Misfit Founders
Misfit Founders
Kim Slade’s Journey: Adventure, Creativity, and Empowering Founders
In this episode, Kim Slade, founder of Unlost and Touch Video Academy, shares how his passion for adventure and creativity led him to build unique experiences for entrepreneurs and creatives. Discover how Kim blends nature, storytelling, and content creation to inspire founders to unlock their potential.
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Well why don't we start? Oh, I like your. Where did you get that from? That Did you make it.
Speaker 1:No, this is from my daughter. She made it for me Awesome, so I wear it now. It's my daddy bling, daddy bling.
Speaker 2:I love that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, do you wear it all the time? I try, well, I have to take it. It actually pinches your hairs out sometimes.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:But no, I always liked wearing something around here. I used to wear like a gold chain.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I wore some beads like a nice gift that someone gave me once, and then my daughter gave me this. So I'm like actually I'm normally wearing like a black T-shirt, so I like a bit of colour. Yeah, that's probably the most precious piece of jewelry that you ever have. It is mate. Move over steven bartlett and his crafted chains, mate yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Um well, let's start with a quick intro. Tell me a bit about yourself and um an elevator pitch of your current business I'm kim, nice to meet you, um, good to be here.
Speaker 1:So at the moment I have sort of three main areas of business that I focus, two real two businesses essentially um. The first is I teach people how to make video content with just their phones. So I'll go into brands and organizations, yeah, and teach them how to make usually social content or educational content, um, using minimal kit and minimal process. So, really, opposite to all of this opposite end. So it's basically how people can plan, shoot and edit within a couple of minutes from concept to to shareable post within a few minutes, right.
Speaker 1:Just my whole focus is minimizing, speeding up that process and but it's focusing really on the first principles of the content itself.
Speaker 1:So storytelling, providing value and connecting with people, um, that's called touch video academy, and my other business, my other brand, is, uh, unlost co and um, yeah, representing and we started out as creating, uh, adventures for founders, so adventures in the wild and immersive experiences in the wild, mostly for founders and creatives and people on their on their own path. Um, and more recently we've kind of branched out due to a whole thing like a lot of stuff we can talk about into creating, um, small, off grid luxury creative spaces based in nature for founders, writers and creatives to be able to go, get free of distractions, get inspired by nature and do their best work.
Speaker 2:You know that's what I need, inspired by nature and do their best work. You know that's what I need. I I usually go a couple of times per year. Nikki drags me out of this um studio and into the nature. Like we usually rent like a cabin somewhere, yeah, in nature, but her rule is no phone and no technology. But I kind of I've told her we need to also do something because I love the nature part. I love, you know, forests, greenery and all of this stuff.
Speaker 2:Um we need it yeah I need that detox, um, but in the same time I would because I'm I'm so creative in those spaces. I need my tech, I need to be able to capture stuff and um, yeah exactly this.
Speaker 1:It as well. It's what I found. I was taking people on adventures. We were going out to pretty much wilderness. We'd go wild camping for a few days at a time where you see no people, and if you've never been to real wilderness, where you don't see anything man-made and you're just purely in the wild for two or three days at a time, you can't explain what actually happens. A whole different part of you comes alive. A whole different part of you turns on right. Yeah, you get, um, you know much more primal and you also be able to, like you can, reflect on your life back at home. Yeah, so when you're in those spaces, you get so inspired and you get so you know so, so clear about what's going on in your life back at home. But then obviously you haven't got the means to take action on it, which a lot of the time it's, um, it's a good thing, because you need the space you need a break yeah, but with the unlost dens, the cabins I was just mentioning.
Speaker 1:The idea is you can go out for a walk in nature and then you get inspired and you actually have your. You go to a little space which is all the comforts of like a really nice office, a really nice studio, but just right next to the woods or in the woods or in the nature, so you can actually go and then do some of the work that you've been inspired to do and, you know, create periods of deep work or real, uh, creative time, and you actually get shit done that's a that's a really great idea.
Speaker 2:Um, did you? Did you already started putting together these creative spaces?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've got one at the moment that's being used by members. That's just out like 10 minutes from Brighton, one that's been finished this week. So we have two units, two cabins, and then we're working on a third version. We'll start work on the third version in the summer, which is taking everything we've learned from building the first two. Yeah, with a lot of stress, a lot of blood, a lot of tears.
Speaker 2:That's what usually happens.
Speaker 1:You, you prefer not only that you learn from, from the lacks and the um, the, the challenges of of building it, and you want to make it better, but you also optimize the, the process of of creating absolutely and I'm like, make it better, but you also optimize the the process of creating absolutely and I'm like well into optimizing systems in the process, but it's the first one was literally me in a barn during the winter, like a barn with no sides, so basically under a shelter throughout the winter, smashing my knuckles up, effing and blinding every two minutes, figuring it out, how do I convert? Because the first one's in a big vintage horse box, so it's converting this um vintage horse box which is. You know, they're not designed to be comfortable spaces, they're designed for horses to get carried in and piss in basically I was gonna ask what's a horse box?
Speaker 1:a horse box is like a horse trailer right where you, where people transport. Oh right, it's the biggest version of those like the vintage style that you see, like, uh, coffee vans and stuff like that coffee. You know little coffee shops, yeah, um, but we've made it, you know, fully cozy in the winter wood burning stove, massive panoramic windows, really designed the whole thing to focus on just this lovely workspace which connects you as much to nature as possible. So you've got 180 degree view out the window to the downs, you've got a wood-burning stove in the winter and then in the summer the walls open up so it's just like totally almost outside. But you still have all the, you know, still have wi-Fi, electric, it's all off-grid, solar-powered, all that stuff. So it's all the comforts of a luxury, nice home office or commercial office, but in a micro package and placed somewhere in a beautiful spot where you're just close to nature.
Speaker 2:That sounds like one a lot of work and a lot of investment, and did it cost you a lot of money to to convert something like that? Because it seems like it, with you know, opening up panoramic view and heating and yeah, yeah, kind of like transforming, opening up the walls and things like that yeah, well.
Speaker 1:Well, the good thing about the base of the horse box is that it kind of does that anyway, because it's used to the the sides come down to allow the horses to exit, which is part of the reason for choosing that I also chose it for the fact that it's curved, like the roof's curved, and I just, I just love it when you have like curves in architecture.
Speaker 1:I'm well into design and aesthetic. Um, it's kind of one of my obsessions, you know, I'm on pinterest looking at tiny homes and looking. You know I've done a couple of vans out, camper vans, building a van out at the moment, and I just love it. When you have, uh, when you have curved wood or you have curved ceilings, that kind of thing, especially in the small space, it can really just make it feel much more cozy and much more natural. Right, we don't see straight lines in nature that much, so when you have curves in architecture it's much more, it blends with nature much more.
Speaker 1:And obviously I'm doing so, I'm doing partnerships with landowners a lot of time.
Speaker 1:It's farms to, you know, give them, help them diversify their income, which is needed at the moment, um, and give people from the city, busy people, access to beautiful spots which ordinarily they wouldn't be able to unless they're on a walk. But then, as we were saying before, if you're on a walk, you can't then make a really nice pour over coffee next to a wood-burning stove, true, and have your workspace with your laptop and everything else you need, ready to do some some creative work there, you know, ready to go. So the curved, you know the, the choice of the horse horse box was like that it's curved, it's on wheels, um, it's just big enough. It's got really high ceilings so it feels spacious. But the version three will be using the design aspects that I really like from the horse box, like the opening walls, the curb, the high ceilings, the curb walls, but be building from you know, trailer upwards our own our own product and then also with that product, we can then make it a sauna.
Speaker 1:We can then make it a you know place to to stay or like a meeting. We're much more modular so that, as we grow, the goal for Unlost Dens is to have a whole network of these really nice spaces, but just placed in beautiful spots, close enough to home so that you can just go there for the day and do your work, but far enough away so it's just immersed in nature, and then with your membership, you'll have access to all of them, kind of like a soho house does van life type vibe, right, right, so you can go, and if you're in lisbon, you go to the one outside lisbon. If you're in the alps skiing, you're going to have one near sam, one in in the alps, um, so there'll be a whole network of these little secret bolt holes that you can uh, you can go to and do your work and get inspired.
Speaker 2:That's the idea that sounds amazing, very I mean unique for me, because I don't have a like. I don't think I've gotten into this topic. I don't know if there's other um kind of like initiatives out there like this, but that sounds very exciting and original to me and I wanted to ask does that mean you're pivoting away from the expedition part and into this, or are you keeping both sides of the business?
Speaker 1:So I'm keeping both sides the grand vision, the bigger vision is to have, you know, unlost. So, for some context, um, unlaw started as something called unknown epic, me and my good friend jake, we went on a couple of wild camping expeditions when we knew no, we didn't know what we were doing. We were totally naive, went to the mountains with our backpacks, geeky founders hey, well, at the time we weren't founders, really okay. So actually, like, if we want to tell the story, we want to go all the way back. Yeah, um, which is going to provide a really long-winded answer to your question go ahead, that's.
Speaker 2:That's where we have time.
Speaker 1:We have yeah, yeah, cool so you know it's good to get context. So so I've always been into like adventure adventure is my thing, travel adventure, um. But my career side of life has been social media and content and video, um, but my like passion, like my passion side of life has been much more into adventures and creating immersive experiences. So the third business that I haven't didn't really even go into really is more just me as a consultant doing immersive experience consultancy.
Speaker 2:So I'll help events, um, I help events and, uh, companies activations yeah, companies that want to do like off sites and things like yeah that kind of thing, but also like activations for brands.
Speaker 1:So I consult on um, I consult brands on random stuff. So, for example, a few months ago I was in vegas being the puppeteer and creative director for a giant, four and a half meter robot at this big fintech conference show. Just basically taking this incredible robot creation and bringing it to life by casting an actress, writing scripts, um, and putting on this little show. Within this, this conference, bringing some really interesting, cool feature to, to like a fin, a fintech conference, which could be, you know, relatively boring content if you're not, if you're into it, but, you know, providing respite for people who are really into the, who are getting into the conference, creating some, uh, immersive, experiential things, right.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of one thing that I do is is consult on that stuff, because I've done a lot of that in the past, done activations at like glastonbury and boomtown, created our own stages and events and parties. So, yeah, the three sides of what I do is the adventures and the and the dens was talking about the storytelling and video, training and the immersive experience, consultancy. Eventually, I'm trying to bring all of that together because, as you can imagine, it gets busy with two little kids when you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, to ask, how do you manage three business? I mean, you have two running and you're you're starting the third now like that's a that's a lot. I can barely handle this and starting my own creative um business just now. How do you handle?
