In short
Episode topic: James Warnock discusses resilience after his father’s death, using social media without chasing dopamine/algorithm metrics, and building a meaningful life through vulnerability, fitness, and entrepreneurship. He also weighs whether social media should be restricted for under-16s and argues university/job systems are broken.
Guest backgrounds
James Warnock is an influencer/entrepreneur (he avoids heavy self-labels), engaged to his fiancée, and shaped by losing his father (quiet stay-at-home dad) when James was about 24; he says his father attended key moments like football games. He previously worked a corporate job in M&A/accounting, then shifted into content and business.
Key claims
Bottling emotions leads to acting out (he cites being arrested a month after his father died). Social media is a low-barrier opportunity but can become addictive via dopamine and external validation. He says he posts once or twice weekly, not multiple times daily.
Notable examples
He describes starting content when he “didn’t care what people thought,” using a “worst case” mindset. He founded/works on SAP, a UK running fuel alternative to energy gels made from grade A Canadian maple syrup and Himalayan salt, marketed around “clean, performance, aesthetic,” and tested via his own running.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroduction to James Warnock
0:00 to 0:22
James discusses his evolution and perspective on social media and authenticity.
“And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds.”
Introduction to James Warnock
1:00 to 2:10
James discusses his evolution and perspective on social media and authenticity.
“I've learned the hard way that not saying stuff or not voicing your concerns means you just, it builds up internally and then you start acting out of character.”
The Changing Landscape of Influencers
2:10 to 4:10
James reflects on the evolution of influencers and their relatability.
“The influencers are generally quite hated, but I do think there's like a new generation of influencers going through who are a bit more, like you said, relatable.”
Engagement and Authenticity in Content Creation
4:10 to 6:40
Discussion on the importance of genuine content and audience engagement.
“and getting all this gifting and stuff like that.”
Social Media's Impact on Youth
6:40 to 8:40
Exploration of the implications of social media on younger generations.
“Yes, because there's a lot of work behind that.”
The Role of Parental Influence
8:40 to 11:40
James shares the significance of his father's role in his life and its impact.
“This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.”
Navigating Modern Masculinity
11:40 to 14:00
Discussion on the challenges faced by young men in today's society.
“take away from everything else in their life.”
Navigating Loss and Influence
14:00 to 18:00
Learn how losing a parent at a young age shaped the speaker's views on role models and vulnerability.
“Cause I feel like 21, you're in a very transitional stage in your life still.”
The Impact of Social Media
18:00 to 23:00
Discuss the challenges and mental health impacts of social media on personal identity and validation.
Building a Passion-Driven Business
23:00 to 28:00
Discover the journey of creating a health-focused business and the importance of aligning it with personal values.
“Like, I have always been quite happy to fail.”
Show all 14 chapters
Advice for a Younger Self
28:02 to 29:49
Explore the importance of perspective and taking risks in life choices.
Navigating Neurodivergence
29:50 to 30:52
Discuss the impact of neurodivergent traits on personal and professional life.
“So I haven't, me and my fiance haven't, we actually spoke about this when we were in Australia in January because my close friends always joke that I'm autistic and I've never been self-diagnosed.”
Discipline and Competitiveness
31:25 to 33:13
Delve into the role of self-discipline and competitiveness in achieving goals.
“But for ages, I was like, why am I not enjoying this the way other people are?”
Closing Thoughts and Reflections
33:14 to 33:34
Reflect on the conversation and the importance of relatability and authenticity.
“Relatability and authenticity is just, it's exactly what I wanted it to be.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Study 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. All new drinks are now at McDonald's. With refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher. And the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba.
0:41To crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Try them all now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine. Copyright 2026, The Coca-Cola Company. Sprite is a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company. I've learned the hard way that not saying stuff or not voicing your concerns means you just, it builds up internally and then you start acting out of character. And when you start acting out of character, things can very quickly snowball. Hardest question coming now. Who is James Warnock? God, I think James Warnock's changed a lot over the years.
