Thomas “Hal” Robson-Kanu | Extraordinary Life Stories

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1:00Thomas Robson-Kanu:Nutrition is a fundamental element of health. You could fundamentally argue that food is medicine and medicine is food. You must be one of the most resilient people I've ever met and I've met a lot of resilient people. I was a young boy who had a dream, was written off as a young professional athlete, told I would never play without pain or restriction again. You're playing 2016 Euros and scoring the goal against Belgium. not only did you then find a solution that allowed you to have the playing career that you had as a professional footballer and realize those dreams but also become an entrepreneur so my father was making these shots in his kitchen every week would leave batches in my fridge to the point where every single utensil in our household was stained yellow the reality is is it takes an incredible amount of hard work.

1:49Thomas Robson-Kanu:It takes a level of obsessiveness, which isn't normal. You're going to face a lot of adversity all of the time. And that's what we faced. Thomas Howard Robson Carney. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Been looking forward to this. Tell me, who is Thomas Howard Robson Carney? Who is Thomas Howard Robson Carney? I would say I was a young boy who had a dream, a dream of playing in the Premier League. In order to achieve that, I faced a lot of adversity. That adversity definitely shaped my character, my view on the world, my lens on the world. I was written off as a young professional athlete, told I would never play without pain or restriction again after major surgeries and was able to overcome that to have a career in the top flight of one of the most competitive industries in the world of professional football but that experience sort of led me down a path which I probably didn't expect to be on and that path is very much now around helping people in all walks of life change their lives you know so and how do you do that from our perspective it's through natural nutrition and so yeah I'm now on a mission a path to a million life transformations of people using our range and basically recovering from major ailments or fatigue or whatever it is through the power of natural nutrition.

3:24Thomas Robson-Kanu:So yeah, that's what I do now. And yeah, that's the journey that I'm on. That's proper mission led. There's real purpose there. And the purpose that now is helping so many other people start is from where you were affecting, You said you almost had to write off your dreams of being a professional footballer at age 15, where you then started to try and find a solution for yourself. And I want you to talk me through that, because not only did you then find a solution that allowed you to have the playing career that you had as a professional footballer and realise those dreams, but also become an entrepreneur.

3:57Thomas Robson-Kanu:As a 15-year-old, I was probably one of the brighter talents in the UK, albeit I'd just been released by Arsenal, having been with them for five years as a schoolboy. I was told by Neon Brady, who's an Arsenal great and was Academy Manager at the time, that I wouldn't be big enough or strong enough to play in the Arsenal's Academy and break into the first team. so I was a late developer hadn't grown much between you know sort of 12 and 15 and yeah was essentially released by Arsenal so devastating but was picked up by Reading Football Club the academy manager there was Brendan Rodgers and he said look we want to fast track you into the first team and so playing reserve team football as a 15 year old the centre half decided to essentially teach me a lesson in a game and came in with a knee-high challenge that knee-high challenge ruptured my anterior cruciate knee ligament posterior cruciate knee ligament medial ligament damaged all of my cartilage in my knee my left knee basically went beyond my right so my knee was effectively snapped in half and yeah was rushed to the hospital met with the surgeon and went through an MRI went through an arthroscopy and they basically said you have no ligaments left in your knee you'll need reconstructive surgery and you're gonna basically be experiencing pain for the rest of your life.

5:19Thomas Robson-Kanu:Went through the surgery, went through 12 months of rehabilitation and in my first game back the same injury happened but this time it was inconspicuous, it was just a misplacing on my foot and my knee twisted awkwardly but did exactly the same injury and exactly the same damage. So I had to go back to the same surgeon and the look on his face when I entered the room was one of real gloom. And he basically said, look, you need to begin looking at a different career path because you're certainly not going to be able to play at the level that you were hoping to play at. And you now will live the rest of your life in pain and restriction.

6:01And so I was determined as a young, aspiring teenager.

