarding school, so it was not a difficult thing for me to send my kids to boarding school. And they all loved it, actually. But it was my wife and I who felt that we were deprived of their company because we were now stuck in Africa and they were all here. So at that point, we basically came back to live in England.
47:50How old are they now? 27, 29 and 32. So looking back, do you think that was a good plan? Parenting wise. I think every family has their own goals, ambitions. For us, what I wanted my kids to have was a global outlook on life and a broader understanding of balance. Because life is not fair, and there are a lot of privileged people who can't understand and recognize that the other people in the world are less fortunate than themselves. And that doesn't work in society. You need to understand all aspects of society for you to be a balanced human being, because that gives you the opportunity to understand, share, give and support and help or lead in many sense.
48:45So I think we gave them that. We gave them adventure. We gave them the broadness of knowledge and unconditional love. And most of all, we gave them the ability to follow their passion. What is money for you? It's a tool. It's something that you need. You don't take it with you at the end of the day. It's very helpful to open up opportunities that need money, especially if you've got your own money. You don't have to go and ask somebody else for money. And you can take your own risks and know that if it works, it's great. If it doesn't, you've only got yourself to blame. But I wouldn't say money is accumulation of wealth.
49:28It's just a tool to have accumulation of purpose. But it's an important part of it. As an entrepreneur, I've been through many occasions where I've done well, had a lot of money. On other occasions, I've had no money and then got it again and lost it again. And I think the common benefit or denominator of all those occasions was the best part was my supportive wife, who didn't feel that money was going to be the reason for us being happy. It was just part of the journey. Did money make you happy? Not really. It's never been an important part of why I do things. It's just sort of happened. So definitely my first few businesses, the accumulation of cash was just a byproduct of the adventure and fun.
50:17Certainly when I had three kids at private school in England and we were living in Kenya and I had nine international airfares and I was paying a fortune of school fees, then suddenly that put into focus a little bit, thinking that I had to spend all that money on the education. But I think once you have enough just to pay your electricity bills and pay the food and you're comfortable with where you're at, life's not about money. It's more about how you behave and what you do and where you go and how you treat others. Yet it's an important tool. So I have to ask you how you manage your wealth.
50:55most probably badly because i take more more risks than others um no i think my main thing is i invest in my own businesses okay and that to me is is where i i feel that i've got the most control over it so i take personal risks that i'm comfortable with and those risks are normally calculated because i feel that they're going to be successful than rather than failures and um as a lot of people you need to structure your your wealth as well in you know that some people are non-dom residents you've got other people that have family trusts you've got to consider many other aspects of um transition to family wealth that you hand down to to others so it depends really how much wealth there is and how you need to manage it but um for me there's there's not enormous wealth so I'm still having a lot of fun using it for an impact on others lives as much as I can.
51:54Brilliant, brilliant. So I want to hear more stories from your incredible life. So one of the stories that made an impact on my life was going into a township, a black township, which was a very evil form of apartheid in South Africa which meant that there was segregation. All the black people had to live in a certain area, all the whites lived in a different area. There were laws that didn't allow you to have the ability to marry across the color bar, which was called the Group Areas Act and the Mixed Marriages Act. And there were these very, very volatile areas where deprived black communities were living.
52:33So in this environment of unrest, working as a cameraman for the BBC my job was to go and film riots basically which meant literally with a black sound man and a white cameraman or the other way around he always worked in a in a team we would drive headlong into a war zone and on this one particular day we drove into a town called Davyton and we got there slightly late because we recognized that there was tear gas in the air there were rubber bullets on the ground there were stones all over the streets obviously the crowd had been dispersed and somebody said to us just down the road everybody's regathered in a village town hall so we went down to the town hall and looked like an american sort of midwest church hall it had two big doors one end and the side door down the side and so zet monono and i walked through the side door onto the stage and as we walked onto the stage with me rolling on my camera the place went ballistic they erupted and they were shouting which means burn the white guy burn the white guy and i was the only white guy in there and i'd realized i'd walked into a very hostile group meeting of a group that was called the zapo the zanian people's organization and zapo was one bullet for every settler that was like the opposite of the kluk klux clown it was the white people in this continent are a problem and here's a white guy walking onto the stage and Zed said, Pete, we have to get out of here.
