Former Gymshark Insider: Why Comfort is Keeping You Stuck - Elfried Samba

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0:32Here's how you do it. I helped take Gymshark from 1 million followers to 20 million followers, and then I decided to leave. Talk to us about that. Why? Internally, I still felt that I was copping out from actually taking that leap. Also, I can't fail. I've just let Gymshark. You're the Gymshark guy. If somebody's in the position where they're thinking about making the move, what's your advice to them? You go on social media and everyone's convincing you to have a side hustle. Everyone's convincing you to do something, but everything is down to just money. This is a very long life. You're telling people to be more focused on what they love.

1:02Not even that, like what energises them? You're relying on motivation. You're not going to get very far. I'm Alfred Samba and I'm reworking with Tim Campbell. How do you find your purpose and fulfil it?

1:19Hi, Tim here and this is Reworking. I'm here because I want to help answer the questions that really matter to you about work and help you succeed on your own terms. And one of those questions that comes up a lot is about purpose. I think we all want to wake up in the morning feeling like the way that we're going to earn money that day has a bigger meaning. And today's conversation is all about how you find that purpose and how you act on it. Whether that means quitting, changing career, moving internally or starting your own thing. We'll explore how you know what's right for you and how to make it happen.

1:55I've invited someone in who had what appeared to be the dream job Elf Samba was Gymshark's head of social and took the business from 1.5 to 20 million followers Then he gave that all up and started again This is his story about how he knew what was right for him How he was able to start on that path and how you can take those experiences into your own journey I'd love to hear your thoughts on the conversation So if anything resonates with you, let me know in the comments Alfred Samba how are you my brother I'm very well thank you I'm so intrigued to get into your mind your ethos your focus around purpose there's so many different aspects but I want to take us back to the bit that lots of people will obviously know you for yeah you started as the head of social for for Gymshark took it from a million to 20 million and then were instrumental in its valuation that everybody talks about but at the height of all of that you then decided to make the leap yeah and go and start your own thing yeah talk to us about that why i don't know i just think i like pain so the masochist is yes yes i i think so i was always the kid when we play football if we were leading by four i'd go to the other team to see if i can change it over i think i'm not to win friends yeah but but the thing is i've always been a big fat because i I studied psychology growing up.

3:19And minority influence has always been something very fascinating because it's very easy to get people to align with the view of the majority. It's very easy for you to get things, get things done when you're a big organization. You only know that you really contributed if you take something from small and you make it big. And the good thing I liked about Gymshark is that it basically painted this picture in my mind that big things can come from small places. And the fact that I couldn't get a job after university, despite doing very well in London or even in Manchester, I wasn't pretty much accepted.

3:54And the fact that I stumbled onto a brand in my backyard, if you will, gave me an extra battery pack to be able to demonstrate that we can turn this incredible brand, which I saw in my eyes, into something great. And we could be a symbol for the Midlands and where we've come from and also for the generation, the post-social generation, if you will. And I think that once we got to where we got to, the theory was validated because I wrote about this in my dissertation in 2012. And I was able to successfully demonstrate that I wasn't crazy. Was that a point to you? Yeah. So I think the thing that was holding me back growing up was the feeling of worthiness.

4:35right so i was born in congo there's people that are way smarter than me way more deserving than i felt at the time to have the seat that i had at that moment right but i somehow was able to get the golden ticket so it was important for me to prove that i was worth that golden ticket and to make the most of my time here so i live every day with love and gratitude and the reason why i stayed in Gymshark first and foremost was because Ben validated that I wasn't crazy. He's the first person. It's probably the role that I thought I was most unlikely to get, but it was the role that I also got a chance to work at Gatecrash of Birmingham, which I also thought I was not going to get because all my university friends went over there.

5:17But I got the opportunity to go there and I didn't really care what they paid me. They were the first people that validated my thinking. They were the first people that said we're going to give you a home to be able to put your theory to the test and compound this community that we have here. And once I got, once we got to the billion pound valuation, I had a number of like jobs that reached out to me from like all these companies, you name it, they've probably in my DM, but then my favorite company ever, Apple reached out to me and they wanted me to move out to San Francisco, help them do the community compounding over there.

5:57And it's really weird. I had two options. One, stay with Gymshark, and I was doing really well there. Two, go to my favorite company, or three, start a startup and risk everything. And we know what I picked. I picked the feeling of the unknown. The reason why, I believe I was watching a Diary of a CEO episode, and a question that Stephen asked was, what would you do if you were not scared, right? And even though all the success that people were claiming, all the accolades we were achieving, internally, I still felt that I was copping out from actually taking that leap of actually building something.

6:36A big risk. A big risk, right? And I'd never taken a big risk. All the other risks was taken on my behalf, right? By people that I admire, my parents, Ben. I was always behind people that took really big risks. And I always say to people that if you believe that you actually truly add a lot of value to something, you should be able to put that to the test. So what was the thesis that you had that Ben bought into? What was that in a succinct way? What was the thesis that Ben bought into and you actually delivered on? Yeah, so my dissertation was how I believe that small to medium-sized businesses would leverage social to dethrone the large competitors, which is basically just community compounding.