6:07Thomas Robson-Kanu:My dream was to play in the Premier League. that was my ultimate ambition and yeah I went went ahead with the surgery went went ahead with another 12 months of rehabilitation but as I began to play and train again I realized that everything that the doctors physios and surgeon had said came to fruition so I would wake up in the mornings and it would take me literally 15 minutes just to get out of bed due to the restriction inflammation and swelling my knee I'd go for a jog and my knee would absolutely balloon and so I couldn't physically do anything and this was during key years of any form of development or any career in sport and yeah I basically spoke to the physios and doctors at the club and said I'm really struggling here I need some support and they kind of said you know because that's what they knew was the surgeon told you this was going to be the case that you're going to have to live with it but what we can do is prescribe you painkillers anti-inflammatories things like diclofenac paracetam or ibuprofen to take the edge off the pain and so I started taking this standard medication which is very standard you know very commonly used but within two weeks my body had a complete adverse reaction to it so I started passing blood in my urine severe nausea couldn't sleep and so I had to stop taking this medication but I was hampered with this chronic inflammation in my knee and so it was at that point in time that my father and I began asking the question like there must be another way to recover naturally like there must be a way to reduce inflammation reduce pain and we began to look at various practices cultures around the world you know we went to the public library began looking at you know herbs as medicines spices you know raw roots and we began to come across like these relatively readily available ingredients which anecdotally in these various practices and cultures around the world like ayurvedic practices ancient asian cultures were used to reduce pain inflammation and swelling naturally and yeah my father basically sourced all of these raw ingredients so things like whole watermelons not just the flesh the rind and the skin things like pineapple pomegranates whole ginger roots and subsequently whole turmeric roots and yeah like my father basically blended these raw ingredients into what we would call now a bioavailable formula.

8:31Thomas Robson-Kanu:So we added various different spices and herbs to increase the absorption of these active compounds found within all of these raw ingredients, things such as curcumin and the curcuminoids inside of turmeric, things such as ginger oil, you know, the bromelain and pineapple. So all of these compounds could actually be absorbed in the body. And yeah, my father created this blend, eventually got it into a golden liquor, which I could consume I was a very fussy teenager and long story short is after six weeks of using this blend religiously I woke up my usual routine roll out of bed head into the bathroom into the shower and I realized that was the first time in over two and a half years I'd woken up without any pain or restriction in my knee and so yeah from that point on as a 17 year old I was able to begin to get back playing and training was able to strengthen my body get back to performing to the level that I was performing at previously and was able to eventually make my debut, international debut, and eventually played in the Premier League when we got promoted with Reading just after 20 years of age.

9:36Thomas Robson-Kanu:And I was able to do all of that pain-free using this homemade blend. So yeah, that was my journey and obviously a lot of adversity within that. As I look back now, that really did inform my approach to issues and turning adversity into opportunity. And that's fundamentally what we did. You must be one of the most resilient people I've ever met. And I've met a lot of resilient people, particularly in the world of entrepreneurship. But to have that injury happen twice and to still want to keep playing, still realise the dream, and then to actually come up with a solution. I mean, fair play to you and your dad.

10:16You know, I've got images of you concocting and mixing and so on and we'll come to what that's actually become as a business but just staying in that moment as the 17 18 year old that now gets your career back on track it's an interesting parallel where a number of people I get to speak to that might have hung up their boots they retired from what was a very successful sporting career and then have a think about what they're going to do next I just want to know if the solution that allowed you to fulfill your dreams playing football was you were actually paralleling the realization you actually had a business to move into at the same time so you never had to go through that almost identity crisis that some people particularly the adulation you're playing 2016 euros and scoring the goal against belgium you know hero and and to then potentially know that you're going to come away from that and not have the stimulation from success you know you've gone on to be an incredibly successful entrepreneur.

11:11Did you know that that was going to become a business alongside the playing career?

