This Podcast Has Been Getting Me In Trouble..
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
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The thing I think about most, especially when I'm on the go but also when I'm sat here in the Diary of a CEO studio, is the Wi-Fi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I'm filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do when I arrive is open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is. The number of screenshots I've sent to my team about Wi-Fi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it's such a competitive advantage to have fast Wi-Fi. On any given day, if I'm recording hours and hours of footage with a podcast guest, I then often have to have my team send that across to our London team who then do the edit. Fast Wi-Fi and internet is not a nice to have; it is absolutely business-mission-critical.
So, when it came to finding the best provider who could supply internet and Wi-Fi to our new LA studio, which I'm sat in right now, we looked at every single option. Of all the providers, the one that came back with the steadiest connection, as well as being the cheapest, was today's sponsor, Spectrum Business. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all sizes connected with fast, reliable internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services. Millions of business owners already rely on Spectrum to keep their operations connected. So, if you want to join them, head to spectrum.com/business to learn more. That's spectrum.com/business. Restrictions apply. Service not available in all areas.
I apologize. It felt only right starting Chapter 4 with a bit of an apology because I was late getting the podcast up this week. I flew back from New York on Sunday, landed early Monday morning, and I was straight into press interviews and things like that. One of the things that I've learned from doing this podcast is how much happens to you and how much there is to learn if you just stop, think, and reflect, and especially if you document it.
Now, I document my life in multiple ways. I have a YouTube channel, Facebook, Instagram, and all these other platforms, but the most powerful form of documentation I've come across is in keeping this diary. What happens is you learn infinitely more from the same experiences just by writing them down, reflecting on them, self-analyzing, and learning. It stops you from making the same mistakes multiple times in your life. It helps you realize who you are a little bit better, helps you understand the world around you, and helps you understand yourself better.
This podcast has done a tremendous amount for me. Because it has, I want to challenge you this week to keep your own diary for one week. Here is how I do it. As the week plays out, there are things that happen to me. There are thoughts I have in my head, epiphanies, questions I ask myself, and things I'm unsure about. All I do is write them down.
I write it down as a bullet point in my diary, and then when it comes to Sunday night, I look back at my diary and I reflect on the way I acted, the things I struggled with, and the questions I asked myself. I reflect on the points in my diary. By doing so, I promise you, you will learn more in seven days than you have ever learned about yourself, why you are the way you are, and those thoughts that maybe you didn't want to vocalize.
Vocalizing it with you—and I honestly recommend you vocalize it out loud because it's allowed me to analyze better—has been the most powerful way for me to really, really understand things that I thought I understood. Only in vocalizing it did I really understand those things. So thank you. Thank you for giving me your ear, thank you for giving me your time, and thank you for paying attention to my diary. Without further ado, this is Chapter 4. I'm Steve Bartlett. This is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
The first point in my diary this week is simple, and it's fairly contentious in itself, which is ironic. This podcast is getting me in trouble. Because of the sheer nature of what this podcast is—it’s open and it’s honest—I've had a few instances now where things that I've said have gotten me in trouble. I wanted to start there and, by explaining why I'm getting in trouble, also offer the people who have been offended by this podcast a little bit of insight into why it is the way it is and why I think you're being offended.
The area in which I've been getting in trouble the most is whenever I talk about relationships because, obviously, that's an area that involves real people, and I completely understand that. I'll never mention names, and I have no intent of taking revenge. In all of my podcasts, you'll note there's a trend of me taking blame. I'm not trying to victimize anybody at all.
I think the thing that is getting me in trouble is the disparity, or the difference, between what I might have said to somebody and what I say on this podcast. The reality is this podcast is me thinking out loud. Right now, I'm sat in a dark room next to my washing machine under the stairs, thinking out loud. So, when I've had a conversation with you in real life about an issue, my thoughts may not have been developed and as clear as they are when I sit alone and I think out loud.
This podcast isn't scripted. There's no text. Everything I'm saying is off the top of my head, and it's very, very clear and focused when you are alone and when you have time to think on those issues. I had one instance this week where someone messaged me and, because of something I'd said in last week's chapter wasn't the same as what I'd said to them, they had taken offense. I promise you that's not intentional.