Speaker 1:well, it's part of the ongoing challenge, but, as I was kind of getting to with, this grand vision is that eventually it will all come together and be this one brand, unlost, that provides immersive experiences for people, getting them closer to nature and helps them live stories that are more interesting and more inspiring, actually be the heroes of their own journey in these immersive experiences and, um, and have it all come together as one. And obviously, the content side I'll make, uh, you know, adventure films and content of what we're doing. But, as my sort of journeys panned out as a founder, different things of life have pushed me in two different directions, ones that were kind of more short term monetary gain, and so I had to find ways to balance all of the different aspects of what I do, and part of that has been just stress and difficulty and navigating, keeping myself sane and navigating, you know, trying to look after myself along the way so that I can deal with the different aspects of stuff. Um, but it has been difficult and I'm constantly trying to refine what I do to uh, to bring it closer to the one place and that is really, you know, taking people on these adventures.
Speaker 1:So, with Unlost, going back to your original question um with Unlost, I want there to be three aspects. One is we take founders and creatives on these immersive journeys and experiences in nature? Um that help them reflect on what they're doing and help them create magic. Basically, I love this line we connect founders to all so they can create magic. Interesting. So the idea is connect. By connecting people to nature and by connecting people to their like childhood joy and their real creative um their creative self, they can then go on and be much more creative and much more effective in their own businesses and is it with the um, with the, with the expedition and taking founders into nature?
Speaker 2:I'm also keen to understand and actually let's start there what was the catalyst for this idea? Because, it seems, were you at that point a founder when you started this business? The unlost the original version of it. Were you a founder when you started this business? The unlost the original version of it. Were you founder, were into entrepreneurship already?
Speaker 2:Um, let me put the context on why I'm asking this. Yeah, sure, because I feel like it's every single time, as a founder of over a decade now, every single time I go in nature, it's just this, this change in terms of, um, I would say, the tightness that a lot of us have. You know, even if you're, even if you're, you know with with your kids, with you know we have a couple of dogs, even if we go out for a beer, even if we, there's there's a certain level of tightness and kind of like this weight on your shoulders. All the time, whether you go to bed, you wake up, you have this weight on your shoulders and I think the only place that I felt a bit of that weight lifted and forgotten was when I was in nature that weight lifted and forgotten was when I was in nature, either doing a bike ride in the middle of nowhere or being in the forest with my partner in a cabin or something like that, and I feel like me doing that a couple of times. I might've had the spark at one point. You know, this is a really good place for for founders like us because both of us are founders to unwind and forget about that and get replenished with energy.
Speaker 2:But I'm curious where did it start for you? How did you actually come up with the ideas? What was the catalyst?
Speaker 1:Well, it's funny, I was just listening to another podcast with Daniel Priestley. You know Daniel Priestley, what's his podcast? He wrote key person of influence. He's a successful entrepreneur and he, uh, he just started the score app, um, which is okay online quizzes for to generate leads.
Speaker 1:But anyway, he, he was mentioning how every founder he believes every founder when they find what they're meant to be doing, it connects in some way to their origin story. And their origin story is somewhere around when you were sort of 9, 10, 11, that kind of age yeah, something in your life switched where you realized I'm independent from my parents, I'm a like, I'm a person on my own and I can. Something gave you excitement for life, something gave you a sense of independence from from your parents and set and a sense of possibility in your life and that a lot of the time you know that could be a good or a bad experience. So he believes that um, and it really resonated with me this he believes that so when you're at that age, it's like that formative um time where something happened and you and it inspired you. It will inspire you forever, right?
Speaker 1:And he believes that most founders, when they follow something that they're passionate about that they love. All they're essentially trying to do is get back to that age, get back to that feeling when anything was a possibility and all of a sudden you realize, wow, I'm my own person in this world, I can do something. Great potentially, yeah. And so I was thinking about mine, and actually mine was, um, climbing over my back wall as a kid and going down my street and having adventures basically running away for a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, running away, climbing over walls, bouncing in through people's gardens, making holes in their fences. You sneaking through the hedgerows, creating dens and tree houses in the neighborhood, finding derelict buildings and exploring those, and that really gave me the sense of like, wow, look at this, like we can go outside of the walls, we can like explore, and it made me feel amazing. And you know, if we was amazing, she was, uh, she's very adventurous. She's like the female version of Forrest Gump. She's done all sorts of incredible stuff in her life, like unbelievable claims to fames and stories sounds like I hadn't.
Speaker 2:I need to have her on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, she's great and anyway she, so she really inspired. You know, she's kind of an inspiration in terms of like exploring and and making the most out of things and and as a kid she would take us out of school if it ever snowed. She would take us out of school straight away and take us up to the hills and like pretend like we're in on an arctic expedition and give us like hot chocolate in the woods and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:So my my origin stories all around adventure and building dens and spaces and it just like that's literally exactly what I'm trying to do now. It's just go on adventures and build dens.
Speaker 1:It is literally called unlost dens, so that really it comes back from, from there, right, that's where I feel like the the real inspiration comes from.
Speaker 1:But going ahead in life, you know I had lots of different jobs, um, just a whole broad range of jobs, from being a laborer to being a uh, to being a guitar engineer for, like famous bands on tour, to um doing what I felt was the first kind of proper job where I moved to Brighton and I and I was a social media manager and I had a career in agency side doing that stuff for quite a few years until I just got so, so fed up with sitting in an office.
Speaker 1:I used to love, like exploring google maps, and I put across an x on a map which was on this desert island in the middle of the south china sea, somewhere. That was like, was it random? Random found that I found an island that looked really hard to get to. It didn't even even have a name on Google Maps, it was just a green spot with a white ring around it with a blue ring around it. I was like, right, I'm going to quit my job and go there, and so I literally handed him a notice at a big agency working for big brands and, you know, really amazing career prospects, I was like nope.
Speaker 2:I'm going to this island.
Speaker 1:How long ago was this? How you know? Really amazing career prospects. It's like, nope, when was this? How long ago was this? How old were you?
Speaker 1:15 years ago, maybe around that, around 15 years now and I was like I just need to figure out what I really want to do, because this isn't it and at that time I hadn't considered being an entrepreneur. I wasn't particularly. I wasn't like one of them kids who was like starting a business when they were really young and all that kind of story. For me it was just adventure and I needed to get away on an adventure. So told my wife girlfriend at the time um, she was just, she's always kind of been great and been up, believed in me and been up for stuff that I suggest. Told a couple of mates like, do you want to come? And they're like, what's? What do you mean? We're going to go to this island, what's there? I don't know, but it would be really cool getting there. Anyway, it was in the philippines and I've been in the philippines, had the most amazing adventure. Um, made it to the island after like crazy adventure, just all sorts of places, um, you know, off the beaten path, and it was literally the most beautiful, amazing desert island I've ever seen, like ever been to. It was absolutely phenomenal. And so we ended up traveling for another like six months, and towards the end of that trip I was sat on a beach, another desert island somewhere, turned to my wife and said, right, I've decided I'm never getting a job again. And she's like, okay, and I'm like, no, I've just decided I've got to do, I've got to try and do something. That's myself, like I've just got to figure something out myself. I'm like, no, I've just decided I've got to do, I've got to try and do something. That's myself, like I've just got to figure something out myself. I'm not meant to be, I'm not meant to have a job. So, um, that was the start of it all, really.
Speaker 1:And then when we come back, uh, I was, you know, in, in had the adventure bugs.
Speaker 1:We started going on these wild camping trips with, with, with my friend jake and we. It gave us massive clarity when we're on the mountains, like there was this huge clarity of like, wow, that's what this is really us, you know, like you were saying, that feeling of the weight being lifted, or like dissolving the stress. Dissolving when you get into nature, yeah, when you really spend a few days in nature, you connect with like your real primitive, human side and it kind of dissolves all the facade of like you know what nationality you are or what, what your identity is in terms of what jobs you've had before and all this stuff, because basically you just need to find some water and somewhere there's some shelter and somewhere to sleep right so you connect with like oh shit, I'm just a human being, I'm just like an animal and actually I'm part of this huge you know, I'm part of, I am nature, I'm part of it all, and you get that realization and then that just opens up the possibilities of like what do?
Speaker 1:I, what do I? Okay, we're in this sort of fun game of life which it kind of seems you see it as that a little bit. What do I? What I just want to do with my time. And so we both decided, you know, we wanted to be founders, we wanted to found our own company and we wanted to take more people on these types of adventures, to have these moments of realization, to help them, you know, create amazing things in the world. So we founded unknown epic and we started, you know, taking people on these adventures. So that was the start of it. Um, and that pretty much long-windedly answers your question of where it all started no, this it.
Speaker 2:it's a really good story because it allows me to kind of like pinpoint and identify certain things, key points of interest, and one of them to me is when you looked at your wife and told her you know what? I don't want to work for anyone else ever again. One how old were you at that point?
Speaker 1:again one how old were you at that point? I'm a little bit time blind for me too. I'm terrible with that. I've got no timing wise. I'm like I know that, um, it was probably around 15 years ago, so 20 25. I was about 25 ish, something like that right.
Speaker 2:So you're quite early into your adulthood, in a sense yeah that you took the decision. You know never again how long was your work tenure, like you, because you worked for, you worked in an office, you worked in the corporate and so on. How long was that? Did you have a couple of good years or was it?
Speaker 1:So I worked, as I said. I did all sorts of jobs, An amazing array of jobs. I've got ADHD. I'm just into everything. I see something I like and I'm obsessed over it Me too.
Speaker 1:So I had such a big range of jobs growing up, um, but I wanted to move. I'm originally from a town called bogner, regis, uh, and it doesn't provide you with like a massive array of opportunities the kind of array that I needed in my passions. Yeah, so I wanted to move to brighton and I found this job at an agency. And you know what, as soon as I saw the job, I knew I was getting the job, even though I was completely unqualified for it. I just knew Because the way I could see the way they phrased the question it wasn't a traditional application form, it was like a couple of questions and I could see, by the way, the way they wrote the questions, exactly what they were looking for. And so I wrote the answers exactly how I thought what they were looking for Got an interview had zero experience. Got an interview had zero experience.