11:15Thomas Robson-Kanu:The honest answer is no. And I literally had no intention of becoming an entrepreneur. You know, people look at founders and entrepreneurs, you know, that has this glamorous life. And, you know, it's really sexy owning your own company and, you know, building something from the ground up and the reality is is it takes an incredible amount of hard work it takes a level of obsessiveness which isn't normal um and you're going to face a lot of adversity all of the time and that's what we faced so for me when i look back um you know i i use this blend as my as a homemade remedy you know for over a decade right so my father was making these shots in his kitchen every week would leave batches in my fridge to the point where every single utensil in our household was stained yellow you know the blenders you know we'd ruin a blender every few months because of the amount of turmeric and ginger and you know whole watermelons we were processing all of the time so at not one point did I think this could actually be a business here we were simply using it as you know knowledge that we were confused wasn't publicly or widely available like how could I have completely cured chronic inflammation you know by the point of 17 I had you know chronic patellar tendinopathy in my knee like people who have that like you don't recover from that and yet without using any form of drug or any you know typical mainstream route I was simply able to do that through nutrition and as I look back now like obviously I see a wider picture like nutrition is a fundamental element of health you could fundamentally argue that food is medicine and medicine is food we've just been pulled in a direction which is kind of opposite to that where we rely on you know treatment and you know medicine to manage symptoms which can be completely reversed or completely prevented through nutrition and lifestyle it doesn't actually make sense but that's the world that we live in and so yeah like stripping that back like my lens on the world is very different to what it was as a 15 year old who took everything that anyone in a position of authority said as gospel you know so you know for me like I personally question everything you know like why is that a fact like and why is that the way that we're doing things and I think there's a lot of new information out there now which would be contrary to you know the education system you know the industry that we all grow up in and live in in terms of you know the the the lives that we live so I think yeah I personally didn't have an ambition of becoming an entrepreneur post professional football but the opportunity arose and I was open to it and I realized that actually you know this is bigger than myself or bigger than the company like this is us getting back to what we originally were doing you know centuries or millennia ago that we were using natural foods bracing nature bracing nature to live our best lives and yeah you know that that's very much our passion now and now i'm a firm believer that everyone everyone is here for a reason like you know regardless of whatever you're doing, like you, there is a reason why you are here.

15:08Thomas Robson-Kanu:And it's about bringing as much value to others as possible, you know? And that's, that's fundamentally what I'm doing now. Very humble, very humble. And I think the context of anyone watching listening, it's turmeric curve, isn't it? That ultimately is your business. So the people again, watching listening will know the size and the scale of that business as it is now and where it's going and we'll come to it. But I just wanted to also make the point that I think some of the best opportunities and entrepreneurial businesses start with that kind of need for the individual and I think it's really again humbling to accept that you did all that to get yourself playing again to give yourself the opportunity to have the career that you wanted and then to understand and realize that there was a business that came into it I think that's powerful I also think there's almost that analogy of again with resilience that almost like a cork in the bottle that younger version of you that couldn't and was told they couldn't do something made you go looking be curious keep looking for a solution which of course you did and it's also slightly scary to to really think that you know how many people go to a doctor and get prescribed drugs and medicine when actually why we're not using natural remedies more do you have an opinion on that on that because are you in any way at any time in conflict there because there's a lot of money that gets made out of selling drugs they do say true innovation is born from necessity and you know that that's what what we have now as a blend which is now you know available through years of hard work and toil you know we can now pick up our blend off a retail shelf like it's I still find that you know strange to think about right like that was that was a blend that was being produced in my father's kitchen nearly two decades ago but in terms of the current systems that we all live in whether it be you know health care or whether it be you know the education system or the financial system I think yeah I think ultimately we are we're in you know we're moving through the age of the Aquarius age of information so information is accessible instantaneously now you know so my view on this is that you know the genie is almost out of the bottle to a degree when it comes to health and wellness like there are solutions and options out there which are outside of standard prescription medication and when you actually look at a lot of medication like it has been derived from natural sources so it's kind of weird to think that you know we have this big broad portfolio of medicine but a lot of that or all of that all of that has been based on the fundamentals of nature right so why aren't we just using nature and so yeah like I would say us personally like we have seen tens of thousands of life transformations of customers using our range.