54:02And I knew there was nobody to run. There were like 3 ,000 people and me. And I was on the stage and the hair went up on the back of my neck and I thought, whoops, we're in trouble here. And I saw this wide-eyed woman at the sort of pendulum talking, addressing this crowd. And she looked and thought, what are you doing here? And she had a microphone. And I walked straight up to the microphone and I grabbed the microphone and I shouted in their language, Amandla, and the whole community went, Amawetu, Amandla, Amawetu, which means power, power to the people. And then in my best kosa, which is Nelson Mandela's language, I said, Shlalapanzi, which means sit down.
54:44And I said, guys, I know I might not be welcome here. I'm from the BBC and I've done more for the struggle than any of you will ever do in your life. So sit down and behave yourself. And everyone looked at shocked horror and silence. including this woman, this nun who was standing on the stage. And under enormous personal risk to herself, she very publicly walked up to me and embraced me and gave me a hug. And she said, we need to get you out of here. And all the counselors on the stage, of which there were 12 of them, surrounded me in a human sort of protection of a shield and duck marched me off the stage and into the car, and I got out of there, and she saved my life.
55:22And that night I was lying in bed, and I thought, this woman, who was she? Who was this woman who saved my life? and the next day I drove back into the township and I found out her name was Sister Barnard and I asked for directions to her house which I eventually found and she was really surprised to see me the second time you again I said I just want to thank you I just you know you saved my life yesterday can I give you some money can I buy you some stuff can I donate to the church and she said no just be kind to somebody else and I thought oh Heather said that to me once about the camera. Now you're saying it to me for a second time, this must be something that's an important reason to do.
56:03So throughout my life, whenever I've had the chance to give something back to somebody else and help them, I've done that. Why did you write your book? My great grandfather came from Ireland and he came from Ulster in Ireland and he wrote a book called an Alsterman in Africa. And his great friend was a guy called Cecil Rhodes. And Cecil Rhodes and him traveled through Africa and they became miners together. And he was the mayor of Kimberley during the siege of Kimberley. And he wrote a book called an Alsterman in Africa. And I read it as a kid and loved the idea that I could hear all about my grandfather.
56:43So I thought that I would write something for my kids. and so I basically during COVID got a really good editor, got somebody to help me with a book and put down all the stories and then basically thought I'd self-publish it and I thought if I make any money I'll donate it back to journalists. So I donated all the money to the Rory Peck Trust and I was stunned because suddenly we started reading it and it became a number one bestseller on Amazon for journalists, basically. And so it's been quite a nice thing to have a record of the adventures. It's called Bigger Than Me because the story is always bigger than me.
57:24Was building the business worth it? 100%. Why? The adventure of creating something that you have a direct involvement in and you include others and you can look back and reflect on what you've achieved, the good and the bad and the ugly, is something that is invaluable. The journey is fantastic. It's an amazing opportunity, if you're lucky enough, to build your own business. It's just one of the best things in life you can ever do. How do you define success? To me, it's recognizing happy moments. It's not about what you've achieved or what you've got. It's by having the ability to look out, look around, look up, and recognize successful things around you.
58:12That means you're successful. Who are you? I'm Pete, the food chap.
58:21Who do you want to become? I'm very happy being me. A few years ago, we were in a private helicopter leaving the rooftop in Guatemala, flying off to some amazing hacienda somewhere. And I didn't realize everybody was listening to the radio comms. And I shouted to my wife. I said, I really love being Pete. And suddenly when we landed, all the other wives were saying to their husbands, why can't you be like Pete? Why can't you just be happy with who you are and what you're doing? So it was not really meant to be broadcast to everybody, but it was a reflection of how I felt at the time, that I felt really blessed to be me.
58:59And I was lucky enough to have a great family and be doing great things and having lots of adventures and living life to the fullest. Do you have any role models? Well, that's an interesting question. I think Madiba Mandela is somebody who I've watched with fascination over the years because I grew up thinking he was a terrorist. I ended up interviewing him and sitting with him in the presidential palace in Cape Town. And then I asked him what his biggest regret was, thinking he would say, of course, been incarcerated unjustly for 27 years by the white, pretorial, racist, diabolical regime. But he didn't.