1:18If you want to label it, I guess I'm an influencer slash entrepreneur slash fiance. It was at the point where I didn't care what people thought about me. And in my head it was like, what is the worst thing that can happen? Is this doesn't work out and I end up in the same place I was before? So when I started posting and I got traction, I was like, okay. I actually for the first time saw how many opportunities were in social media. And in my eyes, it's the lowest barrier to entry to something to change your life. I always say you make your own lap. You've got to put yourself in the room. Everyone's just very scared of failing.
1:50But if you fail 20 times and succeed once, that success is all you need. And social media is obviously just designed to trigger your dopamine receptors. When you go viral or when a video succeeds, the dopamine that you get is absolutely ridiculous. Which creates an addictive element. Yeah, exactly. And then you end up chasing numbers which you can't control because it's all defined by an algorithm. The influencers are generally quite hated, but I do think there's like a new generation of influencers going through who are a bit more, like you said, relatable.
2:28James welcome thanks for having me John looking forward to this conversation hardest question coming now who is James Warnock I think James Warnock's changed a lot over the years especially the past four years I would say like I used to be inherently quite a selfish person now it's become a bit more selfless and I think my girlfriend or fiance has been a big part of that congratulations on that by the way thank you very much there in terms of who i am i i think i'm still figuring it out i think i'm a if you want to label it i guess i'm a influencer slash entrepreneur slash fiance um i tend to try not to label myself as anything i just like being me yeah doing good or trying to at least which makes you authentic and relatable they're the two words that i would i'd be sort of mulling in my head and had you in my head before we start talking that's not often associated with an influencer yeah which makes you think you're uncomfortable with it which i can tell you are and yet there are so many people youngsters particularly that are aspiring to be an influencer that's that's quite a strange dynamic right yeah i think the influence in games changed i think it used to previously be your like a-list celebrities and then people who are kind of up and coming and living these lifestyles that were always out of reach, like aspirational, and people kind of thrive looking at that, but it's changed now so that people don't want to see that because they hate it and there's a lot of jealousy behind it.
4:01So the new era of influencers are just your normal individuals. There's obviously an element still of like things they're doing which are ridiculous, like brand trips and getting all this gifting and stuff like that. But I think it's definitely evolving towards wanting to follow people who are similar to your life maybe slightly further ahead and taking learnings from what they're doing and then applying it to your own life so i think the influencers are generally quite hated but i do think there's like a new generation of influencers going through who are a bit more like you said relatable yeah i like that so it's a really interesting dynamic for me where being more normal being more real which you are putting out content that's from your heart that is is perhaps your own journey you know i saw a lovely uh post with you and your fiancee showing real true love and but being amusing as well together right and it was just like and i want to always try to it's a bit of an unfair question is there a science to that because you're just being yourselves but when i saw that the numbers i couldn't help myself which is probably part of this whole that the likes and the comments were off the scale in context of um really good engagement and it was just people giving you their their thoughts their feedback which was love seeing this yeah how are you doing that because there are so many people that are kind of thinking well I do that but no one's following me or no one's watching me I think social media comes in waves I think at the start everyone kind of has an arc so they'll be on a journey so whether that's trying to gain weight after having eating disorder or losing a parent and you're going through grief and so you naturally have quite a lot to speak about at the start which is what I found which is why like the initial year or two content came much more easily to me because you're going through this whole personality change and then you kind of reach a point where you're just living your life and for me if social media wasn't my job i probably wouldn't have it i feel that as an app um but i do really enjoy showing certain elements of my life it's just becoming like i still want to be a relatively private individual while still sharing parts of my life that will help people go through the journey that i went through yes um there's a lot more behind social media in terms of engagement and how best to like approach certain elements so obviously everyone talks about having a hook a storyline a solution a problem all these things i think we still have that to an extent but it's also very easy to see when someone is trying to do certain things for like clickbaiting reasons and i don't think alex and i try and do that as much anymore we just want to show what we're doing as normal individuals because we are just so normal yeah um but it's working yeah Yeah, but I think the key is.
6:39And inadvertently, it still ends up having a positive impact. Yes, because there's a lot of work behind that. You mentioned hot sticks. So those, and during that time that you were putting out a lot of content and perhaps not getting a lot of traction, was there a pressure off at that point? Because that was almost self-therapy. You're finding yourself, you're allowing yourself to go through your own journey of getting used to putting content while no one was really watching. Did that pressure become something you're now almost, you know, you said you almost wish you didn't have to do it all the time.
