AJ Pritchard | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:28I see you. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. AJ welcome thank you you got a nice setup in there yeah you like it yeah I do like it actually I was looking at the lights I think I need to upgrade some things well you do you do so much stuff production-wise you've been in the brightest lights yeah Frickty must be fierce so them lights are bright and hot but it keeps you on your toes and it keeps you awake that's for sure big time big time I must be intentional we'll come to that but who is AJ Pritchard it's such a vague overall question and I've kind of been thinking about it's funny you say that it's like I've kind of been throughout my career AJ Pritchard most people know me as a professional dancer on Strictly Come Dancing but as the years have kind of prevailed I've pretty much done every single tv show in the UK which is mad when I think of it the only one that people keep telling me I need to do is Traitors which I've still never watched which people even more super popular right now I know I need to watch it as a thing but at the same time like for me it's always been about business I love growing businesses and really kind of seeing them kind of evolve proper entrepreneur in you yeah because like as a dancer on strictly as a celebrity i'm the professional i get to teach somebody you get to see somebody actually see that journey from beginning where that literally happiness of like forward side close and you can it's like they've conquered the world it's like they've literally made the best thing ever and for me it's about how can i do that same journey but in a business mentality and really help people there's a competitiveness to you there has to be to have the success you've had not just in the whole of your career but actually as a dancer but you brought up how it felt to nurture and help your dance partner in that snow that's that's mentoring that's giving back that's leadership i think for me it's always about like if you can put yourself in their shoes how would you want that experience to go and for me it's always about like i got asked this question um the other week and it was like why did you do different tv shows or why did you stop strictly at that point in your life?

2:52Well, actually, for me, it was about I want to learn. I want to grow as a person. I want to understand who I actually am. I want to focus on other opportunities that there's only so much time in the day. And you kind of really have to be like, okay, what can I physically get done and mentally get done? And actually, how am I going to achieve that? And it's about learning and understanding who you are. Because I did strictly as the youngest professional ever. I think it was the age, I was like 19 going on 20. And how old are you now? I'm now 30. Time flies. That's a impact a lot in. Yeah, quite a bit when I think about it.

3:26But at the same time, like I came off the back of representing the world, being number one in the world, a Boreman Latin, and then going straight into TV, like literally the day after. And I never changed that competitive mentality. And I will never change that for the whole of my life because I feel like that's what allows you to kind of achieve things. People are always like, well, are you happy because you stopped strictly or because you did other stuff? And I'm like, as long as I'm putting my time and energy into a project or a sport or whatever it is, I'm happy because then I'm focused on something.

3:57That's interesting because you had a goal when you were, the hours you must have put in to become the best dancer. Obscene hours. And there's a goal there, right? So, and I've listened and sort of watched a few things about you and, you know, that visualization element as well fascinates me. So you were closing your eyes and you were imagining yourself. So it's not just the physical training. You literally manifested it with mental kind of stimulation as well. To then be in a position where you're sort of in a position where not on Strictly, but doing other things that don't necessarily have a goal, don't have the competitive element to it.

4:34So you bring that. I feel like you're sort of almost your own boss with that, where you give yourself accountability, which is probably why you enjoy business so much. You know, I know we're sort of mid-afternoon on a weekday filming now. I asked you what you've been doing for the day and it's been meetings. And you filmed your day. Yeah. But that's interesting because there are certain people that a certain amount of what they do is enough for them. It feels like your schedule, your days are super busy, filled with quite multifaceted things. It comes down to the simple fact. And I think it's kind of, I try not to overcomplicate things, whether it be life, business, politics, whatever it is.

