Passion and Duty - Issa Dasu Patel

00:00

As I remember sitting in the office one day doing my Oliver Wyman work. And I was working, I think I was on a project for an insurance company or a financial services company and don't get me wrong, they all do great work too. But, I thought to myself when I heard the phones ringing and this was during the early days of the pandemic, March 2020, imagine myself in March 2020 hot hospitals are panicking, they've run out of supplies, they're calling anyone they can get their hands on.

00:25

And we were getting calls from police forces, local authorities, hospitals, obviously our existing clients saying we just don't have hand sanitizer. We know you're a pharmacy group, so you must have hand sanitizers, can you help us? Is there some way you can help us? And I remember I was making a deck over a financial services firm and I was thinking, surely this can't be my calling in life. It's surely not what I'm here to do. And that again is that reaffirmation that what I wanted to do is healthcare I think, is delivering better care for people ultimately.

00:55

When you do a retro or you look ahead on a week, what are you listening to you that helps you decide where to allocate your time?

01:06

I think for me, it's a listening to what you need obviously, and what you need to achieve for your own work and your own objectives, whether that's personal or from a career perspective is all for the company perspective. But I think for the position I'm the CEO of the company. Ultimately my time is really not my time, it's effectively everyone else's time, and I need to consider everyone else's needs and what they all need from me as well that week. If for example, to give you an example this week, we had a hackathon at Digital Health Rewired, which is being hosted by NHS England. And I'm personally not involved with the hackathon at all. I've not really been involved in the day to day. I've not been involved with the planning, my entire product team or some of the product team was there as was my co-founder as product officer.

01:47

And I knew that actually me being there for two whole days would drive a lot of value and it would be a great experience for the team as well, to sit down with me and spend time with me and work with me on a day to day basis. Actually for me, I allocated those two days only to the hackathon, even though for those two whole days, I didn't do much besides present at the end, at the very end and help with the PowerPoint. But besides that, it's actually allocating my time to other people's needs. And for me, those are two considerations actually, what do I need to achieve this week? Just me alone and what do I need to do? And where do I need to support and be available for other people? And usually the latter will dictate where most of my time is spent and I'll have to work around that.

02:25

That's tricky though, isn't it? Because, in some ways you must feel pulled away from what you truly want to do.

02:33

Yeah, I guess a little bit. But, I think if you are taking a position that I'm sure it's the same for you often, what others need to do and what you need to support them with will help you meet your objectives or what you want to do as well. And I'm talking purely here from a company perspective, not from a personal perspective, we can delve into that later if you like as well. But, from a company perspective, I think where you support and where you make yourself available for other people often drive a lot of value and results for you as well in terms of what you want to do. I usually find that often they're not conflicting. There are times when, for example, I just need a couple of hours or a few hours head down time to write grant application for example.

03:12

But at the same time, someone really needs my help. And it's thinking about, is there a way for me to support this person, I support my team member it being me, first of all, can someone else help them and direct them to someone else and help them get the support they need, or if I really need to do this, is there a way I can juggle both? And usually sometimes the answer is no, I can't juggle both. And I then need to make a quite difficult decision as to where do I devote the next four hours of my time, for example. And that's often a tricky question. I don't think there's a framework for that really.

03:42

When you first graduated from Oxford, how did you go about you studying PPE gives you all these different options. How did you narrow them down?

03:52

I didn't. I actually left Oliver, I'm sorry. I left Oxford and I first went to America to study there on an exchange program went there for six months, took a year out. I already had a job offer at Oliver Wyman management consulting firm. And I think I was deferring whether I really wanted to go or not deciding is that really what I wanted to do, and I chose consulting for the same reason I chose PPE because I liked a bit of everything. I didn't really know what I wanted to do or what I wanted to spend my time, and I knew that would be a good way to deflect that decision for a little bit longer and importantly, learn about what I want to do and where I want to be. And so that's actually why I went into consulting.

04:31

I actually deferred that decision. But having said that, I actually remember, I met up with an old friend of mine for about 10 years ago and he said to me, "Oh, Issa how's your five year plan coming along?" And I said to him, "What?" And he said, "You had this five year plan when you left Oxford." I said, "I don't really remember." And he said, "Yeah, you did. I remember distinctly, this was your plan. Year one, you're going to go to Oliver Wyman, year two, you're going to get this promotion, year four, you're going to do this, year five, you're going to make career change, you're going to do this."

