Gerard Adams - A $50m Elite Exit

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Gerard Adams, co-founder of Elite Daily, sold his company in his 20s for $50 million. But this isn't the story you would expect. This isn't the "What did you buy? How did it feel?" This is the story of immense pressure, betrayal, threats, choosing to start again from the bottom, and figuring out that sometimes in life, our greatest regrets become our greatest blessings.

Before you dedicate your life to trying to follow in Gerard’s footsteps, you need to listen to this. I ask him personal questions that he admits he’s never thought about before. He’s an inspiration, a born entrepreneur, and he’s a man on a new mission. Without further ado, this is Chapter 15, and I’m Stephen Bartlett. This is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

Gerard, thank you for joining us today. It’s an honor to meet you. My first experience with a company that you created was in a cab in New York about four or five years ago. I got in an Uber Pool, I think it was, and a guy turned to me and said, "I work at Elite Daily."

He gave me his card and we started chatting. We promised to meet up in the future, but we didn't in the end. That was the first I’d heard of Elite Daily. Then, as I got more and more active on Facebook, it feels like it was all I ever saw. So, meeting you today is in some ways putting a face to a name, which is the brand that you created, which was for our generation an absolute monster—and I think to some people it definitely still is.

You have more than a story; you have a journey. I think that's fair to say because I've seen the path you've taken, both in terms of being a CEO, but also the sort of more spiritual, purposeful path you've taken. What I want to do to start—and this is something that I do with all the guests that I meet—is give you a minute to try and tell me your birth-to-present-moment story, and then we'll dig down. This isn't easy, but if you're up for it, that would be amazing.

Yeah, and I'm grateful that you've taken the time to come over to Newark, New Jersey, near where I grew up, to do this interview. I admire your work. I really do. Just sitting before we went live and really looking at the growth of what you've created at such a young age, and being in a similar space, in a similar generation, building a monstrous media company. I look forward to learning from you.

I love this. I love meeting new people that I feel are on a similar journey. I feel like no matter what, we all have a different story and we all can learn from each other. So, I look forward to building our relationship. You're somebody that I feel like I can really relate to, both not just in business but your character. Obviously, you must be a great leader. Everything around me is really creating and working with some of the greatest leaders of our generation, and you seem to be on that path and really doing that and executing on it. So, I look forward to building our friendship.

And that's the thing. So, a lot of the questions I'll ask today are based on the fact that I think you've got things and experiences that I'm yet to get. I think much of the reason why we seek mentors in life is because we want to not have to go through some things ourselves if other people have gone down those journeys and can shout back what's down that path. So, some of the questions I'll ask today will be centered around that as well. But without further ado, one minute on the clock.

Okay, one minute. I'll say like, I grew up—so my whole family grew up right here in Newark, New Jersey. I went to a school near Newark. For me, my mom and dad were really the anchor of my entire life. I was blessed to have really great parents that guided me. They were my first mentors.

My mother, I saw her work seven days a week at a local supermarket; that was my first job. My father taught me leadership. But I ended up starting to go down the wrong path. I ended up getting into a gang when I was in high school, hustling drugs, and I had an instance where everything was about to completely take me down the path of either death or jail.

I ended up getting pulled over by police officers. Long story short, I had a second chance. I was able to get out of that and I realized that for me, I really wanted to channel that hustle mentality into business, but I didn't know really how to do it. Similar to you, I ended up wanting to make my parents proud and I ended up going to college.

I dropped out my first semester. But what changed the game for me was mentorship. It started with my mother and father, but then I was able to seek out another mentor in my life. Now I have many, many mentors. But through working with mentors throughout my entire journey of 15 years as an entrepreneur, it’s allowed me to continue to really grow and become a real entrepreneur.

I've failed many, many, many times, but I've continued my entire life to just surround myself with quality individuals and be humble enough to not want to be the smartest person in the room and continue to learn and just get comfortable with doing the things that are risky and uncertain. I've gotten through a lot of it and I'm continuing to be a student at the game of life.

That led to your first startup, which was in investing?

My first startup, yeah. My first startup was an online publication known as Stockspot. So when I met that first mentor when I decided to drop out my first semester—it was literally during finals week and I just looked around and I was like, "This isn't for me. What am I doing here?"