I promise you I didn't mean to lie. I promise you that speaking out loud and doing the podcast as I do it results in some interesting epiphanies for me. That's just the truth. I can't change this podcast. It's done too much good for me. It's given me too much clarity. I can't start to fluff it up. I can't start to exaggerate or understate things. I have to keep it as it is, and if that means that it offends people because I discover my truth, then I apologize. But that was not my intention.
The next point in my diary is based on a question I was asked after an event I did this week. I spoke at an influencer marketing conference in London earlier in the week, and a guy came up to me just as I was stepping into my taxi. He said, "How do you grow a marketing agency?" He said he's started his own business now, and he wants to know how we grew Social Chain to the size it is today.
For anyone that doesn't know, Social Chain is a big global agency now. It's across four different countries. There's 160-odd people within the company. It's a very, very big business. We work with the biggest brands in the world—these are your Apples to your Coca-Colas to everybody in between. It's taken us about two and a half to three years to get to this point from being two of us sat on a desk to 160 people.
So, what is the one thing, or what are the two or three things, that have been most responsible for the speed of that growth? It was simple to me. Because he asked me as I was stepping into a taxi, I had to think quick. I couldn't be specific in terms of "it was this moment" or "this client." I had to think top-line. My answer was the first thing that sprang to my mind, which was our story.
Every single person listening to this podcast right now, whether you're a business owner or not, you have a story. The thing that resonates and connects most with people, the thing that touches the heart, isn't telling someone how many clicks you managed to get on a video or how many people or impressions you got. That's forgettable. The thing that connects most with people is an emotional story, a story that makes people feel something.
That's also, funnily enough, the thing that connects most in a marketing sense. So why wouldn't it be the thing that connects most with marketing directors who have to choose to work with your business or your company? Your customers care about that emotive story behind the product decision. For me, that's the answer. It's our story.
When we started Social Chain, we had this 15 to 20-page deck that I'd made that basically said: this bunch of kids has dropped out of university, my mom isn't speaking to me, we've built tremendous influence to the point where we can influence millions and hundreds of millions of people at the click of a button, and here's an example of us doing something awesome. In that story, I talk about my mom, I talk about Dom's mom (my business partner), I talk about dropping out of university, the highs, the lows, the moments of immense sacrifice.
Through that emotional story, you just happen to learn about our business. I honestly think you wouldn't learn about our business, and you definitely wouldn't remember our business, had it not been told in the context of a powerful, emotional story. I implore everybody that's starting a service business, a marketing business, or any kind of business to figure out what your most powerful story is and figure out how to sell it, because that's definitely been the thing that's moved the needle for us the most.
The next thing I think is about embracing who you are. I see it time and time again where young people in particular will be ashamed of their youth. They'll increase their age when they're talking to clients, or they will try and be somebody else. They'll wear a suit to try and be older. You don't win unless you embrace your truth and you own it. That's what we did at the very start.
I realized that when we started our business, all of our competition were bigger. They had more clients, they had more staff, they had more capabilities, and more experience. In fact, in embracing the fact that we were small, we were able to beat them. Companies and competition that are bigger, that have more clients, that have more experience, are also more stuck in their ways. They have more meetings, they have more red tape, they have more processes.
Therein lies the opportunity to win. We were unromantic about what we had to do tomorrow to win tomorrow. So we were agile. Our competition aren't agile. We were incredibly young—we were 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds. When we walked into that room with older 60-year-old, 50-year-old, 40-year-old marketing directors, we embraced our truth. We're super young, and that's why we're better, because we're native to social media.
I honestly believe there are so many business owners out there right now that are transfixed on being somebody else, being a different business, trying to be older, trying to be more experienced, and you're going to lose because of that. The way you win is by embracing exactly who you are, owning it, and running with it.
The next thing I think is paramount to access is people. Only in hindsight have I figured out the impact of bringing good people into the business and how that has probably been the single most transformative thing as a CEO I've been able to do. A company, by definition—the word "company"—is a group of people. Think about that. Your company is just a group of people.
