00:03 Welcome to another episode of the revenue career letter podcast, where we dive deep into the career journeys of revenue focused professionals to give you real insights, actionable tips, and maybe even a little reassurance that the journey is yours to the fines. Now I don't think my guest on screen today needs any introduction. He is the front man himself, Jack Frimston, one of the founding directors of we have a meeting and we're going to be talking about his journey from.

00:29 maths teacher at Kumon maths or maths tutor as to say at Kumon maths all the way up to founding director at Wham but before we jump into that how are we Jack? I'm so good Jamie it's always a pleasure to be in your company and I feel like we're going to take a bit of a trip down memory lane today because it's got me thinking about some of the weird and wonderful jobs I've had along the way so let's see where we go.

00:55 Yeah, you know, I'll tell you what we've had. This is maybe episode five or six that we've recorded, and we've had a lot of McDonald's and fish and chip shops, but we've not had maths tutor or DJ on there yet, which are a couple of the couple of the first sort of early jobs that you had. So I am interested to talk about those, but this will actually release after something else that we've been working on. So by the time people are listening to or watching this, they will hopefully have subscribed.

01:25 watched, consumed, listened, got deep into the sales stoic. And if you haven't, I mean, where have you been? Go and check it out for 366 days of daily sort of stoic advice related to the world of sales. But that's something else that you should definitely go and check out. That's something for another day. Yeah, that's something for another, well, that's something for the next 11 months of the year, because this will probably be February time, but that's...

01:54 Let's go back to your first ever job then. Maths tutor for Kumon Maths. Yeah, so it's funny that you say most people's first job was a McDonald's or a chip shop. I got offered a job in a chip shop, but my mom wouldn't let me. I was 15, and I don't know if you've seen photos of me at 15, but I was a kid that frequented the chip shop on a regular basis, so I knew everybody very well. And then they offered me a job to...

02:23 peel the potatoes and do all that lovely stuff. And I think they were gonna pay me in chips or something. But my mom was like, they've got no health and safety. You'll chop your finger off. No, you can't do it. But what I was allowed to do was teach maths. For people that know me will be like, I didn't know that maths was one of your strong points. It's not. And I know my 12 times tables really well. You could ask me any 12 times 12 time table and I'd give it you. Do you wanna touch it? 12 times 166. No.

02:53 between no no no between only between 12 and 12 so I know I only know those so it gets to 13 Jamie I'm out of there anything above anything above 13 um so yeah so that was that was my first job and I as a child my mum wanted to get me some extra tutoring because I wasn't very good at maths and I got to a point where I was like 12 13 14 and I was like you know what I'm sick of this like

03:21 I don't think I need it anymore, I'm going to quit. And when I went to quit, the woman that run the Kumo Math said, you know what we like Jack, he's good for the other kids. Would you want a job instead? So my job was to sit there, help some of the kids who were struggling with their subtractions and tick their answers and give them advice and motivation. And I got 20 pounds a week for four hours work.

03:51 So I was going to say, well, no, what's the minimum wage now? Like 12 pound an hour, something like that. Something like that. But back then, back then though, Back in the day. You're roughly the same age as me. I think my first job was in the realms of five or six quid an hour. But I'm just thinking you said you weren't good at maths, which is, funnily enough, what was going through my head. I was like, Jack, maths, couldn't see it. So was it just a case of cheap labour for them?

04:20 I think they liked having me around, being completely honest. I think maths can be quite boring. I think I brought an energy to the group and it was quite... I'm going to tip my own horn. I'm going to say it was inspiring for the other kids. This is what you could be if you studied maths. But it was a bit of a stick around. I think they needed an extra pair of hands. It only lasted a couple of years. And then I was like, actually, it's time to move on now. But that was like my first ever job. And I think...

04:49 earning 20 quid a week when you're that young. It was decent. Yeah, you've got to drive down here that you were 12. So what were you spending your 20 quid a week on? Other than the chip shop. Other than the chip shop? I don't think there was any money left. I remember like credit for your mobile phone. I know that sounds farmy, but 10 pound a week. 10 pound a week, Jesus. You are very active.

05:17 I was cold calling from a young age. I was busy Jamie. Cold calling people in my school, trying to make connections. Yeah, that was it. Probably. I don't think the money went on anything good. But it definitely gave me, I've definitely been someone that has never shied away from work. I like to think my work, I think, is that I've always had jobs, wanted to be working, even when I'm not necessarily needed to financially. I remember we'll talk about it later, but when I came off the cruises.