18:11Thomas Robson-Kanu:Like every single day we will receive testimonials where people have experienced chronic ailment, chronic pain, chronic inflammation, you know, been told that they are in a state which cannot be reversed and they've turned to natural nutrition and begun using our range of raw bioavailable turmeric shots and they have noticed a fundamental difference. it has shifted the direction of their life and so yeah from our perspective like i think we're you know plus 20 000 you know life-changing testimonials like we want to get to one million because we genuinely believe at that point in time we will have made a positive dent on society we will have shifted the awareness and the perception of people who have relied on mainstream narratives you know the legacy industries to support their health and well-being like it starts from within it always does and yeah we are just a vehicle a tool to begin to create that mass awakening and yeah you know like the functional beverage space I would say is relatively crowded but in terms of products that are actually functional that can actually make a difference there are few and far between but we are one of them and you know our passion is allowing us to open doors into private healthcare you know we know that our product range is now recommended in a number of private hospitals you know our efficacy of the product the fact that we have invested heavily in clinical research on our range like we have data which shows a 75 % reduction in inflammation blood marker c-reactive protein when using our range versus not like this is insane like how is how is sort of natural greed it's compelling right and so because of the work that we're doing it's opening up the opportunities for us to begin to carry weight with our message like we aren't a shot a functional shot on shelf which contains apple juice or orange juice you know or has calls themselves a turmeric shot even a ginger shot but is you know five percent turmeric or ginger, you know, or 60 % apple juice, like these are masquerading as functional products.

20:33Thomas Robson-Kanu:So we, we, we're, we're really excited about the impact that we've had, but we genuinely feel that we are just getting started because as I said, you know, we're in the age of information and people, everyday people, you know, and the majority of our customers online, they are 55 plus male and female, you know. And what are your... What if you could have the most reliable Wi-Fi at the same price for five years? That's the Xfinity five-year price guarantee. No annual contracts, no hidden fees, and our best equipment included. Plus, get online in minutes with same-day Wi-Fi. Just five years of fiber-powered Wi-Fi that boosts speeds to the devices that need them most.

21:13Thomas Robson-Kanu:Lock in your price and unlock the possibilities. Xfinity. Imagine that. Select plans only. Restrictions apply. Powered by fiber. Connected to the premises by coaxial cable. Actual speeds vary. Not sure how to tackle your taxes? Are you sweating the small print? You may be experiencing FOMO, the fear of messing up. The answer? Using TurboTax on Intuit Credit Karma. They help you get your biggest refund, and then we help you do more with it. With a personalized plan designed to help you hit your money goals. It's time to take your taxes to the max. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app. numbers now sitting here uh coming into the end of 25 what are the numbers of the business yeah we're an eight-figure business you know so we are yeah thank you and um but we're just getting started like and and we are um we see an opportunity to really accelerate what we have done today and it's kind of strange as well because we've kind of been like a private company to a degree where you you would have to to research us to find us but the the the objective now is how do we become mainstream mainstream to the point where you know we have the same amount of distribution as a coca-cola you know like you can walk out of your house and within 50 yards of you know any house in any city you will be within touching point of seeing a coca-cola on shelf how do we get to that point because when we do there will have been a fundamental shift in society a shift in you know the expectations of big retailers you know the availability and the opportunity that retailers are giving to health and wellness you know there's going to need to be governmental shifts you know policy shift of actually realizing how can the strain on the nhs at a point in time where we have never had as much information that we do today be as big as it is it is insane hundreds of billions of pounds are spent a year on on a on nhs and on healthcare and that's what all of us as citizens of the nation like our funding you know so what what if as an example we were able to show that for every turmeric co shot consumed there was one pound less on the NHS.

23:43Thomas Robson-Kanu:This is data which we're beginning to build. This is where we're going. And so when I talk about the functional beverage space or even the supplement space, I see fundamental differences in our core mission and purpose versus the majority of brands and products in the space. And I actually will use very few and far between products and supplements because a lot of them, they don't want their efficacy tested you know they're not going to go down the clinical research route they're not really that concerned around you know the impact that customers have on it they just want you to think you're being healthy when using the range no this is actually about being healthy yeah and i think that's you said it would never be more educated than we are now to the point where that the brand success if you like of a coca-cola is a legacy of the fact that people have drank it for years but actually that mindset shift mindset shift of really wanting to put healthy uh nutrients into my body and take less medicine if i can i mean that's what you're not pioneering but it's what you're championing in fair play there were so many questions i had about the sort of purpose element and the direction that you've ultimately said i just want to want to capture that that part that goes back to when you were still playing and you were bringing what became the remedy into a conversation about starting a business and doing that alongside playing.