As Steve Jobs said, being a great talent scout is the single most important job for a CEO and the easiest way to have the greatest progression in your company. Point number four I wrote on this was about financial clarity. In the early days, we were just doing stuff and we weren't laser-focused on finance and the impact it was having or how much profit we were making.
We just thought if you sign a client and they pay you £20,000, then you make £20,000. Honestly, that's what we thought. But if that client takes you two months to sign and then it takes two months to do the work, you're actually making zero because you have bills to pay, electricity, and staff wages. That, for any business owners that are listening to this now, might seem obvious, but it honestly isn't that obvious when you're in the zone and you're executing and you're trying to win business.
You've got to take account—and this is one of the great things I've learned—for time, and time pre-winning that business and post-winning that business. That's why the single most important thing for anybody who's running a service business or a marketing business is to find clients that are long-term. Stop worrying about winning new business. Do more for your existing clients. That's the single thing in terms of client strategy that's had the biggest impact: do more for your current clients. Winning business is expensive and takes time. Then you have to keep pitching and pitching and pitching. Do more for your current clients. Lastly, I'll close this point out: just deliver great service. Not just a great result or meeting your KPIs, but delivering a great service all around, and that's customer service as well.
The next point in my diary was inspired by a message I got this week from someone who listens to the podcast and they listen to my YouTube channel. I actually got quite angry and frustrated with this person, which is quite rare, but I guess it's a product of really, really caring. If I didn't care, I know I wouldn't have replied, but I saw someone stepping wrong, so I replied. I replied very, very passionately and, some might say, borderline aggressively.
I'll tell you the story. A young guy who repeatedly showed up at my office at 6:00 AM in the morning on multiple occasions to try and meet me and tell me about his idea, messaged me on Facebook. He said, "Steve, I've been listening to all your podcasts and your YouTube channel and all these things, and I've got a business idea now. I've quit my job and I'm going to create a waterproof backpack."
I said, "Okay, can you send me some information about this backpack?" He sent me a document about this backpack that he had put together, and the document was terrible. The idea was terrible as well. It was uninteresting, ununique, and there was nothing proprietary about this waterproof backpack. There are already waterproof backpacks out there.
In that moment, I did what Steve Bartlett sometimes does and I was very, very honest with him. I told him, based on meeting him, based on reading his document, based on the way he presented the document to me—because he had also sent me five or six voice notes about the document—I had a very clear picture of the idea, him, and his ability to sell it. Also, I'd met him face-to-face because he showed up at my office at 6:00 AM to meet me.
I told him not to do it. I told him this was a bad idea on the basis that, as an entrepreneur, he wasn't ready yet to win on the fundamentals. This isn't something I say lightly, but I'm going to be completely honest, okay? I'm sorry if this offends anybody listening. The guy couldn't articulate himself well. He couldn't present his idea well in a document. The document was horrendously ugly. It was incoherent; it made no sense. His voice memos were delusional.
In his voice memos, he told me that he was going to either create this waterproof backpack or just sell the idea for £10 million. There was so much fundamentally wrong. I could literally sit here all day and tell you what was fundamentally wrong with this young entrepreneur and his approach. So my advice to him was: okay, stop, don't do this, go and learn more. Go and throw yourself into a startup or some other situation where you can learn as cheap as possible.
When I say as cheap as possible, I mean go and sit next to a CEO and fail with them, but not at your own expense. That's what being a consultant is basically about. You get to learn, you get to fail as cheap as possible. That's my advice to him. His response back to me was textbook "Steve Bartlett quotes."
He said, "Steve, I've got no Plan B. I'm going to do it regardless of your doubt, regardless of your questioning me. I'm going to make it happen. I don't want to get a job. This is going to be my life. I'm going to make this waterproof backpack happen." In that moment, I realized with such horror what I might have created in some people because of the type of content that I put out.
The content I put out promotes a persistence, it promotes just having a Plan A, it promotes going after it regardless. It doesn't always factor in the need for talent and some kind of inherent skills, right? You can learn a lot of stuff. Trying leads to failure, which leads to learning, which leads to being better. We said that last chapter.