59:40He said, Pete, my biggest regret I have nowadays is I no longer have enough time to think. And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, when I was on Robben Island cracking rocks, I had a lot of time to think. He said, the person who organizes my diary now that I'm president of the country, I told him this morning to give me one hour a day of thinking time. Because if you don't think, you don't remember where you've come from, understand where you're going or appreciate where you are. so I left that meeting with President Mandela thinking you're one of the coolest people I've ever met and you know what I've learned is I've learned to have time to think I've learned to reflect realize enjoy appreciate consider and it's all about thinking so whenever I can if I get on a plane and I fly somewhere I try not to watch the movie straight away I try to find that quiet time just to to think or most days i go for a nice walk spend at least an hour or so walking with my dog around the common we live out in english countryside i do a lot of thinking there and and thinking is not about selfish things it's just about anything just learning you know understanding appreciating giving there's so much you can do about thinking or the power of thinking is so powerful and we don't we haven't unlocked that power most of us until or you get an age in your life where you've got things to remember, but you also then have time to reflect and also consider where you're going.
1:01:07You mentioned that before when you talked about that period after you exit, how important it was to stop and think. I think so. Don't rush. True. Do you meditate? I do. Not a lot, but I have phases of meditation, mostly because my wife does it every day, and I get encouraged to join in. It's good. It's a very good form of relaxation and unwinding. What keeps you up at night? An excitement about what's ahead and an anticipation of what's coming. I sort of can't sleep because I want to keep going and do the next thing. I don't think there's much that worries me.
1:01:53I think sometimes in the middle of the night when it's dark and it's quiet and things seem bigger than they really are and you just start to unnaturally have concerns. But by the time morning comes and you reflect a little bit, it's not that bad, to be honest. Yeah, sounds very familiar. We have those two. Do you have a sense of purpose? I think, again, it's from a role model. And this person was the president of the board of cricket control in India. His name was Mr. Dalmia. and I went to dinner in Delhi and sat down next to him. I mean, rushed in and sat down. I introduced myself and he told me his name and I asked him what he does and my heart sunk because I realized he was one of the best known celebrities in the whole of India and he was like a household name.
1:02:45And he looked at me and he said, I'm just being. I said, being what? And he said, that's the problem with you foreigners. You're always coming from or going to. Can't you just be? and I suddenly thought yay you're absolutely right I love that that's going to be my purpose I'm just going to be so that that next day when I flew back to London and I was on the red-eyed BA flight that left at one in the morning the gentleman next to me in his pinstripe suit said so what do you do old boy I said I'm just being and he looked at me strange didn't talk to me the whole way back to london but i think that's my sense of purpose is being um i love being and um a big part of my being is giving back and the big part of giving back is in a way that it's sustainable that it's not only sustainable from an environmental point of view but as a business point of view and i'd like whatever we create to be around for a long time and for many many people to benefit so So I think my being is also being bold enough not to have boundaries.
1:03:45So, you know, if you can imagine being in 20 countries, why not imagine being in all 150? So let's not restrict our opportunities by lack of confidence, but at the same time, not to be arrogant at your imagination that you can take over the world. But I think that if you have a purpose of being that you know that you're doing well, you're giving back, you're helping others, you're doing it for the right reasons and you enjoy it and you've got your passion, then there's every reason why you're going to encourage other people to join the journey and be bigger than you and make it more successful without you even.
1:04:25Have you ever felt guilty about your financial success? Yeah, big time. It was very tough when we were in Rwanda and tens of thousands of people were dying in front of us and we were invoicing six, ten million dollars a week to the European Broadcasting Union. And I was 35 years old and the company myself. I had no debt and I had millions of dollars coming into the company, which I earned 100 percent. and I didn't know how to justify that. I felt it was at somebody else's disadvantage that I was gaining accumulating wealth. And it was hard. It was only later on when I thought, well, we actually helped more people by being there and bringing in security and water and tents and alerting to the world the problem that actually I shouldn't feel guilty because our success helped more people than my personal guilt.
1:05:24but it was a tough time because I wasn't the only person doing it there were other people who were working for me who were staff who weren't achieving the same kind of financial success and so when I sold the company I made very sure that everybody who joined me on the journey did well they all had their houses paid off or they got decent bonuses or even though they were entitled to to a share of the profits I dispersed most probably 20 percent of what I got back into the staff and to people who had joined the journey but taken no risk and helped me get where we went so that was my way of reducing the feeling of guilt.
1:06:05Have you ever regretted selling your business? Once or twice I mean it's now doing even better than when I had it which is a good sign I guess you should always sell a business when there's still some gas in the tank and yeah I think moving to Africa I went backwards a little bit in terms of business financial success because because we were now in a third world part of the world and there wasn't the same opportunities. But it's not about financial accumulation. It's about experience and adventure, which I think I gained more from. So sometimes I think, well, if I just not sold and carried on, it would be much bigger and there would be a different me.