05:46 I didn't need to work, but I got a job in Amazon because I was like, I'm bored. I just want to do something. God, I was I was saying this to a colleague last week when we were talking about the 150 million euro millions. And I said, so, do you know what? Even if I won money like that, I'd have to have some sort of like nine to five, even if it was, you know, setting up some businesses and just running those. I couldn't be one of those people to go and sit on a yacht 11 months of the year and I need something to get up for. Boring. But I would.

06:16 I don't think I would say no to the 150 million completely honest. I'd take it. But then you've got, it's just the freedom to do what you want. I'm very lucky now to be in a position that I always think as well, even if you were Chris Martin or Ed Sheeran, there are going to be parts of your day where you think, oh, can I really be bothered singing that song tonight? Or can I really be bothered doing it? It's like any job that you do that you do consistently, there'll be parts that you don't enjoy. And the...

06:45 The dream job is just to do the bits you love. But I also think that sometimes there's something magical or beautiful about doing the gritty hard work. Yeah, and that's actually a very nice stoic sort of mantra is doing the hard things. I think there's some sort of, I was in Lisbon and there's a place called Sintra, which is a few hundred year old garden. And it was basically,

07:13 When they were doing the tour, they were like, right, which we're going to walk around and every time you can take multiple paths, I'm going to ask you which path you take and there's no right or wrong answer, but I want to know whether you go left, right, you go up, down straight on. Uh, and we, we did a few of them and we got to the point where it was basically the lesson learn was you should always pick the toughest path because that's the one that you're going to develop most on or learn most on. So we were like, right, you can go uphill up the dodgy stairs and it's like 20 minutes up where you can

07:41 go just straight down to that nice little seat down there. And obviously people were like, yeah, let's go down. That sounds good. And he was like, no, wrong answer. You should have gone, you should have gone up. Um, and it was something to do with some, it's due with monks and taking the harder route, but, um, but right. So that was your first, um, first ever job at age 12. Or be, I know, I know there weren't as many regulations about them, but I think that's, that's young, even for no regulations. Um, what was your first.

08:10 proper job in a vertical commerce, like first job where you sort of applied for it. And it was the, I guess, like a career move. It was a decision based on right. I need to start taking work more seriously. Very hard to answer that because being completely honest Jamie, I've never taken work seriously. Like with most things in life. I don't take things seriously because I like to enjoy the fun in it. I'll tell you the first proper job I had like.

08:39 I did the cum on, I did the DJing, and then I also ended up as a carer for disabled lad for a while. And that was like, that was a bit proper, but that wasn't me thinking about my career. That was me thinking 17, 18 is something I can do. When I was 16, I went and did work experience and they asked you to do your work experience. What is something that you think you would want to do in the future? Go and get some experience doing it. And I went...

09:08 and worked in my old primary school. So where I'd come from a few years previously, I went and worked there. Because I thought, I'll be a teacher. I wasn't really thinking much about it because I think deep down, part of me thought, I'll probably be an actor or a pop star or whatever. I probably won't need to think about my career. So I went and did my work experience. Now my best friend at the time, Ramin, he was also doing his work experience, but he's had a passion for music who now runs a record label. And he went to a publishing company thinking,

09:37 I like music, this will be great. Although it wasn't a publishing company, what it turned out to be in our small local town of Lismon St. Adams was a call center and they were selling advertising space to advertising space around the perimeter boards of football clubs. You'd ring up local businesses and you'd sell them the space to advertise their cafe or whatever it might be. And he did that for a week and then the summer holidays were approaching.

10:07 And he said, they've kept me on and they're asking if I've got any other friends. Would you like a job? Now, that was about £2.55 an hour. That was that was really illegal. But we were we were young kids looking for money. So nine to five, 16 years old. And I did it for two summers on the trot and they knew we'd only be there for six weeks. And I turned up in a shirt. I'd like a proper adult shirt. And I started drinking brews. And I was hanging around with.

10:37 30, 40, 50 year old blokes that this was their career move. And that felt like my first proper job. And I sat down at the desk on the first day and they handed me the yellow pages for Wolverhampton and said, you can start at the front or the back, go forth and cold call. And the rest is history. Should we just end the podcast there? It's a really nice segue into what you do today, Roo. Well, yeah, but it's just not that, obviously I've had this career.