05:01

And actually my life ended up in a completely different direction. It just shows often you have these plans and coming back to your question earlier, you have these plans and you might decide how you are planning to spend your time, but you end up doing something completely different because opportunities come up and it's having that flexibility, and for me, it took me a while to get that maturity level where actually making decisions and not planning everything to the end degree, you have to be comfortable with not doing that, and it took me a while to get there. And I think I finally got there having left Oliver Wyman a couple of years ago, a year and a half ago.

05:32

It can look like a deferred decision, but as you spoke about it sounded like a very conscious one to optimize for breadth and learning whilst you weren't sure what you wanted to do. Did during that process, did you manage to find the thing that you wanted to specialize in?

05:55

I think I did. And I think like you said, I think might have been a little bit of a conscious decision because I've always been interested in healthcare. It's something I grew up around my entire family around healthcare. I've not really known any different. I remember conversation at the dining table, always around healthcare, medicines, pharmacy, old people, and that was my life.

06:15

I think that's a normal dinner table.

06:15

No, it's not a normal dinner table. That's all I knew. I remember when, my family are in the pharmaceutical we got a pharmacy business, and sometimes they'd come home, late at night with my brothers who worked in the business, would come home with prescriptions, being on a bank holiday into because they had to count the prescriptions historically they would all pay prescriptions. He had to count the prescriptions for reimbursement from the NHS and they would count, they themselves would count all the prescriptions. And that's one of my big childhood memories, but, that obviously been deeply ingrained within me and I had never really realized. I always knew I was interested in healthcare, but I wasn't convinced if that was the right route for me. I think consulting, it made me realize actually that is what I wanted to do because I was always fighting to get on the healthcare projects. When I joined Oliver Wyman, after my internships, after I graduated, their healthcare practices were tiny.

07:10

Most of the partners had left a few years ago. And so it was a very small practice, and I was constantly fighting to get on healthcare projects, and I always found, I had this moment of dread every time I got put on a FinTech project or an InsureTech project, I just knew I didn't want to do that. And so for me, that conscious decision of going into consulting to help me decide what I wanted to do, almost reaffirmed that belief for me, that actually healthcare is what I want to do. And I was really fortunate that towards the end of my two years at Oliver Wyman, Oliver Wyman won a huge project with NHS digital to do all of their COVID strategy and digital and data strategy work. And I ended up on a project doing that and ended up staying there for nine months in the end, much longer than I planned.

07:52

I think, it pushed me along my journey a lot quicker. I think COVID for me as well, as I said earlier, COVID made a lot of people rethink what they want to do and accelerated that transition for me. Actually join the pandemic, I took nine months out of Oliver Wyman to work with my family's charity because we have a healthcare charity. And that for me, I think made me realize, I remember sitting in the office one day doing my Oliver Wyman work, and I think I was on a project for an insurance company or a financial services company. And don't get me wrong, they all do great work too. But, I thought to myself when I heard the phones ringing and this was during the early days of the pandemic. March 2020, imagine yourself in March 2020 hospitals are panicking, they've run out of supplies, they're calling anyone, they can get their hands on.

08:35

And we were getting calls from police forces, local authorities, hospitals, obviously our existing clients saying, "We just don't have hand sanitizer, we know you're a pharmacy group, you must have hand sanitizers, can you help us? Is there some way you can help us?" And I remember I was making a deck, for a financial services firm. And I was thinking, "Surely, this can't be my calling in life. It's surely not what I'm here to do." And that again is that reaffirmation that what I wanted to do is healthcare I think is delivering better care for people ultimately.

09:05

Sounds like you were getting these inputs that you were just naturally rejecting. And in that process and in that rejection, you're able to isolate what it was that you really want to do. Almost like you learn more from the things that you didn't want to do than the things that you did.

09:21

Yeah, exactly. And I think it's definitely right. It's those little signals and constant nudges that are reminding you actually stay true to yourself. And if this is what you want to do, why are you fighting it? And I think often we will come sometimes we'll have an idea in our mind and something we want to do and we will fight it, and whether that's because of how we've been raised or what we've been told to do, or what we believe is the right answer often stops you from accepting that truth, and it takes a while. I think it takes a journey for a lot of people to get to that place. And like I said, it took me several years to get to that journey. I think once you're there, it's then realizing that actually finally got to where you wanted to be and making sure you embraced the opportunity when it comes.