25:10And my point being that the old school mentality, however long ago you want to go, so 15, certainly years ago, a manager, your manager at any club or international level could turn around and say that's a distraction. And I wonder how, not honest, but how much you chose to talk about it and how you sort of balance the whole, I'm a football player professionally, but I'm starting a business as well because that old school mentality is like I need your full attention but actually in today's world multiple income streams and being ahead of the curve where you'd already thought about what became a career beyond playing days it's pretty smart yeah again

25:47Thomas Robson-Kanu:it wasn't everyone says you know it's smart it's you know lucky etc like that it is for me it's it's as much luck as it is smarts right like it it was just a but the reality is if you're willing to work and you're willing to be disciplined and be committed you're just more likely to create opportunities which then sort of create luck and yeah I would say the realization was beginning to see this growth in functional wellness and when you really delved into the details of these products like that they weren't functional at all like they were they were claiming to be healthy they were claiming to be good for you but they weren't and I knew that because I was an elite athlete had experienced true benefits from nutrition and so was you know really hyper aware of what I would put into my body at any given time like that's what I was like throughout my entire career and so yeah it was that it was seeing that that basically spurred myself to galvanize my father to turn this then into a business by co-founding it and saying look how can we bring this range not only to us as a family and you know by this point in time we had you know prescribed to friends and family you know who were using the range and with helped with back pain chronic arthritis you know all of these like crazy things which again typically you'd go to the gp to resolve um how could we make that range available to anyone and yeah i would say when you're in a high performing environment like performance is key and to perform you have to have an element of you have to have a massive element of focus like that needs to be a bit when you wake up in the morning you need to really understand what it is that you need to do to deliver in performance today whether it's training whether it's going into a game whether it's recovery but when you're looking into opportunities and you have other interests outside of that I think from my perspective when I look back like one of the first things I did I didn't speak massively about it and you know a lot a lot of people will have this passion to set up a business or launch a project and before they've got the fundamentals in place like they're talking about it you know and they want to tell everyone and yeah I was relatively reserved around what I was doing and the reality in professional football is there is a period of time of immense intensity every single day right and that might be the time that you're spending spending at the training round on the training pitch but that is between 9 30 a.m and 1 30 p.m right so you have to be able to deliver what you need to deliver within that time after that is about recovery and as long as physically you know you're recovering you know I wasn't training to be a weightlifter you know in the Olympics like if you're using other elements of your body and I was using my mind as opposed to sitting on FIFA and spending which you know a lot of my teammates when I look back they would spend 12 hours on FIFA and play it into the early hours of the morning before training right or Call of Duty or you know whatever the most recent game is rather than doing that I was focused on building an infrastructure of a business to bring this real purpose-driven product to market.

29:25Thomas Robson-Kanu:And so I spent a lot of time, you know, two, three years building the foundations and the foundations were the fact that we had to set up our own manufacturing, right? And so a lot of products that you'll see on shelf, they outsource their manufacturers. So it's white labels. So there'll be a big manufacturer in some part of Eastern Europe or, you know, Asia who manufacture the product, ship it to them, and they just focus on the sales and marketing. The beverage businesses in the UK and Europe refused to produce our range for us. It was too complex, too high quality, the margins wouldn't work.

30:02Thomas Robson-Kanu:So we, in order to bring this to life, we actually had to become a beverage manufacturing business before becoming a brand. And so that took, you know, two and a half years to get set up, then had to build the framework of what is the go-to-market strategy, right? It's a product, it's in a crowded space. You know, there's an education element. There's obviously a, you know, deep ingrained story within that, which is my personal story, which we obviously, you know, leveraged to a degree, but I haven't massively spoken about, you know, my journey and the fact that this natural range essentially cured me when standard medication couldn't.

