Build yourself as a new person - Sara Stephens

00:00

Positive thinking really does impact outcome. Not cheesy positive thinking, not unrealistic positive thinking because that's too much for anyone. No one wants that, we're British. Let's not be happy clapping too far. Something I learn more and more of Rest Less, if you can message something and position something in a more positive way, you'll end up happier, other people around you will end up happier, and the outcome will be more positive.

00:30

At the beginning I was really money orientated. It's like, "I'm going to go and work for a big bank because I'll get loads of money and I'll get loads of kudos." It was ego and money and what have you. I stayed there for quite a while. I worked for a consultancy and then worked for big bank. I ended up on the side starting a side gig. I built a cocktail bar with my other half from scratch. Yeah, I fucking loved it. It became TripAdvisor's number one nightlife attracting in Southampton, Winchester and Manchester as well. I loved it. I think I was like, "Oh my god, I need to do something more like that." I'd moved to New York to work for the bank. There comes a point, and what is it, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where you're like, "Actually, money isn't doing it for me anymore. I need something more than that, achievement, goals, self-actualization, that type of thing."

01:29

It's interesting that the money pushed you in an entrepreneurial direction that then ended up in something that was more than the money though. It's almost as if the money got you off the ground, but then it got you into something that you were more interested in.

01:44

Yeah. Because it was I got so frustrated with just big corporate red tape and lack of progress and lack of seeing impact and output. I had loads of ideas I wanted to do, and it was constantly, "Oh, no we can't because of this policy, that policy." It's so slow in big corporate. I was like, "What can I do to learn more about the business and do something?" We just started this thing on the side. I loved it. I don't know, it also taught you that you don't have to know everything about business and a particular industry in order to start it. I think if you go deep into something you need as a subject matter expert, but in order to get something up and running, you need a lot of grit and determination and drive, but you don't need to know everything.

02:41

I wonder what those parts of life are, whatever examples there are, where you follow a basic need that you've got, like needing money, and then you end up at a place where it's rewarding you for things that aren't what you actually intended in the first place.

03:02

I don't know, actually. I feel very fortunate to be able to do that because not a lot of people can, I guess, earn a decent amount of money and then be like, "Oh actually, I'll just leave that behind and I'll go and do this other thing."

03:20

It's a bit like cooking maybe. You learn how you to cook because you have to eat, but then over time once you've satisfied your initial craving, the cooking becomes some kind of art in itself, like you said, I guess because you've gone past the safety part of the hierarchy of needs or whatever.

03:40

Yeah. There's that tangential effect, I guess, from it. This is just weird, really tenuous link, but my cousin, she was struggling a little bit with stress, but she found that cleaning had this benefit of cleaning the house but it de-stressed her as well. It was one of these things that she used as almost a way to chill out and calm down. It's not for everyone, it wouldn't be for me.

04:08

Yes, it's like the Jordan Peterson make your own bed type thing before you get up in the morning and clean your own house before you start criticizing as someone else's. It's almost like look after the basics type thing and the other bits will take care of themselves.

04:29

Yeah. You have to have those base level needs, like you say. I think I was worked out in order to have the things that I like, which I don't have lots of things, but I do like to go out for a meal now and again and enjoy times with friends, how much money do I need for that? And then you can start to layer on, "Okay, these are the types of things, careers or things you can do that you'll have that money and still, I don't know, still fulfill a passion or a need." The thing is those needs change over time as well, they're not fixed, they're not static. So whatever is fulfilling that for me right now might not be what is doing that in 5, 10 years time. They just change.

05:14

One of the fascinating things for me about your background is that you go into banking but then you do something most people don't, and you then decide to do something with your life that really isn't that anymore, but it almost feels like the opposite, helping people who aren't even working, who are coming to the end of their life. It's almost as if you at the beginning of your career go into someting and you follow money that gets into a place that means that you can then find something else, it's almost as if I wonder whether Rest Less could have even existed had you not gone into banking. Because you are at a point where at the end of your banking journey you proactively want to do the opposite and do something good. Would that moment have existed without it?