5:09Just make it simple. and the simpler you make something the easier it is to achieve it but at the same time the one thing that I feel quite blessed in the aspects of will take myself and my brother we are siblings we've been brought up identical in every single manner I am somebody who can self-motivate myself I can literally sit at home on my own I don't need somebody on my back I don't need I can set a task whether it be today or tomorrow a short term long term I love that I can self-motivate myself my brother has to have somebody like okay we're going to be here we're going to do this we're going to do a little checkup on you this week just to check that you haven't done something you shouldn't do or you have to achieve that goal and i think like that's the kind of the secret to it because therefore you feel like you get the maximum out of your days your hours and when it comes down to most things i find if you are trying to achieve a goal and i love to visualize it even in a business mind like we break it down to quarters we break it down to socials whatever it may be if you're trying to go into this meeting we're talking today there's probably going to be a synergy of another business or somebody that can help somebody else that within our networks i can never close them doors down sometimes i maybe need to close one two of them doors but at the same time that's what's allowed me to get all my opportunities i have today it's never been like a singular line there's always parallel lines you always spin all them plates it's like well this plate's going to take 10 years to really mature this one can be an instantaneous like i'm going to sell something today or i'm going to sell myself i find that that's what people kind of hate to do but i love that oh i can relate to that massively and actually that multiple income stream which is what you're talking about and and but you know the 10 year slow burner but if it comes off yeah amazing whereas the short term this puts the sort of food on the table if you like it's probably a pretty smart way to be well for me as a dancer So I've always trained myself from, I started dancing really late.

7:01I was 11, 12. My competitors were three, four when they started. When did inspiration come to start dancing? It's so random. It's like, I want to go on TV. I was like, 11 years old. I was like, oh, I want to go on TV now. Do you remember why? Do you remember something that you saw on TV? I just want to go on TV. I didn't even care how I'd get there. And there was an opportunity. My dad is a dancer. And within the dance school, they said, we need some young kids to do baby ballroom. There's a pilot show, never made air, thank God. It's hidden in the basement of the BBC somewhere, never to be seen, thankfully.

7:36Well, I said, well, I'll learn how to dance then. How hard can it be? Did awful, absolutely crying my eyes out. But the next day, I think mum and dad were hoping that after all them tears, like, I'm not going to do this as a career. And I went, I love it. Let's go for it. But the thing is for me, if I'm going to do it, I said, well, I want to be number one in the world. And I was like, well, what do I need to do? well we're just going to train we're going to do it i'm going to keep going like that path is a 10 year path like for me the slow steady wins competitions every single weekend training every single day them small wins people only see like oh you've won but all them small wins for me that were the most important things whether it be as i said forward side close it's easy for somebody to visualize that and then we go on to the next one and it snowballs and it keeps going interesting because that's, so that's age 11 years old.

8:23Yeah, yeah. You think about how many distractions from that age creeping into teenage years. Yeah, yeah. Drinking, drugs, all sorts of stuff. But I guess the discipline that you brought to yourself, let alone the fact that you had that visualization to be the number one in the world, kept you clear of all those things. Am I right in saying that? I think also it's the mentality of like, well, I feel like them sacrifices, which people would class as big things, the party sleeping over here doing this like let's have a month's holiday if we can do it like for me well what's the point i can do that in the future when i've achieved my goal very mature way of looking it's always long term in my head yeah i mean it doesn't feel like i'm sitting with someone who's 30 and that is a huge compliment to you because that mental kind of mindset that sort of bred a behavior, if you like, and habits from such a young age, it's really, really kind of key attributes for business.

9:21You know, the discipline to get yourself up, get yourself going. I mean, you know, I met Curtis, to be fair, I met him at Ideas Fest. He was in a good environment, right? But, you know, some people need that. They need someone to push them, tell them where to be. It feels like you literally, you know, you might feel you're spinning a lot of plates, but you're choosing to. and it feels also like you know when to drop them yeah and when to focus on so I just want to cover that so it's really cool so you want to be on tv you then become number one in the world yeah how did you make strictly happen the opportunity to dance and travel to that at the highest level we had outside sponsorship fundamentally she paid for dance lessons and for me to travel to America and compete and have lessons that when you think when I say the numbers it's painful like we used to pay, I think for 40 minutes, like 200 pound back then, 10 years ago, like a teenager.