7:16David and Goliath. Yeah, David and Goliath. And I felt it just happens throughout history that small organizations out-innovate big ones because they're willing to adopt new technology and changes in society faster. And the one that was normal and native to myself and my friends was social media. I was like, well, I studied marketing at university and I also did that at Sixform. And they talk about the four Ps all the time, product, place, price, promotion. And I was like, well, place doesn't necessarily need to be a physical space. It's where your mind, wherever your mind occupies. And we're all online.

7:51So that's free real estate to be able to do promotional marketing. And I would go to job interviews telling them that the social thing is a thing. And I'd pretty much be laughed at the interview, right? People were telling me about press ads and traditional media and they didn't get it. And then it was only when I went to Body Power in Birmingham, ironically, because I went to go see the Hodge twins. they're the guys that invented the term gains right and i went to go see them i saw them at the gym shark stand there was a four hour queue wrapped around other spaces and i looked at everybody that was working there and they're all really young just like me and i did some research on the organization like the social following at the time and i was like they get it man and and funny enough how the world works i was posting on linkedin every opportunity that's ever come my way it's come from linkedin and a recruiter gave me a dm saying they're recruiting for a role they were being very um cagey about it and then when she gave me the description i was like that sounds like gymshark and she said it is i'm interested doesn't matter i'll do it and i seem to remember a what a time to be alive by drake and future was playing at the time and there's a song called digital dash and the role was digital executive and i was driving to the interview like energized and ready ben only asked me one question i took over the interview i was just i think he probably thought this guy's crazy enough to to help us get to come along on the ride yeah and he basically said yeah like let's do it and the goal was how do we take gymshark from this exciting cult-like small fitness bodybuilding brand and turn it into a real global brand without losing that connection with our community and that was as apparently the man for the job.

9:40Well, apparently you were, right? So you've come up with a concept. You've had it validated. There was a whole conversation about that piece, but you've discussed that. And now you've run the biggest vehicle driving engagement that anybody has ever seen, right? Everyone's like phoning you. What are you doing? What's the secret sauce? Is it all boxed? No, you've organically grown this community, right? And then you make the decision to leave at the clinical. Take us to that moment where you said to yourself, I'm going to go and do this other thing. Do you know what? Like when I got the job offer from Apple, that was the only time that my head had turned.

10:20And I think what that did to me is that's the moment that I realized that I wasn't crazy. If the biggest organization in the world sees what you're doing and they're validating that and also you're able to demonstrate that building community architecture is not just like a play thing, right? It's actually a great way to be able to compound trust. We've been able to validate that. Then my mindset went to, well, now you don't want to be typecasted to say, I can only do this in the fitness space, or I can only do it in social. Well, what happens if you have control over a whole entire organization's marketing department and then the whole entire organization in itself?

11:02So we said, okay, I'm a big fan of Wu-Tang, right? I've got my method man. I need to get the whole crew together. So what's the best way that I can do that? And I didn't like agencies. I still don't. So I thought, well, the MVP is an agency because that's the best way to be able to work with multiple brands. But really what I want to do long term is build a venture, an EQ venture studio, which means that instead of people coming to us or us going to people and pitching them to pay us to be their marketing department. We'll pay them if we believe that we can take it to the next Gymshark strategy for their industry.

11:42So you had a big vision about what you were going to do. So the engagement with Apple was almost like a permission to follow your purpose. Yeah, 100%. And what I realized is, I spoke to a bunch of my friends as well that have made a lot of money very young. And they're all back working and trying to find their purpose all over again. So I said, whatever I need to do needs to last 50 years. Like it has to be something that takes a long time. And how old are you at this point? So 29. And you're already thinking about 50 years hence. I've been thinking like this since I was 10 years old. So people who will be listening to this, one, they'll be inspired, like, in terms of the forward thinking and the planning that goes in.

12:21But for those listening, how did you know? What were the things that said this was just your purpose as opposed to another whim or something else that could come in and fleetingly disappear? So it's because it was the one idea that was truly my own, right? I think with everything else, being a doctor, being a lawyer, was always something else, something that somebody else implanted in me. Someone else's expectations. It felt very foreign to my energy and my soul. The feeling of watching Steve Jobs doing the iPhone keynote in 2007, that basically lit an inner child-like energy in me are the fact that somebody that was able to explain or break down very complicated information in a way that my simple brain could understand, but also get people to celebrate about the fact that they're about to spend over$1 ,000 on a phone, right?

13:16I'm like, how do you do that? That was very, very fascinating. And also, he wore black and he wore sketches or New Balance shoes. And he just didn't look like what was expected of a person in that position. And I've always felt that way. I love the idea of being your own person and having your own DNA. And I think that that inspired me to say, you know what? I want to do that. I don't know what that is. I want to do that. And then the Mark Zuckerberg story, having a 23-year-old say no to a billion dollars, and he's wearing T-shirts and flip-flops, and he's building the thing that me and my friends were using.