7:07Are you with me? because now it's become a big part of what you do. And I know something we'll talk about that you've looked to move away from that, but it's still a key part of your identity. Yeah. I think a lot of people like to say that when you first start posting, you should post very frequently. I mean, I've heard numbers up to like three or four times a day. I've never been like that. I think even at my peak, I mean, there's some periods where if things are happening in your life, like for example, when I got engaged, we post like three or four videos a week for like four weeks because we had a lot to talk about.
7:32But most of the time, I'm only posting once, twice a week. It's just what works for me. sure and i think there's just you've got to figure out what works for you and at the start if you are scared about people judging you a lot of people nowadays are just blocking every single person they know on instagram because they want to take the risk with the social media but they don't want the judgment from your friends which is where most of the judgment comes from um i think it depends who you are as an individual i was at the point where i didn't care what people thought about me and i had a bit of a fucking mentality and in my head it was like, what is the worst thing that can happen?
8:07Is this doesn't work out? And I end up in the same place I was before. And so when I started posting and I got traction, I was like, okay, I actually for the first time saw how many opportunities were in social media. And in my eyes, it's the lowest barrier to entry to something to change your life.
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9:04Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. So this is quite a contentious question. It's been talked about a lot in my world. It's really relevant to what you just said, which is social media use for youngsters, particularly under 16s, because that low barrier to entry. Right now, there are, I think, over 700 ,000 grads that have gone to university, got their degree, and they can't get a job. They're on welfare. They feel like they've been missold, if you like, this dream of, you know, get a good qualification and get a good job housing markets out of control in terms of how expensive it is together and these are all things that are aspirational the youngsters coming through so now actually well maybe i can be an influencer maybe i can be like james yeah um and you know that that that whole thing of taking that away from them potentially banning it where do you sit with it because you use it as a force for good you are a creator in the true sense of and maybe that's a better word than influencer because anyone that is influencing is typically creating and that potentially could be taken away when at the ages particular kids are at they're in full creativity mode i think that's a very wide conversation to have i think social media in general in terms of the ability to scroll and digest so much different information and misinformation means i would probably put it on the side of being pro banning it up to a certain age um because when i was growing up i was kind of i'm obviously gen z so i'm not quite i'm not millennial so i'm not i wasn't outdoors the entire time we had the xbox and stuff like that but i do remember getting to a point where i was like there's more that i should have done when i was younger because i was playing xbox all the time obviously in retrospect easy to say that but at the time all you're thinking about is what my mate's doing playing xbox therefore i'll be on it or on social media therefore i'll be on it but i think you learn so much up until the age of kind like 18 there's no need to rush into social media until then i do then think that university and the now the like the current job system is systemically broken i think for our parents where they had a job and then the house price was double what their job salary was so they could afford it very quickly made sense because you could afford your life so much more easily whereas now when i was going into my job the pathway to partners i used to be in an accountant in like M &A, Pathway's partner was like 15 to 20 years.
11:26But because the cost of living was so high, you had to sacrifice a substantial amount of your early life to get to that point. Whereas I feel like when my parents were younger, that discrepancy between the cost of living versus what they were earning meant that they could afford to take that extra bit longer because they weren't having to take away from everything else in their life. That makes sense? It does. And I think for me personally like i started noticing a lot of people around me not taking the normal career path and that was very inspirational for me because i was like okay there's actually so many different ways to make money where i don't have to be at a desk job nine to five um that's not saying the desk jobs are bad i actually think i had i learned so many transferable skills which i now use
12:11exactly i don't regret it at all like i learned so much i met some great people but I do think it's not everyone's path no it's becoming more and more people's like not path no and I appreciate you sharing like your own personal journey there and the kind of links to xbox and so on because young lads right now are in crisis you know I've spent a bit of time on this with the center for social justice and they produced something called the lost boys report which just was damning about just the the young lads that facing this identity loss not sure what their lives can aspire to and what they can ultimately be and one of the key things in there is the lack of a father i wanted to bring the relationship you had with your father because that shaping that molding that mentoring is so important when it's missing the algorithm seems to be filling it and of course that brings in all sorts of and the algorithm's got a lot to answer there you know the negative um messaging and so on that's creating we now know is the manosphere but just humanizing you from that point of view the relationship that you had with your father that lives as a legacy now because I know you talk about him a lot and miss him every day and almost like kind of what's missing for the youngsters now as role models which is how I see you if I end up being half the man that my dad was I'll be very happy he was a he ended up being a quiet stay-at-home dad he had his own business but he always worked from home so he just saw me grow up like through everything he was every football game He was there for every key moment in my life.