I literally just walked out, walked out of finals, and I could have gotten credits for going through the whole semester—for at least one semester, you know? But I knew that was like, "Alright, if I'm going to do this, I need to go all in." I just felt that intuition, and I've always been a person that is impulsive. I follow intuition. Cliff jumping, jumping out of a plane—I'm willing to take that leap of faith. If there's one thing I grew up with, it’s strong faith. I was named after a saint, and my church was a really big thing for me growing up.

Where did that come from? Because that self-belief—the way that the education system works now is we kind of condition people to go down a certain path and be grateful for going down that path. Where does the self-belief and that feeling that you were different come from?

Having good parenting. I know a lot of people unfortunately don't have that. For me, my mother and father, hearing the stories of when my grandparents immigrated to this country and what they went through with nothing to be able to build a family here, just impacted me on a whole other level.

Basically, they just always pushed me that no matter what—I may not be the smartest kid, I wasn't a great student—but they believed in me. Like, I wanted to go to art school. It’s really because of them. To be honest, it wasn't like I had all the belief; in fact, it was like the opposite.

I'll never forget like, I actually cried during my last year of high school because all my friends were getting into these good colleges and things, and I had gone through hustling and I was just like, I was lost. I didn't think that I was destined for much. I didn't know where to go, what I was going to do in life.

When did that change?

That day I dropped out. That semester when I put that pencil down and I walked out of that room, out of that classroom, and I had a mentor that I had met. I would drive to his house and I became an apprentice. That's when it started to change for me because I started to learn about building online communities.

I started learning about digital marketing. I started seeing how he was investing in the stocks. That's when I was like, "Okay, I can do this." Here’s a guy who’s in his 20s, I'm young, he's figured something out, I can figure this out. For me, it was like, "I don't care what it takes, I'm going to make this work. I'm going to figure it out, I'm going to learn it." I was just obsessed with learning about business.

That led me to that first online community that I built to learn from other stock traders. Basically, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to learn about stocks, so I created a forum. That forum was called Stockspot. Every member had a rating similar to eBay, one to five stars, color-coordinated. I built it because I was just trying to create a solution to my own problem, which is: How do I find a like-minded community of people that are trading stocks and investing in companies so that I can learn from them?

That ended up becoming the first platform I built with $5,000, basically getting that off. I stayed up till 4:00 in the morning. I would go on every message board online and basically be like, "Go to Stockspot to talk about stocks," spamming everything. Gorilla marketing. And that was the beginning of when I knew I was onto something. When I finally had people signing up and communicating on there, and then I had one company call me and say, "Hey, I want to advertise on your platform. I want to get in front of all those people." That's when I realized, "Wait a second, I can actually make money doing this."

And how did that lead to Elite Daily? I know you met a young guy called David, and David and you had this idea. You talked about it, eventually, you launch Elite Daily—again, gorilla, hustling, connecting the dots. It grows into this big business. I’m fast-forwarding here a little bit, but stop me if I miss anything that's important.

As the company grows, you need that growth capital, as we all do, so you take investment. Then you get to a point where you get an offer from the Daily Mail to sell the company. In that moment, you kind of plunge into, I guess, a bit of confusion. You've never done this before. The reason why I fast-forwarded to that point is because, selfishly, it's the most relevant moment to myself in a sense.

I remember when I got that first offer to sell my company and how much it messed with me, because it's the first time when it became real—and the decision to sell my purpose for money was a real one. How was it for you on that day when you got an offer to sell the company? How did it feel?

Really exciting. Tens of millions, as well. Oh yeah, so it was really, really exciting because it wasn't the fact that like when we got the offer I was ready to sell. It was just that validation that like, "Okay, we've created something here."

When we started Elite Daily, it was in my apartment. It was an idea. David, that you mentioned, was 18 years old. I mentored him. His father was away and he became just like a friend of mine, like a little brother to me. My little brother, my other co-founder Jonathan San-Pedro, which was a friend of David's as well, it was us three.