13:55I was just, they're like, this is an exciting time, right? And I was like, I didn't quite figure out exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew that there was something in this space. And I just pursued it. And just iterations and compounding over time, and the vision just became a lot clearer. So you've made the transition, you've gone out, you've built your own business. What have been some of the highlights that you've seen along that? So I think the best way to describe going out of the safety net it wasn't a safety net but for me it was and it was my place of comfort at Gymshark what's free fall right like the first thing that happened from the moment I left maybe I got about six months of like false um wins right we got like FIFA as our first client right we got like so yeah so we got like FIFA we got Netflix we got Bumble it was just like the post Gymshark syndrome i always describe the four years at gym shark post gym shark feeling like drake albums right the first one was thank me later all the features jay's on the beat you've got like everyone's on there you are the band record label etc etc and the second year is like take care pain right it's like okay you forget that it's not just about the one-off projects about renewals you forget that if you have to be in every room you're not running a business it's just a you're self-employed with just more um responsibilities the first year was a false expectation of what the business was going to be like the second year was the the harshest as it could be a lot of things happen not just within the business across my personal life i was look not looking after myself i was all over the place fighting to just make sure that i wasn't a failure i think at the time the thing that was driving me i always say that there's three um energizers that will ensure that you stay the course, right?

15:50And this goes down to the simple principle that there's two ways to motivate a mouse, right? Either with cheese or a cat, right? There's so many people that have gone to the top of the mountain with just the cat. You can do that. But how many of them are fulfilled? Yeah, fear drives you to a certain point. Yeah, and it can get you to the highest point. But internally, you still feel unhappy and fulfilled because you don't have your cat right and you also don't have your engine right. So you're telling people to be more focused on what they love. Not even that. Like what energizes them, right? And at the time, my cheese was obviously the long-term goal.

16:30And I'll tell you about my delusional dream. My delusional dream is to buy Arsenal Football Club, right? Or at least be a shareholder. My wife likes you already. Hey, hey, right, right? So that's the delusional dream. So I was like, okay, cool. I tried to pick something cheaper. or something less ambitious, but nothing energized me more than that. So I was like, okay, when I was 14, until now, the thing that kept our family together in the group chat was Arsenal Football Clubs. It's a deeper meaning to me than that. Now, my cat at the time was obviously the feeling of being worthy, et cetera, et cetera.

17:03But also, I can't fail. I've just let Jim Shaw, you're the Jim Shaw guy. You've built your name, you can't fail. That was the cat. And I was very lucky that my engine, which is that from the cat to the cheese, was something that I was very good at. Right. And I had the reputation to do that, which is why I have so much respect for anybody that goes from one field and jumps to a completely new field. The fact that I had the case studies, the reference points, I've seen this before. Now, I'd never been at a company pre three, four years. so that was new to me but at least i could rely on my um um my not reputation but i had evidence that i could at least pull something out of nothing and what's happened now is over time going through the high and the low then the you think you're going to get there and then it's not working now going into year four i'm confident as hell because i've seen this i've done this the The pattern recognition.

18:08The pattern recognition's there. And I'm just in reflex mode now. So we're doing the whole Gymshark thing again, but now in the B2B space. For the person who's watching this, how did you identify or what would you encourage them to focus on? Should they be focused more on the cat or the cheese? So I think it should focus first on yourself, right? So people, after working a lot with Ben, I think that he's genius, his zone of genius, or the thing that makes him brilliant is his radical self-awareness. He is the most in tune with himself, what energizes him, what turns him off, what he can do, where he needs help.

18:51I always say to people, most people, if they had the opportunity to run a football team, they would probably make themselves the striker. It's the sexy role. Yeah, but what happens is Ben was able to identify not only was he not the striker, but he wasn't even on the starting lineup. He came out of the CEO role, hired the people that he wanted to learn from, learned from them, and only four or five years later did he go back to the position when he was ready. Most people, especially in the age that we were in in our 20s, would never do that, right? They wouldn't have the humility to do that. They wouldn't have the humility to do that.

19:29So I think what you should always start with is firstly, who are you? And a good way to learn that from a career's perspective is through the Ika guy, right? Like, what are you passionate about? What are you good at? What have you been paid to do? Because that's just evidence that you can actually do the thing. And sometimes it may not necessarily be in a career, it could have been like a side hustle or something where you were able to actually get somebody to exchange money for the skill or for the thing that you built. And then the final one is what does the world need, right? And I think that with Gymshark, I hit the first three.

20:06But what the world needs changes every seven years, right? Every generation needs something new, which is why I was like, okay, at first, youth culture, the social media era, needed a blueprint that they were not just creating TikToks and putting videos. This can actually turn into commerce. And influencer marketing was invented in that bubble, right? And that was the inspiration for that generation. Now it's the post-COVID, does remote working work? Is diversity an actual business strength or is it just being a performative? A tick box. Yeah. Can you demonstrate that in order to build tech companies or companies of the future, you have to fuse both art and science?

20:55A lot of people think that it's just about performance marketing and it's just about like mass media, But no, there's still an importance of crafting communities and compounding it. So there's a bunch of problems we wanted to solve at that point. And what we've realized is beyond that point, because you should always play the infinite game, we're like, well, sure, we can run a social department, then we can run the marketing department or support the marketing department. But eventually, if we really believe in this thing, you should apply to the whole entire organization, right? So really what we're doing is just building the capital, the confidence, the reference points, the network, to be able to just like world build, man.

21:33Like, I think that that's what anyone that has the aspiration to build a business at a very high scale, you should be embodying the persona of a world builder because it's effectively a suite of different products that represents a world with unified values, right? I think that people get very, very comfortable. I've realized that comfort is the most expensive thing on earth. You think that it's a strength. And I think that anybody that optimized for comfort is actually setting themselves off the boat. Because really what you should optimize for, I always say that it's important to be happy and grateful every single day.