Speaker 1:But the whole point was it was for a social media role which they wanted people to be, someone who was a people's like people, people right and I've done all these different things, worked with lots of people in different situations, so they wanted that broad range of like, not necessarily experience in that role, but like in life, um, and so, you know, I turned up, turned up to brighton, I just put myself in the position of, like I'm just walking through town to work, like that was my mindset. I'm like I've got this job. I was just totally relaxed and they, you know, said to me after all, friends of mine, now, who, who gave me the job, um, good friends actually. But you know, they said to me after you just kind of turned up in the trainers and just was just all really confident, you know, compared to everybody else who was trying to like fit the bill, I was just like no, they need me for this job.
Speaker 1:So anyway, I got that job and it and it was a really good, a big agency, straight away I was working on like rolls royce, chelsea, coca-cola, these big brands and um, but like, so that was really like career wise, like job, job. But I think I only worked there for about four, three years I think. After two years I knew that this wasn't me. And then for a couple of years I was like trying to soul search of like in the meantime working the job, and it was really. You know it's cushy, you know I was getting good money, I was in a good team.
Speaker 1:Um, there's lots of prospects in that you know, social media was just starting to uh, just starting to explode. Most of the the agency they didn't really know. They were like they called our team team unicorn because they didn't quite have known or what do they call it unicorns or fairies or something, didn't know what we actually did and they weren't sure like if it was just a bit a bit make-believe the whole social media thing. But actually, you know, we were early in on on that scene so we made a massive impact and um, but I just knew right. So I only lasted about I think it was three or four years until I was like I'm out here, put the, put the cross on the map, you know, and went for it.
Speaker 1:But then I spent a few coming back after traveling. I went back to that because it was obviously a sought-after skill. I went back to being a consultant and I spent another year or two on the side of like we'd formed the company of Unknown Epic and we wanted to take people on adventures. But we didn't have funding, we didn't know anything about the startup world. We were just like, well, we just take people on adventures, right? So we just started. That was kind of like the side project and I was doing social media consultancy like content consultancy or as my earner, basically right freelance basis, but I never wanted. I was trying to work my way out of that to get into doing a you know an adventure company what was it?
Speaker 2:when you make that decision because this seems like a very pivotal moment in in your life, which was after that adventure journey of spending some time overseas and so on and and deciding you know what I'm never going to work for, um, someone else again what was, what was the catalyst? Why? What were, what was the, what were the reasons that made you think, after having time to reflect, I don't want to do it. I just, you know, I want to figure out things, I want to do my own things and so on. What, what were the motivations there?
Speaker 1:I think really it comes down to I mean, a lot of founders I've spoken to feel similar just this sense of freedom, being able to go on a path that you create rather than somebody else has laid out for you. And I think, when we're and there's absolutely nothing wrong with more trodden paths right and actually sometimes I wish I was someone who wanted to just tread a more trodden path I wish someone would tell me what to do for a change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or just I, just I just wish I could like, simplify and just like. This is a proven model, this is a proven path. Just do that and things will be so much easier. But there's always this urge to to find my way through by myself. For me, I guess I think it comes from that sense of adventure. I don't like the trodden path, I want to go discover.
Speaker 1:And so I felt that in my heart that I wanted to go my own path. Also, I'm extremely creative. I'm not really an entrepreneur, I'm an artist. I've realized in in the last couple of years I'm somebody just creates in a certain way and I just want to create beautiful things and brilliant experiences, and figuring out how to get the money is kind of like a second, a second, a secondary thought.
Speaker 1:you know it's like the money just needs to fuel that stuff, to create the awesome stuff and to solve the problems and to and to give people amazing experiences and create cool stuff. So I feel like I'm a bit more of on the artist side than the the sort of entrepreneur side well, that's why you're, that's why you're a misfit founder yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah but you know, I've, you know, I've seen this pattern quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Right, I think it's rare that someone identifies as an entrepreneur. Sure, there are people that are like, well, I'm good at business, I'm good at generating scaling, generating revenue doing this, I'm good at business and I have this entrepreneurial spirit. But there's a lot of people that, especially when you're in a niche type of market or you're fueled by certain talents or skills of yours, a lot of people don't see themselves. As you know. Well, who am I?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm either an artist. Am I either, um, uh, an engineer, a technical person? I'm either, you know, loving gear and filmmaking and I have this, um attraction to it. So, and the entrepreneurial side, and building a business is how I exercise my passion and my skills and so on. And I think that's why, you know, I've had so many people sit on the hot seat here and ask them about what makes them a misfit, and I think, most of the time, although the answers are so varied, most of the time the essence of it is well, this is me, and me being a founder is my expression of me. Right, it's not my identity.
Speaker 1:I want to be a misfit. I don't mind being a misfit.
Speaker 2:I think it's great yeah, that it has a point to me, it has a positive connotation, although, um, I can say that I also had guests that were like I'm not a misfit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, you know what I I. The thing that I struggle with most is, you know, as you've heard, I've got different businesses right and the thing I struggle with is which I'm trying to work on, which is like I know, I know what I want to do, I know where my my true like, where my energy when I'm working on it gives me energy, I know where my higher vibrations are. But that kind of business with what I found with you know, creating experiences, creating adventures I never found the way to make enough money right, because I would put all my passion into like it doesn't care what it costs, it's just got to be the right thing, right. Whereas with the social media side and the video side, there's a much more tangible like business benefit. There's a much higher need and a much more tangible thing where people need video content, people need need this stuff, and I'm able to provide it and help them do that.
Speaker 1:And so, in term, certain times of life when the pressure's been on or um, we've had, uh like hard times in life, I've had to just go back to what I know is an easier path to the money. Yeah and so, but it's always been evident in that I know that if I, if I I'm always cautious around saying this because obviously I still need the money and I still need to generate the leads in the business with with touch video and I know I'm really good at it, but you know the icky guy circles. It's like I'm in that circle where I know the world needs it and I know I'm really good at it, but you know the icky guy circles. It's like I'm in that circle where I know the world needs it and I know I'm really good at it yeah but it's not necessarily fully in the circle where my passion is.
Speaker 1:And on the on the flip side, where my passion is and I feel the world needs it, is the adventure in the outdoors. But I haven't quite nailed how to make the money from it, and so I'm always in this uh, conflict between what I want to do and what I know is a long-term game and what I should do because I have a small, I have a young family, yeah, and, um, I can make money over here with, with touch video. So I'm always in that conflict and that's that's still still trying to solve it. But my way out of that is starting the dens as well, because it's more of a recurring revenue model.
Speaker 1:It's still the essence of what I'm trying to do, which is get people into nature, help them be inspired, um, get a bit more adventure in their lives, even if that is one day out on the downs yeah and it's more of a recurring model and it's something that people actually do need that space, whereas before just taking on people on wild adventures doing the world's longest sledging run or whatever it is um, that's more intangible and it's not necessarily as good a business model I kind of you know there's this.
Speaker 2:People say this thing. There's a lot of business advisors and gurus out there that says do the thing that makes you happiest. But I think that's very dangerous that's very dangerous.
Speaker 2:Oh, my advice would be do the thing that is the most comfortable for your situation, right? Because if we change, if we chase purely happiness in this specific dimension which is professional right, like you said there's I am in this situation, I've been in this situation quite a lot which is do I follow my passion, which seems not to generate that much revenue and that much, you know, financial well-being for myself, or do I chase financial well-being? I'm not going to enjoy that much what I'm doing, but it generates money and you know I have a comfortable life in a sense and you're in conflict though yeah because in your mind you're like which one should I do?
Speaker 2:yeah, and when I mean what I mean by, um, do what's the most comfortable, I mean being able to balance it, kind of like intertwining some of your passions with something that can give you financial security at least. Right, and that's what it sounds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's and not or realize is you might not have the absolute happiness in in career, because you know what makes you absolute happy when it comes to you exercising your skills and your intellectual and creative creative kind of like brain. Is this thing over here that gives you total happiness in terms of that, um? But if you're trying to reach a middle ground, you're never going to have that. You know, nirvana of, of, of, job and so on.
Speaker 1:I don't know because I think some people do though some people yes what I like.
Speaker 1:You know I'm an eternal optimist. Right, I'm an optimist, and I've been in this struggle a long time between what I see, what is proven to make me money, and what I really want to do. But feels like I can't make money with right, and I've been in this toil. But then I go. You know, you look on Instagram and someone's making money building towers out of Lego and blowing them up. Do you know what I mean for a living like they're just loving life and you can tell their energy is like look at this awesome, you know skyscraper I made today. Today we're going to smash it with a baseball bat and they've got slow-mo cams and they're having lots of fun and cams and having lots of fun and and in this day and age, literally people make money from the craziest shit. Yeah, and so you think there is if, if you. You know that takes a lot of commitment, but what I think it actually takes is the stories that we tell ourselves. Right, because I know that I have a. I'm aware of blockage, but I believe my belief is that I can't. I have an internal belief that I'm trying to change, which is it's hard for me to make money doing just what I love, and I and I was, you know so. So there's this internal belief that I'm trying to work on and change, which means that I'm telling myself all the time that I've done the adventures and you can't make money from that. But there are people out there taking people on adventures and making plenty of money from it. So why can't I learn that skill and and what I need to know and get the information in life and to be able to do that right? So there are people out there making all the money they need, doing exactly what I want to do. So I feel like, well, I just need to figure that out right, but there's, but there's the thing. That's the difference and I think what you're talking about is.
Speaker 1:Again, it goes back to a first principle everybody discusses, or so everything. When it comes down to news stories or opinions or political, it's always this or that. Yeah, when most of the time, the real answer is in and it's a bit of this and a bit of that and it's somewhere in the middle. So you know, if you can flex to understand, like you're saying, you need, you need, at the end of the day, you need a way of making money to survive and play the game game of life, but if you keep working on it and to see how you can find a business model using what you love and still keep into the same first principle of what you love doing Like.
Speaker 1:So for me, it's taking people out into nature, helping them be inspired, and for me, it's building cool stuff and cool experiences, the that pure taking people into nature, have fun with a tangible business model, creating a place for founders to use. Um to be able to get closer to nature but also to get more work done. And I feel like I've found a sweet spot which is and which is not just this or that, it's and both. Yeah, and this is why, um, I'm getting like much more passionate about this new project, because I feel like it could be the thing that combines the both. So I think that's the way people need to think of it. It's and.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I would also add to that something that I've been passionately talking about this topic on this podcast, about this topic on this podcast, which is what you're saying, is identifying the core components that give you that happiness Right, and utilizing that in ways that kind of like balance and both, and you can have both. You know the I'm passionate about this and I'm also making money out of this.