13:41And I think that was just so pivotal. He was kind, respectful, and kind of everything that I wanted to be. Obviously at a time, you don't see that. You see your parents as being annoying and telling you to do certain things. But I think having him as a role model until 24 when he passed away was incredible. I think it probably impacted my brother more, who was 21 when my dad passed. Cause I feel like 21, you're in a very transitional stage in your life still. You're still at university, you're about to graduate. you've not really learned or honed all these skills that your dad might teach you um i think yeah i think because of social media people are have access to so many different male figures and whether they even meant to or not they end up falling into these rabbit holes of people who just aren't very good people to look at no um and again i don't know how they grew up i don't know their history i there's so many things that can influence it but it's just you're so malleable before the ages of i would say 22 yeah even then past that obviously you're still malleable but at that point you're seeing all these men making a significant amount of money doing the wrong things it's just a difficult position to be in yeah there's a huge amount i can take away from that about the just the the way your dad was fully present he just was with you all the time and i I think a lot of parents are concerned about how they can be more of an influence and just being there.
15:08Just, you know, actually perhaps less screen time and making more time together is probably a really powerful message to put across. And I called you out as a role model there. Do you embrace that? Do you feel that? Because that's my, that's a huge why about why I wanted to meet you and wanted to talk with you. But I feel like there's a lovely humility about you where you're almost awkward with that. I never really think of myself as a role model. I think I kind of fell into social media and the narrative that I then ended up taking, people looked up to, which I absolutely love. And I think for me, obviously losing my dad was a big part of my journey.
15:46And I wish at the time I'd had someone like myself to look up to and potentially see like how I went through the struggles, what I did to solve it, what I'm now doing and how, as cliche as it sounds, I like refound my spark after losing it. It's your purpose. Yeah, it's my purpose. So, yeah, I've never really thought about being a role model, but I guess... Yeah, I'm very happy to call you that. I think, as a dad to two teenage daughters, where you're looking for people that are putting out content that is constructive, educational, and real, that's where I'm saying about that kind of role model piece.
16:22the humanizing you out that pressure to produce content and uh to be building your entrepreneurial career and now engage and so on what do you do to pull back where do you get that piece where do you find that you can reset your mind and i think that probably brings the fitness part into it as well as you know just uh i've always been quite good at grounding myself and switching off i don't really know where that came from but i'm very busy with everything that goes on but i I get to a point where it might be like 8.30pm, 9pm, whatever it is. And I just compartmentalise. And I don't know if that compartmentalisation has come from actually like when I lost my dad originally.
17:01And having to compartmentalise that side of my life for a period of time. Scoping mechanism. And I then do that with work as well. Where I'm like, once you've lost someone in the way that I lost my dad, there's not really anything in my life where I'm like, that could possibly be worse. Obviously there could be worse things, but like in my head that's like the extreme. so i'm like if i don't reply to this email now or if i don't like go on a run or whatever it is it's not the end of the world like things can be so much worse i think once you have that comparison it makes switching off or having your own like mental space a lot easier i don't know the psychology behind it but no i get that there's a i'm going to call a strength out of yours as being vulnerable like just just the way you are in this conversation and everything i've seen that you put out is is vulnerability is a strength and I want to kind of bring that into the kind of two men having a chat which actually feels quite normal now I've always craved it I want that I want to learn from people that are prepared to be vulnerable but it does feel like that's been a big shift and perhaps wasn't happening certainly 10 years ago where do you sit with that I've always worn my heart my sleeve I think I've always been an emotional person when it comes to day-to-day feelings and how I articulate that has definitely changed over the years um I think on the other side of things I can be quite cold but again I think I come back come back to the compartmentalizing side of things but in terms of vulnerability I just I've learned the hard way that not saying stuff or not voicing your concerns means you just it builds up internally and then you start acting out of character and when you start acting out character things can very quickly snowball um so i spoke about it on my socials before but about a month after i lost my dad i got arrested um for just being drunk and disorderly and in retrospect they actually stressed me purely because i was being like i was uncontrollable because i was so emotional and i was just crying and making a bit of a fuss i just kind of realized that that was because i wasn't talking about anything or getting anything off my chest um at that point i hadn't actually started social media and then that was when the whole journey kind of started bottled up yeah and it comes out in the wrong way like you say well i think it comes back to what you said earlier about like kind of men growing up is a lot of us don't feel like we have someone that we can potentially speak to like i always definitely didn't tell my parents everything growing up um i only really got really really close to my brother after my dad passed away and when you and your friends just inevitably judge you even if they don't want to i think as you get older that definitely changes but when we're immature between the ages of 16 to 21 on i think that's a more difficult position to be in yeah just just this conversation gives other people permission to do that that's the that's the key thing for me is you're demonstrating again in the way of a role model that that's that's worked for you and it can work for other people you've clearly built a platform that has allowed you to now have a huge amount of people that engage with you and and follow you but your passion is not being the influencer if you like So what are your goals?