22:22I don't believe that happiness is a destination. I don't think that anybody should be doing things that will eventually make them feel happy because eventually that thing will end. And then what are you unhappy? Right. So you may as well look at the little things that make you happy every single day. And the long term goal you should shoot for is satisfaction. Right. Or challenge. Right. Like you being able to demonstrate to yourself that you can solve bigger and bigger problems each time. And the satisfaction of being able to do that and being a constant and persistent problem solver and builder or nurturer, right, I believe is what we're actually here to do, right?

23:07Hunting and gathering. We're either hunting or gathering and nurturing, right? and and i think that comfort or the pursuit of comfort or just being around people that you're comfortable with actually and that could be comfort in different layers for people i think that's the reason why people don't do it you were at the point where you were successful yeah you were on the back of a wave 20 million community you're getting phone calls from your ideal client and they said let's go if somebody's in a position where they're thinking about making the move they might not have all of those parameters what's your advice to them what what are you telling them to think about consider reflect on before making that leap so so i think first and foremost it should be like why are you doing it right like like like my big thing was i had an itch to scratch Like, I don't, like, I wish I was somebody that could confidently talk about something or command respect in the room without doing the thing.

24:14So you think you have to have a piece of paper or something? So even till today, like I said, I think at first I was too nice. Then my whole policy was be kind, not nice, right? Because kindness is telling people the truth and being honest with people. and then people know where they stand and then they show up accordingly. And I think at first, I would fall for what people said. And I realized that the only evidence that truly exists is having a front row seat to either doing the thing or being alongside the person doing the thing. So even to down how we hire people today, we always say that if we haven't gone to war together, we can't, it's dating before marriage, right?

25:00So we tend to work with people as contractors for at least 90 days, or we collaborate on projects, we solve things. And then once we realize that we've gotten to war together, we're both still standing and we're both only to go for more, then it makes a lot of sense, right? So you're saying that somebody should have a side hustle of proving the thing that they're doing? They should prove whether they're doing the thing because they actually want to do the thing, right? I think that a lot of the times you go on social media and everyone's convincing you to have a side hustle. Everyone's convincing you to do something, but everything is down to just money.

25:28I'm like, this is a very long life, right? And going back to what we said about the cheese, the cat, and then the engine that's going to get you there. If your cheese is wrong, right? And the vehicle that you're going to take to get you there is also wrong, right? Then you know that you're not going to - You're not going to get to his destination. So, or you're going to get to a destination that you don't love. And also what energizes them that is useful to humanity? Because you need energy because everything is energy, right? Like the person that beats the other person is the one that has more energy and endurance.

26:14I can outpace you. Yeah. It's a marathon, right? Everything is a marathon. And if you're not energized by these things, or at least have constructed your life from the destination to what you're running from, to how your life is going to be to energize you, and you're relying on motivation, you're not going to get very far. Like endurance beats motivation all day, which is why when you hear people that say, oh, I'm not going to get with a partner or find a partner because I want to lock in by myself. I'm like, well, who's going to energize you? Right? When you're letting yourself go, who's going to be there to give you like words of encouragement?

26:56Right? But shouldn't you be able to do it for yourself? I feel like we are tribal by nature. Okay. As humanity. Yeah. But you're a hunter. You're a hunter's off going and getting the stuff. Yeah, but we also lived in villages. Right? And what I actually believe that is foreign to us is I think that beyond that point, we didn't really have to think about more than 24 people. What happens is we all have too many people contributing, right? And what you tend to see as you get more successful is you go back to that natural, like, small group of people that energize you, encourage you, and help you fight the good fight.

27:32You need a closed army of people that are with the fight with you, right? That's how I see it. I could never, nothing that I have achieved of significance was done by myself, including Gymshark. That was a team effort, which is why. Whenever I hear a lot of ambitious founders that say, I want to build a unicorn, I want to build a billion dollar business. And then I ask them, what are they building or why are they doing it? And everything is down to themselves. And I'm like, for you to be able to get to the top of that ivory tower, more people than yourself need to be energized on the outcome of what you're looking to do.

28:08Right? Gymshark's thing was all about uniting the fitness community. That's not something that, that's something that everybody wants to see. Correct. So if whatever you're building is, and the only beneficiary of that is you, then it's going to lose steam. It's down to how much you push people to do it. But there's always a cap. Because you only have, we're all living batteries. And every day, depending on how much sleep we get, depending on what we've spent our time doing the night before, we either start the day with 100 % battery, or most of the time by like 40, 50%. and if you're doing everything on your own you're just ending the day with like very little battery but if you have energizers around you the first thing you do you go to the gym from 50 to 70 right and then somebody on your team says that problem already solved it it's another one right you have to basically you have to be um quincy jones you have to be the quincy jones yes you You have to conduct the orchestra and the orchestra has to reinforce energy, right?

29:16Because once you understand that, then you can apply it accordingly in the right spaces. And the goal is to go and find other energy drivers in the spaces that are necessary for the business to get to where it needs to get to, but are not aligned with the things that you love to do. So you don't have to be the front person. No, you don't have to be. I think the funny thing is a lot of people think that I've always wanted to be the front person. I thought I was going to be an analyst at the start, right? I'm a lot more mathematical and scientifically inclined than people think. And I'm a lot more strategic than people think.