Speaker 2:The one thing that I see a lot and you touched on it and when I heard it I was a bit I kind of need to address this, address this I think social media and a lot of content that we see out there um, influences not always in a positive way and and there's a lot of people out there founders, entrepreneurs, art artists, people that are passionate about certain topics and they they see a lot of this imagery and a lot of these examples and they take it as at face value and they want to emulate and replicate that exact success. Right, and when I mean success, I mean don't mean financial only. I mean you know, look, this person is building legos and smashing them, and they have millions of views and they're making a ton of money and they're doing purely what they love. I need that, when, in reality, is that what you need or is that a skewed perception of what it is?
Speaker 1:What it is is just one snapshot of the journey that they've that person who's got themselves into a position, of the journey that they've that person who's got themselves into a position. Yeah, because I know from social media you don't get a huge, a big enough following a big enough subscription base to make money from that stuff unless you put a hell of a lot of hard work. And it doesn't matter if you're doing what you love. That guy's probably sick to death some days of building lego models.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it feels trapped. It becomes a job as well, it's like, and you have to be careful of that yeah, you have to be careful of that.
Speaker 1:Definitely like where you some people would advise, like I used to have a coach that says don't do any, don't do what you love, do what you hate, but optimize your work so you do as minimal as possible, make as much money as possible and just spend all that money freedom doing what you love. But the thing is, when it crosses over with what you truly love is helping other people or is solving a problem for other people, then that's when you can do something that you love, and any, and you can keep getting energy from work yeah but what you're saying is, I totally agree.
Speaker 1:But because you see that snapshot of, like, the person having a great life, but what you're not seeing is the years of effort he's put in making crap videos after crap videos after crap videos, the the commitment that someone's spent and the consistency they've gone through to get there is not necessarily always seen, and so people have that skewed view of like oh, they've just, they've just started doing this thing and it's all worked out rosy for them, yeah, when in reality there's a whole lot of pain and work that's gone into. No matter what you do is getting to that point right, just like and you might not want that, you might not want you might discover.
Speaker 1:That's not what you want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and you might not want that, you might not want to. You might discover that's not what you want to do and you might not want that might not make you happy, right Like putting that much energy and blood, sweat and tears into something like you know people, there's a lot of people out there that content creators, youtubers, that are up and coming, and you know they get asked who do you wanna be like? And they say mr, mr beast, no one wants to do what mr beast does like. That is not. That is like a level of obsession and um thinking. That doesn't come often. And if I would sat you down as a content creator and say for the next five years, you need to do this and this is your pattern and you're not going out and you're not doing this and you're not doing that, you'd be like no, I'm out, I don't want that.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Someone like Mr Beast devoted all of his life to doing nothing else, and that's where you know people like yourself and like myself. I can tell just by coming here today that you're into stuff. You like aesthetic, you like design, you like creation, you like getting into things. Mr Beast is into one thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one thing only creating YouTube videos and I'm just not that person. I used to be a singer-songwriter and I, you know, wrote good songs. I really felt like I could make it. You know, um, one of these many things I did before my career, uh, in everything else. But when I went on tour and I started touring and and singing a lot, and and I realized very quickly like, ah, this would have to be my whole life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I want this to be, if I want to be a successful singer, singer, songwriter, one, you've got to have, you know, got to have a certain level. I believe that I had a certain level of of, um, potential, uh, and then you've just got to work harder than anybody else and you've got to be, you've got to have a stroke of luck in within that. But, like when I first started doing gigs in london, ed sheeran was doing gigs in london and doing the same sort of gigs, but he was doing two gigs a day, every day, and he was doing nothing else obsessed and nerdy about that absolutely yeah, and it was like, oh well, and then he, you know, he obviously deserved, he deserves to be where he is because he just obsessed and just done that thing.
Speaker 1:I'm not in any way saying I'm as good as ed sheeran. What I'm saying is you all have to have the potential, but you have to have absolute commitment to something, and it's the commitment which, um, really drives success. And I've I've actually felt that in this recent project because I, you know, for the first time in a long time, I sat in the woods and I really decided. I had this idea around dens for a while, but I sat in the woods and I had a moment where I was like, no, I've now decided, just like I decided, that I was never going to get a job again. That felt like no, I've now decided, just like I decided, that I was never going to get a job again. That felt like a true decision that is made and, yes, I can go back on it if it doesn't make me happy or serve me any longer. But I still feel like that is my decision. And my decision to do these dens was I didn't have the money, I didn't know how, I didn't know where it was going to go. I didn know it felt impossible, not impossible, but it felt very difficult. But I just decided I'm going to do this.
Speaker 1:And there's times when I was in I was freezing cold on my own, bleeding knuckles in a barn trying to fit one tiny little screw in to make this whole thing work to da, da, da da, and I was just pulling my hair out doing another late night, missing my kids bedtime. I came back to that. No, I'm fucking committed to doing this and it's gonna get finished. And that sense of satisfaction when you know, I peeled the film off the windows and someone came in and used that space and they're like yeah, this has worked perfectly for me that sense of satisfaction for me, that's like fuels happiness. It doesn't, for me, work whenever my kids bring me happiness and the gratitude I feel for my life brings me happiness. But the work fuels the satisfaction and the joy and that's what I think really people should be working towards is just satisfaction and joy, not necessarily happiness overall.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what it is is satisfaction and joy.
Speaker 2:That's what I mean by comfortable, right you're? You're not dissatisfied um, you don't have dissatisfaction, right, you're not miserable because your, your work is the worst and you don't get to do enough of your passion and the stuff that bring you joy. But you're also not stressed because you're doing the stuff that bring you joy, but on the financial side, you're lacking and you feel like there are people that can, you know, can live happily with a lot less, and that's perfectly fine. But that's what I'm talking about is having that kind of like somewhere, your middle ground, where you're joyful and satisfied with, you know, the things that you do and the financial bit.
Speaker 2:And you said success at one point, and the thing is that I've learned somewhere in 2015 that success is not this thing that people make it look especially on social media and media and so on. Oh, this is a successful person. You know, I can be a successful person because I'm content content with my life. We're where I am and I'm happy and and and kind of like I feel fulfilled with what I've achieved. That is success to me, right, and and that's success to, and that's why, you know, I also want bring in diverse voices and diverse ways of thinking in Misfit Founders, because I don't want to have this individual that has been grinding for 10 years constantly and say, look kids, that's the definition of success. No, we're all different and it is completely okay.
Speaker 2:I'm in this journey and this mission of battling these standards of that's a successful person, that's a least successful person, and making people feel miserable and unsatisfied. Because again, I'm here to say and I think you're the same saying if you have joy and happiness with what you're doing and you're not stressed financially, you're fulfilled Right, you're fulfilled right. If you don't feel that deep internal feeling of something is missing and you're, you're fulfilled like you're, you're happy with your, with where you are, then you're fulfilled. That's success for you and not the well. If you haven't achieved this and if you haven't made at least two million or ten million, you're not successful, but that that for me is what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:There is like the opposite to the whole reason, like we said about why I started being a founder in the first place and why you found lots of other people have yeah um, is the the fact that I want to tread my own path.
Speaker 1:I want to create my own thing, I want to create my own story in life. So if I'm constantly comparing my story to some other story that somebody else has created, like the trodden path to, yeah, you know, 10 million or whatever, it might be, seven figures or whatever they you know, they say it's like, well then I'm, I'm actually not doing what I intended to do in the first place. I'm looking over there at the other trodden path, going, oh, I need to be over there on that trodden path. Well, that's not why I'm battling my way through the, through the weeds to to go my own path right. So for me, um, success is it's not necessarily like a destination, it's like I just feel like there are strings of successes, like, for me, finishing the first den was a success because I committed to something. I saw it through and it's got and the creative vision is now there.
Speaker 1:And this is one of the reason why I love making video is because I think the most powerful thing that we have as human beings get a bit deep, but I really believe this shouldn't is like the most power, like our superpower, beyond any other animals on the planet, because I'm fully aware that we're just animals like everything else, but our superpower is thinking about something and then making it a real thing for everybody else to see, bringing it into existence. And so when you have, like a vision of something big, that takes a long time, a lot of commitments that bring it into existence, but when you get there it's like oh, such success. But I also feel that same sense of achievement is if, like I want to get a really cool shot, like I was telling you earlier about that car, about getting the shot of the car with my phone. I've got a vision for exactly how I want that to look and then I try it a few times and I managed to capture it. I watch it back and I'm like bam.
Speaker 1:Yes got it and it's that I've just visualized something and now I've made it real and that feels like you're using your superpower, and so for me, whenever I get that feeling, it just feels great. And the thing is then you. The trouble with that is then you make your visions bigger and bigger and more difficult, more difficult, and you just keep going right, but that's part of the fun. I feel like I'm flexing the power that we have as humans and like I think that's the just. For me it's like kind of the greatest thing you can do in life it's just create stuff that you've visualized and then make it real uh, I'm in the same boat.
Speaker 2:I've never been. There's certain aspects of the journey that I enjoy, but I'm always the outcome like. I have this vision in my head and I wanted that. That's the most fulfilling for me is, you know, seeing that come become tangible in a reality. And you know, and there's we're very diverse when it comes to being entrepreneurs and so on. There's a lot of people that really love the journey. I can't say I hate the journey, but for me, the the exciting bit is this outcome. Um and I think that's also what it has benefits and downsides, the. The downside is that if you focus too much on the outcome and you dislike the journey completely right, that might be a deterrent from you ever achieving the outcome right, because you're you know there's going to be things that kind of derail you from from that, because you're just not enjoying this one.
Speaker 1:That's where doing what you're doing, what you love, comes into play, I think, because if you're doing something that you don't like and you have to find the energy, yeah, to keep going when it's really hard, then that is hard, that is really hard, but whereas when you're doing something that overall you like you might not like the task I didn't like having to drill a million holes in steel, um but when you're doing that task, you, you're contributing to something that you do want to achieve. It gives you the energy to keep going. And so that's where, when people say, do what you love that's really what I think people are talking about is that's where you can find the energy to actually keep going, which is, as you know, to create something, um, to create a business. You have to find the energy to keep going in the tough times but you're also passionate.