20:09What do you want to do now?
20:37to the premises by coaxial cable actual speeds vary good question um i think what i said to you before was i saw what social media was which is an amazing platform to leverage and in different ways i think at the start it was so that i could quit my job and be self-sufficient through socials and then it was taking people through my journey and then you kind of get to a point where you're like grief is a massive part of my life but also it's not it doesn't define who i am and it's not such a big part of my life that has to be every single piece of content that i do and then you start kind of doing different things and showing your life but i think social media as a job by itself is the worst thing you can do mentally you just no one should have that amount of reach and feedback constantly from the entire internet external validation as well right you're defining your happiness if you like by the last post and the numbers and the way it's performing right and social media is obviously just designed to trigger your dopamine receptors and it's so when you go viral or and when a video succeeds the dopamine that you get is absolutely ridiculous which creates an addictive element yeah yeah exactly and then you end up chasing numbers which you can't control because it's all defined by an algorithm and i quickly realized that and then i got to the point where i was like hey i can't do social media full-time i was in a really bad mental state for about 18 months to two years um my fiance was very good at grounding me during that period and then my kind of page started evolving and I started becoming a bit more like I knew I wanted to start a business and then I always say there's two things that make a big difference which is luck and chance and then taking them at the same time is like a big reason for why I think I am where i am yeah it's not necessarily me searching for it but something happened i took the opportunity and it took and it then i ended up having many different opportunities following it which kind of took me to where i am i like that because i always say you make your own luck um and by that you've got to put yourself in the room yeah you've got to put yourself out there so you can't do that set on yourself at home with headphones on playing a computer game you've got to be out there and then and then you've got to have the the vision and the desire to lean in and That's the scary thing is that everyone's just very scared of failing.
22:57But if you fail 20 times and succeed once, that success is all you need. Like, I have always been quite happy to fail. I fail quite a lot in my life. But as a result, I feel like I've had quite a few successes because of that. Well, it's the classic, you know, you're testing and learning. And every time you fail, you haven't really failed. You just got closer to success. Yeah. How do you define success? Oh, another good question. if you'd have asked me five to six years ago I probably would have said it was money obviously when you're growing up and you're graduating all everyone's thinking about is I want my investment banking job I want to be a lawyer partner nice house all that stuff and like I still am money driven but only to the extent that I can live a comfortable life and by that I just mean I can go to a restaurant and buy a meal without thinking about it or go on holiday with my family and not really think too much about it i don't really need the flash cars or like the really fancy watches i did buy myself a nice watch pill because my dad loved watches and i really wanted one but like i'm not going to have a massive watch collection for the sake of it um so now it's really just making sure every day i'm happy with what i'm doing obviously that fluctuate but there's purpose behind it yeah and then in my head the money side of things will just that hopefully happen if I'm doing it in the right way.