1:06:47But I don't regret it. I have no regrets. What gives you the most joy? Friends. Okay. Yeah, I love spending time with friends. I love travel. I love adventure. I like sunshine, good weather. Yeah, spending time with family and friends. My family is very important. And having fun, you know, jumping out from behind a cupboard and going, boo. Seeing somebody get a price, it's like, that makes me laugh. So, yeah, I think not taking life too seriously and just having fun, really. How do you want to be remembered? I think somebody who always had a smile, who had fun, who is an adventurer. I think my wife's put it quite well.
1:07:33She said, on your tombstone, I'm going to write down, you know, he's rested at last. He's rested at last. I don't rest. I have so much energy and so much fun and so many things to do that I'm not quite ready to just chill out and do nothing yet. If you look back at your life, what do you think gave you the most sense of fulfillment? I think witnessing history unfolding in front of me on a daily basis and broadcasting it. Being able to have a front seat of some of the most extraordinary events, whether it's the Berlin Wall coming down or the handing back of Hong Kong to China or being on the Queen Mary with Her Majesty the Queen.
1:08:19Those kind of pinch me moments on Air Force One or traveling around with Clinton, meeting the rebel leaders of Somalia. Those incredible events where you just think, well, wow, how come I've been lucky enough to be doing this with these extraordinary people? So I think that was one of the moments where I realized that actually if you're unrestricted in your expectation of who you can be and where you can go, you reduce those boundaries or those feelings of doubt and you just open up opportunities. So if you can dream it, you can do it. I know it's an American thing, but it really does work. If you can imagine anything you want to do and be, you can do it if you're just passionate enough about it.
1:09:04Pete, thank you so much. This was so beautiful, so inspiring. Thank you. I really enjoyed it. It's a pleasure. Thank you for being here. And I think if I have one thing left for our audience to mention, that would really be take life by the horns and live it to the fullest because it's not a dress rehearsal. Just go for it. consider your family your friends and the reason you're doing it but most of all just enjoy it it's it's a huge adventure it's great fun and there's so many things that you can do that other people haven't even invented yet so use your creative entrepreneurial flair and just imagine it and just go and do it because the world's a great place and you as a leader have the opportunity to have an impact make a difference and help a lot of other people through the way you lead your life and your example that you give your kids and your family.
1:10:01Thank you.
From the publisher
Join me for a riveting interview with the legendary Pete Henderson, an exited founder whose life could be a blockbuster biopic. In this episode, the former war journalist turned serial entrepreneur shares his mind-blowing adventures, including building businesses in African war zones, surviving a lion's attack, spending a decade living in Kenya after his exit, writing a bestselling book, and his current mission to combat global hunger.
Timestamps:
00:00:02: Dramatic introduction
00:00:31: Introduction to Exit Paradox Podcast
00:00:49: Guest Introduction: Pete Henderson
00:01:13: Pete's Mission to End World Hunger
00:01:28: Pete’s Experience as a War Cameraman
00:05:31: Impact of Technology and Media
00:05:56: Development of Nutritious Food Bar
00:09:03: Pete’s Early Life
00:10:49: Lion Attack Incident
00:14:23: Selling First Business and Attending Harvard
00:15:53: Pete’s First Business as a DJ
00:16:36: Transition Into Television Business
00:18:13: Building a media company
00:19:09: Growing and selling the business
00:19:47: Life after selling the company
00:23:27: Starting a new business
00:28:15: Venture in Telecommunication
00:32:06: Introducing Site: Sustainable Impact Trading Ecosystem
00:33:56: Future plans for 'food' venture
00:39:06: Building a microalgae farm in Zimbabwe
00:43:13: Reflecting on life and personal values
00:43:46: Discussing parenting based on personal experiences
00:45:54: Experience living in Africa and the children's outlook on life
00:46:55: The children's transition to British boarding schools
00:46:26: The role of money and wealth management
00:52:29: Sharing an intensifying experience in South Africa during apartheid
00:55:56: Meeting Sister Barnard and learning a valuable life lesson
00:56:40: The decision to write a book for his children
00:58:25: Defining success
00:58:44: Introduction to Pete, "the food chap"
00:59:37: Discussing role models
01:01:16: Emphasizing the power of thinking
01:02:06: What keeps Pete awake at night
01:04:55: Feelings of guilt about financial success
01:06:35: Regrets on selling a business
01:07:20: Discussing joys in life
01:07:51: How Pete wants to be remembered
01:08:23: Finding fulfillment through witnessing history
01:09:39: Final advice for listeners