To go from like this idea we had buying a domain name on GoDaddy for $9.99 in an apartment, to now 80 million unique visitors and then have that offer, it was like, "Yes, like we validated it." But I was like, "We're not selling." But this is great. Let's keep going because that's only going to grow. We're only going to get more and more offers, we're only going to attract more and more.

For me, it was like that validation of, "Yes, now we have the credibility." Because prior to that, we didn't feel like we had credibility. People didn't believe it was real. I'll never forget like, bigger publications actually started to write negative articles about us. They were like, "These aren't real journalists. This publication is like a bunch of garbage." A lot of people didn't even really believe that the traffic was real.

We were always kind of these underdogs in the media space, especially here in the United States. For us, we craved that. We're like, "No, we're the underdogs, but we're real. We are a threat. We are someone out there who’s not going to stop. We're for our generation, by our generation. Nothing's stopping us. This is bigger than us, and we're creating a voice of our generation whether you like it or not."

So why did you sell?

Well, so when that day came, my co-founders—we were scaling at such a high pace, and believe it or not, we got that offer of acquisition during our raise of our second round. The venture capitalists started to like work against us, and they were trying to get the valuation lower. When that offer came in, our lead investor, which is one of the biggest venture capital firms in the country, basically—they care about wins.

They care about numbers, right?

They care about numbers, they care about wins. So I actually got a letter in the mail that was like, "This is the best decision and take it." Almost like a threatening letter.

A letter in the mail? In the post? A physical letter?

Yeah, physical letter. And I remember getting that and like, "Dang, this is like interesting." At the same time, my co-founders were like, "No, like this is the right decision to make, we're going to sell." I remember taking a walk with my co-founder. We used to always go for walks in the park to talk about big decisions. Kind of old school. We'd sit on the bench and I'll never forget one of the last times we did that. He was just like really—he had all this weight on his shoulders. Every investor is talking to him. He was just like, "Gerard, like, I'm done."

Really?

Yeah, he was like, "I'm done. I think this is the right decision and I'm stressed and I think that this is the right move."

What caused the stress?

At that time we had 200 employees. We went from like the three of us having, you know, a lean and mean team of eventually like 10 people to like 200 people. We had to make payroll. That's why we were raising money. So I think the stress of like having to make payroll—but we had this acquisition—200 people's lives you're responsible for that are all young and like believing in you.

The biggest thing was Facebook was changing their algorithms. This is the reason why we sold. I'll never forget the day of that board meeting. I raised $5 million to give us the option to not sell, to keep going. But both of my co-founders—I pulled them out to another room and looked them in the eyes like, "Look, we got the 5 million, let's do this, you know, let's stick this thing out." And they were like, "G, we did it."

Like, it may not be the big exit that, you know, but it's not about the money. But like this gives security to everybody who believed in us. The Daily Mail is an amazing organization that'll keep the journey going. And they were like, sold on it. They were like, "What we do after this is really what matters—how we can take this and really move on to doing something that's more purposeful."

So when we went back into that room, man, it was very emotional because for me, the one thing my mentor told me, he was like, "Rule of thumb, man, if both your other co-founders are out and it's a win for everyone involved, then you should go with your co-founders rather than replace them."

You talk a little bit about the stress there of running a business, and it's a stress I know well. In a previous chapter in this podcast, Chapter 6, I sat with my co-founder Dom, and Dom went through a very similar thing. As the company grew and we had to make payroll, he suffered some mental health issues and he even talks about the time where he genuinely, at a train station, thought "What if I just jump in front of this train now?" It got that hard for him. It was hard for both of us and so he started doing drugs and he fell into sort of alcoholism and he completely lost himself. We live in a bit of a world where our generation have started to really think that entrepreneurship is this kind of rockstar, super cool thing. Much of the reason why I do this podcast is to tell the truth. What are the truths?

It is the best and worst thing that ever happened to you. Amen. It is the best and worst thing that ever happened to you. Like, it's the utmost freedom. I wouldn't change anything. I would never, ever—like, entrepreneurship is, I feel so like grateful for the fact that every day I get to go out and create and have the ability to like shape and create my reality. It's amazing.

But at the same time, it is definitely the hardest thing in the world. Like those moments when you, you know, you don't know if you're going to be able to pay for your rent, if you can eat. I've been completely bootstrapped to the point where like I've had to sacrifice making anything for myself in honor of my team and everyone around me.