10:01

There are these threads that pull out from your story, keeping things broad, being pretty conscious with it. Healthcare threading its way through. And there's a thread too, from the moment that you spend your time with your family's charity to then you don't go back to Oliver Wyman, why not?

10:33

I did actually go back to Oliver Wyman straight after I finished the nine months been there and day one of going back. And again, this was a sign, a signal and a nudge. I ended up on a project for a private equity firm in New York doing due diligence on an insurance product. And I think that to me was a very clear signal that I think this is time, this is what you've been, the sign you've been waiting for. It could have been more clear than this. This is not where you want to be. And then as I was thinking about leaving, that's when the NHS Digital thing came in and I thought to myself actually, and that was a very conscious decision at that point where I'd made a decision. And I think coming back to our point earlier about making decisions and then realizing there might not be the best ones you made.

11:17

I'd made a decision when I got into that insurance project, that was it, I was done. I was done with consulting and it was time for me to leave. And, I was about to hand my resignation. And like I said, that NHS Digital project came in and I knew that actually to be where I wanted to be and to do what I wanted to do this project was what I'd been waiting for the whole time and couldn't find. I actually made a decision to stay on, and stay on much longer than I initially planned and stayed for nine months, and I don't regret it at all. And actually now even thinking back to all of the decisions I made prior to that, if I'd have left Oliver Wyman in a year in, because I didn't enjoy doing all the work you described earlier, and this opportunity to do the NHS work, wouldn't come up.

11:56

And perhaps where I am today wouldn't have happened as quickly as well. I probably would've gone to another consulting firm to do more healthcare work, or I might have gone into the third sector or policy. I don't know what I would've done, but I probably wouldn't have been on this exact journey I am today. Actually, I didn't regret at all the decisions I made, even though at the time, I wasn't really sure if they were the right decisions. And I think it's really just shaping the journey as it comes along and realizing what you want to do in that moment and making those decisions and having that flexibility to make those decisions as well.

12:25

How did you take all of that learning and decide to start a company, a whole load of different other route that you could have taken to spend more time in healthcare, but you chose to start a company. How did you make that decision?

12:40

I think it was a combination of things really. One was, I was doing the NHS advisory work and I was slowly ramping down on that project, and the value I could bring was diminishing. I started thinking about what do I want to do next? Do I want to stay in consulting, do more projects like this, which I was actually really enjoying, or do I want to strike out on my own, which I always had planned to do this. At some point, I'd always been very entrepreneurial growing up and as a kid, and I always knew that one day I would be running my own company and working for myself. That just spring boarded that decision was A, that the NHS work ramping down.

13:19

And secondly was my brother. Who's my co-founder actually, he at the time had started working on this technology that supports old the people with their medicines and started creating this intelligence platform. And when I was still doing my consulting work, I helped him with a grant application. And in that grant application, I was named as the project lead. And when we got that grant, I think it was quite clear that, well, this is it, this is the world telling me, I can't now do that. I have to now do this, I'm committed. And, I made that commitment, and so I just went with it.

13:52

It must have been it's a lot closer to home there too. If that's your brother that you've put that together with, it must have meant more in your mind there and therefore prioritized higher in your decision making than if it had been someone else that you hadn't known so well, perhaps.

14:10

Yeah, I think there's an element of truth in that probably because he obviously, he's my brother. I'm actually one of six siblings. I've got loads of siblings, but he's the brother I'm closest in age too. And we've always been very close growing up, and we'd always worked on projects together. I think the most distinct memory I have is when we were younger, we created our own little greenhouse and our family who loved gardening and stuff, they had their own nice, hose pipes and everything. And every time the host pipes broke, we would get the leftover crap and we would use it on our greenhouse and we really made an incredible greenhouse out of it. We've always been the younger siblings in our whole generation. We were the youngest, my dad, and all of his brothers, we all grew up next door to each other, and it was a huge family. We were always the young ones doing our own little thing. I think this was for an opportunity for us to do that in the business world as well, and strike out a little bit on our own and do something different. And I think we're both very aligned in the way we think and what we want to do and what we want to achieve in the company and culture we want to be old. That again, really helped making that decision.