06:09

It came about when I was looking for something with social impact. I was looking to come back to the UK after being in the States. I wanted that startup vibe. That was definitely what I was looking for. I got introduced to my co-founder, and he talked me through how society is shifting, as you said. We are living for longer. We're actually younger for longer, so the demographic we're largely focused on is 50 to 65. I know although it's, as you mentioned, towards the end of their life, they wouldn't see it like that. They've still got potentially 50 more years. So how 50-year-olds are currently viewed by society is actually not what is happening in society. They're not the same as the 50-year-olds from 20 years ago. They're digitally native, they're active.

07:07

If I look at my parents who are 60 and 62, my mom is training for a triathlon, and my dad is training to do a hundred mile cycle. That's cool, and that's something to be look forward to and be inspired by. Those people are just massively underserved because of the way that they're seen. The other thing on the job side of things, there's a labor shortage. Unemployment rates are super low, we need to hire more people. The biggest demographic growth is in the over fifties, so we actually need them to be coming back into work and continue to add value, which they really do. Could Rest Less have existed without my journey? I don't know. Has my previous experience helped to build Rest Less? Absolutely. I've just got so much drive to do something good and have an impact.

08:15

What challenges do people who are in that age demographic, 50 to 65, have that you wouldn't expect when it comes to finding work? There's clearly the obvious like technological challenge or getting towards the latter years of their career, but what is less obvious that we don't recognize?

08:42

I wouldn't also say that they're all not technologically advanced. I mean, of course, like anybody, the people struggle. But I've seen my brother who is a fantastic carpenter and not a very good technologist, and he's in his 30s, so there's definitely swings and randoms there. You might not realize, but you would think that somebody with a huge, huge career or a lot of experience, have been in the workplace for several years can massively lack confidence. It's one of the number one things that you see in this audience. Because they get not back time and time again because ageism is rife within the employment. I've heard so many harrowing stories, 200 applications submit over a year and not even a response back, kind of, "Sorry, not this time," kind of thing.

09:45

You can imagine how much that knocks your confidence. Maybe you go from somebody that was a director somewhere, but you've thought, "Actually, I've finished up there. I'm going to use my skills, I'm going to go do it somewhere else." Perhaps even something that's more flexible, reduced hours, slightly a step down from the seniority that they were at before and yet they're still not getting these roles. I know one of the things that really connected me with Rest Less was my dad when he came... Another transition point, he came out of the army around his 40s. So not 50 but 40s, and we still see some of it there. He was trying to get work. He had a degree in finance and was well qualified, 23 years in the Army. He went for a job that was probably a few rungs down from him, but he was really just looking to bring in money to the household. He heard the standard stuff that people hear which is, "Oh you're overqualified. It's not going to be a job for you. You probably won't stick around that long," when actually this demographic is some of the loyalest and long-standing people.

10:49

That's another thing that people might not realize, that the over 50s tend to be more sticky. Their retention rates are higher actually. It's not about having a full workforce of over 50s or under 50s, it's that diversity within the workforce.

11:09

Confidence is such a big part to it. Often we completely breeze over it and we don't recognize it as the challenge that we should recognize it as. When in your working journey have you felt the least confident?

11:28

Oh, forever. Does that ever go away? I don't know. I don't know if that ever goes. Starting a business that I just had no idea how to go about starting it. I think one of the things was... one of them was trying to get into banking. I spoke to recruiters and they were like, "Absolutely not. You didn't go to a red brick university, you're not going to be getting in there."

11:57

Which is the classic story. We so forget about this. Tell me, when you finish university, if you haven't gone to that red brick uni, you look at your chances and you think, "Well, I don't have a clue what I can do here."

12:11

It almost spurred me on in a way. I was like, "All right then, fine, well, I will show you that I can do it." Especially having done a part-time degree, there is an element of snobbery a little bit that comes with that. It's like, "Well, why did you do it part time? Is that degree that good compared to other ones that were done full time?" I ended up working for a consultancy that worked in banks, and that was my way in. And then ended up being hired directly by the bank anyway. That was probably a little bit confidence-knocking on that side of things.