I was the big brother of the co-founders. So I was like, "We got this." I have faith. I was a little bit older at this time; I've been through some failures. I think my co-founders had never been through that kind of failure. So I think the fear of failure, the opportunity of like, "No, this could be a win," you know, "and I don't want to be that failure. I don't want to have it and it's working and then lose it." I can't speak for them to be honest, but ultimately that kind of—it is one of the most stressful things you will do.

Is it for everybody?

No. It's definitely not for everybody.

How do you know if it's for you?

If you feel like you can't go to sleep, but you can't wait to wake up. It's that kind of like passion. It's like you just don't even want to go to sleep because you're just that excited, you like keep it going. And then like when you do, you just can't wait to wake up because you're like getting back at it again.

It's an adrenaline, it's like—you have to be a certain kind of individual to get comfortable with uncertainty. It's just that simple. Some people need security. They need to know that like everything's okay. And then entrepreneurs are the ones that are completely comfortable—there are no rules. They're just completely okay with doing the most the hard thing, the most uncertain thing, the most uncomfortable thing.

And are you okay with going back to zero?

That's exactly what I've done after the exit. You know, I came back to Newark. 33% of the population here is below poverty. I didn't touch the money. I basically sent it to a trust and I basically was like, "I'm going to start from complete scratch and re-evaluate like what I'm meant to do, how I want to pursue being an entrepreneur going forward."

Most people when they exit a company and it's a tens and tens of millions of pound exit, or dollar exit, they'll probably buy a fast car, buy a really nice house, ball out a little bit, go to the club. After your exit, you talk about falling into a bit of a depression. Why was that?

I was like the lone wolf in that board meeting trying to convince a whole room of investors and the two co-founders that I started this company with to not sell. I did everything. I raised $5 million within 10 days just to keep us going.

I made a speech in front of the whole room and I like genuinely was like, "I'm okay with if Facebook changed their algorithms. We'll get through it, we'll adapt and we'll keep going." You know, we have a brand. We have something that stands for something. It’s different than like if we just—I felt we had just built something with a lot of traffic and we were really good at creating energy.

I felt we had a brand. I remember going to Italy for one of my other investment portfolio companies and I had my Elite Daily shirt on and like people stopped me in the street and were like, "Yo, I like reading Elite Daily every day. It's the one thing that pushes me every day." For me, that just meant something. I felt the Elite Daily name was invaluable. It was like almost like priceless in a way for me.

You've said in an interview before that you sold at the right time. If you were 100% honest with yourself, do you wish you hadn't sold, or do you wish you could have persuaded them differently?

No, I don't regret it. I don't regret it. I mean, for sure I went through being depressed, but like if I didn't sell, I don't think I would have found myself. Yeah, like I didn't really ever think about legacy. I didn't really ever think about like what my purpose was.

I think deep down inside at that point, I was the mentor of like my co-founders and I've been mentoring people, I've been investing in people. But it really started to get clear why I'm doing what I'm doing.

You said in an interview I think you did with Founder, when they asked you what the one piece of advice you'd give to a young person, you said, "What do I truly want in life?" and you're saying to ask yourself this question, "Where am I going and what is it all truly for?" That's what you'd say to a young person. Can you answer that question for yourself now? Can you answer the question, where are you going and what is it all truly for?

Where am I really going? I guess like for me, I think I've gotten really comfortable with the process and the journey at this point, whereas in the past I had these big ambitions whether it was monetarily or the different types of companies I was launching.

I think now where I'm going is every single day I'm more so just like working on how to become a better leader for myself. I'm okay with the fact that I don't know how much time I really have, and I want to do everything I can every single day to just inspire my team, inspire the people that follow me to like ask themselves those questions.

I really carried a lot of weight that I had to save people through entrepreneurship, and now I realize it's not my duty to save anyone. It's my duty to just live my best life, continue to work on myself, and through that be selfless and inspiring others to do the same, to really make sure that they're questioning everything.