15:14

What are the differences between your decision making process when you were deciding to start Connect Care and what were the differences between your thought process and your brother's thought process?

15:28

It's actually not something I've done too much introspection on when we spoken to him much about perhaps that's a takeaway from me actually is going and have a chat to him about this. What was the thinking behind his, when he was thinking about this? He's very much, Mehboob is he's very creative, visual, high level thinker, very deep thinker as well, and very introverted in a great way. And I'm very much the opposite. I do like to think, and I do reflect a lot, but I'm very much, I like to be out and about on my feet, I love the energy of people, I love being surrounded by people. I rarely like being on my own. Actually we weirdly, we are very dimetric in that sense in terms of our thinking processes and how we process information and people.

16:18

And I think for him, his background actually is in healthcare. He was a medic, dropped out, went to do a masters in public health. And he's always been really interested in designing completely new models of care, and he's very a visionary. He was a vision. He had a vision and I think his thought process was, "I need to deliver on this vision and I have this vision and I need someone to help me support in executing that vision." And I think I'm one of those people where I do often look for signs, as I said, I often know what I want to do, but I will wait for a nudge or a sign of multiple nudges and signs to do that it. For me, I think for him, he had conviction. This is what he wanted to do. And he, he knew he was going to go and do it.

16:58

But for me, it took a bit more convincing cause I could have joined him for example, months before when I was still at Oliver Wyman, but I didn't, I actually chose not to. And I think for me, it took a much more slow nudging and really thinking analytically about it rather than emotionally driven of this is my vision, I want to achieve it. I'm very analytical in that sense. And I'm very critical self critical as well. I was really analyzing the situation. Is this, what I want to do? Is this company going to succeed? Is this idea and this, this vision something we can execute in the world we live in. And for me it was much more rational decision, I think. And I think that's for me strengthen my conviction in the end as well.

17:36

You said that you are self-critical and being self-critical is just so important to all of the different parts of our career, especially when it comes to making decisions and working out which decisions we made that were right, and which ones that were wrong. But, it can also be really tricky because if we are too self-critical we can beat ourselves up and it can fall into almost like a self-sabotage in a way that goes, that plays a bad role when we're trying to overcome imposter syndrome. Have you ever felt any of those pang

18:14

Definitely. I think it's something I've taken years to come to terms with is how you manage that within your own life. And that's even on a personal level, not just in a business setting is when you are self critical, you are constantly thinking about your decision, you're constantly thinking about every little thing you say or write and how you present yourself, how you present your work. And it does obviously take its toll on you. And often you, like you say, it presents challenges and that you might self sabotage and do things that you know actually were right, but you just started doubting yourself and criticizing yourself. I think for that to help me overcome that, what really helps you surrounding yourself with people that are not that way, that are not a self critical that really do act a little bit more on their impulses, or will really believe in what they're doing.

19:02

Because if you ... and that's both in a personal levels, that's my friends, my closest friends for example, are very much not like that, and they will be that sounding board when you are being self critical, they give you those nudges, give you those reminders and tell you that actually you're being crazy. Like, "No, this is fine." Like, "You didn't say anything wrong that or whatever." And in a business setting as well is having those people that aren't as self critical means that you, again, challenge you are challenged and they challenge you in a very different way and stretch you in a very different way, and that really helps. Actually, my brother and I, what we are similar in that respect is that we are both quite self critical. And I think he's actually a bit more self critical than I am.

19:41

And it's that constant, it's that acknowledgement that we are both this way and we need to be aware of that so that when we communicate with each other, we need to bear that in mind, we important and we communicate to remainder of our team. We need to ensure that we're not doubling down on being so self critical that it's almost defeating for everyone else. And that's why Thiago who's our tech lead and our first hire actually, he's very good at that actually. He's very good at saying, "No, I think this is great. Let's carry on and go do this." It's having that sounding board and acknowledging where your limitations are and where you are self-sabotaging so that you can bring those people into bring you back on track.

20:17

Do you go through any practical process yourself to understand your limitations?