29:54Funny enough, I did this test on chat GPT or Claude. I basically, because you obviously prompt, and everybody should do this, right? You prompt all day. And then you ask it, based on what you know about me, which member of, which house in Harry Potter would I fall into? And all my life, I was like, I am Gryffindor, right? And what it said to me was actually very accurate. It said, you show up as a Gryffindor, but really you have some Slytherin because you are more intentional than people. It's not just like blind bravery. It's very strategic, but it's for a good reason. It's a good reason. So it's like, and I was like, that's the most accurate.

30:44And the people that know me always say that because I believe in being warm and welcoming so that people are very honest with you. And then with that information, you can do whatever it is that you need to do. So you've now built your business. You've done what you've advised people to do. You've found what energizes you. You've found people around you that are going to do it. But you've had quite reflective conversations, I think, about should I be doing this at this level? Should I be at the top of Butterfly? Should I be going to move something? Where are you at with that? Because I understand that intimately, and I'll tell you why in a minute.

31:18Oh, no, no. At the start, before we even set up the business, I've basically built a company where I will not be the CEO of this company. Why? beyond a particular point because it's just just like the Gymshark thing we'll get to the the top of the tower and I want to build something else right so I hear that but my understanding and you keep me wrong because this is yours my understanding of the Gymshark scenario is that you'd got to a position you'd you're I think you're so creative like your ability to forward think and see things so I definitely believe the analyst in you you saw this is where innovation could take us AI is coming blockchain is coming all this stuff's coming and they was like yeah but we're cool we've got 20 minutes we're alright don't rock the boat leave us alone and you're like well actually I'm going to go and do that myself and you've done that so I love that conviction but now you're at the top this is your thing that you've built this is not no one else's this is your thing and you're still going to say something different yeah because I love the sport aha so it's a it's a sport like it's basically like saying I made it to the league now you should be happy now I want to ballon d 'or why not like like like i always i always find it very very interesting when people don't aim to be the best with it do you feel internally that you're giving it all that you have and my thing is i'm giving a fraction of what i still have within me it's because the reason that's limiting me is um capital yeah uh like real capital yeah and also um uh more people that are better than me in the thing that's really important and what we need to do and you have to make it worth that while and the the capital story for me was we did this thing where we actually started to speak to a bunch of like investors and what i've realized is that investors are not visionaries right a lot of them the vast majority of them they they like to bet on the short thing or what supposedly is the numbers and even despite the the the record people will still doubt that you can do what you need to do but on the opposite side i always say to people you can't expect somebody else to put money in you that you're not willing to put in yourself so i was like okay cool right it's like the messy meme versus england it was like okay let's do this right so so my thing was okay so we will work with brands that believe in what we're looking to do and have the resources for us to do it properly.

33:47And we will save our resources and invest in the businesses that we want to do it. And then once you see one unicorn and the next unicorn and you're like, hey, I need to get involved in this. Then you have all the leverage that you need, right? I also studied the space of when you are a founder and you don't have control over what it is that you're building that could actually be the thing that just adds unnecessary pressure so unless you are aligned with what we're looking to do it doesn't matter how much money you have it doesn't make any sense and i think that people forget how much of a privilege it is to be able to wake up every day and decide whatever you want to do right i am one of the very few people that can construct my entire week in a way that energizes me and that actually align and that's because that i moved out of london i went back to birmingham an apartment my mortgage is like next to nothing i'm next to the airport i can get to wherever i need to be i basically removed myself of of things that just like that forced me to have to do something because i have the thing yeah right and i've just made my life very very simple and that allows me to have the the the breathing room to be able to actually be valuable to people and and we went from trying to get 20 clients or saying no we're just going to work with people that fit this criteria like even if people give have money and want to do if they don't respect you what's the point if they're on line with what you're looking to achieve you yes but it's not about what you say yes to you it's also what you say no to and i realized that you can't build a brand if you don't say no to things and there's a difference between saying no to things because you're too scared to take a risk and saying no to things because they don't align with where you're going and i we know where we're going so myself and Michael were like he wants to build hotels he wants he loves I'm like all right cool I like sport I love I'm like what is the things that we love doing and I'm like okay so how do we get there and I think that the the one big lesson that I learned from university because I know that it's very cool to glamorize being a dropout right I loved university I enjoyed it I did learn way more after university but there was one guiding principle that I remembered from the lecture that I wasn't energized by the most, but the lecturer was the reason why I loved it.

36:13And he basically said that everybody talks about change, but the key is transition. Transition is hard. A lot of people can put with good intent the change they want to make, but they never manage the transition, right? Which is why, going back to football, when a new manager comes in, you a lot of people will just evaluate them based on the results but they don't pay close attention to the transition same with players yeah which is why i've always looked at compounding my dna is compounding what does that mean i was not born with any talent i don't have no talent like no i'll explain i learned how to read and write when i was seven years old right i could do advanced math because my uncle taught me right and because i failed and failed and failed and the first grade i got when my parents figured out that i was i still suspect that i'm dyslexic and have a lot of like i have adhd etc etc but was i got a zero out of 50 and i've never seen my dad more disappointed right because my dad's a doctor right so and the year after i got 50 out of 50 My whole thing is, okay, I'm lucky in the long term, not in the short term.