10:13And they would be like, well, you need to book 10 hours with us, don't you? Like to make sure it's beneficial. Then you need to come to LA or you need to come. It was like numbers were a lot of money. So we couldn't afford to do that the way we wanted to get someone in the world. Thankfully, a sponsor allowed us to do that. Unfortunately, she passed away. she passed away um and it was it was a shock passing it was literally like speaking to her one week next week get an answering machine what's wrong pa has literally said she's unfortunately passed away and uh the lady trey's occur who um allowed us to get to that point i think she would have wanted me to take the opportunity of strictly and i said no to it three times and they said no we really want you and i went well i'm 20 years old why not if i if i love it i can keep doing it why did you say no?

11:01Because you wanted to be on TV. And that's like, what were you imagining? At that point, I was like, I'd done the little thing. I'd got to number one and I wanted to keep going. I was like, this is my life. This is like my route's here. TV is over here. Like, these are not even in this, at this point, in this competitive mentality. Like, when somebody's so competitive and so driven, like, it's very hard to remove the blinkers and be like, there is a bigger world out there you can maybe focus on it i think that was the reason why i chose to do strictly really open up my eyes and thankfully i did i loved it i got to meet fantastic you could tell you loved it i still love it right now and the irony is somebody said this to me the other day it's like i'm 30 now the new pros coming in to do the show like 35 36 it's like you know what my next question is would you i would you know what i've never i've never really said that in the same mentality um i i would go back i would i love it like for me why would you not you love why would i not like so you're still popular exactly and i think it's really important like people think you make decisions for people kind of get in their heads more so than the person's heads why have you made a decision is it because of money or is it because of sometimes at that age i think i just wanted to grow like i've done challenge yourself yeah and i i've i could you to yourself and i use the word comfortable you see it seems like you seek new challenges i'm a stickler for putting myself you know when there's an easy road and you're like why didn't i just take the easier road like because you were proper you know yeah i i i remember watching it and and my two daughters who are now teenagers you were obviously a favorite and uh i just probably mentally thought you'd be doing this forever but actually fair play to you knowing you now, having this conversation, seeking that challenge, and actually that whole, there's an expression, the comfort zone is where dreams go to die.

12:53You can become stale. There's a resilience to you where you are doing lots of different things that actually keeps you very relevant, very current, very stimulated. Whereas if you just focus on one thing and it pays well, there's glorification through fame and so on, dopamine hit, actually may not be the best thing for you i think kind of it's it's funny you nobody's ever put it in that way and i really like the way that you've kind of positioned that in that aspect and i think you understand it because the the again the the longevity of creating a business or something that can be worth something whether that be financially or spiritually whatever it is for you because people are on different journeys in this world like that long hard it's gonna be harder to reach is so much worth it more worth it even when you get there but at the same time when somebody says that i'm like yeah of course i can go back yeah i love it i'm still dancing i still dance every week to us do fitness still keep fit i still look pretty young people are like what you're like 30 like you look like go get stopped at the door every time i go for dinner at estelle manor like it's crazy take it i've just turned 48 you're not getting you're looking good what are you about sympathy for me No, you look good.

14:03No, take it. And you look good from the twinkle in your eye as well, because you are clearly fulfilled. You're clearly getting a challenge out of what you're doing. And I think one of the things I admire, and we're talking briefly off camera, is you are looking at, you've looked at what you enjoy, things you enjoy doing, and then you try to build businesses around it. So supercars, driving. I saw you, you didn't see me, but I saw you at CarFest. new helmet on and you were flying up yeah in some fast car and that's exciting i want to know how how that how you made that happen because now listening to how you got into dancing strictly was there a connection with chris evans you know what made that happen and then how exciting is it for next year yeah when it comes down to cars like i'm just a petrol head i just i just love cars i love everything about it like the feeling the roar the like the excitement and And in the future, I would love a massive car collection.

14:57Thankfully, I'm quite in a fortunate position that lots of my friends have very nice cars. Use theirs instead of having a... Yeah, great position to be in. A hundred percent. And CarFest itself, the opportunity was fantastic, family festival aimed at charities, children's charities to really help so many people globally. So much more than the name suggests, right? I asked, why do you call it CarFest? Because it's not just cars. They said, well, cars, we get the dance there. Then the families realized it's actually a family festival. I'm like, oh, actually quite smart when you think of it like that.

