Alex Packham | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:07Alex. Hello. Thank you for joining me. Yeah, not cool. Looking forward to it. Both have been looking forward to this. Yeah. Quite a while now. It has been quite a while. Yeah, yeah. Nine months later, probably, give or take. Yeah. It's nice because we've got to know each other quite well to then have a potentially different conversation to have we done it four or five months later. Definitely. Yeah. Take me back to a young Alex, the kind of early who and what influences that affected your career decisions. I was very lucky when I was younger, surrounded by family being granddad, dad, a lot of aunts, uncles, et cetera, where I was always surrounded by people who were sort of highly professionally motivated, had really good core morals and kind of family unit was very big to me.

0:49And I was so lucky, I guess, in that group of us where our family was quite big, actually, in total. There's now about 30 of us in my sort of extended family. So it's a good social group. But everyone's sort of always been balanced on kind of enjoy life, but also work very hard and strive for whether it's success or momentum in your career so i was lucky that really i mean from being born realistically but from what i can remember five six upwards 10 15 into my teenage years i was always surrounded by great moral sort of uh a great moral foundation and a big professional focus not a resource of knowledge there as well right all those people especially because i know you're naturally curious you'd have been asking questions they'd have been willingly giving you knowledge right a lot of it's a really good observation I think when I was sort of became more conscious more of sort of 16 onwards I became very very curious about the world of business it was just my interest right I was never interested overly in like sport and really any other subject massively suddenly as soon as I sort of understood the dynamics of business I became just like instantly sort of attracted to the concept of it I think as well like a lot of entrepreneurs don't necessarily talk about this as openly but I'm very like financially motivated I think as soon as I equated like financial success and security and things like that together i became very um just observant if you like of like working hard making a sort of financial success of yourself can empower so many aspects of your life and i really think about that a lot now whether i'm investing or like working in different businesses with founders and things like that like don't necessarily i don't think people should be ashamed of that and and talk about it more openly because it's a big part of building a company right so totally you could argue if you're not financially motivated you've got to have a seriously strong why as to why else you're doing it and there are reasons for that right it could be trying to save the planet from a from climate destruction or whatever but then you've still got to ultimately to be successful ultimately you've got to focus on making some money out of it that's the thing after yourself totally i think you know that's one string you know financial success whether that's in business or personally to you know your life and your entrepreneurial journey uh you have to have wider motivations there's plenty of studies that back that up like what do you want to work on what are you passionate about what motivates you from sort of an engagement perspective and i've been very lucky again i from a relatively young age was always able to pinpoint the subject matter i wanted to work in and the fascination i had around it so i was jealous of that i took a long time to find that yeah reverse engineered it yeah well there's no right way to do it right i think again i reflect on it i think i as a as a sort of teenager into my 20s i thought about it a lot like you said i'm a very you know me i'm a very curious person And so it was always something at the fore of my mind.

3:29You've also got a real priority on self-development. That drew me to you. I must remember when we were introduced and then you've got your own website and you go on there. And I was like, this guy wants to be the best version of himself. So do I. It's probably a why behind this whole Extra Life Stories, right? Definitely. To learn from the experiences. So you had that early kind of family group of 60 plus people that you could learn from. But ultimately, you didn't start learning yourself. So you mentioned that sort of age 16 and go into business. You must have started learning some lessons, you know, brutally, if you like, at that point.

4:00Talk to me about that journey. I think, yeah. I mean, I think for me that started at university. I think when you go into that environment, it's a bit like, I just used to think, funnily enough, weirdly, it's a bit like Big Brother, that TV program. It's not like that, but you get thrown into this abnormal living environment suddenly, like a different city from what you've grown up in. People from all walks of life. you're on your own kind of thing and you're having to find your way through different dynamics that you've potentially ever been through you're still maturing as a person and so they get the life aspect of that where there's lots of learnings if you go if you've gone to university you'll know that experience and then I obviously was very lucky again to dovetail that with some business experience along the way and I think to your point like a big focus of my individual mindset has been around how do you how do you operate at your best and that doesn't mean just professionally Like, how can you put yourself in the best light physically, mentally, professionally, family?