But you have to have some fundamentals. You have to be able to speak. When I say speak, I don't mean be super articulate; just speak. You have to be able to write. You have to be able to communicate your idea. You have to know something about something as a foundation. That has to be your strength. When I was 18 years old, I was very good at selling to people. I was very good at persuasion.
I didn't know a lot about technology, I didn't know a lot about social networking and all these kinds of things which went on to be my businesses, but I had this foundation which allowed me to win on something. It allowed me to persuade investors, persuade a team, and bring people together. This young entrepreneur, unfortunately, didn't have those things.
Upon him saying that to me—that he was going to persist regardless and that I was essentially joining a big pile of haters—I realized how dangerous the content that I put out there can be for some people. It's so easy for me to mislead people into a life that isn't built for them but was, in fact, just built for someone else, a life built for me. We all have our own destinations, our own journeys, and the life that is suited and built for us.
For everybody, that's not an entrepreneur. You don't have to be an entrepreneur. It's not for everybody. Unfortunately, I'd confused this guy into thinking that to be successful as an entrepreneur, he just had to persist blindly, and that certainly is not the case. Self-awareness and understanding where you're at and who you are and what you're good at is the thing that turns the lights on.
For this young man, I turned the lights on. I told him straight. I told him every area I thought he was fundamentally flawed. I told him vocally he was terrible, his presentation was terrible, his idea was ununique, he was deluding himself. He needed to understand his weaknesses and his strengths, he needed to double down more on his strengths as opposed to trying to build a life out of his weaknesses. I went in hard on him, very, very hard on him.
In the moment, as I said, he pushed back, but the next day I got a lovely message from him saying thank you so much for telling me what you told me last night. "I realized that I've got more practice to do and more to learn before I try and be somebody who's building a consumer business like this." And then I was really, really happy to see the next day he started doing live videos on his Facebook because he was practicing a little bit more. I commented on his live video telling him to keep it up and how impressed I was with his first live video. I just had to share that with you because it's been on my mind.
Next, kind of linked to that point, I wanted to answer the question: what it's like being a CEO? I'm going to do it in bullet points if I possibly can. The first point about what it's like being a CEO is you're constantly people juggling. That's 80% of my time in the office. What I mean is continually trying to maintain the balance of happiness and drive and smashing your objectives, and managing a big group of people—potential hires, existing hires, and even people that used to work in your business.
The next thing I believe that when it comes to being a CEO, everyone wants the power, the status, and the rewards, but nobody wants the cost of being a CEO, or really, the responsibility that comes with the power. Those things make your life hard. Everybody wants the power to be able to walk in in the morning and make any decision they want. Everybody wants the status; everybody wants the word "CEO" in their bio, it would appear.
Everybody wants the apparent rewards in terms of a big paycheck or those kinds of things, but there's not a lot of people that want the sacrifice. There's not a lot of people that want to spend every single day of their life working. There's not a lot of people that want to have the burden of making tough decisions and those tough decisions sitting on their shoulders. That's what it takes to be a CEO.
Next, the thing that's been the biggest change that's happened in me in the last three years is I've become colder and tougher, but on the other side, I've become warmer and nicer. That's something that, when I reflect, had to happen. I had to be able to be tougher in certain situations and colder when dealing with tough business people or challenging situations.
On the other side, I had to make sure that toughness and that coldness doesn't come into the office and isn't translated onto members of the team and clients and things like that. So I had to get calmer, more empathetic, and nicer on the other side. My emotional barometer has gone both ways, which is, again, something I've learned only on reflection.
Next point: when you're the CEO of a business, your mistakes are the most expensive. So you can't make them as frequently as others. You have to be more self-analyzing and reflective. Because if you make a mistake, especially a mistake that relates to people—if you lose your temper or you lose your emotional intelligence—it can have grave impacts on your business. So, especially as a young CEO, you have to grow up before you're grown up, if that makes sense.
I often say when people say, "Oh, how old are you?" I'll say 24, 25. But I'll always caveat it with, "I feel like I'm 35 or 45." I've come to learn that age is definitely not a number; it's the sum total of the experiences you've had and the ones you've learned from. The next point is, I guess, you become the last line of complaining.