20:23

When I was in consulting, it was done for you. Every single project you had you'd have a review. And the review was completely 360, where it was every from your writing style, the way you communicate, the way you present yourself. And, interesting, what I found is that whilst that was a reflection on your work, it was often a deep dive into your personality because when you have these projects so frequently in consulting, in management consulting, your projects are up to eight weeks long, maybe maximum, and when you're having these constant project appraisals, what you're often finding is actually picking out deep personality traits within you. And these are things that are limiting you. And I remember this one project I did, and this is me being very transparent, open.

21:07

This one project I did, I hated it. I really detested it. And I just did not think it was for me, and I really fight it, I fought it. And I remember they wrote in the review that Issa has a no man ... for those that are close to him or work closely with him, Issa has a no man left behind, I'm quoting directly here. No man left behind an attitude. But to those that don't worry, work very closely with him, he can give off the impression of apathy. He should avoid making that impression for particularly for senior partners who might not be working so closely with him. And that for me was really interesting because they obviously knew that I'm not the kind of person, even if I hate something will just pack my bags at five o'clock and leave or say, "You know what, fuck you, this is me, I'm not doing it.

21:50

I will put in the work and I will make sure that it gets everything that needs to be done gets done and to the end degree. But, when I present myself, I present myself, I don't really care. I didn't want to do this. And that for me was a deep personality because I found that I often would do that in my personal life as well, but if I wasn't interested in something or even it was a close friend talking about something that didn't really interest me so much, I would zone out and, it would almost come across that apathetic, and that's obviously it's not a good trait to have or not always. And so, I was very conscious of that. And now, I'm always, when I'm, whenever I meet someone or around a conference, when meet them anywhere, I would always bear that in mind, and I'm always thinking about that.

22:34

I'm very much like to learn from my experiences, which I don't know if that's not the right way or the wrong way to go about it, but you definitely learn. And I often can now take that project appraisal approach to all of the little projects I work on myself and my business as well, for example, the hackathon being one of the examples, I'll go away and do some thinking for a few hours about how it went, how I went about it personally, what I did, what didn't go well for me, where I think my limitations were, where those personality traits actually came in both a good and a bad way, and how do I overcome those in the future?

23:06

Why do you think it's so difficult for us to do that introspection?

23:13

I think because we're just not, we're not almost, we're not told or when we grow up, we're not nurtured to do that. I think we, I don't know obviously what your upbringing was, but my upbringing was a very, I grew up in a very conservative household and my conservative in socially conservative my family, Indian origin from a very old fashioned community. And even in England, very traditional old fashioned. And then obviously being British as I think British people, generally, we tend to be quite compared to other countries more closed off and a little bit more reserved or conservative in that sense. And when you grow up in that environment, I think you don't learn to introspect, you don't learn to self reflect. Actually what you learn is to be self critical, which is almost the worst form of introspection, the worst form of reflection. And I think that's a reality and I've got a lot of American friends and I lived in America for six months as well. And I remember that was one of the things I noted was just so different amongst Americans versus us here in England

24:17

Everyone's in therapy.

24:17

Well, yeah, I think everyone's in therapy. I think there's much more of an honest open conversation about that, and it's not a taboo, there's not a stigma. And I think in England, it's changing now. I think amongst the younger generations, amongst our generation, I think things are very different. But, when I look back to my parents' generation or my grandparents' generation, the idea of someone going to therapy, or even talking openly about these things or having this conversation that we're having, whether even sharing deep childhood parts of their lives would just not happen.

24:50

I think there's probably a little bit of that is that nurturing of how we're nurtured, but I don't think we can put everything down to our nurturing. I think a lot of it is also down to us. Right. And I think some people are more introspective than others and some people just aren't and I don't know why that's why the latter occurs, why some people are like that, and perhaps some people don't feel a need to be introspective. That one, I don't really know, to be honest.

25:12

Do you take any steps now that you are running a company to create an environment where people feel that level of trust or I guess that deeper sense of like, it's okay to go through that exploration.

25:29

Yeah. It's something that I've actually been really conscious of in my company as well, and I think that's where I don't regret doing consulting at all because I learned a lot of this was from consulting. I think consulting is great for a lot of reflection for constantly analyzing and creating an environment. People can talk openly about things that or not work. And I remember we used to have, when I was a consultant, you have informal one-on-ones very frequently with your manager and with people that you're managing as well and your team members. And when you come to those, one-on-ones the one rule is you can't talk about the project, you're not allowed to talk about the project. You're not allowed to talk about work. It's really about, "Hey, how are you doing?" Human to human level? "How are you doing? How's things going? How's life?" Like, "Are you okay?" Like, "Are you getting on okay?" Is there anything I can do to support you better? How am I working with you? How are we communicating with each other?"