24:18Yeah. But yeah, that's kind of, I think I have a long-term goal. I'm still 10 years away from that, but we'll get there. Can you share that? Yeah. So I have a business right now, which we're working on, which I absolutely love, SAP. And it's growing quite quickly. What does it do? So it's a alternative to normal energy gels, which people take when they're running. Me and my business partner are very whole food-based individuals. We met in Cape Town last year, and we both turned up to a run with dates and bananas and we were like well something's obviously wrong here and there's lots of anecdotal evidence that people use maple syrup and salt in like triathlons ultra run like ultra trails that kind of thing and there's like there are a few brands that already do this but we broke it down into like three pillars which is um performance is it clean and is it aesthetic and all these gels kind of hit two of the three pillars whereas there was that kind of hit all three.
25:10And so we were like, let's create this gel in the UK, make the marketing great and make it accessible to the gem pop. Because the issue is that people who are in the sport might have known this was an alternative to gels, but the general population who are trying to get into running have no idea that this way of fueling exists. So it's literally just grade A Canadian maple syrup and Himalayan salt. And what we say is that the best gel is the one you take every time. Because the issue is gels are horrible. they have like seven or eight ingredients in them they cause stomach problems people don't want to take them and therefore they don't fuel if they don't fuel they don't perform and therefore they don't want to continue doing it so this gel basically is like you want to take it therefore you'll fuel you'll feel better and you're more likely to not get injured and you've got the perfect uh yeah your favorite things to do is go running right so actually you're constantly testing to see how their performance element well that's what when i said your own guinea pig yeah exactly and what i said before about like just being in the right place at the right time because I was putting myself out there.
26:09This for me is what I consider my perfect business because I'm so passionate about running. It makes a difference in people's lives. Like it's actually helping them fuel and achieve their goals. Whereas I had a few different business ideas that sounded great on paper, but probably weren't as aligned with me as a person, as sappers. Yeah, there's nutrition there. Yeah. There's kind of biohacking, paralleling the fitness element of the running. Exactly. Which gives you the purpose you want. Yeah. So the 10-year goal. Yeah, so obviously, hopefully SAP continues to grow and do well. Myself, from a business partner, aren't in it for the money.
26:44We just love making a difference. Obviously, it's on our mind that maybe in the future we might potentially sell. Hopefully, once we sell, I become liquid enough that I have enough cash to become an angel investor. And then I use the platform to invest in businesses I believe in. I love that. So in the same way that you've built a platform, I'm going to have to call you that influencer again. It gives you the influence now to actually ripple that out to help others, which I feel that's quite a key thing at your heart. Everything's a lot bigger than you. Yeah, definitely. And I just, and there's so many people with brilliant ideas, but a lot of us don't have a trust fund or the capital available to be able to actually start doing it.
27:26Cool. And so you'd almost have like an incubator, angel investment come to me for the advice, the funding. There's an influencer called Casper Lee, who is one of the OGs in the space. And I think he now has a venture capital firm that invests in startups like that. And I think from what it looks like, he's doing brilliantly well and he's making a big difference. And so that's kind of where I want to place myself in a few years. I like that. Yeah. What advice would you give to younger version? Because you've changed a lot. It's hard to believe. You said that you described yourself as selfish as a younger version of.
27:59There's nothing selfish about you now. that that um that change if you like to be the person with maturity perspective now what advice would you give a younger version i'd like to caveat that i do think i still am a bit selfish i think inherently you kind of have to be sometimes certain elements of your life but not in the areas where i was lacking it before so like with my fiance with my friends and my family um and with business but yeah the advice is that i feel like you it will work itself out i know that sounds really cliche but everyone goes through periods where they're like i am not in the place that i want to be and we all have that same thing but in my head it is if you have the opportunity to make a difference or change something that won't substantially impact your life so for example for me when i had my corporate job the worst thing that could potentially happen for me was that i didn't find a job and i had to move home which i'm very fortunate and privileged about but that was the worst case scenario for me was moving back home to Sheffield for a bit because I couldn't afford to live my life in London once I thought about that I was then like okay well now I can afford to take the risks I want to like start that side hustle go to this run club and meet new people and then through doing all these different things it ends up snowballing and before you know it you have a business idea or you've met someone who has a job which a job opening which you could never even dreamed of and it's just like taking them steps in the first place is so important you need to figure out what you would be happy with in the worst case scenario i get that there's um i don't know if you've ever had this conversation on there's a there's a neurodivergent piece in here which you i feel like you know not calling out at all i've been diagnosed with adhd and just there's a relatability to me where it's like managing all the ideas or the aspirations the dopamine hits that come with so many different things and then having to whittle it back to what fills my purpose yeah and i've only got a certain amount of time i I don't know, have you looked into the neurodivergent side of things?