I think one of the famous presidents had on their desk—I think it was Ronald Reagan—a placard on his desk that said, "The buck stops here." The buck definitely stops here. There's nobody for you to complain to about things that are happening. In fact, you have to absorb and appease all the complaints and all the negativity that you get within your business.
The way that I spot leaders within my company is I look for the people who, upon receiving a negative stimulus or a complaint or a negative situation, don't pass it on; they absorb it. Those are your leaders. I want to say that again because I think it's vitally important. The leaders in your organization, in business, or the people that are built to be leaders are the people that absorb the negativity and then they produce solutions for it; they don't pass it on.
People that aren't leaders, they'll take a negative situation—say something bad happens—and then they'll go and communicate that thing to five other people and pass it on and they'll vent and then they'll let their mood be corrupted or brought down by that negative situation. Leaders in that situation will go to that person, they'll absorb the negativity, they'll comfort the person, and they'll offer solutions. They won't pass that negativity on to anybody else. That's what you've got to do when you're a CEO. You absorb everything. You're like a sponge for negativity.
When your cat is acting weirder, or your dog is being louder, your turtle moves slower. "Hello, Ted." Your cat seems thirstier. "Whoa, slow down, buddy." Or your puppy is acting clumsier. Day or night, if you don't know what's wrong, know where to go. VEG ER for Pets. This is Kate. VEG: the better, kinder ER for pets. When your cat is acting weirder, or your dog is being louder, your turtle moves slower. "Hello, Ted." Your cat seems thirstier. "Whoa, slow down, buddy." Or your puppy is acting clumsier. Day or night, if you don't know what's wrong, know where to go. VEG ER for Pets. This is Kate. VEG: the better, kinder ER for pets. But that's fine; you get used to it.
The last point—and this could have been a topic itself, in fact, this could be a book—is about spending your time. One thing that I've come to learn more and more as I've done this podcast, but also as I've had more responsibilities and constraints on my time in my real life, is about the importance of spending your time.
Isn't it funny that when we refer to time, we say, "I'm going to spend time doing this," or "I spent time on this last week." The reason why we use the word "spend" is because time is a finite currency. As a CEO, you come to learn that your time is your single most important currency. You have a limited supply of it, and where you place your time defines your life.
So I look at my diary in a week, and say I've got 10 meetings in one day. I look at those meetings and I think, "Okay, how can I reduce these meetings?" or "Which ones are going to be a bad expenditure of time?" The way that I think you should look at it for yourself is: if you had to pay physical money out of your bank account for the time you spent with people or doing things, what would you continue to spend actual money on?
I think about this not just in business but with friends and with people in my life. If I had to pay to hang out with X person, would I keep paying physical money? The crazy thing is your time is worth so much more than money. Money you can get more of; it prints out of a machine somewhere in London or America or wherever you are in the world. Time is finite. You only have a certain amount. As a CEO, you've just got to be extra careful about how you're spending your time and not wasting it because it's all you have.
Next point in my diary: I wrote a question, which is not something I always do, but the question reads: what worries me most about the future? I think this was the byproduct of overhearing somebody in an Uber Pool talking about this to their parent or their grandmother; I couldn't figure out who it was. But I got an Uber Pool for the first time last week, and I sat in the back of that Uber.
For anybody that doesn't know what an Uber Pool is, it's an Uber but it's shared with somebody else who's going in the same direction, basically. I didn't mean to order an Uber Pool, but I'm glad I did because I learned something. I meant to order the normal Uber but I wasn't looking, paying attention, and I ended up getting an Uber with somebody else. I don't know the full context of their conversation, but it was centered around worries for the future.
So I wrote in my diary as I sat in that Uber Pool listening to that conversation: what is it that worries me most about the future? My personal future. This person was talking about things like losing their bills and all these kinds of things. I honestly, just the way that I am, I couldn't care less about losing any of my accomplishments or any money or any material things at all.
I've always been of the opinion that everything that I've gained has come from something much deeper, which is my brain, what I know, and what I've learned. So the fact that I have a Rolex on my wrist means that I had information in my brain that got me a Rolex on my wrist, basically, right? Also, who gives a fuck about a Rolex? But you get my point.