4:51I've always been a very deep thinker. And that has always carried me through, like, pursuing those things as almost things to, like, constantly work on. And go hand in hand as well, right? If you're looking after yourself physically, that's looking after you, right? And you're better in business, right? Totally. Yeah. It took me a while to learn that, actually. So weirdly, although I'm much better at it now and I've always had a very self-driven and like you say, sort of self-analytical perspective on myself about how to get better and improve. I did all the usual things through your 20s where if you're running a business, you're in your 20s, you're partying hard, you know, going out drinking, you know, you still mask things with the sort of normal aspects of life that come up.

5:30So I was highly indexed on the high performer at work, you know, get a lot done, achieve a lot. But I, for a period of time, it took me a little while to understand more about the wellness, the mindfulness side, the looking after yourself side, which I think I've spent a lot more time on in the last four or five years. So I've definitely not perfected it, if you know what I mean. No, but you've had the time to in the last few years, whereas, and this is the bit I was getting to, you know, you immerse yourself into business early. Yeah. And then you were consumed by it. And what I really, really love about your story, if you like, is from an entrepreneur point of view, you've come up with an idea.

6:03You've then implemented it. You've then raised the money for that opportunity. You've scaled the business. You've brought the staff in. You've gone through the whole journey. And fast forwarding, you've exited. Yeah. Which, you know, for the age you're at, which I think, are you 34? 34, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so it gives you huge perspective. and actually although you probably haven't felt like it at times the perspective you've got is you've got a lot of time left you know you don't necessarily think like that i know what you mean a lot of people might get to that point in their 60s and then there's things they can't do they wish they could have done you've actually you've actually you know then if you've ever thought about that you're in a point in life where there's still so much you can go at and the opportunity but you can reflect as well because you find it because you wouldn't have had any time in the moment right you might have just been a thousand mile an hour i think yeah it's a really you like I observed that very well.

6:49I was so in it for about eight years and before a little bit as well. It's the typical sort of 10-year overnight success thing where I reflect on it. I look back on that phase and I was in it. I mean, work and, you know, all the things attached to it did run my life. And I obviously had lots of other things going on. But every thought, really, second thought was like, well, I've still got to do that tomorrow. I've got a plan for this. But that's what would have made the business successful, right? Which ultimately it was. you know we'll come to but you exited and you ticked the box of making big money out of it and you navigated it but the I guess if you look at it there's always this talk of balance isn't there you know so did you ultimately sacrifice friendships family at that time to be successful in business relationships yeah definitely so friendships to a certain extent that was actually kind of on my list like as a high priority throughout my whole life really but yeah of course they generally you know you can't always be around for certain things definitely missed out some cool opportunities that people did.

7:45Travel. That was one of the big things I look back on quite a lot personally. I've traveled a lot more in the last three years. In fact, I've traveled more this year than I have in the last 10 years. Because it's a priority now, right? It's a priority because you can. Totally. But yeah, I definitely sacrificed a lot when I look back. But as you say, you don't realize that in the moment. But yeah, I've had three years, like you say, where I've been able to recalibrate, which has been very fortunate in a way to be able to do that you know it's great you've done it though you know there's there's a potential mindset that um actually we can talk about it's almost from an identity point of view so i'm an entrepreneur i'm a businessman this is i'm living and breathing i'm consumed by it then you exit you took a breath yeah you know there's part of me in in my i'm 47 so i've got those years on you i've done things where i've then stopped and gone okay i now need to do this and i haven't come up for that breather so you consciously made that decision yeah it probably sounds like I really consciously made it it was almost forced on me if I'm honest it wasn't like I sat down and said right I'm going to take three years as a breather in in some ways I found it somewhat frustrating at the time but it was sort of semi-forced like you get acquired by a very large corporate just naturally the size of that organization doesn't move anywhere near the size of a 60-ish you know 100 plus person organization so that pace I always reference it to people as like a handbrake being pulled on me you know probably over a period of six months and it really actually for the first six months to a year it really took me time to adjust I was running on adrenaline I was running on uh high cortisol levels stress but actually around me there wasn't you know a fast-paced environment uh there wasn't huge amounts of stress to be totally honest there were some things that were happening but like if you looked at it very objectively you'd say actually Alex this would be the time where like you say you'd naturally recalibrate but it actually took me a year to sort of come down even a bit longer a year and a half to come back down to pace to then do the work that you know me well like i've really recalibrated on health wellness and things like that took me 18 months i'd say to like get into a place where i was like i can actually do this consciously now um and that was a really big adjustment you talk about identity with entrepreneurs you know lost that had to rediscover what that was i can say because you've i want to come to this because anyone listening watching actually we know each other well but i haven't actually asked you what the business was that you started and what it did and And we must do that.