11:07 within and I've done all these crazy different things throughout. And then obviously I went on to be a carer after that for the space of like a year. And how funny that what I do now, my, my career, I'm proud to say now that my career is exactly the same thing that I was doing 16 years ago for my first proper job. I think that's crazy that it's come around full circle. Yeah. There's some sort of life.

11:34 destiny thing there isn't there but you know what there's two things I want to touch on. One, I think you'd have made a great teacher. Like you would be the type of teacher at school that everyone would look forward to the lesson and when they go home we'd be like oh good day at school yeah yeah we have Mr. Frimstone it was wicked. You'd be a good teacher so you know if things take a turn you could always go back into teaching. We don't know how to count but it was fun. You're just not maths. And the second thing your definition of a proper job was

12:03 putting a shirt on, drinking brews and talking to 40 to 50 year old men. That was the definition of a proper job. Yeah. But you know what? That I felt so cool. Like I felt so like adult to be like, okay, I'm getting my own. I'd get the bus into work and I'd be there and I'd be like, right, I've got my brew, I'm ready for the day. And like, I don't know. There's, there's something about young people that they so desperately want to be. I don't know.

12:31 And now I'm an adult, all I want to do is be a kid again and play. So you was just a, that's a, I'm glad you said that because you've recently become a father. And I think one of the things that, um, parents will tell you or experts will tell you about kids is kids want to be involved in everything because they're intrigued by adult life. So like you're in the fridge and you're cooking and they're like, Oh, what are you doing? Can I see, can I help? Can I have a knife? Like, and you're obviously like, no, it's a knife, but they just want to help and they want to get involved. And it's the same when you're like,

12:59 a 16 year old, 18 year old that you said, like when I first went to school at year seven, I was like, Oh my God, blazer tie. And I was like, w H Smith, you get your nice pencil case. Yeah. Yeah. The fresh pencil case. And I think it is, um, like this, this podcast is about trying to shed a bit of light on people's careers from the point at which they, well, in your case 12, but the point at which they had their first proper job and how on earth they ended up where they are today.

13:25 But it's quite an interest. I can imagine people listen to this coming fresh out of like university or college thinking, right, let's attack the world. Let's go and make a million pounds. That's going, you know, let's go and be the new Stephen Bartlett, which leads us on nicely to the, like having a conversation about the meat of your career today. So the first highlight role sales executive of a read.co.uk. And I think everyone will know who read are, but do you want to just run us through that job?

13:53 Oh yeah, they are read.co.uk, the UK's number one job site. Legally, I think we have to say that slogan. They were, and still are, from what I know, amazing employees. So I'll tell you the story, obviously, I went to university, I studied drama and musical theatre, like every aspiring salesperson does. And university ended at the time me and two of my friends had formed a band.

14:21 but it wasn't really a band, it was an idea of a band. We said, well, let's move down to London, try and make it. We had glimpses of a manager that was gonna sign us. So that was like this stuff on the horizon. Let's get to London. So we got to London and we needed jobs and I applied for sales jobs. So this was six months previous to read. I was actually in London, I started there in the January. I started in the summer and I got a job in a call center that was very akin, very similar to.

14:50 call center that I first worked at and it was selling insurance for Skyremotes. Do you need insurance for your Skyremote? I'm trying to think like how many people, there's obviously enough people in the country that throw their remote at a wall or lose it or spill liquid on it. That's beyond, really, wow. Yeah, so Sky Insurance was a thing and I took that job.

15:14 And I got promoted very quickly within that company. And then I got demoted, and then I got sacked, and then I got rehired. It was six months of emotional turmoil. And I applied for two jobs in the city. So I said, right, the commute to work is two hours. I need something a bit proper now. Like, what am I going to do, a good job? And I got offered two jobs. One was read.co.uk for 20k a year, which now isn't even minimum wage. But the time that was like,

15:41 Covent Gardens, 20K bloody hell. And then the other one was West London, which was kind of away from where I was living. And that was a recruitment job, but that was 22. So I said, I'm taking that job. And then my mom said, well, just think about it. Reed is actually like a proper company. They've got hundreds of people that look after the team. Why don't you go somewhere where they can look after you? And that was my like first proper job. Wayne, there's actually a nice little.

16:09 explanation nugget of advice from your mum there as well of like you, you, that age old moving to London. That's quite a common thing. Like when you talk to a lot of people actually who work in SAS, which is the world that sort of I've been in the last few years, a lot of people tend to move to London, the big city to, to live their life for a few years and see if they can cut it in that sort of world. So you, you've gone down to London, you've started selling insurance for Sky.