So the real value, the cause of everything I've achieved and accomplished and owned, is in fact what I know, and nobody can take that from me. So I don't care about losing stuff because you can never take from me what I know and what I've learned and who I am. So it's not that; that doesn't worry me. Interestingly, what worries me is not knowing what my endgame is.
I know this isn't a rational worry either, but you've probably realized in the last couple of podcasts that I've been kind of searching for a definitive answer to where I want to end up in my life. It got me thinking. We're built and we're raised to believe that life has a meaning and that you should know where you're going. I want to, in this moment, just challenge that assumption.
I want to challenge the fact that there is any meaning to life. Let's start with the scientific approach. So we are animals; I hope nobody disagrees with that statement. We've got to have a foundation to agree on. We're animals, just like a dog or a cat or a monkey. We have 99% the same DNA as an orangutan or whatever it is.
What's the meaning of an orangutan's life? Presumably, we don't assert upon an orangutan that it has to have a divine meaning to its life. I also think you can get yourself quite worked up and quite unfulfilled and quite sad if you believe, or you try and find, this divine, specific meaning to your life. I don't think there is a meaning to life, being completely honest.
I don't think there has to be. You don't need to find this perfect sentence which gives meaning to everything you do. I think, from a very rational perspective—and that's just the way that my brain is set up—we should spend less time trying to figure out our meaning or our purpose and we should focus more on doing whatever it is we get the most enjoyment and fulfillment from.
For some of us, that's doing good, and so you might say that's your purpose. Not necessarily. Sometimes I get enjoyment from doing good work, sometimes I get enjoyment from building a great business, sometimes I get enjoyment from helping a homeless man or giving him some food, sometimes I get enjoyment from my dog. There's not one thing that gives me fulfillment and purpose and meaning in life; it's a multitude of things.
I just want to spend my life and my journey doing as many exciting things that make me feel good, and therefore that maybe my meaning. That might be the meaning of life, which again is a bit of a paradox, isn't it? Because I've come full circle. But you get my point. I think we should all worry less about finding a divine meaning or a purpose and just doubling down on the things that we love the most and that make us feel the warmest in our bellies. And there you have my meaning of life. This is like a horrible circle I'll never get out of. Anyway, moving on.
My next point in my diary is about mental health. Just an observation I had this week about my generation in particular. What I wrote in my diary is: do our generation have more mental health issues than any other generation? And if so, what is it that's making us sick? Some of you will know that listen to my podcast that I made a video on Facebook about how social media, I believe, is making us sick.
How it's increased our anxiety, it's given us this incredible pressure that we've never had before. I really, really believe that. I believe social media is one of the key things that is stressing all of us out. Just in my personal life, turning off my notifications for my WhatsApp and my texts and my phone in general has given me such peace that I never had before.
Just literally turning the notifications off, because it means that I go to my phone as opposed to my phone coming to me. If we go deeper, social media provides this kind of false economy of gratitude and appreciation and who's hot and sexy and popular by its design. That can be, for some people, self-esteem ruining, which can cause depression and things like that.
Social media is definitely one of the reasons why this generation more than other generations suffer more with things like anxiety. We live in a more connected world than ever; this generation has been connected from birth unlike any other generation. The world we live in, because of social media and the digital sphere, has everybody in it.
As I said in my video on Facebook: your ex-girlfriend is there, your parents are watching. We're all sat in the same room. That's what social media has done; it's made the room we're in enormous. We're all being judged and analyzed and trying to be perfect. We're also only ever seeing everyone else's highlight reel. We get to see our behind-the-scenes, but we do not get to see everybody else's behind-the-scenes.
This podcast is like a little look at my behind-the-scenes, but really, you still don't see my full behind-the-scenes. When you spend every waking day judging your behind-the-scenes to that person's highlight reel or that person's highlight reel, it's very easy to think that you are unfortunate or to judge your reality against a false reality of someone else's. And I guess that can be depressing. I think our generation are the first generation that have really had that, had such a focus on comparisons because of social media.