10:03But of course, that's your baby. You create it, you escalate it, and then you effectively detach yourself from it. There's an identity loss, plus the work ethic, the whole thing goes. So let's cover all of that. Let's talk about Content Cow. You created that business. What was the why behind it, the journey? And then we'll come to exiting. Yeah, so the why behind it was, I was again, quite fortunate that, well, I say fortunate, I think lucky in a way, when I look back that at university, I stumbled on social media marketing when it was very niche. I was really intrigued by, this is again, my curiosity at sort of this, when I was like 18, 19, why do I decide what to buy, you know, and what shapes, what bars and restaurants I go to.

10:43And at the time when Facebook was much more sort of prolific as a platform, it was everything I saw on there. All my friends would buy Abercrombie. So I'd buy Abercrombie because it was cool. They'd go to this bar on this evening. It was a great environment. I could see pictures of it. I'd go there. And it just hit me in like my, I can actually picturally remember, I've got a bit of photographic memory. So my laptop was like, this is going to be pretty big for businesses. Like at the time it wasn't, there was no advertising on Facebook or close to zero. There was no real brands, but there was a bit of a mechanism for it.

11:11And I was like, I am making basically all of my life decisions, purchasing where I go and stuff like that based on social media. And then I went into this rabbit hole of social media marketing as a concept when it was literally new and it was very uh maturing if you like or growing in the us but there was no presence of the concept in the uk so i just i just i do this with certain things i just like read like and just like gorged on information and just learn through myself like how this stuff works and then i went to some family members who have some businesses and said i'll run all your social media for you again before it was really a thing literally learning by other yes doing yeah so i spent like three or two years and my last two years of uni just literally dabbling in social media marketing making some decent cash when this was all brand new you know this was a brand new thing and then graduated and got a social media management role at Odeon Cinemas again when this was all new so imagine conceptually being paid to go in and sit on social media for a business was just like not taking that seriously and I was again lucky fortunate whatever you want to call it but like as the rise of social media became so popular personally in the business my career has completely ridden that wave so as priorities got more important social media became more and more prolific and public for businesses I moved from Odeon to Now TV when that was launching to run their social media I decided within that world because that was run by Sky that corporate life just wasn't for me that setting wasn't for me I'm very entrepreneurial as a person so I effectively did over sort of a three-year period of my early career was objectively look at how is social media run for these big businesses how does it run for small businesses set up an agency to help them you know from a consultancy management perspective um run their social media you know after i left sky did that for a couple of years and what i'd learned through all of that and sort of simultaneously and you can tell my brain works at 100 miles an hour thousand miles an hour probably yeah is that um all the spreadsheets we this is really like sort of detail but all the spreadsheets and processes we use were just not fit for purpose i was like how do i create a platform that i would use every day there was the why there was then you by being immersed in that you found the need, you found something you could solve.

13:19Precisely. And it was like, you know, on a, on a practical level, it was like, how do I make social media easier to do? On a more philosophical level, I was like, work is a big part of my life. How do you make your job easier? You know, how do I create a tool or a system? And again, it sounds a bit like, you know, big thinking, but I was like, how do I make something that makes people's day job easier? That was my goal. Brilliant reason to do it. Yeah, I know. And I didn't, you know, I didn't think much more about the time. And then the whole journey obviously unfolded from there. So yeah, built Content Cal over eight years, raised$14 million, 10 million pounds from different investors in the UK, Angel and VC, went through the process of building, like you say, the management team, scaling up the wider team, managed through COVID, which was crazy.