There's a huge amount of entrepreneurs that'll be listening to this right now that have the sole ambition of building a big company and then selling it, and then I guess the presumption is once that happens, you become happy. What would you say to those people? Because I was one of them.

When I was 18 years old, I wrote in my diary—and a lot of people online have seen my diary and it says, "Things I'm going to do before I'm 25: Become a millionaire." And at this time I was shoplifting. My rent was $180 and I hadn't paid it for five months. I was shoplifting food to feed myself. I was broke. And I was living in an area which is synonymous with gun crime, the only place in England that's synonymous with gun crime—we don't even have guns.

And I wrote in my diary, "Before I'm 25, I'll be a millionaire, a Range Rover will be my first car," and two other things about putting on weight and getting a girlfriend, which don't matter. But when I look back at those things I wrote in my diary, I'm quite—I would say almost ashamed that those are the things that I thought were important. It seems so naive almost for someone that has attained money to look back at someone that doesn't have money and say, "By the way, that won't make you happy." Because when I was broke, one pound or one dollar meant so much to me. It meant I could eat that day. You know what I mean?

It's hard when you're broke and you're hustling. It's hard not to obviously think about money. I always say it's like an entrepreneur, it's purpose meets profit. I did a whole little podcast series on this. You do need to learn how to turn a profit in order to impact more people's lives.

But I would say that you don't need to have that exit. You can choose right now to re-evaluate like what your values really are. I think that was something I didn't do until after the exit. I would say if you're listening and you don't have an exit, you're building your big company, I would say really sit back and re-evaluate like what are your values and are you truly living to those standards of your values? How are you treating the people around you? How are you making sure that the company culture that you're creating is living up to those values?

Do you think in the world we live in, where Instagram and social media is one of the big influences in all of our lives, I almost feel like a lot of young people don't know what their values are? Because I think if you asked a young person really what they thought their values are, they might say something to do with Kim Kardashian or fast cars or getting money and posting it on Instagram. So, part of me thinks social media has really corrupted a generation into not knowing what their values are.

It's the new drug. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like one of the biggest things—it really is, it's like a gift and a curse at the same time. It's allowed us to connect on such a level where you can just shoot a DM and network and you can build relationships.

But at the same time, like people are every single day addicted to the scroll and look at what everybody else is doing. What I try to tell a lot of the mentees that I work with, it's like, you know, take some time—I do FaceTime Fridays. People who comment on my post, I pick, I give my time away on Fridays and FaceTime people from all over the world.

And one of them on this past Friday, I was like, "Do me a favor and this weekend like completely put your phone away. Get outside and really just think through like what is it that you want to bring to the world? Like what do you want to bring to the world and what must you really bring to the world?" Because I think we get so caught up in scrolling and looking at what everybody else is doing, we don't ever figure out what the hell we want.

And yeah, I think you're right. I think social media has brainwashed us to not even know what we want, what our values are. It's like a vicious cycle of consumption and never like actually separating yourself from all of that. Who are you and what do you want?

What have you learned from meeting all of these young aspiring entrepreneurs that you think most entrepreneurs, or at least aspiring entrepreneurs, don't know or don't have? Is there something that you impart on these entrepreneurs, or a pattern you're seeing with aspiring entrepreneurs that you think every aspiring entrepreneur needs to understand? Gary Vaynerchuk talks about self-awareness, and when he came on he talked about self-awareness, he highlights the fact that personal branding is incredibly important in the modern age. What are the things that you try and impart on these entrepreneurs?

I think the biggest thing that I would—I mean, it's a few things. One of them is a personal development situation. I think a lot of the aspiring entrepreneurs—two things. I think really have the perseverance to really see it through long-term.

They're excited, they want to launch the company, they want to be that entrepreneur. They don't really recognize what it's like in the perseverance that they need to have. I want them to really gain that perseverance when times get really tough, because it will get tough.

You have to learn how to adapt to the market. A lot of them I see when things don't go as planned, they bounce. They quit because why? Because they have bills, they got to pay for—they got to figure thing in, you know?

And instead of becoming resourceful and figuring it out, sticking it through and adapting, as hard as it may get, instead of just saying, "Okay, let me quit on this and try something new," they give up too easily. I would say see it through, continue to adapt, be a little bit more resourceful.