15:29Yeah. But no, we got the opportunity to kind of be the roving reporters and fill in for Chris Evans on the main stage, myself and Kurtz, when we... It's just a great festival. Everybody is there. Great vibe. It's so happy, so positive. They're for the right reasons. Zero hassle. And actually, once that whole festival, you've kind of got 35, 40 ,000 people each day there. Once they've removed the whole festival, The land is cleaner than it was before. This does not exist when you see like Reading, Leeds, Glastonbury. Trash. They're left like absolute holes. It's obscene. But there you can tell that people really are going for the right reasons.

16:10And it's not very often you see that. No. And that's why... I like knowing that. Sustainable. Very much so. And they are honestly on the backside of everything that's done behind the scenes. It's very sustainable and it's done for the right reasons. but now the fantastic news as you said is that it's going from Lavstock Park Farm was a fantastic place but now they are I'm going to say it leveling up even more so to Silverstone for 2026 yeah it's going to be amazing well I mean you're going to be able to jump in some pretty cool kit and let loose because I mean I saw the loop at this year's car fest yeah it was small right the loop is restricting but then again you can't get too fast you can't destroy too many hay bales some people do um but yeah at silverstone it'll be very good to get super high level cars people and i think historically like you kind of just you get that essence in your heart like even for us like it's car fest it's fundamentally seven festivals within one and even for our brand um fin to invest like we are going to expand what we do there so we're on the education for financial literacy literacy and education like we want to expand span what we're doing because it's like our brand silverstone car fest it just elevates everybody nice meshing together there of different kind of mission-led things that you enjoy which goes back to that twinkling you are you know you're you're pursuing things that give you purpose and and you enjoy which is for me an inspiration i think it's value as well like people kind of say like there's so many easy options of like here's a product sell it you personally do well and other people maybe don't do so well and i think that mentality in this short quick social media world right now is being kind of not idolized maybe but it's definitely being glorified in a way that I it's quite upsetting and I think like when you have the opportunity to have a platform this is the one thing that myself and my brother and especially our mum's always said if you have a platform you have the responsibility to help people or at least be a role model on that side so one thing we've always made sure is like if we're going to do something it has to bring value to everybody well what's the point in doing it i play to you that's because that's managing ego there's a real responsibility to that and you know again as a dad to two daughters who have grown up around social media you know um no no different whereas yeah probably it was always there for you but it's elevated and amplified yeah and for me i grew up route it to then looking in i would call you a role model and i i already thought that before we sat down together right now like you are someone i will go and talk to other people about for you know if i could have been like you at 30 with the mindset the way you think and the way you behave and the way you put out what you do using that sort of reference to social media where the wrong role models for some reason seem to come so we talked about supercars right yeah we both love cars but there's people that use that with the sort of memo of success yeah to then get all the wrong messages across which you wouldn't do you know and you're not doing and i just wondered if you see yourself as a role model and if you know that sort of almost crisis that we clearly have the lost boys report that the center for social justice put together highlighting this crisis of identity and particularly young lads yeah and then gravitating the wrong ones do you do you feel that in a good way, a pressure that you are someone in the public eye who is achieving and has achieved a lot as a role model.