14:02And then in December 2021, sold to Adobe. Yeah. Yeah. And I listened to a podcast actually, even though we know each other and had countless conversations, it was amusing because There was a lot of, I can't say that. And I can't answer that. And that's still in. Whereas you're technically free now, you know, in context. So that must be good. And can we say the number that you exited? You can say it. I can comment a lot. 110 million? Potentially something. There's always been talked of north of 100 million. It's a phenomenal, it's a phenomenal number. And I want to cover that in a slightly different way because of how we know each other.

14:34In context, that's huge success. That is the holy grail. You're an exited founder. And I know you haven't stopped there. you've invested in 60 plus businesses but you technically don't need to work again yeah you've you know you're at this point you're 30 31 31 when we did the deal yeah yeah but you actually i want to i want to go through that that almost that moment that the check cleared and it wasn't that feeling was it it wasn't this whole like it's talk me through that i was actually on a zoom call i can't remember what the meeting was to be honest i was on a zoom call when the check cleared literally and i was obviously checking my bank account being like when is it happening this is the day you're expecting, you know, it's coming in.

15:11Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it is very odd because I mean, literally, again, I've got a pretty photographic memory. So I can literally remember looking down at my phone, looked at my banking app, lots of numbers. And I was just like, like, you know, it means so much. Yeah. At the same time, it's literally numbers on the screen, but it's not that because actually it's, you know, practically more, but it's the, the delineation between I'm looking on my mobile phone and looking at lots of zeros and ones. and actually my day life i lived in my same flat i did the deal with i've lived in london for you know four or five years before that two-bedroom flat in wandsworth i hadn't bought anything extravagant obviously i mean the cash had only just landed but my headspace wasn't like i've got to go and buy this you know i wasn't thinking like that at all it was just like okay that was just i just found it really weird actually i think it's fascinating because there's so many people that dream of winning the lottery and they think that will make them happy yeah and obviously i've got my journey which we've talked about yeah which is financially um ambitious it's always been and and yet there are times uh it's like different to you where money's come in and it's not changing anything it's not and you've i think you've got to go through that journey to understand it but you actually almost had mental health problems for the first time in your life because you've been too busy thousand mile an hour you you can take your foot off the gas a bit and so on and then there's that loss of identity yeah but there's also that um kind of what's your purpose totally what am i doing now so how did you get through that what what did you put in place yeah what basically happened to me was i went through a period and i didn't know it at the time of i would say like light depression and the challenge i faced was for the first time ever to your point having run at a thousand miles an hour plus for most of my adult life actually in reality i would wake i used references to people i'd wake up and sort of look in the mirror as i'm getting ready for the day and be like obviously i've got some stuff to do but i wasn't busy overly busy at work it was uh sort of post covid which you know people are only really just coming out of lockdowns and that really you know challenging two or three years we had and i'd look in the mirror and i'd be a bit like to myself what do i do now what's the point there's a loneliness there as well yeah because you've isolated yourself to achieve this yeah business goal yeah there's so many other things weren't part of your life right and we were working remotely and there was big transitions as content car so we lost a lot of the team in the early stages just for practical reasons and my life had dramatically changed.

17:36Relationships were a bit all over the place at that point in terms of that world and I was just like you said literally waking up going what is the point and I've never asked myself that from the age from I can remember. You never had time to be fair but I get it. It's partly time but genuinely from 16 I've always had a plan as in light and a time and I'm going to do something even for a year for a month for what they're goals aren't they they're set you you hadn't got that well I'd achieve my goal yeah I literally say to people I achieved I I've been a professional sense I've achieved everything I've ever wanted to do I wanted to build a business I wanted to learn the process of that I wanted to surround myself with amazing people I wanted to do deals I wanted to build a tech platform you know I wanted to do all of those things I wanted to sell it to one of the biggest companies in the world And by 31, I'd done it.

18:20And it's, you know, amazing. But then going, like you say, you've got another, hopefully, quite a few years ahead of you. You're not done professionally. You know, you could be. It creates a very complex set of thoughts, basically. Yeah. So when we connected, so we're January 2025 now, we connected sort of the summer of 24. And we've got Jack that links us now. And I could see that whole self-development side of things that was important to you, mental health. And I felt a real connection when we first... You know, I watched your eyes widen. We were both on... It was a Zoom, wasn't it? And then you go, oh, oh, oh.