12:55

The tech industry in general can be a little bit harsh actually. "I don't know if you don't know this framework or that framework, or don't know these principles or those principles." It can be a bit cliquey and trying to break into that. I've got a lot of great mentors and friends that are a fantastic technologist and have really looked after me, so I've been very, very lucky. But I have seen that where there can be technology cliqueness. I'm sure it exists in finance and loads of other industries as well, but that can also knock your confidence when there's very loud voices that have very firm opinions. Sometimes, yeah, starting the side gig that we started that was a confidence booster and at times a confidence destroyer. It's like, "I don't know what I'm doing."

13:54

It's funny how the two come in hand in hand, but on the one hand the things that you do to build confidence are also the things that can knock it down.

14:02

Yeah, for sure. Because we did an opening evening, and I was just convinced that no one will turn up and it would be an absolute disaster and just dreaded it. A bit like having a birthday party, inviting a bunch of people and no one turning up, but you've actually put lot of money into it. But then once it's done, you gain a little bit more confidence and you push yourselves through these tough situations in order to build that confidence. I think if you suffer from imposter syndrome or... I know some people don't actually like to talk about imposter syndrome. They see it more as a signal of change when you're feeling a bit unconfident or like you don't fit, or you are questioning yourself. It is a sign of change and that you're actually going through a growth period, and maybe understanding and recognize those moments of unconfidence or imposter syndrome as actually out of the end of that will come something positive.

15:13

When you take the decision to try and boost your confidence by doing something that you don't know how to do, or you take a leap out into the unknown to try and move things in a certain direction, I guess you need to know where you're headed and why you are headed there where you want to go. When you've made those decisions, so if you were to take, for example, the Bring & Mix and you deciding to do it, to what level of clarity have you understood why you're doing it?

15:55

I think it's probably a surface level clarity. I don't spend loads of time doing deep analysis on stuff because I like to learn by doing and getting my hands dirty. Part of the fun for me is figuring it out along the way and challenging myself. I think with that the end goal was get the experience that you would get on an MBA but a fraction of the cost. Get real practical experience. Build some of that startup experience. Because there was always an idea of, "Maybe banking isn't for me and maybe I want do something else, so what can I bolt on to the side in order to showcase those skills to somebody else that I may want to engage with in the next 3, 4, 5 years?" So there is that long-term high level view. It's not a specked out plan that we're whiteboarding and we're documenting, but there is definitely that purpose for, "I think I want to do something a bit for myself maybe in the startup. What skills do I need? Let's go and do those."You can gain them multiple different ways. MBA just was so expensive and wasn't going to give me the financial gain or the experience out of the back... And that's not me bashing MBAs, my partner has an MBA, he will tell everyone about it. But I think, yeah, maybe it's more than a surface level plan, maybe I'm doing a bit of a disservice.

17:32

This is the hard thing as well because you'll want to not think that there was a really clear plan and that you just went with it, but is that really the case? If you really dig into it, was there really nothing underneath there that you were really clear where you wanted to head?

17:52

Yeah, there probably was a lot more. Again not written down purposely, but if I look back on the things I was talking about, the things I was doing, I was already building my network at 19, so I had this view of I knew that was important. I'm still benefiting from my network today in my mid-30s. Something in me knew that that was going to be important long term. When I decided to do Bring & Mix, I knew that I needed those skills for something that I was going to want to do in the future. When I moved out to the States, that I'd actually been pushing for for two years. I wanted to move out there to get an experience of a different country, living in a different country, grow those skills of being independent, trying to build yourself as a new person, which is essentially what you have to do because you don't really exist. Yeah, you're probably right, on reflection, there is a very purposeful, "I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this."

18:50

When you said you didn't really exist, God, that's really interesting. So what you're effectively saying there is that you have proactively put yourself in a circumstance where you have to rebuild your own sense of self. Why?