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20:21Like access to the trade desk, our team of passionate traders ready to tackle anything from the most complex trading questions to a simple strategy gut check. Need assistance? No problem. Get 24-7 professional answers and live help and access support by phone email and in-platform chat that's how schwab is here for you to help you trade brilliantly learn more at schwab.com trading i don't think i'd say maybe the role model is very kind of you to say that thank you i mean it but i think one thing that for me is kind of being like well it's it's really easy to fall into the bad scenarios of life and i think it's even more so easy now that like the temptation is literally in your phone 24 7 you can't get away from it but i think if you can work hard and spread love and happiness and i think that's really important especially in the world right now when it feels so negative and one of the other companies i do a lot of work with and i've used their app forever it's called we are eight and that app is is fundamentally it's fundamentally fighting back against the one thing that you kind of were hinting towards or didn't actually say is that all we are to mark zuckerberg it's 400 450 dollars all he wants is retention and the retention unfortunately comes through negative news articles and stories negativity is always going to get more clicks unfortunately it's just our kind of it's the way we're being programmed and if you really look into the real detail on a business side not to get too deep like blackrock larry think like their actual model is how do you program a country a generation to get from a to b to best suit their interests negativity achieves that very quickly really insightful and i think that's kind of a scary world and i think when it comes down to governments in each area if you look at each territory certain governments ban apps like TikTok and that's because of the mental health crisis like if you allow people to have an app like we are eight which you each uses verified zero bots comments videos are processed through AI they can register 250 million videos a day and remove any negativity and if there was a negative comment removed and if somebody is to put something on there which is goes against the guidelines they can report that person to the police because they've got your information you're a verified user there's boundaries there's boundaries and they're doing it for the right reason and i think there are really strong powerful good people out there putting their own time money and capital like into these projects i think it's this is the time now for them to do very well in this world because there is just it's a scary world out there it is a scary world and again this maturity you've got at 30 to one explain that but also to have your own journey of being very sort of publicly known for certainly a decade.

23:19And in that time, you have had your own social media. You will have had people that have applauded you and been positive. And there will be people that have tried to bring you down. And bringing up, like you said, mental health. How have you managed that? How have you, because there's, again, such a strength to you. But any one time you read stuff, you hear stuff. How have you kind of stayed above anything that you've read and seen as a criticism, regardless of how it's been intended, and sort of kept that mental health side of you in action. I feel like you're going to laugh at this, I feel like.

23:55After everything that I say that's quite business and high level, when it comes down to social media, I don't read comments. I just don't. Is that your way of protecting yourself? It's my way of protecting myself. I feel like if I read it, as we all know, you have thousands of comments, you're always going to remember the negative ones and the ones that hurt are the ones you can remember. So, I just don't read it. That's my... That's my protection. And then when it comes down to news articles, it sounds even more vain. It's not meant to be in a vain manner. I just say, oh, is it a nice photo? Did they use a good photo from a good press article or something?

24:29Which undermines your intelligence, actually. I get it. I get what you're... It's like, okay, nice photo. What was the headline? Okay. Don't need to... Don't need to... Don't need to... anything else my my life's going good my things are good i know my position i know my close family but at the same time i should highlight when i first did strictly close family and i mean close close family we're like is this true i've just read this to the i'm like none of it is rewind if there's something just pick up the phone speak to me like you don't take it as gospel right so that's the social media element to it at any one time a lot of people would be able to call out a very successful career to date but along the way you're going to have knocks you're going to have things that haven't gone right so so just that side of you how how you deal with the things that haven't gone right the failures i think it comes down to something a big learning curve for me personally as you can probably tell like i try and do everything myself it's very self-sufficient it's impossible for that to work in the long term especially when you grow in a company a team um a support system around you you you can't do it yourself it's you you go to failure and you burn out and i think through some things that have happened in my life when accidents have happened and i've been in a situation where i've been like no i'm not going to speak to a psychiatrist or i'm not gonna accept help i've tried to do that until the point where like you just break to the point of like having to go to hospital to being like i don't know what's wrong with me i can't see i've got a migraine but it doesn't feel like a migraine to the point they like i think we need to do a lumbar puncture to the point of being like actually i just need to speak to somebody and i think that you recognize that that's that yeah that's the bit i'm picking up there's an intelligence there because some people they that confusion overwhelms them it breaks them and it creates other mental health challenges at that point you recognized it and embraced it yeah and i think like my protection side i did speak to someone it honestly it it changed my um perspective and it really did help me and in the same way for as a kind of you you learn a coping mechanism or something that's going to help you whatever that is for you if it's um like i unfortunately was a fire sort of thing an accent and like so whenever i saw fire like i couldn't deal with it didn't know how to deal with it um there's like flashback sort of mentality is the easiest way to explain it but then it's like how do you find something that works for you on that side but then at the same time i know that i've got that lady's number in my phone that if i ever feel like it gets that point again but as soon as i think about her phone number there i've instantly thought about the positives that we did and when we spoke about it and that's easily like calm me back down you may It's just knowing that it's there.