26:19

And that I think really fosters a very deep, personal connection with the people you're working with so that when you then do going to work, when they know what the challenges you're in, what's going on outside of work. And so what I've actually implemented in our company is exactly this is 360 one on ones where I think a lot of companies now do this, but I will personally just call up every single one of our team members every month. Right now, obviously our company's enough for me to do that. How I'll do that in the future is a question where I'll just call them up one on one and some of them actually, they've never done this.

26:50

They'll just start rambling and talking about work, say, "Oh yeah, hey, today I'm working on this project." I said, "No, stop. Let's, not talk about work, let's not talk about your projects. How are you doing? I know for example, you have kids, how's everything going with that? Are you finding that you can spend time with them still, are you finding that your life and your work are compatible in that way? How can we change things in this company to help you as well?" And having those conversations, recently, for example, had a conversation with one of our team members who lives in London as well. And because we're a largely remote team, I said to him, "Obviously you live in London, I live in London and we rarely see each other, and do you feel that this is a social environment where you actually enjoy coming into work every day? Do you enjoy being here? Do you feel like, you know us as people and how do we foster that?"

27:37

And just having those conversations and almost, I don't know the answer sometimes and asking those people for them. I think that really helps to build a very personal relationship with them and allows them to realize actually they have 10, 15 minutes just to talk openly about whatever they want to talk about. And it's up to them as if they don't want talk about it that's fine. I think slowly, what you'll find is the more and more you have these, the more and more they'll open up and they'll tell you things that they never said before.

28:03

When you reflect on your own decision making, what incentives do you think are guiding it?

28:12

I think that's a business commercials definitely is important just simply because without commercials, you can't survive. Commercials will dictate the longevity of your business, and I think it's a very pragmatic and what's quite pragmatic person. I think that's definitely a driving factor is not the most important driving factor obviously.

28:28

But I guess my question's more less to do with your position as the CEO, but more to do with your position as Issa, like what incentives are driving you day to day?

28:41

I think one of the big incentives is the ability to drive change, to be able to drive real change at scale and having that impact. You people always throw around the word impact, but actually thinking what is the impact and in the industry where in impact is really shaping people's lives. And these are people that are vulnerable, typically older people, people like our grandparents who might be living by themselves, and, that for me is a core decision making factor and is what I'm for example, is what I'm doing, going to achieve that impact. If it's not, then is it worth doing? Is it worth me spending six hours of my time doing this? It's not going to achieve that impact that I really want to achieve and that we all want to achieve. I think that's a really crucial decision making factor and it might sound like a BS answer, but to be honest, it's really true, and I think I've seen that cross entirety of everyone that works with us as well. They're kind of driven by that one thing.

29:35

And it's a really powerful motivator, but it's this thing that when you're struggling to get out bed in the morning, because things haven't gone well the day before, that's the thing that wakes you up because you know that there are people vulnerable, old people that are relying on you and your technologies and your products or whatever it is with your services. And that often for me is what drives me and wakes me up and gives me that motivation to make those things and be quick and making those decisions when I need to be as well.

30:01

Is there anything else there too? Because it will make, naturally we want to have impact, but there are also parts to our incentives that are, there could be legacy or it could be love, or it could be, or so many different parts. And often, that's like, there's maybe like 10, 15 of these things are going around, but then maybe a handful that are really guiding it.

30:28

I think there's definitely other factors as well. I think legacy is probably one for me, that's quite an important one and I think it's a really good one for the one you mentioned. I think, because it's really, and I think that relates to impact as well is I'm very much on or that I would like to leave a legacy behind, I would and it's not a personal thing or anything, not in a fame, what set of angle or can be known as me, but to actually leave behind something that people will remember and continue to benefit from the years to come. And that's why for me personally, I've always been really interested in charity work. I do a lot of charity work outside of my business as well. And even actually try to weave that into my business as well, because for me it's to have a legacy and not just yourself and your family or your friends, but other people as well, because that's where you see your impact in work, the generations to come.