19:12

Why is a great question. Why did I do that? I think part of it's looking for that self-actualization, like, "What experience can I go through, and what things can I do in my life which give me all of these different... " I really love different experiences, whether they'd be good or bad. I just think you learn stuff from it and you become a more rounded person, more interesting person. You meet just a much wider range of people. And so, rebuilding my life out there felt like... One, my parents had always moved around with the army, so it's part of what I'd done previously anyway. So maybe there was a hankering around to that a little bit. But having to almost go and do it for myself, what is that like? Can I do it? Am I capable of doing something like that? Is that something I want to do more of? Do I like moving countries, and do I like moving to different locations where I work and then just experiencing the world that way, or do I want to be home based and moving out there? So learning a little bit more about myself along the way.

20:24

I went out there, and it was great. It was a fantastic experience. I learned loads more on the job. I made some really good friends. I traveled a lot more of the States than I probably ever would've if I'd just stayed in the UK. But I learned that I love my friends and family and that I don't want to live away from them forevermore because it was just too much for me. I learned something about me in that whole experience.

20:58

Fascinating. My dad does TV interviews for a living. When I first started doing this podcast, I somehow, I don't know, it's like silently I guess I thought of him. In doing it I feel closer to him in a way, and I feel like I can relate to more of the experiences that he's been through. And hearing you talk about you moving around more as a kid maybe because your dad's in the army-

21:34

Both of my parents were in the army.

21:35

Really?

21:35

Go, mom.

21:38

Yeah, love it. You must feel so much closer to both of them in a way. It's almost like you're subconsciously deciding, "I'm going to take my own route here. I'm in banking, I'm not in the army, but I'm in someway going to be closer to you because I'm going to travel in the same way you did." Although you'd never actually say that out loud.

21:59

Yeah, for sure. Understanding, I guess my mom particularly because at that point she wasn't allowed in the army because she fell pregnant with me and that you were no longer allowed to be in the army if that was the case.

22:12

They just chuck you out, do they?

22:13

Yeah, they don't now, they don't now, definitely not allowed now, but at the time it was like, "Oh, well, that's naughty, off you go." Yeah, for sure. They would uplift often every one and a half to two and a half years. They would have to uproot. I was born in Hong Kong, we went to Singapore, we lived in Germany, we went to Brunei, Cypress, multiple places in the UK.

22:43

New York?

22:45

Not New York. They were in the States. I just really like sticking that one to them.

22:50

Okay.

22:50

I had to do something different. But just having to uproot, and they had a family so I was at least just me having to uproot, pack everything up, move away. One of the hardest things to do is build a support network around yourself when you move to a different country, and it gets harder and harder as you get older. My dad at least had work whilst my mom didn't, she just had me and my brother most of the time, which I imagine was incredibly difficult because she just had to make new friends every single time that she was dropped into these situations. I felt that when I was in the States because I moved there when I was just turning 30. I think by that time a lot of people have either got their own families or they've got their friendship circle. It's not that they don't want to engage with you, they simply don't have the time for their own friends and family. So making a new friend is not really on the list of priorities for them.

24:02

I really got a level of appreciation for that uprooting that they had to go through and that resettling every time. There's definitely things you learn from that, how to engage with people quickly and create connections and bonds with people when you don't have a lot of time. And also to be able to say goodbye to people because you then have to leave at the end of it, and that can be hard. Yeah, you're right, there was definitely an element of being able to understand them better and what they went through, for sure.

24:44

As a society, we spend a lot of time talking about how to enter into things and how to courageously throw ourselves into situations that are challenging. But we spend less time talking about how to say goodbye and what saying goodbye means and how to get really good at saying goodbye.

25:08

For sure.

25:11

If you've put yourself into so many of those new places where you've had to say goodbye more often than perhaps other people would, what have you learned about saying goodbye that you now use each time you do it?

25:28

I think it's not just people you say goodbye to. Either it's a lifestyle perhaps or a setting, a pet, whatever it is. I think having an appreciation for what that relationship or location or setting gave you helped, just like, "I really enjoyed X, Y, and Z from this, and I'd learn these things from it as well." There is an element, if I look at when I was in the States, of having a certain... If you know you're going to be going, you do put a breaker in there in some way, which I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

26:16

What do you mean?