18:57And I watched... It was like a balloon filling up. I was like, this is exactly what I thought, which is great. Fast forward. You know, we can talk about it now because it's officially... You're officially part of Jack. How much of what Jack's doing and sort of almost was needed in your life as much as what you can then give back with these incredible skill sets that you developed and nurtured yeah i mean you know the story i came into jack at the end of an investment cycle like you said really interested in the platform but sort of disinterested in investing in any more businesses and i was very still unsure you know what i was going to do next at that point because i was sort of coming towards the last six months of my own out with adobe and i think you said it really well you're like just come into the office like just give us an hour or whatever it is and i was like okay fine and then I think we're supposed to be in there for an hour right and I think we spent three hours the memorable meeting yeah yeah and then literally a week after another three hours and I was like one I'll definitely invest two I can I can bring something to the party here I know what phase you're out of the business I know the people challenges you're going to have I know all the things you're going to have to go through and I am really motivated with the problem this business solves I think like I said I think when I went through some form of like what I call like light depression and whatever it was I didn't know it it took me months to figure out what the hell was going on I went to doctors eventually and things like that and sorted it all out but like I don't have a clue in reality what I was going through and Jack has just got this incredible capability through delivering content the right time right place right format all that kind of stuff to help people understand either what they're going through if they don't know or if they are aware give them the tools to learn more about it understand it and realize there's you're not alone to your point you're going through this and everybody in some form of their life will go through something, whatever it might be.

20:45And so I was just so aligned to the mission of that. And having worked in social media for 10 years, I have always understood the dynamic of the massive upside social media offers in terms of connection, business growth, being able to catch up with friends, all of the great stuff that we have social for. Using it as a force for good, right? Because it gets a really bad weapon, rightly so. So addictive algorithms to convict. Actually, if you flip the narrative and you use it as a force for good. This is the thing, right? You use the stuff that's great for it for a force of good, but be acutely aware, to your point, of the addictive nature, of the my Instagram looks amazing, like I'm doing great stuff every day.

21:22It's just not real life. And so I've always been acutely aware through the industry. and there's a book um with the name escapes me um the anxious generation where you can actually correlate depression to when facebook theoretically started there's a whole sort of theory around that um it's not really facebook it's social media kind of grew but facebook was a big one wasn't it yeah the big one that everyone went on and parents at the time put their kids their dogs on and so on and then all realizing the consequences yeah and so i've been like as soon as i found jack i I was like, okay, this is something I can do for another chunk of my life and contribute to the other side of the issues that that industry has created.

21:59So I love it. Yeah, it aligns us, right? It's something we get to spend more time with each other and I'm enjoying it. Just listening to you then, it's amazing when you think about it. For your 34 years, you've got the corporate perspective to now TV and so on, to then the entrepreneur journey. You've raised funds, you've scaled, you've exited, and you have invested in 60 plus businesses. There's a nurturing and mentoring side to you that's clearly there. There's so much experience. You could argue it's a full circle. I can tell even the way you wouldn't even say the number you exited. There's no ego there.

22:32There's no arrogance. Almost slightly awkward of it, which I really like. But in context of when you choose a business, to talk about Jabba, imagine there's a business opportunity that is coming to you or an entrepreneur. What do you look for? What are the key things that you're sort of dialed in on? I look at it as like an ingredients list. it's really interesting i think when i was scaling content cow i reflect a lot on what i learned through that process both from like you said being mentored by people learning from peers and managing people and mentoring people so like you say it is very 360 and i look at businesses in the round like does it have the ingredients at the stage that it's at to potentially go to the moon and i really to be honest only invest in like moonshot style company so my personal uh preference on investing is let's go for it you know if i'm going to invest in this and you want to do it whether i'm involved or not you've got to be going for it like to the top of the tier it's a smart use of your time though right all in all in otherwise there's no point in my perspective yeah so um the ingredients are things like massive space you know massive industry obviously mental health for jack is an unbelievable scale scale has super important global scale uh technology fundamentally in some way shape or form i think that um you can pick your niche right whether it's property, tech, whatever, mine is technology.