29:53So I haven't, me and my fiance haven't, we actually spoke about this when we were in Australia in January because my close friends always joke that I'm autistic and I've never been self-diagnosed. I don't want to self-diagnose because obviously there's a lot of people that tend to diagnose things that just aren't correct. And I don't know if I am, but when we were going through some of the really niche examples of what it was, it was everything I did growing up. And so there probably is an element of that. and definitely in some social situations i demonstrate some of the like typical autistic traits yeah i i don't know if i am um i might get tested at some point i don't want to it's a bit unfair for me to say it's a friendly conversation where my journey into it was actually ideas first which is very much the entrepreneurial community and i was listening to two people having a conversation right i do i say this i'd never thought about it before but i i identified with the high vibration and the hyperfocus and the relentlessness when you want to get something achieved.
30:51And I think you can relate to that. And then if we sort of bring and probably end on the marathon that you've just done and kind of the training and the dedication you put to everything that you do, it's making sure you channel it to something that fills your cup, if you like. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. whether it's the funds fueling ai or crypto's trillion dollar swings there's a money side to every story get the money side of the story subscribe now at bloomberg.com yeah i think i've always been incredibly self-disciplined and incredibly competitive and when you put them two things together once you kind of put your mind to something there's not really much that will stop me unless i get like injured or something happens with like the family or whatever it is um it's just always been what i've been like growing up yeah i don't think i'll ever change i i am very structured i love having a certain regime so we're like say for example me and alex went wedding venue shopping last week and even being out of my routine for like three days going looking at these incredible venues where we're going to get married which i loved to an extent part of me was just like itching to get back to being in a routine yeah and so i I think things like backpacking, for example, I just can't do it.
32:09I just, I'm incapable of enjoying it. And I'm okay with that. But for ages, I was like, why am I not enjoying this the way other people are? I want to finish on something, actually, which has been in my brain about you and myself and other people when I'm thinking about it, which is that you've identified that backpacking is not for you. And you have to go through the journey of doing it to go, this isn't for me. And then you sort of form more of a jigsaw puzzle. What do you think you're best at? in life yeah just literally if you were like the thing i'm the best at is saying i'm going to do something and doing it um i do tend to set quite audacious goals and sometimes i miss them but i will reach them eventually um and even kind of growing up at like university i said that i was going to do certain things and even though my career has definitely taken a bit of a tangent i think i'm parallel if like not on the same route but definitely parallel to where I was.
33:04And I think it's just because, like, I dream big. And if I get there, I do. I think, great. But if I don't, I've enjoyed the journey. Yeah. You're a pleasure to talk with. Relatability and authenticity is just, it's exactly what I wanted it to be. And you're summing up exactly what you just said when we spoke on the phone about this. And then you said, yeah, let's do it. Straight in the diary. Yeah. And thank you, because I know you're busy. You've got a lot going on. Anytime I'm joined. I hope you've enjoyed the conversation. I have. Thanks for the next conversations. Pleasure.
From the publisher
In this episode of Extraordinary Life Stories, John Reynolds talks with James Warnock.
In this episode of Extraordinary Life Stories, John Reynolds talks with James Warnock.James opens up about the experiences that have shaped him, from losing his father at 24 and navigating grief in the public eye to building a platform that inspires millions. James reflects on the evolving world of social media, the pressures of influence, the importance of vulnerability in men, and why authenticity matters more than ever.
Together, they explore the challenges facing young people today, the impact of fatherhood and role models, the realities behind online success, and the lessons James has learned from failure, entrepreneurship, and endurance running. He also shares the vision behind his fast-growing nutrition brand, SAP, and his long-term ambition to help other entrepreneurs turn great ideas into reality.
This is a conversation about purpose, resilience, self-discipline, and finding meaning beyond metrics, money, and validation. An honest look at what it takes to build a life you're proud of and why the journey matters just as much as the destination.
Extraordinary Life Stories is proudly sponsored by IFS.ai