Lastly, I think the other interesting point about this is awareness. I don't think when my dad grew up, he had so much information out there about mental health and anxiety and depression. Because of great work by charities, we are now much more aware of the way we're feeling, and therefore we're much quicker to label how we're feeling and diagnose it—self-diagnose it as well.
There is so much content out there now about mental health issues. Every time I log into my social media channel, somebody's talking about it, which is honestly great. It's brilliant because it's allowed people not to suffer in silence. But I think the awareness has led to more people coming out and speaking out about it. So you've got this perfect storm of a new digital social connected world, but also a much more educated world when it comes to social anxieties.
So yeah, that's my two cents on that. I honestly think for anybody that's running a business in 2017, if you are a CEO, you should be looking to put into your business a mental health officer. Just somebody, an external person that your teams can ring or go to if they are having any concerns or any issues at all because mental health is a silent illness often. It's an illness that can be, in some cases, addressed or at least comforted by speaking to people.
A question I get asked a lot is do I have any mental illnesses that I've struggled with? I've been fortunate enough in my short life to not have any sort of grave mental illnesses. I obviously feel things to some extremes at times like we all do. I have moments where I feel very, very anxious about things, of course. I have moments where I go to bed with a feeling in my stomach of nervousness and tension because of the day that's coming up or because of a decision that I've got to make.
We all feel that, right? I think we all feel that. But I don't think I've gone to the extent of having a mental health issue, touch wood. But you know, if I do, I'll be sure to make sure that I communicate that with everyone. My business partner Dom, who started the company with me, he's been through some things and he's been very vocal and open about that. He's actually started a blog called Teetotal Runner, which is all about his journey from suffering a little bit with mental issues to overcoming those things, quitting alcohol and becoming his new self, and the transformation he's undergone is just tremendous.
Next in my diary: mood setting in the morning. This is a new thing for me. This is a completely new idea that I've tried out this week and it's already been amazing. It's a very, very simple idea that I'm trying, which is when I wake up in the morning, before I leave the house, get my mood right. I call it mood setting.
From what I've seen, a lot of high-profile, high-performance individuals do this, but it was actually inspired by a bit of self-analysis that I had on myself. When I leave the house in the morning in a bad mood, I perform differently. I am negative, I am more impatient, I'm generally a less nice person to deal with. So what I've started to do: before I leave the house in the morning, I will get my mood right.
How you do this—you can do it in various ways. You might watch documentaries, you might take a bath, you might meditate, you might do yoga, whatever you want to do. For me, it's music. For me, the one thing that sets my mood right is putting my headphones in and literally standing in my room and walking around my room, getting ready with my headphones on. That gets me fired up, it can get me happy, it can get me sad. My music can take me in any direction. The power I think that getting my mood right before I leave the house can have on a day is tremendous. If I can do that every day, then it can transform my life. I believe that. So I challenge all of you listening to this now to join me in trying this, which is setting your mood right before you leave the house to go to work in the morning. I honestly think it can change your life.
Okay, so the next thing in my diary is my battle with the gym. Any of you that have followed me on YouTube or on Facebook will know that I've wanted to go to the gym consistently for some time now. Being a 25-year-old guy, let's think about this honestly. I want a good body because I want to be more attractive and I want to feel better, and that's basically it.
It's not that complex. I want a good body because I want to attract young ladies to be interested in me and because I want to feel good and look better and be healthier as well. Because when I did go to the gym, I genuinely felt better when I woke up in the mornings, when I got home at night, I slept better.
But, despite the fact that I want to go for the above-stated reasons, I remain unable to get myself to. I honestly believe that all of us know what we want to do, but the majority of us, 95% of us, struggle with knowing how to make ourselves do it. That's like the story of self-discipline in life. We all know what we want to do. We all know that we want to spend an hour more working to get more done, or we want to go to the gym, or we want to eat healthy, or we want to brush our teeth three times a day, or whatever it is.
We want to be the perfect boyfriend and text our girlfriend to let her know good morning. But getting ourselves to do it is the bit that we all struggle with, right? And that's the story of me going to the gym. I've been unable to beat myself. Steve wants to go; Steve doesn't go. I'm not beating myself.