26:18

Almost a bit of not too deep into a connection, I guess, particularly with personal relationships, which probably is-

26:28

You got a safety pull string or something.

26:33

I don't know how to describe it. I'm very transparent, I'm very open person. I've never had to hide anything about me. But I guess feeling that really deep true connection you might not allow it to get to that point in order to make those goodbyes a little bit easier if that's coming at the end, almost giving yourself a little bit of that preparation because you know at some point that you're going to have to say...-

27:01

That sounds good and bad.

27:02

Yes it's not good because maybe you miss out on something of the relationship because you're not allowing that truly deep connection. Well, if you know that you're going to have to go at some point maybe it makes it that bit easier. Yeah, I don't know if I would recommend that to anyone. That's probably one of my coping mechanisms.

27:28

Yeah. If you're saying goodbye to things like a skill for example, then-

27:38

That's hard.

27:39

That's really hard. But it's also even more challenging if you weren't clear whether you wanted to put a safety valve on that or not. Because I can imagine that being really dangerous. I understand from a personal point of view why you might not to go all in on a relationship, but if you are learning a skill or something and you're like, "Oh well, actually I might not really love this skill or I might have to say goodbye to this skill at some point, so I'm not going to put everything into it." That feels like that works in the opposite direction.

28:13

Yeah. If I think about skills, do I put that pull cord in? I probably don't actually. I'll probably throw myself into it knowing that I will, if I have to, get rid of that skill. I've actually had to come to terms with a lot moving into the role that I have now, letting go of some of those coding skills, those deep technical skills. That's scary because that is like, "Is that good for me future wise? Is that good for my career? What if this doesn't work out? Or what if at some point just decide to stop doing it, where does that leave me with my future career?"

28:58

I've had to get really comfortable with it and that's not nice because I always tend to be questioning it. But then giving yourself some reassurance about the things that you have learned and that you can, if you really want to, you can go back, you're capable of learning that skill again, you're capable of gusting it, dusting it off and picking it back up. It's just whether you actually want to go back to that. And maybe, like I said, appreciating what you gained from it and what you took away from it and applying that in some other way, that's probably how I think about it in a skills turn.

29:36

It's an interesting and very terrifying moment when you're starting out, especially when you're starting a company. You know that this really depends on the company's success as to what I should choose. Because if you are going to come out of that hard skill, then you've got to be pretty sure that the company's going to work, because if it doesn't, then you're in trouble. But then you're in a chicken and egg scenario where in order to make the company successful and moving on to that point, you have to let go and go and do it. How do you make that decision? You've got to make a call with a real lack of information there.

30:19

Yeah. I think some of it is trusting in yourself, that whatever the outcome is, you will make it work somehow, as long as bearing in mind that there's underlying financial commitments and things like that that you have to make sure are attended to. When I look at the jump that I made for Rest Less, I looked at my worst case scenario and I said, "Actually, what is that? Worst-case scenario, I think I could still get a job at X salary, which meant we could still afford to live in this place and eat whatever we were happy eating and have our base level needs done." I think that's how I actually got comfortable with it. I was like, "Even if it's not a success... " because you do. You're almost like, "It needs to be a success," but if the worst level outcome is actually not that bad... I'm very fortunate that I could probably fall back on my parents and stay in their spare room for six months whilst I figured out what the job was next. But then it's also a level of probability. So it's all risk measurements, what's the probability of that actually happening for someone like me with my skill set and the job market?

31:41

You can't predict what the job market's going to be like, but you can gauge what industry you're in, what skill sets you have, what the minimum financial needs would be to support your lifestyle. So I think that gives you comfort in a way.

31:58

In order to make that risk decision, you've got to have a decent idea of what your limits are as an individual. Regardless of what's happening outside of your control, you're betting that you will be able to perform at X level. And if certain things go according to plan, then you'll be able to get there. But we spend a lot of time talking about how to assess risk on the one hand, but we'd spend less time talking about how do you assess your own limitations because there's almost a stigma attached with that. It's like, well, even by measuring your own limitations, you accept that there are some.