37:34So I always accept the cards that I've dealt or the dice roll that I've done. But what I'm very, very good at saying, okay, you want to get there. What's chapter one? What's chapter two? What's chapter three? Which is what I say to people. If you want to achieve something really, really ambitious, describe it in great detail. Then say, I want to get there in 25 years. What's this year 24 look like, 23 look like? and you get to year one you're like this is all i have to do so i'm very big on but that's your skill then yeah that's that's that's the thing that i learned i learned about compounding which means that's why our company is called butterfly effect right because we believe that small things become big things if you compound over time and my whole thing has always been we're willing to to start from a blank canvas and and build one brick at a time and i think that's one thing in your career that's always struck me is that you've always had the courage of your convictions yeah you say something and you stick to it like where did that come from how do you how do you know when you're right do you know what like there's a difference between the most successful people in the world and the ones that never fulfill what they're looking to achieve and it's all down to cause and effect.

38:50One that believes that everything that happens to them is down to something that they can contribute to. And the other is a passenger towards their own destiny. And they blame other factors for what happens to them. And through human nature, we know that things will happen. That's just the way that life is. What we can control is how we react to those things, right? and if even though somebody else did something you always trying to find the lesson in what you could do differently what is the role that you played in the thing that happened and how do you avoid it or get better from it or elevate from it and that's even when somebody does something to me I always say what is the lesson I'm going to take from this and how do I move and that's just compounded over time so it went from me saying this has happened to me to me just relating it back to when I get a bad hand in Monopoly or whatever.

39:45It's like, this is just my starting point. Actually, the reason why it happens to me is because people think they have a head start, right? But they need the head start. They need it. Because if I have a head start, it's not fun. You're not catching it. So I'm like, okay, I'm the guy that will always start from a bad hand. I'm okay with that. And I think I keep pursuing a bad hand. I keep saying, okay. so you know you're right when you've got something to overcome yeah yeah yeah i know that's your indicator and i'm also right when i tell people what i want to do and they laugh because i've i think i've gone to a space now where i think the last two years i figured out was the problem the problem was success was the problem is because whenever i would say something people say oh that's a great idea i would love what you're gonna do like of course you're gonna to do it very well i don't need that right i need a little bit of doubt i need a little bit of hmm i don't think that's the right thing to do i say to people that you have to have a very healthy relationship with failure because in the gym the one that takes the most resistance build the biggest muscles right you have to tear down the muscle to build it yeah yeah so so if you're too comfortable to fail then how do you know because the reason why i'm confident is because i failed enough to know even when you thought you were right yeah when was the last time yesterday right like so so like i always i always try to break things down to first principles anyway okay right and and sometimes there's a lot of technical reasons as to why something just doesn't work right but until i know and i've seen it myself how do i know that it was my idea or what it was implanted right and i'm willing to be wrong i always talk about the fact that embarrassment is the is the entry point to success right you and alex talk about alexa moses yeah if you're not willing to be embarrassed and you're not ready for success like never mind all the here's five reasons why to do like if you cannot get over the hump of failure and embarrassment don't even So that's the first thing you tell people.

41:57Don't even bother because I was scared of doing that because like school teaches you not to be wrong. Right? Entrepreneurship is the complete opposite. It encourages you to fail. It frustrates me so much. We focus on in education, the worst bits of people rather than focus on the best bit of the people.

42:18Things like copying, and I don't mean word for word, but taking inspiration from history or from other spaces. And I basically have devoted myself to a lifelong journey and learning, right? But my learning is, so I don't, this is the controversial thing that I say all the time is I don't read books, right? Because one, I don't have the patience for it. And two, I'm always doing like multiple things in one go. and I realized that I'm auditory and kinesthetic. So podcasts have been an unlock for me because it's not just about reading the book. It's about retaining and applying. And I can retain an entire one hour podcast and apply it the next day.

43:05So there's a podcast called the David Senra podcast, who's the guy that built the Founders podcast. And I listened to that and I understand every single thing and I can apply it the day. So that's what I do is I'm like, Okay, so now whenever I'm faced with a problem, I'm like, here's how this person solved it. Let me apply it and see what happens, right? And then I realized, okay, this works, but it only works in this construct. So I'm literally learning and retaining the information. And the thing that I've realized with a lot of founders is that they don't know how to articulate what it is that they've done, right?

43:46Right. They don't, they don't, they're not, when they're in the middle of the tornado, they're not realizing that what they're doing is somewhat different and somewhat useful for people. Right. And the thing that allowed me to do that was the fact that I worked in education. Right. Like I was, I was like, I was like a theorist first. And then I became an entrepreneur because I did what, so I'm, while I'm, while I'm, while I'm doing this, I know when I'm in the middle of the tornado, that's why when I was at Gymshark, I'm like, this is special. Like, like, I'm like, I'm like, Because I see the compound happening and I'm like, you need to document this.

44:19You need to be able to tell the story and help other people be able to deliver this. And I do not believe that I could be, I believe that I'm going to be a better investor than I am a founder, 100%. Because you've seen. Yeah, but then to be an investor of great businesses and a community architect of great businesses, I have to earn their respect. They don't respect people that are not set in the same seat. So I'm purely doing the founder stuff to earn respect. And also to be confident in whatever contribution that I'm providing. Actually, the founder of Uber basically articulated that the founder is the grandmaster of the problem that they're solving.