31:17

And for me, that's a really important factor is a decision making factor is, for example, even the small decisions like, okay, which grant should we apply for, that often you'll decide based on which funding should I go for? Where should I go with this business? Legacy is something that can play into that decision making factor. That's probably the other one. And I think the third one is probably personal growth, which is perhaps a little bit selfish, but for me, everything is a journey for yourself as well. And it's all about you growing as a person as well. I think for me, personal growth is really important and not only would that drive success myself, hopefully for other people as well. I would say probably those three things.

31:55

How do you stay on the right side of stress when it comes to your motivations and how do you utilize stress in the most positive way during your time working?

32:10

That's one I'm currently grappling with. I find that increasingly my nights are more and more restless, which is when I know obviously my stress levels are high and to be honest, I'm still coming into terms. I'm actually part of it, an anonymous founders community. And that's often a recurring theme is stress and how people manage stress. And to be honest, I've not really found solution yet, to be honest. For me, what helps though on a day to day is like I said, that coming back to that notion task, this, I mentioned earlier for me, I just sit down and have visibility over that. And actually just before our call, that's exactly what I was doing is because I had this hackathon for two days, obviously, because I've been so out of it, my emails are piling up. My list of work to do is piling up and I'm behind on my task list.

32:55

And that for me was causing me a lot of anxiety. And I know last night and still will be because of that. Actually to wake up this morning and clear my diary of things that can be cleared and just sit down with my not tasks and think through and just think, okay, what do I need to do? Take a step back, and realize actually this problem is not as big as you think Issa. Yes, you've been away for two days. The world hasn't come crumbling down your, company hasn't come crumbling down, and your life is still very much together. I think it's taking that step back to realize that actually things are much better than it seems and coming and dealing with it in the way that you are comfortable dealing with it, which for me, is reviewing what I need to do, where my priorities are and what I need to achieve that for me helps.

33:39

And lastly, I've loved learning more about the experiences that you've gone through and the nudges that you've got along the way and especially love learning about the nudges towards health and how your own back ground and your family situation almost bought you in that way, and pulled you in that direction. There's also a counter to that, which is that during our working life, we feel compelled in some way to do what our parents wished we, or this almost duty trap to do right by what, and it's not a conscious thing, it's an unconscious thing like, "Oh, I should follow this thing because that will make my family happy. And that will take them that way." Is that a conscious thing for you? And how do you balance the on the one hand being truly intrinsically motivated by health and on the other hand, the duty trap of feeling like you need to be motivated by it.

34:48

That's a really good question. And, I think you picking me out pretty quickly. I think that's the ... to be honest, I don't really know. And that something I remember when I was doing the charity work a year and a half ago, I met with this incredible guy, he's a doctor, and he had a medical supplies charity when we were working with him. And he's a very introspective guy. And he said to me, and this is within one day of meeting me, he said, "You seem to me that someone that curries the burden and responsibility of duty on your shoulders yet you also have clearly a desire to break out and do something bold and do something exciting, do something new. And, but you're conflicted between those two. And right now you're doing neither."

35:41

And, but he said, "But I think in your mind, you think that both are opposing ends, that both are not possible to do together." But he said, "Actually, you can do both, and for yo, it is actually embracing that duty and responsibility and that legacy." And for me, I think that legacy part, we mentioned it's come something again, deeply ingrained within me and take that and drive it in your own direction and take it in the way you want to go with it. And that will then become your legacy, that will become your burden, that will become your responsibility, that you'll probably leave behind on someone else. And I think that for me was really powerful because he was right. And often like I say, you find yourself torn and conflicted, but actually you've made up that confliction in your mind.

36:22

And I always thought that those two were not compatible actually to your point about whether I'm doing healthcare as a duty or responsibility, I think yes, but actually I'm doing it in a way that works for me and I'm breaking out and that's my breaking out actually is driving that legacy because I could have just done that in the way I'd grown up. I could have gone and joined the day to day business that my family work in or gone and become a doctor for example. But actually this was my way of shaping my own legacy, but still carrying that burden along with me, but in a positive way.

36:54

Issa, thank you so much for sharing your story. And I think it is so beautiful that thread pull all the way from your family through you then, like you said, from you to the next. Thank you so much.

37:15

No, it was a pleasure talking to you. Felt like therapy. No, it's really good questions and really made me think as well. I really appreciate it.