32:42

In terms of what you are capable of doing and where you cap out. I'm not going to be... well, an opening's just come up, the prime minister of the country, right? That's definitely a limitation for me.

33:00

But how do you know?

33:06

Well, that is the other thing, once you start putting in those caps, you're putting in caps for yourself, and there are enough people out there that will put those caps in for you. So if you start putting in those, I think it's just not a very strong place to be coming from.

33:25

But if you don't do it deliberately, if someone's going to do it for you on it, because when you make that risk decision, you've got to work out what you can potentially do, so you're going to make it either subconsciously or someone's going to do it for you.

33:41

It depends where you are starting. But if you're looking at your worst case scenario, you say, "Well, actually, at worst case, what am I capable of?" Let's for example say, "Oh well, I'm definitely not good at being a chef, but I could do cleaning. I think I could do that. The money that that earns, am I happy with that?" Okay, let's take that as your base level. Then maybe take it up a few notches. "Could I be a junior engineer? I'm fairly confident that I could dust off some skills and be a junior engineer, and junior engineers are getting paid somewhere, really junior, 30 to 40K. Well, that sounds okay for me."

34:21

It's interesting that you change it from a limit to a minimum.

34:26

Yeah. It was easier for me to look at my minimum base and what's the job role I would need for that and do I think that I'm capable of that. It's just flipping it, I guess, a little bit.

34:42

Yeah. If you were to look at the other side of the equation, so once you've figured out what you think your minimum threshold is for the skills that you are capable of, you then need to make a decision about whether you are willing to take this risk. So for example, I mean, the best scenario for you is leaving credit space and then starting Rest Less is like, "Well, okay, on the one hand, do I feel like I am capable of doing this new job and creating this company? But on the other hand, even if I am capable of doing X, is this risk profile the right one for me at this point in time?" How did you go through that decision?

35:24

That is a great question because I don't know whether I would take the same risk, say, in three years time. I probably wouldn't actually. Timing was a lot for me being early thirties, moving back to the UK, having had some experience in the startup world, being confident that I could be scrappy around things, having a bit of a financial nest egg. I had a flat at the time, and I could rent out a couple of rooms if I needed extra income. So there was a lot of analysis that was going into, "Can I afford to make the jump?" That almost is another reason why I did make the jump at that time because all of those variables for me made it not low risk, starting a business is definitely not low risk, but as a comfortable risk level for me.

36:28

I felt that the skills that I would gain in going through that journey would actually make me more employable. I should probably mention that previously before I decided to go through, I was looking at big tech firms. Is that something I wanted to do? Maybe I wanted to go more into product. I did speak to Facebook, and they just didn't even get really through to interview round one. They were like, "You need more B2C experience." I was like, "If that is something that is also on my path or something that I want to look at in the future, that would be part of the journey that I would get with starting a startup and leading it."

37:09

In terms of measuring the risk of whether I could do it or not, that's scary. Had no idea, no experience of being a CTO or a technology leader, but in a big corporate's very, very different to being in a startup setting. I remember speaking to a recruiter that recruits technical leaders, sort of VPs of engineering, CTOs and him saying to me, "You might not be a CTO that takes the company to where it is. Often CTOs will cap out or they won't be able to grow with the company and you just need to get quite direct. You just need to get comfortable with that because that might be you."

37:52

If that is part of the journey, as long as I can make sure that along the way I'm learning something new, I'm taking skills that can be value add for wherever it takes me next, for me, that was only a positive thing. But I did have all of those bases, that financial health, food on the table, all of those that had to be there for me to make that leap. I didn't have to invest my own money either. For some people that are working full-time jobs, two jobs, it's really hard to make that leap because they can't afford to sacrifice that income. They don't have the safety net that I was fortunate to have. So yeah, I guess that's how I measured it.