I've always seen that as like the natural selection of entrepreneurship—is when those first hurdles come into play, the ones that do get over it are the ones that are in some respects meant to go the distance because they have that "why," they have that reason, they have that resilience, whatever it is to go further.

And I also see it in my own ideation process. When I think of a new idea, if it doesn't stick and if I don't persevere, it's almost my body telling me that I don't care about it enough. So part of me thinks that quitting—it's really interesting, because I don't want to say that quitting is a good thing, but quitting for me is a way that I know that I didn't really want it, or at least I didn't want it for the right reasons, maybe.

I would agree with that 100%. I mean, maybe that's it—if it's not at the core of what an entrepreneur really generally craves. I think that's why it's important to ask those questions as to like what is it that you really want to bring to the world and what must you bring to the world?

Because it has to be so freaking innate inside you that you're willing to do whatever it takes, because that plan that you set out to get there is never the plan that it ends up being. So I would say that, and I would also say the fact that a lot of entrepreneurs now because of social media—you look at Gary Vaynerchuk, you look at your Instagram page or my Instagram page and you have these aspirations to get to where maybe a certain entrepreneur really is.

I think recognizing that everybody has their own path and having the patience of knowing like, don't compare yourself to anyone else. Really understand that you have your own path, your own journey, your own story that you're writing. Trust in that intuition and write your story.

Are you scared of dying?

No. I mean, it's something that I know is coming, but I've already died.

How do you mean?

I went through a spiritual journey where like literally I went through like death. And that's what kind of like made me awaken as to like knowing that at the end of it all, it doesn't really matter. Exit, not having an exit, money, clothes, watches, materialistic things—it really doesn't really matter.

It's really how you make people feel. It's how you live your life and like the character that you have. I think a lot of us don't really even recognize the opportunity that we really genuinely have while we are alive, and we don't really have a lot of time.

For me, I embrace it. I think that's why now it's different for me. Like, I'm not after another huge exit or anything like that. I just every day I'm just trying to live the most fulfilled life that I could live, inspiring others, spreading my message, spreading my voice, continuing to grow myself every single day and also be more present. Like get outside, travel more, go on more adventures, meet new people, have new friends, be more present for my family.

One of the things that I keep reading about that results in happiness is human connections, right? With the whole entrepreneur movement, there's a lot of messaging around hustle hard, it's lonely, it's a journey, do it on your own.

That's what I've always done since I was 18, and the more and more I read about happiness coming from human connections and people, I start to question whether I've done it the right way because I am quite like a lonely person. Not in the negative emotional sense, but I'm alone a lot. And the problem is, I'm really good at being alone.

So I've almost started to worry about that. I've not been able to hold down any romantic relationships at all. So this question is about romantic advice and your own sort of relationships. Being the entrepreneur you've been through the years, have you been able to hold down romantic relationships?

I have. I've had relationships. My last relationship, basically we were almost like attached by the hip. She was really supportive, she traveled with me everywhere, she was there for me.

Why didn't it work?

The reason why it didn't really work is because it almost became—I felt a codependency. And I was providing and doing everything. Although she was completely supporting me, I noticed that she wasn't actually fulfilling what was her destiny.

I felt like she didn't yet figure out her own independence and her own passions, and I wanted that for her. Every time I would try to inspire her and say, "What is it that you want to do? I want to support you." And I felt that she really wasn't doing that.

She started to open up to me about certain things that I felt the only way that she would really grow is if I actually just let her go a little bit and let her go and find herself. What is it that she really wanted without me kind of being such a safety net for her? So I wanted to make her life a little uncomfortable. I absolutely love her to death. We still talk, we're friends, but she's out there and she's growing.

What's the perfect partner? If you had to pick three characteristics of the perfect partner for you, what would those things be? Considering your world and how busy you are and how focused you are and how big your mission is.

Perfect partner... Once upon a time I thought it was color hair, color eyes, this kind of figure, talk like this. Over time what I've done is I've got more and more down to just these fundamental principles.

I'll share mine with you. So my first one is they have to be sexually attractive. It’s just a human thing, but there has to be sexual attraction. The second thing is I would want them to be intellectually stimulating. Being able to have a conversation on this level without having to make myself smarter or dumber—I think super important.