30:42Thomas Robson-Kanu:Like it's, you know, so we've been relatively reserved in that, but we're now obviously beginning to build awareness around that because it's important that people in all walks of life understand what is available. I think the story is really powerful as well. Yeah. In today's world of personal brand being entwined with any brand itself, you know, yours is, I've used that word already, compelling. But it's also, it backs up, it validifies the business, you know, and you must have a number of people, you've already said, people coming through saying, it's changed my life. But actually, I don't know if you've had anyone come through the sporting world that could simply have had their career written off.

31:20And actually, there's a legacy there, isn't there? Where that must really make you warm inside when you get a message from someone saying, I was told I'd never play again. I was told I wouldn't play in this tournament. And because of the product and because of the backstory, they can relate.

31:35Thomas Robson-Kanu:Do you get that? Yeah, massively. It's insane. It's insane. And that's why we do what we do. And And my point around entrepreneurship is in order to get this business to where it is, we have faced immense challenge. So much so to the point where early on after launching the business, we launched eventually in 2018. We focused direct to consumer, so online. And within four weeks of selling our first product, we received our first life-changing customer testimonial. But then we also launched onto Amazon. And for the first two and a half years of the business growth, we were scaling both our website and Amazon simultaneously.

32:13Thomas Robson-Kanu:They were both equal size. And we were collecting these transformative reviews. Like they were coming in and we'd circulate them as our team grew. Like it became a, you know, it became the drumbeat of the business. You know, that passion and what we were doing for people's lives. And overnight, our Amazon account disappeared. And we were in shock. I thought there was some form of error and tried to reach out to Amazon, couldn't get through because everything is automated and there's no one behind all of the platforms. Eventually managed to get through to someone and they basically said that our Amazon account was flagged because of a review that a customer had left and a customer had basically gone through cancer fought it unfortunately it came back they began using our range and it was the only change that they made and they were now in full remission and they basically left this review on amazon's you know on our page on amazon but because that review was on our web page it got flagged by regulation against amazon's policy and our entire account got banned and so that took about two and a half weeks to get back you know get set back up we had to delete the review we had to you know clean up all of the reviews so the challenge that we've had from the infrastructures that we live in is almost immeasurable like it is daily like challenges where we face a lot of suppression you know a lot of challenge in terms of what we're doing but as I said before like we're not doing anything new we're just bringing back what we knew a long long time ago you know so that knowledge that we're we're engulfed in now around the power of natural nutrition it can't be suppressed and so that's the journey we're on brings back the resilience piece as well you've taken a lot of knocks uh you've had a lot of obstacles thrown at you and i guess ultimately you're sitting here now you know there'll be more that you are formidable and knocking knocking them over just on that humanizing you in your playing days you would have had the next game the next competition and that competitive element and that force of nature version of how would be like focusing on that with consistency but the next challenge where that is not a part of your life now sitting here now you've got the entrepreneurial side but how do you keep yourself physically fit and outside of the mental stimulation of running a successful business what do you do what works if you have a morning routine sort of know that that side of you no it's a really good question you know I retired in 2021 by choice you know my last game was in the Premier League I felt as good as I ever felt in my career and could definitely have continued playing could probably still be playing now to a decent level but it was at that point in time having run the business for three and a half years, seeing the growth in the business and the opportunity, I had to make a decision in terms of, you know, where I wanted to be and what I really wanted to do in my life.