I've spent so much time reflecting as to why I can't seem to make myself do something that I want to do. This isn't just about the gym. This is in general. There are people I think look at me and think, "Okay, young guy, built a tremendous business and he's doing well," fair. But I struggle with self-discipline just like everybody else.
I promise you, and I know these people, I've spoken to super, super successful CEOs, CEOs that are much more successful than I am, and they too struggle with self-discipline in some areas of their life. So I've been searching for the reason why, as disciplined as I am on some things, I can be undisciplined on others.
I honestly think that the strength of my "why" has a tremendous impact or effect on my ability to perform a task. The one time in my life where I was able to go to the gym for six months straight—every single day for six months—which was well-documented because I posted every day on my story, was because my "why" was strong and clear.
Right now, honestly, as we approach winter, I just couldn't give a fuck about going to the gym. I don't know why I'd want to go. I'm single, I'm not talking to any girls. Do you know what I mean? So my "why" isn't as clear. Often it's hard to find a "why" in something when the results take time. It might be hard for you to find a reason why to brush your teeth three times a day because you don't see the impact of doing it three times today immediately. It's belief, it's a long game.
It's the same with the gym. Going to the gym today would cost me an hour, and it would make me sweat and I'd have to have a shower after, and there would be no results tomorrow. So there are two things really that I've come to learn when it comes to discipline: belief is required, and that again just stems from your "why."
So the reason why I'm not going to the gym right now, the reason why I'm getting super skinny, is because I haven't got a "why." So what I'm going to do, starting the minute this podcast is finished recording, is I'm going to go to the gym. Remember my "why" and go to the gym. I'm going to try and report back next week, but I'm going to try and tell myself and literally write it down: the reasons why I used to love going to the gym, and let's see what happens. I'll report back next week.
Lastly, the last point in my diary this week is a very simple one: it's about relationships. I finish all of my diaries on this point. This is the point that's generated the most contention within my life; it's the point that has resulted in the most amount of text messages I've ever received. But I like being honest on this point because it's been very, very helpful.
Over the past week, as I said last week, I miss my ex. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I've been thinking about her and thinking about all the good times as we all kind of naturally do. I honestly believe that men and women get over relationships in different ways. I think women just get over it. I think they initially find it harder and then, long-tail, they get over it and move on and they don't go back. That's what I believe.
Whereas I believe guys, short-term, tend to find it a little bit easier, but then long-term, they don't get over it in the same way. That's just my personal experience. I don't know if that's the same for everybody, but my opinion. The interesting thing is these feelings have only come about in a moment where I'm completely single.
I wasn't thinking about this so much when I was dating other people, but now that I'm completely single, my body's playing these tricks on me and convincing me of something that I'm not so sure about. Do you know what I mean? That's just the way of the human and the male mind; we play incredible tricks on ourselves.
Honestly, this week, I've honestly really struggled with it. Trying to figure out whether I really miss somebody or whether I'm tricking myself into missing somebody has been a tough thought journey. I honestly don't know the answer. What I do know is that you've got to keep it moving. You've got to keep focused, keep at it, keep working hard. That's what I'm going to continue to do this week and not consume my thoughts with missing my ex-girlfriend too much.
Anyway, thank you for listening to my diary this week. It's been kind of brief in points. Again, when I finish these notes, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I feel clarity and I feel ready for the days and the weeks that I have ahead of me. Next week, in next week's podcast, we're going to do something slightly different, okay?
I am going to invite a CEO to join me and talk about their personal experiences, their deep dark thoughts, their diary, and the things that they probably wouldn't share with the world. I just want to see what that looks like. It's going to be an interesting experiment. It's not a permanent thing; it's just for one week we're going to give it a shot.
I'm going to invite in a CEO that I know very, very well and someone that I know has been through more than anybody else I know. I'm going to brief them before they come on. I'm going to tell them this isn't an interview. This isn't like any other piece of content they've ever made before. This isn't about PR or making yourself look good. This is about being honest.
Let's see what happens. Hopefully, they're honest and hopefully they share the realness and the deep dark thoughts. If they don't, then I won't put it out—simple as that. Thank you so much for listening. Please leave a review in the podcast store. Tweet me, let me know what you thought of this podcast, and I will see you guys again next week.