When I think about relationships, it's very much about—you’ve got to love the person for time, but also at nighttime and daytime, if you know what I mean. You've got to love them for 80 years regardless of looks and appearance.

And then the last one is—and I've kind of refined it recently—is just someone that makes me a better version of myself. And that kind of is an open-ended one intentionally. So it could be within my career, it could be spiritually, it could be other factors, but someone that doesn't sort of suppress me, but they just make me a better version of myself. Those are my three things.

I think those are really good. I think intellectually stimulating—I would definitely agree with that. I agree with all three of those. I mean, obviously, you need to be sexually attracted and I think you need to naturally have that kind of attraction. I want someone who is independent. That we both have our own lives but we support each other's lives.

It's not that we depend on each other, we just—we absolutely have that love for each other, but we also know that we're both our own individuals. I think that's a really, really big one for me. I want someone that absolutely can—is okay with themselves. They're okay with being alone. They're completely independent.

And is that because you are? And anybody that isn't would therefore take a little bit of that from you? So by someone being codependent, they almost challenge your independence if you know what I mean.

I mean, I'm a Sagittarius and I think from what I hear, yeah. Like I 100% that is something that I value is that independence, that freedom. Anything that tries to confine me, I like break away. I think why I couldn't be in a classroom. So I think for me having someone that—there's that absolute trust and just like you love each other's company and spend all that time, but at the same time you allow that independence and support that for whatever it is that each other want to do, I think is really important to me.

Last question then. Founders. What does Founders have to become for you to feel like you've fulfilled your mission? Or have you already?

So I think this is part of the reason why I'm okay with death because I feel like I've done work with Founders and built a brand that, if I were to die today, would continue to live on because of the meaning behind it.

It’s more than a business model. We've touched 200 kids' lives this past year—inner-city kids, middle school and high school students. I think what it needs to become as a social enterprise is on one side I want it to be a community of this generation of leaders that are out there that want to also make an impact in the world. Entrepreneurs that are trying to create real solutions to real problems in the world.

But on the nonprofit side, I really want to see us—I want to say improve the education system. I think entrepreneurship—the principles of entrepreneurship, not that everyone needs to become an entrepreneur, but the principles of entrepreneurship and emotional intelligence and these things that are not being taught in school.

I want Founders to be an anchor in actually having the education system evolve and teaching entrepreneurship and emotional intelligence, because I believe that entrepreneurs are the ones that will save this world and save this economy. We should be instilling that type of education at a younger age because it 100% saved my life. I believe that the school system is outdated. So I want what I think it must become is something that helps evolve the education system for a younger generation so that they can go out and grow up and want to create solutions that bring people together that heal the world. That's what I want it to grow to.

That's incredibly inspiring, and you've certainly taught me a lot. And I'm sure with your personal brand work, and it's only getting bigger and bigger and bigger and your impact's increasing more and more, I'm sure you're going to achieve and have the impact that I know you're set out to.

You've inspired so many people already as you've said, and you've been a role model to a generation that I think this generation need. There's a lot of role models out there that I think are leading young people astray because going back to the point we'd said about values, they're teaching a set of values that aren't making the role model themselves happy. And so I think it takes a certain kind of person to be open and honest about that. I thank you on behalf of myself but also all the young people out there that are looking to someone like you to shout back down the ladder about what's up here. So thank you so much for your time today.

Hey, absolutely. I appreciate it. And your work is unbelievable, so I look forward to—like I said, I look forward to seeing how we can come together and build some great things, impact some people around the world. I mean, it seems like you've created an unbelievable brand in the UK and you just moved to New York, right?

Yeah, so I'm here now, so yeah, we need to have chats off-camera.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this chapter. It means the world to me. If you can, please do subscribe to the podcast and you'll be notified the minute it's released. I'm often quite bad at letting you know when it's out on my social channels, so this will give you a bit of an advantage. Also, if you have a couple of seconds, please do leave a review for me in the App Store. Everybody that reviews the podcast and tweets me, I promise you, if you leave your handle in the review, I will get in touch. Thanks, and I'll see you next week.

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