23:49It's a space that I know and love. So tech for me is a big thing. Team is critical. And I think that that doesn't mean you have to have everyone in place and all the rest of it, but you've got the right dynamic of the people you've got so far. You've got the culture that you want to learn. You want to grow. You're aware of the gaps that the team has. So the team and the management style and all that kind of thing is super, super important. Founder ambition is naturally very, very important. Do you want to change the hours and go for it in terms of your mission and everything else. That's super important.

24:20Then there's the boring stuff. Have you had funding rounds before? Can you tell your story properly? Are you coachable? What's the funding rounds look like up to now? All the practical stuff. Super important. You have a super bright guy who's not coachable and you're like, I need you to come this way and he or she can't. In all honesty, I'd say that's probably one of the biggest skill sets you have to learn. I think whether it's a founder, to be honest, anyone in any role if you aren't coachable and you can't take on feedback and you can't adapt and people do talk about a lot in business of being able to adapt that is the number one personal trait you need to have to be successful yeah i think they did that really well you know i always ask this and you're sitting here as a successful businessman and entrepreneur what is your definition of success uh if you'd have asked me that when i was 20 right when i uh was thinking about what i wanted it was my answer and it was the concept of freedom and that to me at the time when i was 20 was financial freedom equates to i can therefore do what i want with my time when you want with whom you want yeah and you're doing a lot of that now so i've sort of achieved what that was um however the downside like you say of like the challenge of freedom is uh as i sort of say in sort of two years ago and sort of going through some mental health stuff it presents a lot of extra challenges for you to think about because something like well what do you want to do with your time priorities have changed maturity perspective exactly i get it and so i think my definition of success now actually is it's a bit like it's a i sort of think about it it's almost like self-actualization are you self-aware of what your priorities are do you feel good about yourself with your self-esteem how you manage your life are your relationships friendships family etc in a place where you want them to be have you professionally achieved what you want or on the way to do it uh have you traveled the world as much as you want to you know all of these things i don't think this definition of success uh is linked to freedom to me anymore because actually freedom to me actually presented a huge amount of challenge the concept of it is lovely because like you say everyone goes oh i can do what i want whenever i want it's not about that it's about have you got the tools and the self-inner mindset basically to have the equilibrium to enjoy that freedom that's a very complicated answer the way the words but that's that's really what it comes down to for me no totally i can tell what i like is that that what you're really saying as well is staying curious don't close doors don't shut things down you know despite what you've done you're actually looking for more doors you're actually looking for more opportunity because that's what stimulates you.

27:00You recognize that. There's countless self-development books, which you and I would have read from all sorts of different people that have been successful one way or another or have studied success. And I use that word because a lot of people will want to hear and listen to you about what you do to keep both mentally sharp and physically. So, do you have a morning routine? Do you kind of get up at four in the morning and run a marathon and do the weights and then you like your boxing and stuff? What works for you what's what have you sort of locked on and how do you prioritize it yeah i think firstly it took me literally i'd say take took me 10 years to figure this out so you know again if i was answering the question this is why i think it's really important to say it's transitional you asked me that question when i was 20 it was going out socializing drinking with my mates doing whatever that sort of stuff and actually what i realized over time just naturally as you get older but also as you think about doing activities that are sort of more nurturing to yourself and more actual value additive you know physically to yourself you can't do that for a while and you're actually masking you know where you should be theoretically channeling your energy so for me it took me a long time to figure this out firstly was understanding well what is wellness and mental stability and you know personal like I said sort of insight and understanding around what are those things to me and as I started to triangulate it I started to reflect like where do I feel my most relaxed where do I channel my energy physically when I want to get it out on me what makes me feel good afterwards so i again very analytical as you can tell but like i really looked at the times in my life where i felt the most relaxed the most energized etc so things like uh this is a really funny one well funny but it's just kind of like weird i used to i lived in central london for years about 15 years and i was constantly sort of semi-stressed without realizing right just because your physical environment in the city is always a bit more stressed i used to go to so farmhouse a lot and i was like i feel really relaxed when i go to so farmhouse thinking it was because it was that place but what i actually realized was it was being in in a naturistic environment it was being in the country it was fresh air it was green and as soon as it sounds so stupid as soon as i understood that i was like maybe i should move so things like that like i learned that actually being in nature for me you read about it a lot now moved into surrey which is a much more sort of green environment and um it my stress levels and my thinking capability just from the environment I'm physically in has completely changed.