45:02And typically the investor is the chess enthusiast, right? And whilst it may deem to be helpful, only about 10 % of investors do no harm.

45:18And only one actually helps, right? So I'm like, well, I want to be the 0.1, right? So that's my whole thing. It's like, so how do I become the 0.1? This is, I just see this as my university, my practical university degree, man. I'm like, okay. Living it in real life. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, I'm living it in real life and I'm sharing and I'm talking about it as I'm going about it, right? And that's why my LinkedIn compounded is because I had all these ideas and all these thoughts that were not going to be useful for my day to day at Gymshawks. I started to share with the world. And people were so, first and foremost, intrigued slash confused as to why somebody wouldn't put this behind a paywall.

45:59And I was like, I'm just going to share an idea every day. LinkedIn is crazy. But in terms of the community you've built, but the insights that you share with people. And you mentioned something just then, in terms of the way that you retain information for the auditory. So if somebody is listening and watching, what's the sentence that you would say to them about what they should be doing in LinkedIn? So in a sentence, yeah, give more value than you expect to receive. Amen. Right. Because I'll take you in further. I tell people that I'm a lot more calculated than they think. So LinkedIn wasn't a coincidence, right?

46:41I used to be desk buddies with Ben. Ben is the founder of Gymshark. And he pursued a YouTube journey, right? But the time that he said he was going to do it, for his company as Ford thing as Gymshark, everyone was like, why the hell are you doing that? Like, you don't need to do YouTube. But he said, I was at a meetup, and one of the fans said that they've been doing research on the Gymshark story. but you couldn't find it. Would you mind doing like a YouTube video? And he did it for that fan. And that grew. And he decided to do it because he felt that that was the right thing to do. And I was like, well, I was making this transition from being the executor to being a manager.

47:24And I was really bad at being a manager. I was terrible. Like, I was absolutely terrible. So much so that I remember having discussions with Ben where he pulled me aside to a room and said, this management thing is not working now you've got two options you can either continue to manage and grow the team or i believe in you i'll always back you you can become an independent contractor like you're still within the organization you still but you just become like your own avant-garde and you just do what you do right and the funny thing is when he said that i was like i want to pick that role and he said sleep on it and i was like no no no he said sleep on it and the next day he knew i'd be thinking about it and he knows that i'm not going to back down from a challenge so i had to learn how do i just like going back to first principles how do i become the best right at this and i learned that you've earned your stripes you need to let the team earn theirs so all the ideas that you have you need to put that somewhere else and I was like, well, I'm not attractive enough for Instagram.

48:30I'm not creative enough for TikTok. Look at you glowing in the feet. But I'm learning enough for LinkedIn. That's what my people, that's what we would appreciate. And also I don't have a lot of time. So I don't have time to edit videos. So I can put an idea, I could put an idea out in meme form or there was no laughing reaction on LinkedIn until my account showed up, right? To focus on what you know. Because I wanted to share insight that make people feel something. Because you remember the feeling. 100%. You don't remember. May Angelou. Yeah, exactly. But that's why whenever people post on LinkedIn, you can copy my posts.

49:09But they don't realize that my posts are contextualized based on the message, the feeling, the day is being posted. Because a Monday feels differently to a Friday. Right? Facts. And I know that it'll hit the UK audience at 8 p.m. and it'll hit my American audience in the evening. So what they see, like all of that has been factored in. Of course. And that just came from like just failing and failing and failing. And what I've realized is that because till this day, I think I've posted consistently for the last eight years, achieved about 600 million impressions. Wow. 10 million engagements. Second most engaged LinkedIn page globally.

49:49and that's just been with just giving just sharing an idea a day and and it's just been saying when everybody's proud to announce whatever their achievement is about them i'm the account when you scroll that says here's something for you and that makes people stop but but but and here's the thing that people don't get about linkedin the business is done in the dms say again the business is done in the DMs. Do you know why? Because on LinkedIn, it's the only platform that's been a bridge between B2B and B2C. Because the people that are engaging are the most valuable audience on earth. And they control the biggest budgets on earth.

50:32So a thousand people on LinkedIn is way more beneficial to your life than 10 ,000 people. And if you build a community of fans, of people that lead large enterprises, what can that do for you? Massive. Right? And I was just like, well, really my LinkedIn is not, it's valuable for today, but it'd be even way more valuable in 10 years time. That's why you've invested in it. Yeah. So we're getting towards the end of it. I can talk to you for all of those different reasons, particularly because I believe that if it ain't broke, break it. So I really resonate with your pursuit of the next level of thing.

51:10I tend to finish off with my guests we've asked them a couple of questions which i call the payoff yeah are you ready for them yeah okay cool what's the the habit that you use in your day-to-day life or over time there's change been a game changer for you a friend of mine uh masibu he runs a company called translate culture he put we were both speaking at an event ironically it was his event and and we spoke back to back and they put this diagram together that said, there is you, there is your family, there's your community, and then there's the world, right? And what I've realized is that I used to give to the world first, and the community, then internal, then myself.

51:55I just flipped that. So my day is literally structured like that. I wake up, it's 5, 6 a.m., and I'm like, what do I want to do? Like, you cannot get my time before 10 a.m. that's my time that's your time focus and from 10 a.m to 10 p.m you can have whatever you want but those four hours or four or five hours i wake up i have my coffee i listen to some hand zimmer i i i i uh i pray i'd everything that would allow me that's like i would look at like arsenal transfer news like anything that you can reminisce i can reminisce that's my time right so that I can be more consistent. So give to yourself first and focus in the morning.