Speaker 2:I mean passionate you. You're passionate about this. You know um outdoors and in the nature and exploration bit, but I it sounds like you've had, you've done a bunch of jobs in your young adulthood in a sense, so you're not completely um out of your comfort zone in building and taking a hammer and doing this and doing that. Right, because, if you like, I am like I am the worst person when it comes to dui. You see all of these things, but but half of these things weren't built by me, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:so, so I love that stuff yeah, I love that stuff, so you have to when something gets broken in my house, I'm kind of pleased.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get to fix it, because I, you know, like I love it again. It's flexing that muscle of like creation or like making something work. Yeah, like I love, uh, fixing things, I like fixing problems, I like fixing item. You know, something smashes, break, breaks. I'm like I'm not getting rid of that. I'm gluing it back together. I'm finding every piece and I put it back together like a puzzle and the satisfaction I get from that is massive and it's just, I just enjoy it. Yeah, and whereas, like my brothers, they're like, they ring me up like kim, this has just happened. What do I do like? This is like. You know, my brother once passed me a uh, a um, a wine bottle to use as a hammer whilst I was putting ikea furniture together for him.
Speaker 1:This is how, like, like mate, no, anyway, that would be me in that yeah, I really love getting hands-on, I love making things, I love fixing things and building stuff with my hands, and and so you know, again, it goes back to that like creation, that creation element, like I think that's just, that's just what we've got as humans to give right. So some people create with their mind and their thoughts, more so, and in a in more of a digital world, and some people want to create more in a in a physical world and I think both are valid because, at the end of the day, we we interact.
Speaker 1:To be honest, we interact with the digital world more than we do the physical world, but I've found that I'm just longing for the physical world much more so that's why I'm just trying to move into that area and you're never going to like have absolute joy every single day.
Speaker 2:Like you, you mentioned, you know, drilling into um kind of like aluminium sheets or things like that. That might not might not be the the most joy bringing stuff, but as long as you, you enjoy the stuff that you're doing along the way. Right, and this is one of the reasons why I'm getting into the creative space as well, because I'm I love gear, I'm a tech head, I know that there is a place for that. It's called a dp right. I don't necessarily need to be the, the director and the super creative person because I know I'm lacking there, I'm never going to be that good, but I'm entering a space where I know that I can get my hands dirty and I can be passionate about it, alongside having this vision of the end result Because, again, as I mentioned, I've always been the. I want to see this become a reality, like it might be a piece of software.
Speaker 2:In the past, and so on, I've never liked that much quite a few bits of the process of getting to that right and that shone, because in the last year or so of my business I was super stressed, I was grumpy most of the time and so on, and that was because of the challenges, but also because there were very little parts of my business where I would find joy, day-to-day joy right, little parts of my business where I would find joy, day-to-day joy right, whereas with creative and filmmaking and so on, like I, I feel that I can have that thing that I'm I'm passionate about and I can do every single day and go back to it with passion and, yes, I'm looking forward for this end result. But I'm also passionate in the moment, in the now, of something sure and it's that little sense of satisfaction.
Speaker 1:You know you get a shot right and you're gonna make it look good and you're oh, that's good. Yeah, you know. Or you get your new bit of kit and it's like oh, that's gonna go great in the background.
Speaker 1:You know these little senses, little pieces of satisfaction that you get from from doing what you're doing, and that just keeps us, keeps us fueled along. There was something you said about, um, you know, you know, again, going back to that balance between the passion and the money, because we said, like on social media, do what you love and you have to do what you love. But then the reality is you've got to, sometimes you've got to make the money, like that is that's the score, that's the thing that kind of keeps the score in society at the moment right, which is, you know, like I've got a young family and there's been periods where I've really toiled with this most of the time imbalance between what I'm doing. I'm either. I find myself either doing more on the side of what makes money because I feel like I should be responsible for my family and I've got to.
Speaker 1:You know the pressures of like having stuff, not that I'm into that much stuff, but you know I want stuff for my kids, I want to provide this and that, um, and then feeling like, oh, actually, I I mean, but but all the time I'm doing that stuff I don't necessarily enjoy. I'm thinking about the thing I want to do, so I'm not putting my whole self into that. And then the flip side is when I'm doing the thing I do enjoy, that's not necessarily making the money. Now I'm thinking about oh no, I should be, I'm doing the wrong fear here, I'm being irresponsible. I should be doing the thing that makes the money right. And so the thing that took the joy out of bit of the joy out of the process for me is when I know I'm doing the thing I want to do, but then the pressure of money is still there and as someone who provides for family like the pressure of money is is still there, so it kind of just saps the joy out of stuff.
Speaker 1:Which is why I think a lot of the time when people have a successful startup or a successful business is when they found some financial success in another area which allows them to have less pressure when it comes to fulfilling something that they're more passionate about, because they have less pressure of the money. So therefore they can bring their whole creative, abundant self, high, vibrational self to that project, which always gets better results. Because as soon as you have the pressure of making money from the thing that you love the most, it alters your decision making because you're figuring out, okay, but it's got to make. But the sort of convoluted, counterintuitive thing is when you do something without the pressure of money, it ends up being so much better and is more likely to make my way more money because you're attracting the energy, is attracting the right energy to it but how so?
Speaker 2:because, you know, sitting here and talking, I'm in that position right like I. I sold the business, made a bunch of money and now I have the comfort of just focusing on the bits that I enjoy more, focusing on that a bit more, and I have the the luxury of taking my time and not being stressed about what I need to generate. They're still there deep down inside because you know, after you, after you've been chasing and making generating revenue for such a long time and chasing this, you know financial freedom.
Speaker 2:In a sense, it's a way to keep the score yes but but now, for example, I'm like I have I I do have a bit of an, a tiny bit of an anxiety, because I'm like, well, you know, I've been generating financial freedom for for quite a while and now I'm in this other side when I'm doing a lot of the stuff that I feel that that's something it's missing because of the entrepreneurial side.
Speaker 2:But, that being said, I am in a in a privileged position right now. A lot of people that are watching the podcast aspiring founder and so on are, and it's very hard to be there. So I was wondering, from your perspective because you're sounds like you've been in this situation, you might still be in this situation until you get to a certain point, and so on how do you see getting out of that push and pull between the two, how do you? Not even because you and pull between the two, how do you? How do you not even because you know it's never a finite um answer, but how do you not let it affect you that much?
Speaker 1:well, for one. It does affect me that much. So I'm not going to be like one of the social media. Everything's amazing. You know I have a daily.
Speaker 1:You know I work on myself to try and stay sane and and okay, you know, um, with all that's going on, um. So, firstly, let's put it, it's put it out there. It's like I feel like with touch video academy, I could have built this business, because I know the need is there, the market is there, it's all lined up, ready to go to be a much bigger, much more financially successful business. However, in the times where I've started creeping in that direction, I've got bored and I've wanted to do the other thing, so I've. I've, you know, a lot of my energy has been taken out of that side to go into the adventure side. Um, so, in terms of finding that balance and I'm in an interesting position where I've seen the flip side, which not many people I don't think have, where they've I've been on a project where we found massive creative success with zero money.
Speaker 1:That has led to the attraction of money, right. So they're kind of like the other way around, right? So a lot of people might, you know, like we were saying, find the find the money, find out a financial success, then have the freedom to go do the creative thing that is um, that they don't have the pressure of. We did a creative project with um, my brother and and and a you know, a small bunch of the most creative people I know. We worked on this project called we Are Red Stars and it was pure passion, pure fun, creativity. What was it? There's a good question.
Speaker 1:I'm waiting for you to tell me, so what it actually was it was based on a story my brother wrote many years ago around a not so distant future where one corporation has taken over and bought up all creative rights and the world's in a terrible place Right and there's a band of resistance who are called the Red Stars and they're a band who have a following of um of other red stars which, basically, are taking creativity back. So they do massive, massive activations of creative expression and freedom, like parties and concerts and art and graffiti, um, just as a two fingers to the corporation. And it's this story um that my brother kind of had sitting on for years and he got us all in a room and said, look, I've got this silly story. There was in the room. There's like filmmakers, producers, music producers, musicians, artists, concept artists who do like Hollywood films, like all these create all our creative friends. I'm like what can we do with this project? And another good friend of mine, jack, who, who is a founder himself and had found found some financial success, he was like look, let's get a room together, I'm gonna pay for this little space where he lives in in france. We all went over there with a load of kit and we just got in this room and said what can we do with this concept? And we were just totally in free flow, creative, free, free flow. It was never like about making money. It was like what crazy shit can we come up with? We thought let's make a, a series like a proper cool series. Let's put on a our own stage at glastonbury, let's build a giant robot, let's do all these crazy things. That were just total pipe dreams, but in that moment we were like total creative freedom.
Speaker 1:Anyway, within a year we'd made a series with, we had our own, we had our own secret stage at Glastonbury. We we were then getting invited to all these other festivals. We had, um, major musicians from like hero, musicians from bands that we all loved coming to us and I'd love to get involved in your project. We had just this vibe which was just pure high vibrational creativity. When people came into our zone in our parties at festivals, they were just like who the fuck are you guys like right, because we were just all in this crew and we all just did it so much for the love, and we did it on like literally. We had, like you know, we put on a stage at Glastonbury for about 50 quid. We just begged steal and borrowed and it was amazing because people were just attracted to that creativity, into that pure energy of like that they could see happening.
Speaker 1:Right, covid hit and we in COVID we all had kids and we all had to found, found some like. None of us had financial freedom at that time. We were just doing it for the love of the, the passion of the project. But from that that sense of creativity is oozed out into lots of people's roles, like one of the guys who was um ended up being in a kind of leadership role in that space because he was able to organize. He's now, like you know, md of a, promoted to md of a company, another person who found that he that was. He was amazing at making things physically. He's now literally built the giant robot that we ended up taking to vegas I thought for a second that there's a connection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, somebody else.
Speaker 1:Somebody you know my brother who sort of orchestrated the event side of things was. He's now got a really great role at a massive events company, massive global events company. We've all taken that time and found a route to some more financial means through that creativity, so it's kind of like you see what, what I mean, it's kind of the flip side.
Speaker 1:so being involved that project made me realize, when you do follow something that is truly with no, with no monetary pressure and you're just doing it for the creative passion, you will attract a much more higher caliber of uh, energy and money flow right. So, for example, for for you, you're creating this amazing content. If you were doing this because you had to get this edit out tomorrow, because you were getting paid three grand for it or whatever, and you had to get it right today, you wouldn't have taken so long to set up the nice shots. You would have cut some corners when you're editing, you would have been like, I can just get it, and you wouldn't be producing the kind of content that is going to attract the same level of of caliber of client which you'll end up attracting because of the caliber of content you're making and that's because you're putting your passion into it. You're putting those satisfaction, you're being creative.