29:22It's brilliant that you recognised that and acted on it. And I did it. Yeah, exactly. You know, scary movies always is when you're moving from somewhere you've lived for a long time. But that's a big one. So nature is super important. Time is very important. And I don't mean that from sort of the luxury of time. I mean, making time to think. I think that thinking and having time to think properly about work challenges, personal stuff, whatever, super important. Mornings for me are that. I have a coffee, a journal, and I'm thinking. I'm not necessarily doing anything, but I'm thinking about all sorts of different things that come up and making sure there's a good at least half an hour in the day to just think about stuff.

29:58Brilliant. Especially if you can think in nature, if you combine the whole... Especially. Yeah. Physically, for me, I fell in love with boxing. I needed at one point in my life, throughout the three-year earn-out process, a place to channel my physical energy. I went to watch a boxing fight with a trainer who's now my trainer and um I was just like I'm addicted to this love the exercise love the workouts great cardio it's actually very mental as well because you're kind of constantly thinking about what you need to do in sort of the training and everything so it's been phenomenal for me to be honest like it's probably been the biggest thing sort of sport wise I've ever taken up and done and loved so I love it I could do it every day what about that morning routine thing that whole getting up crazy early to win the morning win the day have you have you have you slackened off that is that still important to you it's important i think mornings are important yeah i think you know you read a lot like you say people get before you ever do these crazy things i get up at six o 'clock seven o 'clock i think that time is very precious because whether you're working from home or going into commute you know it's a very clear time of the day uh obviously people have their own circadian rhythms right and again i get back into the science of it i'm a big whoop fan you know if you've slept well whenever you've had a good night so your morning is going to be good if you've slept terribly your morning is going to be rubbish so i i setting yourself up almost in advance which is a big part of your almost like a chess move correct yeah it is like that i i mean that's a good analogy i think that you've got to put all the moving parts together so mornings are important to me but actually sometimes i do wake up and i'm tired as i haven't slept well i work out in the afternoon i don't make a thing out of it i used to think has to be like this whereas actually again through wearables or whatever you can actually understand your body and your mind much better to say okay i've had a great sleep i'll work out at 5 a.m or whatever it is actually i've slept terribly last night why don't i just have a restful morning, do my workout in the evening or something like that.

31:40I've become much more linked with my mind, body, and kind of like energy to operate, you know, do things when they're not right. And you brought tech into it as well, which why not? There's people that are running scared of it. I mean, you can embrace it. Same with your social media. There's so many inspirational kind of ways of looking at things differently in the way you have. I'm conscious of time and I could talk to you. I've got to say this, But I would love to end with a lot of people will be sort of watching, listening and aspirationally like wanting to achieve what you've done and how you're now living.

32:11What advice would you give to someone in today's world? Because it has changed. AI is amongst us. And, you know, so if you were interested in tech, ambitious, financially motivated. Yeah. And you are whether you're reinventing yourself, because I don't want to say a young entrepreneur. Is that eliminate someone that could be like, I'm at a crossroads and I want to. But what advice would you give to someone looking in now? Yeah, twofold. One would be make time to do real self inner reflection. So really understand what are your motivations, personal, professional, do that kind of analysis of your life, et cetera, and really understand that who you are and what you want to do.

32:45I think, again, that takes time, takes energy, but like really get inward on yourself for a period to understand why it is you might wanna pursue X, Y, and Z. On a professional level, I think the best way I can reference for someone to sort of start thinking about what would I do next? I'm going to start a business whatever it might be is scratch your own itch I think the best products and the best services are created from problems you physically experienced and even if that's not what you end up doing it's an easier place to start because I can say I know these five things actually really bug me during my day is there ideas within that is there and you can just start create ideas around it so if you don't necessarily know exactly where to start think about scratching your own itch with the stuff that you face and it will spark so many ideas and the best products in life are genuinely creative when people try to solve their own problems so those are the two sort of thought courses phenomenal advice i enjoy every time i get to spend with you and i get to spend lots of time with you now but this has been a brilliant conversation thank you alex no problems