52:40Yeah, because the reason why you run out of fuel and the reason why you're not consistent with the people that you love is because you've not poured into your own cup. Amen. And I always believe that no one, if you expect other people to pour into you, you're fighting a losing battle. You'll always be disappointed. You need to fill your cup and other people will make it overflow. Okay, I'm going to hold that. What's the productivity hack that you use to get things done? time blocking which is so basically i go to my calendar and i block my time so i don't just have a to-do list to say i'm gonna do this today by the way so so one step back signal versus noise has been the biggest uh just like mindset hack because when you start a business you believe that um being busy is being productive and you somehow need that as a signal or perceived signal that you're doing something.

53:36The fact that you're going to the events and seeing people and shaking hands, you think that that's productive. No, it's not. It's not the same as doing the thing. So there's a Steve Jobs philosophy that he remains an 80 % signal, which means there's five things that he says he's going to do today and he delivers those five things. And that's it. And my thing has been, well, you'll have things in order to do this that will go the next day, the next day, the next day. You may as well just say, I'm just going to do this today. And first of all is that. so that's what I do in the start and I write it on paper right I don't I put notes in my notepad and then I write the five things on paper and I have to physically I have to actually take it off and then I time block when am I actually going to do these things right because it's so easy to put something on a list it's another thing to time block so when you look at my calendar it says going to eat going to be on the train the little micro tasks are the things that I'm going to do ever get shit done like like block like those are all in my calendar because if you especially when you have a virtual team people think that the moments that you have nothing in your calendar is the moment that you're free for a meeting no no no i'm very very intentional now like even on my weekends they're all in my calendar people know where i'm going to be because i give people a link to say book whenever because there's rules in that thing that applies right so i blocked it I blocked it out.

55:02I blocked it out. Amen. Amen. So what's on your not to do list? Okay. My not to do list is I'm never going to meet a person unless I've heard a virtual meeting first. Wow. Yeah. Like for any business prospect, because I love people. That's my strength and also my weakness. Right. And if I spend The time saying yes To As many people That reach out to me I will never have any time To do anything My brother I said exactly the same thing This morning So I moved out of London I can't do it You guys love coffee Oh listen Everyone loves to talk There's so much waffle No let's go have a chat No no no no No no no There's pre-qualification How can I help you Just tell me what you need Yeah yeah I can I promise you I can solve it on a voice There's so much waffle before What do you want I can solve it on a voice note.

55:57So the next one I want to ask you is that what's your greatest failure and what have you learned from it? I always use the analogy of the tennis player because I listened to a Roger Federer quote that said, if you want to be a successful tennis player, the next point needs to mean absolutely everything. Give it 100%. And then once it's gone, you completely forget you focus on the next one, right? And that's why whenever people ask me about failures, even though I fail every day, there's no like defining one, just a lot of compounding ones. But I guess the biggest failure was the fact that I didn't believe in myself sooner.

56:32Even though I sound confident, everything, like the world beat it out of me. I didn't have a choice. Tried to be too. I tried to not be an entrepreneur. I actually tried not to. But then I think the analogy that I use is Harry Potter, Prisoner of Azkaban. There's this scene where, I don't think he envisioned it, I think they used that thing that got them to basically morph time and see the future, right? And in that, he thought that his dad was coming to save him, right? And then what happened was the Dementors was basically like killing somebody. And effectively, he was waiting for his dad to come in and save.

57:20And then he realized that it's not his dad, it was him right so all my life i thought that other people would solve the problems that i'm energized by other people would help the people that i want to help and i realized that no one's going to come right no one's coming so so once you realize that you're like well i may as well save myself well what else am i going to do right so i'm like i can wait or i can just like solve the problems and first but but i think the hard thing is the discipline of going back to yourself your tribe your community then the world i kept trying to solve world problems and i'm like well what are the things that i'm energized by because how do i have enough energy for people that don't care about me i need to first make sure and they always say that if you're going to be a successful business owner you first need to be able to successfully run your home right or yourself otherwise if you can't run yourself and you're running away from yourself yeah it doesn't matter how brilliant you are you will stumble foundations god in a crazy spot and that's the thing that i just thought i just went back to first principles and i was like okay cool then just like in the gym you start with a low weight and you build the weight up that's exactly how i'm going to do things that in this instant gratification world having patience and an appreciation for delayed gratification and the fact that hard things are of value is i think something that a lot of people lack i love it thank you so much for coming in i'm rather god bless you it's great to speak to likewise likewise a massive thanks to el for joining me on reworking i absolutely love the conversation about what drives us and how fear can get you to the top but it won't leave you feeling fulfilled.

59:12So when it comes to purpose, be like the mouse who moves towards the cheese, not the one that runs away from the cat. As always, I would love to hear from you. I do this because I want to help demystify work. I want to help people be more successful and feel more in control of what they do. So do drop me a line on social or email at reworking at bowermedia.co.uk. We've also launched the Reworking newsletter to help grow this community even more. So do keep an eye out for it and make sure that you've signed up because I'll be sending out regular updates on what I've taken from these conversations and what I think will be really useful for you.

59:47As always, thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.