Speaker 1:And so my advice, which goes back way back to some question you asked ages ago, is you have to have a certain amount of counterintuitive. You have to be certain I'll rephrase that you have to be counterintuitive to a certain effect where you don't cut corners with your creativity, you make something that you really truly believe is beautiful yourself, and that will be putting the energy into it that will attract other people to it, even if that's more of a long game. And so there was an answer to a question you said a while ago as well, between the difference between the passion and the money making and I often refer to. It's like long game or short game. Short game you need to pay the bills, do the thing that's going to make the money. Right, you have to do that. But long game don't like water down your creativity, because at the end of the day, it's when you express yourself and when you put your energy into something, people are going to just feel the vibe of that energy and they're going to be more attracted to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I recognize that and completely agree with that. I don't think I've. I think I've ever, whenever I put the most of my passion in, those were the projects that came out the best for me, you're completely right about that.
Speaker 2:There is. I think it really depends on who you're talking to and so on, because, as you said, kind of like, don't. Kind of like, don't get sucked into this thing and basically be satisfied, get to a point where you're satisfied with your creativity and the, the output that you're doing. Um, that's great. I do have friends that when you said that, I'm like, oh, but if I give them this advice, they're never gonna make anything. Yeah, at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:If you're if you're a starving artist, they call it starving artist. Right, yeah, because you put everything in to just the art man. Do you have it?
Speaker 1:just the art but I also have people that don't finish but if you, if you're satisfied, if you are happy doing that and you're happy not having and you're happy living very, very tightly in within, within your means, that's absolutely amazing. Like if you're someone who just paints and you can put food on your table and you're happy with that, that's bliss. But, um, I do want a bit more. I want to know, I want to. I live in a flat at the moment with my two little kids and it's chaos, mate I want them and I also want my kids to have out space.
Speaker 1:I love the outdoors and nature. I want them to have a garden. But you know the current climate, the way that life's panned out. We we can't afford a house house right now where we want to live, especially the kind of house that we want to have. So you have to.
Speaker 1:Again, it's going back to. It's not all. It's not like either put all your passion into something and just do what you love, or make loads of money and be miserable, but have loads of money to spend on the stuff that you the material stuff you want. It's and, yeah, it's work really hard to to understand that there can be a both and it's a combination of both.
Speaker 1:And the areas where you need to compromise is getting back to reality and having to pay your bills, so that your stress of the money doesn't infect your creative process and make the whole thing miserable. So you can still be joyful when you're making the stuff you want to make and building the business, one that you want to build. You have to have some level of um, financial, uh, safety or just getting by so that you're not just stressed by it. And I'm still getting these places where I'm just in the hole of like, oh, I need money, and that just completely ruins your creative flow and and actually your decision making I'm gonna ask you a bit of a personal question, sure, here, and you know, feel free to not to answer it if you don't want to.
Speaker 2:Or you know we can also cut it out at the end of it, and so on, your partner, where does she sit on this, Because I suppose one she has to put up with all of your like I'm making money but I'm not happy.
Speaker 1:Or on the other side, my poor wife. I'm very blessed to have other side, my poor wife. I'm very blessed to have Nicola, my wife. She we've been together since we we've been 20 years. We've been together this year, so we've been together a long time her name is Nicola, nicola, that's.
Speaker 2:That's Nikki's name, that's my partner's name is she from from UK?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, we met growing up from the same town, so she gets frustrated with my overcomplicating everything. She has more belief in me than I have in me, which I feel very blessed and lucky to have that, and she just gets bored of my shit. I've just been like like, oh, just stop whining about this, just quit everything and go do the thing you love. You will make it, your, you know you'll make it. You'll make it work. Um, so she has that attitude right, which is brilliant to be around, and I can see how frustrating it must be for her to see me in this place of like oh, but I've still gotta keep doing the thing I feel like I should do, because that's easier to make money that way and that could grow into this massive business that could buy us the big house. And so I can sense her frustration.
Speaker 1:And we you know she does put up with a lot of the time what we do like when we went traveling, for example, she goes all right, cool, sounds good. She wouldn't question, question, like you're kind of a fucking x on a map what you're talking about. You know she was like yeah, cool, uh, that sounds brilliant, let's do it. But a lot of the time, what we do is I'd be the one going out obsessing, finding all the options for stuff. I'll find, like, all the top 10 of like, well, the top five options for like, and have present her all, no matter what it is, even if it's, like you know, the next you know mundane thing to buy in the kitchen. Like you know, coffee percolator.
Speaker 1:I'm like, I want the best coffee percolator so I have to find all the best in the brand nights doing yeah, yeah, research and I enjoy that and I love that process because I'm there, I'm exploring, I love seeing everything that exists, um, but then she'll go that one. Okay, it's done, do you know? I mean because she'll see things. She'll go that one and I'm like, okay, it's done. Do you know what I mean? Because she'll see things. She'll see the wood through the trees that's the expression that I don't see. She sees the simple side of things and often I I'll barrage her with my current mind of all the problems that have come that day and she's like why don't you just do that? And I'm like that's a really good idea. So I really appreciate I'm.
Speaker 1:You know, we're we, we're very lucky, I'm very lucky to have her and she trusts me a lot, and if I followed her advice would probably have been a much simpler, better place and I would be doing the thing I love way more. But I have, uh, yeah, we've been through a lot of really. We've been through a really. In the last few years we've been through a extremely, extremely tough time that has really shaped the way my businesses have gone and has probably left me in a worse place than when I started the journey in terms of my mental clarity and the things that might. The divide between what I should do and what you know, the, the divide between the money and the providing and the, and the the joyous, passionate side, has become even more difficult because of the echo effects of what's happened, basically may I ask what?
Speaker 2:what was that thing that happened last year? So?
Speaker 1:if you can yeah, I mean I don't mind speaking about that, because at at the end of the day, it's the, it's the context of what's really going on, because, at the end of the day, we're all founders, we're all just humans, right? We're all just those people looking for the water and somewhere, some shelter. At the end of the day and when, when you've got something going on in life, it's an absolute direct reflection of what happens in your work or in your business.
Speaker 1:And so I had a very up until a point of a few years ago, till the day we got married, I had an amazing life, and the day we got married I had an amazing life. The day we got married, everything changed for the worse, but not in the way that that sounds like. Um, so never, never lost anybody before in life, very lucky to have all of my immediate family still with me, my side, and never really had many traumatic events. And then on our wedding day, or had an amazing wedding day Nicola's dad gave her away, did a speech which was just ridiculously out of place for him you know he would never have and he was someone that never really expressed his emotions. He um, did this amazing speech, told nick, really loved her, which is the first time most people have ever heard that. It was really poignant, powerful.
Speaker 1:And then the next morning, um, at the wedding venue cleaning up, he had a heart attack, um, whilst everyone's still there helping cleaning up, and he spent the next two weeks in a coma and unfortunately, we lost him. And so the event of what's supposed to be your wedding, of like someone you've been with for like at the time, like 14 years or something, and it was this amazingly beautiful day, like couldn't have gone any better, literally it was amazing to have the next morning still at the wedding venue, like life changes boom. That event and the way it happened which won't go into details of, like you know, gory details but, like over the next few weeks, the things that happened were just unbelievably traumatic and difficult to comprehend and deal with, especially after the high of the most beautiful day of all these friends to the lowest point ever, and that really set about a kind of chain of events over the next few years that then put us both in, you know, really hard place mentally.
Speaker 1:And and then we had our son, which was absolutely beautiful and amazing, um, but equally that had its complications and emergency cesarean and and a lot of like a bit of a traumatic kind of end to what was an okay present pregnancy. That was its only thing. And then you know, people will know, with kids, just having a baby is like hard. And then, you know, mental health became an issue for both of us after that event. And then, and also we, we then lost her brother Again. We had this moment of a high where our daughter was born, and this is in COVID. I'm trying to cut this long story short. We lost her brother to a long, a long dark period of mental health. And we lost Mark a couple of weeks after. We had jesse, our daughter, and this is all in lockdown, um, so added the difficulties of all of that, and in amongst that there was a I had a major car accident. I had, uh, that ended up being really luckily no one was majorly hurt, but at the time I thought I'd like killed a bunch of people which was like really traumatic, um, and just just had a string of like, thing after thing after thing. That was just traumatic, event after event after event. My wife she nearly died in hospital 10 days over covid having our daughter. They were both kept in hospital, couldn't see them because it was COVID, and so I had my son thinking that it was just me and him. Now you know she's there and we're going to lose my daughter and my wife. These periods have just did bang bang. I just got smashed down by these events over a period of like three or four years, one after the other, and so that just had a huge effect on how I saw life and how I operated and how you know. The effect that then has on your business is, of course, you're just coping right. Things don't don't grow, don't happen. You're just trying to survive and do whatever's necessary.
Speaker 1:And the thing that's kind of resonated for me over all of that which I'm trying to get through is that you know, the last thing my, my, my father-in-law, derek, said to me was like welcome to the family, you better fucking look after her, you know, yeah, and then he's gone, and so at the at the time that's like just a comment, like of course he's going to say that, but then it's like, oh, I really need to look after her now and her mum, who's been left as well and, you know, gone, who's gone through more than any of us. And so now I've got this like huge sense of responsibility for my family and I feel like there's a sense of like me, who's responsible. I've taken a little bit of, like, his place in terms of his responsibilities a bit to look after her, and and so I've got this massive pull towards the side of the what I should do in terms of the responsible traditional he was very traditional. He's like, no, I'll just go get a proper job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get a job, make money sustain your family yeah, so I've been left in this much more of a position where I'm had to deal with a lot more to get over these things that we've been talking about basically, and it's still a work in progress, you know that well, first of all, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Talking through all of that must be super hard, like it's just hard for me hearing all of the challenges that then you've been, you and your family, been through. But I think that also makes a bit more sense on why you're always pulling in between these two um minds and and paths is because I was going to say when you said, well, my wife is very supportive, she's. She's always like, well, do what you love, do what you love. You know, I'm getting the same kind of treatment from nikki right, and that kind of whenever she says, no, do this, stop being foolish, do this, like I'm, kind of that. That gives me motivation to do that. And I was gonna ask well, if she's so open to you, know, and and wants you to do what you're passionate and what you, what you love, then why not just just doing?