35:29Thomas Robson-Kanu:And as much as playing in front of tens of thousands of people on a weekly basis, you know, the adulation, scoring goals, you know, winning titles getting promoted you know all of all of these amazing experiences are unreal actually what we're doing as a business sort of trump that in terms of like true passion and you know i mentioned everyone you know fundamentally everyone is here for a reason i just felt you know this was my call and how can i genuinely turn this product and this brand into you know our generation's healthy version of coca-cola but how do i do that and it's going to take time it's going to take resource and so yeah i i made that decision um and it's a decision that i'm obviously pleased i made because off the back of that we've been able to scale we've been able to reach more and more people impact the lives of of of everyday people who are looking at natural nutrition as an option um and so yeah so i think that that focus and that discipline like for me is there's a lot of synergies between elite sport and entrepreneurship which you can leverage um the stimulation of you know scoring a goal or winning a game that might be getting a new listing or receiving a new life-changing customer testimonial right there's always dopamine hit there's a dopamine of that is for me like the underlying the underlying like real value that you bring like I love sports and sports is phenomenal and it's incredible whether you're a fan or you're an athlete but when you're actually changing people's lives like there's a very different frequency that you operate on and so I finished in 2021 after 20 years of being told where to be what to do and how to do it physically active every single day yeah I decided to you know not do as much physical activity I didn't have to I wasn't being paid to do it and so yeah I went from training every single day 350 days a year to training once a month and I basically controlled my physique through nutrition you know so I'll fast as an example have my turmeric shot in the morning you know i won't have breakfast i won't have lunch i have a small dinner i will be very conscious around what i put into my body when um that just works for me like and again everyone is is is different but i would say i was able to do that for a few years but now i'm in a regime where i will do weight resistance activity i'll do a small bit of cardio on a weekly basis um but very much around body weights and resistance like that's a big big focus of mine and not massively long sessions um and then for me again the big part is that mind and body connection right like what we put into our body is really really important but also what we perceive and understand of what we put into our body is equally important so that is the mind so you know whether that's meditation whether that's you know real deep thinking and you know getting out of the three dimensional reality that we live in and moving into a different dimension and into the unknown like I think that's also very very powerful quieting the mind and basically living in that present moment at any given time so I've done a lot of work on that which I was relatively conscious of during my career but I've had more time to to really really do that and off the back of that, you're able to be content with how you feel.

39:12Thomas Robson-Kanu:And if you're feeling great, then brilliant. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate C. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. This Easter, skip the ordinary and whip up something golden with melty, creamy Velveeta cheese.

39:49From scalloped potatoes to rich mac and cheese, Velveeta turns every bite into a crowd-pleasing celebration,

39:55Thomas Robson-Kanu:bringing the extra to the ordinary, transforming simple sides into lip-smacking, satisfying moments. So go on, make it melt, make it craveable, make it indulgent. Velveeta, respect the drip. Visit Velveeta.com slash Easter for some recipe inspiration. That's a word I was about to use, content without any ego, without any arrogance, because you just seem a very forward-thinking, humble guy who's achieved a lot and is still wanting to achieve a lot, but there's a contentment. And I think that is really inspiring to have a conversation like this with you, let alone anyone watching and listening because that element of what you the dopamine hit you had previously hasn't needed to be replaced you just looked to find your way of evolving if you like and still looking to do that without any kind of drop off if you like i think you articulated that really well conscious of time but i wanted to wanted to almost take that part of the conversation to the word success.

40:56So much of what you've achieved in your football career and what you are now achieving as an entrepreneur could be described as successful. Sitting here now,

41:06Thomas Robson-Kanu:how do you describe success? Enjoying the process more than enjoying the outcome. Whatever you're doing, if you genuinely enjoy the process of what you are doing, the outcome just becomes a byproduct and actually when you think about success and you know getting somewhere you know everyone wants to get somewhere all of the time and that's the you know that's the industry world that we've you know all found ourselves in right but actually when you think about time the amount of time that you spend in the process versus the amount of time that you will ever spend in the outcome is vastly different so if you don't enjoy the process like that's where the majority of your time will be spent the outcome also becomes irrelevant even if it's an amazing outcome right if you haven't genuinely enjoyed it so yeah like I would say any definition might you know my definition and I genuinely believe this is the definition of success is is really enjoying the process of whatever it is you're doing I hope you've enjoyed this conversation I've loved it yeah you're really interesting to listen to and to learn from and I wish you massive success with where you're going because it's like you said you I think you've done a huge amount already and built a company to eight figures but it feels like you as far as you're concerned you're only on a sort of few steps of the ladder of where you want to go to yeah so looking forward to following your journey but thank you for making time in a busy schedule to talk with me today Hal I've loved it thank you have you enjoyed I absolutely loved it now appreciate you giving me the time no thank you