38:44

Well, we started off talking about the hierarchy of needs, and it's almost as if the higher up that pyramid you get, the more able you are to take different types of risk at different points. As you go up that pyramid, what you are optimizing for also sounds like it's changing. At the beginning, it's money, and then it develops. But it's not as simple as, "Well, I was looking for my survival right at the beginning and now I'm going to try and change the world at the end." Everyone has their own path. What are you optimizing for now?

39:29

Right now I'm optimizing for... It sounds so cheesy... a sense of purpose, impact, and achievement, that kind of thing. I'm almost certain I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if it wasn't that because there are plenty of easier things that I could be doing that are less taxing.

39:53

That's interesting that you can work it out by doing that, by saying, "Actually, it would be very clear to me that I'd be doing all of these other things. But actually, the way that I can work out what I am optimizing for is working out what I'm saying no to-

40:08

Yeah, exactly.

40:08

... in order to carry on doing this."

40:09

Exactly. It's got to be that. I just want to achieve something and do something good. There's probably a little bit, I've talked to my friend about this before, a little bit of element of leaving some kind of legacy behind a little bit. I think people like to have the idea when they're dead and gone and few generations ahead that what they leave behind will be useful and they won't be forgotten kind of thing. There's part of that for me. It would be nice to leave something beneficial and memorable behind, which sounds a bit morbid, I know, but that's probably what part of the driver, is leaving some form of legacy without sounding too egocentric probably.

41:11

I wonder where that comes from for you.

41:18

I've done a little bit of reflecting on that. It's probably deep-rooted probably back from a sense of not achieving enough when I could have when I was younger. There's definitely part of it there. I was doing really well at school and then I just for various different reasons stopped doing very well and stopped achieving and just disappointing.

41:50

Welcome.

41:51

And then it started to be more people saying, "Well... " That's why I don't like caps or "Well, you probably can't do this or you can't do that." I really hate when people say, "You can't do this or you can't do that or you're not capable of doing it." So that's part of what drives me, is almost showing that, to myself as well as anybody else, I actually, I can do that, I am capable of it. This is a small example, my dad's was saying... I really wasn't doing very well at college. He said, "Well, I bet you can't even get this job." It is really simple job, and I just didn't want it. But I just took the application on, filled it in, got the job, did not stay there for very long, but it was almost that, "I can get that job. I definitely can." Maybe he was using reverse psychology on me and trying to teach me a lesson, I don't know, must have been.

42:51

I think what I've loved most from our conversation is learning at what points you've almost used an energy that exists to move you in a direction. That energy could have been used for something negative. But you instead used it for something positive in the same way that you start off your career by going into something to do with money, but it's now completely changed and you're doing something that's the complete opposite. And it's having a great impact on society in the same way that your dad gives you a job to take and challenges you to do it. In any other circumstance you might look at that and be like, "No, I'm not going to do that." or "I'm going to feel like belittled by it." And instead you go the opposite. Whatever conditions somehow mean that in each one of those scenarios when you're presented with that moment of difficulty, you choose the light path rather than the dark path. That's amazing.

44:01

It makes life much more interesting. Positive thinking really does impact outcome. Not cheesy positive thinking, not unrealistic positive thinking because that's too much for anyone. No one wants that, we're British. Let's not be happy clapping too far. Something I learned more and more of Rest Less, if you can message something and position something in a more positive way, you'll end up happier. Other people around you will end up happier, and the outcome will be more positive.

44:37

It's very stoic, like the obstacle is the way the things that are hardest are gifts. There is no pleasure without pain. It's almost as if this is the root to any kind of positivity. It doesn't just appear out of nowhere, it's the equal and opposite reaction to something else. In each one of those moments in your life that have been more challenging, you lean into it and you use it. You see those as opportunities. You don't see them as problems, you see them as chances. Then it becomes different.

45:22

Because you get that sense of that high, that hit of achievement that... Yeah, just realization, it feeds you, I guess, it feeds you with a positive energy. It could even feel quite fun, but maybe it'll get tiring at some point. I like it right now.

45:39

This has been fun.

45:48

Yeah, I've really enjoyed chatting. I love it. Great to chat. I hope you have a wonderful evening and rest of the week.

45:56

You too. Thank you.

45:57

Take care.