Speaker 2:that but now that makes a lot more sense on why this battle, because whatever she says is like there's still that you know. Well, you know, I've made a promise to someone and I need yeah, and it's um.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I'm pretty sure that before this whole thing all of that period I've just spoke about happened, I was much more in the care free zone a bit. I was much more like, okay, I've got to make some money doing this thing, but I'm doing the adventures and nothing's going to stop me and I'm just going to keep doing what I'm really good at and that's it. Um. But there's also now, I think, alongside it's not just that, there's also there's a sense of because I've got kids and I see them. I see my son now he's like five and he's like bursting out of the walls of our flat.
Speaker 1:I want him to be playing in the mud in the garden and my daughter to be, and there's so much more content in nature and you see it, with kids talking about you know what we're talking about earlier, about nature. You just have to put a kid in the woods and you, they don't get bored. Yeah, they don't get bored. They might get oh, I'm on a walk, walking too far, but they are all there. Just so many things to find it indoors. You've got all the games, all the toys, all the things, and it's just like next, next, next. But you put them outside with a bunch of random stuff to play with in nature and they're not getting bored very easily. So I want to have I don't feel the need for big cars or anything like that, but I just want to have space for my kids to play. I just want to have outdoor space where they can jump on a trampoline, build a treehouse and have a garden and and um, growing up I used to think, you know, if you weren't, if you just had a, if you just had a job, I had a bit of money, you could have a house with a garden. But like it almost seems like this day they're just like you need to have quite a lot of money if you want to have a house with a garden. Like if you're at a starting point, like we are, with no inheritances or anything like that.
Speaker 1:It's like I do the finances and I'm like, oh, if I want to get a house, now that I've actually I've always visualized us having that's a million pounds and that's like I need that now. Like I need that now in the bank type thing. I need that now in the bank type thing, or I need to have and where I've grown up with a certain money mindset, which I'm also trying to change, that seems like such a huge amount of money. But with the business models that I'm working on, in terms of like the stuff that's the touch video academy I, it doesn't seem like that much money. I can see how I can get to that. I just need this.
Speaker 1:Many clients scale this much. That's not a problem. But when it's like the stuff that you're passionate about, I can't see on paper the business model that gets there which makes me go. So it's not just the need to provide because I trust myself to always provide for my family and look after them, but it's the need for like. It's the wanting of like. I want to buy my family a nice big house and I want to be able to go and travel and do show them the things that I've seen. But the finances, when you put it on paper, it's like I see the growth, the potential growth in this business and it could be huge which is the tempting golden carrot. I just keep wearing it. But then, no matter what I do, no matter how much money comes, I've been at periods where I've made a lot of money and it's fleeting and the passion still moves over to creating amazing experiences for people and creating these awesome spaces.
Speaker 1:So there is that from my part, from from the recent past, of like that psychological thing which is bearing on me, which makes me feel guilty. I hear him going what you're doing, controlling robots in vegas, what you're up to, you know, I mean, like you you could be going on in thousands a day doing what you do over here. Um, go, do that. So there is that toil.
Speaker 2:But then there's also just the, the want for, like um, the, the big house and yeah, more, more opportunity financially and I think the reason why that is is because you actually what makes you happy is what makes you happy is what makes you happy is your professional, creative side and the joys of creating and so on, but also what makes you happy is seeing your family.
Speaker 1:Oh, way more than anything else. And so, on right, Way more than anything else.
Speaker 2:So I think because if it wasn't like, if you wouldn't have get, get gotten the, the satisfaction and the happiness, the joy of seeing, of thinking, you know, with a big house and a garden, my kids will be able to run around and and be a bit more free and joyful and so on, and will be able to travel and my family would be, you know, have a more comfortable life and and joyful life and so on. I think that keeps you as much in between as also the promise, and then all of these things on the flip side to that, I do feel as though, like we're talking about success.
Speaker 1:I do feel as though I operate my life in quite a successful way. I'm quite good at acting like I've got complete financial freedom. Um, I'm like, for example, you know, I promised like I won't miss anything to do with my kids. I will never miss, like no matter how much financial difficulty there is, like I won't miss any thing that they do and I haven't done so far. Always they're in the diary first. And it sounds like a bit weird, like putting your kids or family in the diary, but I do so. It's my diary entry is, you know? Blue for touch video uh. Green for unlost um. Dark, uh dark. Green for unlost dens um. Family's. Red, yeah, nothing comes near it. And when there's kids, holidays, when there's like anything like that, it's like any time there's anything going on, everything else gets dropped right. I will not sacrifice.
Speaker 1:There's been times when I've I've been through the times when I've stayed late and I felt like I've missed stuff a little bit when they were little and and I felt straight away I can't be that, I need to be the person that's already living like, like, uh, as if I was financially free in every way yeah um, and I do that more often than not.
Speaker 1:I haven't missed any of their sort of appointments or anything like that they do at school or anything like that. Um, and I like promise I never will, like I just don't want to look back on this time and feel like I've missed any of it. So I do, and and also just in terms of the way I spend my time and and this is something that I feel like I can help founders with as well I might not have the big uh, multi-figure, like exit, which you know, which I, which I would have liked to have have. Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting that down. But what I do have is, I feel like, because of the success that I have had with touch video academy, the clients I've worked on, what I do for clients. I know that I'm good at it. I feel like I can, if I wanted to, and if I wanted to, just put the foot on that, I could describe it and that could be the side. But so I'm almost feel like I've kind of done it a little bit right, yeah, but what I'm, what I feel like I'm bringing to the table that a lot of people might not have done is.
Speaker 1:I've spent we're now in this area of remote work and I've spent 15 years remote working and optimizing like where, what kind of tasks do I best do best? Where, what kind of bag all the kit I have? I'm geeking out on the kit with like remote work as well. I've got like such a sick, like ultra light work, ultra lightweight remote work set up that I can just set up anywhere and it's like really good. Um, I've, you know, worked a lot with co-working spaces and in private offices and on the road and on trains and in cafes. I've got certain cafes for certain types of work and I'm really like that's really cool.
Speaker 2:We need to link up because I need to get your thoughts on all of that.
Speaker 1:Well, this is what I want to provide. This is where I feel like I can help founders quite a lot, and this is what I've taken into the design of the Unlost Ends, because I know that from my experience certain types of work require certain types of space. Right and like, for example and it's not exactly the same for anybody, but the trends are the same. For example, if you need to get stuff done that is lots or is like a chunk, a chunky piece of work that requires focus, deep work, creative, expansive, strategic thinking, then going to a co-working space where you know loads of people isn't necessarily the best place for that kind of work. For most people. You need to be on your own, you need to be in a bit more of an inspirational space, um, and often that's quite hard to find, which is what I've tried to create with unlost ends. Right, but on the flip side, if you, if you've got lots of tasks to do and you're working through, you know the to-do list and you need sort of like high-paced energy, then you might be better off in a co-working space where you can just, you know, do a few tasks, go and chat to someone having a coffee, come back to it and just feel like you can just notch things off right, yeah, or what I really like for that, when you've got like a deadline, is like cafes or coffee shops, because it's a mixture of in between. You've got the high energy around you, but, your headphones on, no one's going to bother you. In a cafe, no one's going to go hi kim, how's it going, mate, whatever. So you've got that in between of a cafe where you've got you've got the energy of people around you but you're not being distracted. And you've also got like a natural occurring, occurring pomodoro, a time and span where you've bought a coffee and you can't really sit there for more than an hour, you know, without taking the piss, where it's like right in the next hour, I'm going to get this done. So you go tunes on and I call it I've heard this, it's not my expression but engineer the conditions for success. I love that phrase. And when you engineer the conditions, like the right music, the right space, the right desk setup, the right view for the task that you're trying to do, you're much more likely to get shit done.
Speaker 1:Being ADHD and doing all these different things, people say to me how in the world have you got like this business, that thing going on that thing and that kind of thing, and because, although a lot of the time it's chaotic, it chaotic from the outside, I actually do get a lot of shit done. And it's because I am trying to match my energy to the space and it's like a mixture, it's like an equation between the space you're in, the conditions, the energy you have that day and the work that you have to get done. And when you get them right you can get so much done. And this is what I'm trying to bring to initially, the unlost dens space, because it's you can't find a space like this anywhere else, really, unless you own your own place, because it's a private office.
Speaker 1:But it's not a private office that you have to spend. You know that you have to commit to full-time. You only use it, you know, once a month or once a week. Um, because it's that private space, because it's inspired, it's got an inspirational view, because it's got everything you need but removes all the distractions, what you don't need. It's perfectly suited to that kind of task where you need to just get into deep work, um, work on the business rather than in the business, you know, or write the book or record the content or make the plan or be inspired for the next project. That kind of work is like perfectly suited to this kind of space that I've created, and I just don't think it really exists. I love.
Speaker 2:I'm super excited about it and you need to make sure that I'm one of your prioritized customers. Yeah, sure, by the time this podcast comes out, I'll book all of the slots Wicked. But the reason why that's exciting to me is, you know, I can see this in so many ways. I, you know, I have um get togethers with my investors or partners. You know one, two people and we need a day of just brainstorming and thinking about stuff. And you know, like you said, not working in the business, working on the business, and then they're also just days where you just need the creative day. Right, and I can definitely see myself just booking slots a day per month, say, in my calendar, when I'm not available. I'm just outside, I'm in nature and just sitting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, log fire on coffee on the side. Yeah, big view you know, get to work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so I. I think it has so much um, not potential, does have potential, but use cases and so so much, uh, so much reason for this existing in us and and do you know the the?
Speaker 1:what we've been talking about a lot in this podcast is about the balance between the two things. Right, and I feel like with this I've been so intentional in the way I've designed this business model because I've done the service business and know the ups and downsides, the feast or famine of the big projects. Um, I've had, I've done the online courses where you get trickling a bit of money and it's a bit more uh, it's a bit more uh, predictable, but you know, then you don't get the bit. So I've I've explored different business models through the different projects that I've done and different businesses I've had. And this business was so intentional in the way that I've designed the business model and I gave myself criteria to be like what there's a great way of a really good coach called Kevin Nations talked to me about was this thing money model magic. And it's like how much you want to earn, what do you want to, what do you want to give up in order to earn that and what's your magic that you bring to it right and you can do it. You can create your business by design. So when you combine those three things I've combined those three things to go.