27:20And I think that's one thing that's really important is knowing that help is there, whether it be your close family or somebody you spoke to in the past or whatever it may be. It's just knowing that the mechanism is there, is all the safety net that most people will need. And then if you fall through that, then you obviously need to take that phone call, book it in. Of course, of course. But there's real strength in the fact that what you're saying is it's going through the journey of having gone to seek help, gone gone to then get the help yeah and then knowing the next time you might need to actually may not need to go as far because you built that habit and then you get 100 vibes sitting here now what is your definition of success as a very ocd uh dyslexic person like achieving that small goal forward side close i've succeeded in that one but i have multiple levels of success that i want to do and grow companies and do other things so every success that i've done i'm happy but but i haven't reached that ultimate like this is what i want but i'm the sort of person i'll never reach that i love that so really there's a whole enjoyment and appreciation of the journey and that sort of you know using your analogy whereby that that makes you feel good gives you fulfillment but there's also a very driven ambitious aj so you've got these business interests you know use that analogy where you've got the 10 year the short that is there there's that's an empire so that that's a bit too overarching is there something that you would really like to achieve i think my biggest success is just being happy i've got a fiance we're about to plan a wedding and i think like for me in that side congratulations oh thank you it's like i maybe never thought that i'd be that happy in a weird way because i've always like achieved got to get the next thing like that is my like i can decompress i can relax i can be stupid and goofy and whatever the hell and like i think that's really important when everything can be quite serious it's good just to be able to have that person that you can just be yourself around and that is probably one of my biggest successes it sounds like a business term but you know what i mean like i do it's just like it's people you see people and i see people that are very fortunate and and have everything in the world and i mean everything but they just don't seem that happy I think you've articulated that beautifully because there's a there's a contentment with you without it being um an ego uh an arrogance and where there are some people that clearly from the outside could look like they've got all sorts of financial trappings and yeah there's a hollowness um you're a pleasure to talk to AJ I'm excited for where you're going as well and I'm I'm curious to see whether you ever go back to strictly as well because it's it's it's sort of entwined in your your dna and you know yeah you sort of smile when you think so we'll see but i could talk to you we've run out of time but i hope you've enjoyed talking with me do strictly that's the question i'm a terrible dancer that's why you're going to have a great journey oh i see i know chris robshaw and i've been watching you know the last few weeks and what's your opinion should he have gone out or should he stay um do you know i'm gonna have to admit this i've watched everyone except the one he went out ah so i've only read and seen and messaged him and but but what i picked up on was a guy that was in my opinion someone that put himself right out of his comfort zone oh proper so that's like i can identify with that so fair play to him you could see he started to really enjoy it and i felt like he had loads of people behind him yeah amazing dance partner so i was like actually i i missed that one without any thought that he'd be the one that would go out he looked so happy that's the point he was he was loving him and when his kids were in the studio on the VT like that happiness I was I voted for him him and Nadia they're great and they in my opinion shouldn't have gone out like they should have stayed in I share that obviously but I yeah I was like at the team not in week four usually I was like at the TV I was like what and I thought like he was building he was flourishing yeah yeah his his nerves were dropping so hey but the quality of his his lifts I know he's strong and sometimes people look strong but they can't actually do it like the quality of them lifts stability wise and and naddy is a tall girl i know he's a strong guy but exceptional you'd be an amazing judge on strictly you would because you you you've got that um history of actual dance being number one being on and you've got this lovely maturity and perspective i will cut that i'll take that 100 yeah you heard it here aj thank you honestly no thank you very much loved it have no fear chosen foods is here to defend your favorite foods from the forces of seedy oils and sketchy ingredients.

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