Speaker 1:I want a recurring eventually an annual recurring revenue for the predictability, subscription based stuff. Right, I want it to be in the physical world. I want to bring people into nature and connect them with nature to help inspire them. I want to build something because I love making cool stuff. I want to create an experience for people. I want a community of people who I want to hang out with around me. I've got, I've given myself all these like really high, really like a big ask criteria of what, but I've worked hard to just keep refining this idea to make it tick all the boxes. So if it works which it is right now it will like drop the if, okay, but drop the if. But also because I know I'm bringing my passion to it.
Speaker 1:Like I said earlier, my vibrations like when you look at the space. People come to space, go wow. I love your attention to the detail, I love what you've done here, because not only are they just coming to use the space, they remember they're getting treated in a certain way, they get certain little perks, there's certain things that they. We do is I'm creating experience. People can just feel that passion I've put into it and it resonates and it gives them the energy to then do something. That, when you're talking about engineering this conditions for success, part of those conditions is somewhere that you know is high. Is it high vibrations, good energy, good vibes? So you can bring that to your work too, and I think that that's because I've intentionally designed this business, business model to be this balanced place between the money and the passion.
Speaker 2:I'm confident that it will grow to be, you know, the business that I've been looking for for the last 15 years I mean it, I'm sure it will, and I'm excited to have you back here when, in not so distant future, and you telling me, biro, I'm in the perfect place now I'm not chasing financial and passion. I've managed to get this business because business because again it seems like you're crafting it, like you said, you're engineering your conditions for success, and I'm going to take that as your quote for the flash questions.
Speaker 1:Now at the end, although although it probably isn't my quote somewhere else no, like I ask people what's their favorite quote um that they live by one more part of that which I think, um, I'd like to add is that I'm trying to actually I'm using the den myself, right, getting high on my own supply, and it's helping me because I'm I am managing to, you know, use it how I intend other people to use it and what it's giving me is like this space to work on things rather than in things.
Speaker 1:And when we're financial, got financial pressure, we just work in yeah. When we've got a bit more freedom, we work on the thing, yeah, but carving out that time, even with the financial pressure, even with pressure, when you carve out that time and you go to a different place, there's a different change of scenery. That's next in nature. You don't have the distractions, you really you it's so important to find that time to work on. And even throughout all of this time when, uh, because of the emotional difficulties and all of that stuff we've gone through, it's put it, put us in financial, um positions where I need to work in, still managing to find the work time to work on the things yeah is game changing because it's allowed me to to design things a bit more the way I want them.
Speaker 1:But with touch video academy, what I'm doing is I've realized actually the people behind.
Speaker 1:Who I want to help is founders, is other people who are on these on this kind of journey, as as you are, and other people have been on the show. I love working with founders because we're all kind of misfits and we're all kind of creatives and quirky in our own ways and I love meeting people like that. So it's not only the adventures that I'm taking founders on, but and it's the dens and you know this can be founders or creatives or whatever the adventures that I'm trying to that be for this type of people. But we've touched video too, because I've worked. I went down the route straight away with big clients, big corporate clients, and that's great. It looks great on the website, all the logos and all that gives me amazing experience and bigger chunks of money.
Speaker 1:But actually what I want to do now with touch video academy is work with founders, because then, although I'm doing different stuff, it's all for the same people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right. So helping founders again, engineering that this thing to be more aligned with what I enjoy helping founders tell stories and get geeky over the, the small kit and the quick processes of how you make videos really quickly or how you share lots of value. So what I've learned from this business model that I've kind of like, gone right, I'm going to design it exactly how I want it to be. I'm actually going oh, I can do that too with with this over here and I can do more of that with this over here, which is the big experiential things and the big goal is to just have more of like a lifestyle business of uh, unlost co, which it's a lot, it's for the customers, it's lifestyle as well, it's it's, you know, improving skills. That helps you be a founder. It's bringing balance to your life to get out in nature and have more play and more rest and more joy, and it's giving people the space to create stuff that's going to make a big impact on the world.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love it and I think there's going to be stuff that's going to make a big impact on the world. I absolutely love it and I think there's going to be some opportunities for us to collaborate um with misfit founders, because, at the end of the day, that's yeah sure you know that's the, the people that I'm trying to help as well, the, the audience and the individuals that are aspiring founders, and so on.
Speaker 2:Um, so I'm sure that there will be ways for us to interlock Right, ending up with. I know your quote already. I have two other flash questions for you which you must know from the communication. Maybe not, I don't know, maybe Lucy didn't actually mention. The first one was a quote that you live by which sounds like the, or is it something else that you're thinking um?
Speaker 1:a quote that I live by. I heard one the other day. That was I don't know if you've seen the series the bear I've heard of it.
Speaker 2:I want to watch it. The chef's the kitchen.
Speaker 1:It's a slow burner, but, man, that is quality, it's really good. Um, but what did he say in that? And I was just like, oh, bingo. And it kind of explains the stress and the anguish of, like, the creative, uh, perfectionist, but also why it's important. So the quote is you have to care about everything more than you care about anything. Hold on, hold, on hold on.
Speaker 2:That's why I took my pause.
Speaker 1:You have to care about everything more than you care about anything. Right, I see. So what it means is like I often berate myself for being a perfectionist, but in some places I truly believe that perfectionism is needed to create real class, like real quality. You're not going to tell the person who makes Rolex watches to stop being a perfectionist. Are you? Do you know what I mean? So people always berate perfectionism, but that quote gives me reassurance that sometimes it's okay to be a perfectionist yeah, yeah, very true.
Speaker 2:Book that um impacted or influenced your life.
Speaker 1:Oh the places you'll go by. Uh, by Dr Zeus, a kid's book.
Speaker 2:Okay, when did you read that?
Speaker 1:Uh, probably got read to me quite a lot when I was a kid. Okay, more recently somebody a friend bought it for me as a gift. And it's an amazing. When you look beneath the crazy Dr Seuss words, it's just you know. It's obviously a short book. It's basically just about just being you and just like you'll. Just if you just be you just go to loads of crazy places and have an amazing adventures and it'll be scary and hard and da, da, da, da da, but at the end of the day it's the places you, you go.
Speaker 2:That sounds exactly like you. Like your history going overseas I've got you know.
Speaker 1:Some people sometimes say to me or like I end up finding myself in the craziest places in the most unusual situations, um, and again it goes back to I think I just I just love being inquisitive and just finding my way into these absolute nuts places. I recently wrote my um. I called it the crazy, crazy v like crazy cv, which is a list of all the things that you wouldn't put in a traditional cv but that actually you secretly want people to know to show them what you're really made of.
Speaker 1:So it's like a list of all the crazy shit you've done. So it really is. Oh, the places you'll go is um is kind of a bit of a metaphor for entrepreneurship, of just following your own path and getting through it, basically.
Speaker 2:Perfect. And the last question is a good habit that you advocate for.
Speaker 1:Struggle with this question because I really struggle to form habits.
Speaker 2:Is it pure chaos?
Speaker 1:Oh man, it's chaos in my world, but but it's uh. But the sculptures get sculpted, if you know what? I mean yeah, shit everywhere, but again in the end up, it ends up all right. Um, so a good habit, um, do you know what a good habit is? I used to laugh. We used to all take the mick out of my mum for this, for, like, stopping us to go. Can't you smell the smell of that flower?
Speaker 1:smell the flower, look at the colour, and we, as kids and teenagers, would be, like my mum's, a hippie smell the flower, but truly like opening your eyes to grace and joy and seeing the joy and the beauty in everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In anything, because I think that makes you a much better. Also obviously makes you feel gratitude, but makes you a much better creative as well, because you see things that other people don't necessarily notice.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful and I think as we grow older, we realize that you know our hippie parents are actually right, absolutely especially with these things where, where you know it's the, you have the hardship of the world on your shoulders and then you stop, you go to nature, hopefully using your pods, and you just take in, you breathe in the air, you look at a flower, you just kind of like it helps take that weight off your shoulders in a sense, and just be simple for a second and enjoy the simple things. It's being present as well, yeah, and present yes, that's the word present A lot of the work I do.
Speaker 1:So I take people out on walks locally as well in Brighton, stuff like that and I do a thing called a sunrise service. We take people out and watch the sunrise and do this whole thing. And part of what I do is like in a nature immersion exercise, where we we tune into one sense at a time. So smell, touch, you know all the rest of them we do one thing at a time where we really get like mindful on, like to the point of like painfully mindful, like where it's difficult to keep your mind on it, of like what something you know could be a lethal, what it feels like the weight that, how soft it is, how hard it is, the shape in your fingers, the texture on your fingers, what it feels like when you rub it, what it feels like when you pick it up.
Speaker 1:What do you? You know all these different things, so you're really focused on just the one sense and then you build those up and it really is a way to get people totally immersed in nature really quickly. And, um, you know, like I said, that that good habit of just trying, everyone says, you know, try and be present, but just noticing like the finer detail in something and just appreciating it, like someone would go over to a painting and appreciate the brush strokes of the oil painting rather than the big thing or all these things. That's the habit that I just keep trying to do, which, even in moments of real difficulty, if you just like, feel the sun on your face and just just notice that warmth like it just gives you, oh, it just gives you just that little sense of relief.
Speaker 1:And if you just keep trying to do those things and keep noticing and not just being like, then that's the habit that I think is is probably the one that I do the most. That helps me the most.
Speaker 2:That's the. That's a perfect habit for me, um, perfect. Thank you so much. This is a really great deep dive in. I think we covered just a couple of topics, but I think they're very deep and resonating topics with a lot of um, a lot of people with the you know getting out of the space that you um exist in to things like you know balancing and the constant, the constant fight between you know you're chasing your passions and chasing your you know, financial well-being and so on. So I appreciate you opening up and pouring your soul on over this podcast. I really, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:No, I appreciate you inviting me on. I love what you're, what you're doing here. It's brilliant and, um, yeah, cool to be a part of it awesome and uh, yeah, we'll.
Speaker 2:We'll catch up soon. I might be in a different format. I'm thinking of exploring other formats where you know I have, after a period of time, a catch up with one of the podcast guests, maybe in a different setup and in a different format, maybe like a podcast and studio based in nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, yeah, looking out the view next to a log fire.
Speaker 2:You know we can arrange that 100%, I'm just trying to get into those your lodges, okay, perfect. Thank you so much and, yeah, a pleasure chatting to you, thanks you.