16:39 Sky remotes, who knew? I didn't even realise that was a thing. Did you, was that a hard sell? Like the remotes? Yeah, but being completely honest, the data they used to, I felt so morally wrong about that job, but it was a lot of old ladies and I was like, this isn't sales, this is like, they're trying to get you to scam people into it. I was like, it wasn't for me. There's lots and lots of different campaigns, but like it was, it was insurance at its finest.

17:06 didn't sit right with me. Um, and there was a point where I had to get out. Right. Okay. So then you had two jobs, one of which was read the one you took. So the, the lower, the lower salary, which is actually a good piece of, um, good piece of advice there from your mom is sometimes safety is, is better than the risk of, uh, well, a couple of K more 10% more after tax. It's not really a great deal of money. Um, but a nice little nugget of, um, sort of advice there from your mom. Probably that's proper mom advice. Isn't it?

17:37 I see, you know what, these days I see it as well. Like I see so many people go where the money is and that's not my advice. Maybe if you're 40, 50, but I can't talk because I haven't experienced those years. But as a 32 year old, I think it's especially a 20s. It's not about the money. I personally think is that what where are you going to get the best development? Where are you going to learn the best skills? What's going to be good for your CV? But

18:06 It's a man's world and you know, I mean people are chasing the dollar sign as well. I get it You know, I think I think it's linked to that That pressure that I mentioned that people coming out of college and university. So you see social media nowadays It's people who have nine revenue streams diversify your income and these guys are like I make 150k a month I've got like four houses and this is the rent I get from them imagine coming out of university or college with that being the expectation of what success is or

18:35 Or you've gone on a love Island, right? Like that's basically it. You got your YouTube love Island or you've, you've made it big in some sort of diversification of revenue streams. Um, but imagine coming out of university age 21 and being, being offered, right? You could have this 20, 20 K job, 22 K job, and you're probably thinking, sitting there going, oh, fucking hell, have I just gone through university for three years? And I mean, I don't know what it is now. Mine was 20 or grand. I think it went up to 40 grand the year after.

19:03 You spent all that money and you're sitting there going, wow, is that, is that what I went to university for? So I get it. I get why people are so driven by money, but the more development and learning you can do in that first five to 10 years of your career, when you then get to 30, which is, I would say you're, you've built up the confidence and the behaviors and things that's when you can start to think more about, right. It's time to, it's time to start yielding the money now from all of the experience I've built. Yeah. I.

19:33 I didn't take life seriously until 30, like I worked in many different jobs, but actually, only with hindsight, this is a gift, but it's actually like a selection tray of, oh, I got that skill from that weird thing I did, and all by doing that and stuff like that. Like my advice to young people is money will always come. And I've said this to my mum before, and it's very hard, and I wish I'd documented it, because nobody will believe me, but I used to say...

20:02 when I was 22, 23 and I was like following my dreams of music and stuff like that. I was like, it's not about money. I was like, if I wanted to be wealthy in life, I could be because I've got the mindset. I know that if I threw myself at it and I really wanted, if I wanted to be a millionaire, I could be. Yeah. You just, you just jumped on an only fans or something, wouldn't you? Exactly. But I had that blind belief and I still have it now, but like, actually my, my mindset has changed and I am working towards revenue.

20:31 now and building something but only because of like time freedom so that I can then focus on things I love moving forward but your money will come like I think I think people are too worried about like making as much money as possible only for them to be unhappy and stuck in a job I think Rory Sutherland talks about like the uh the salary trap and things like that it's like it's a it's a real thing it's like you get so comfortable with the life that you feel like you can go

21:00 nowhere. Whereas actually your 20s are for trying different things and for traveling and for do you know what I mean? Not being afraid to sleep on sofas and floors like you can do that in your 20s and you should do that. I want to pick up on that um selection trait it made me think of Forrest Gump when my mama says yeah the life's like a box of chocolates thing but there's I think there's a new thing we could come up with there like life's like a box of chocolates like

21:29 you, the each different, the, I don't know, the strawberry cream and the orange cream and the, the walnut, like all of it's these different little nuggets of skills and stuff that you've built up over the years that, like you said, in hindsight, you don't actually realize you've picked up those skills because they're so, so hidden in between failures or hidden in between moments where you were, I don't know, distracted or whatever. And then 10 years, when you look back, you're like, wow, I've actually built up this selection tray of skills. That's actually

21:58 pretty good. And you don't and you don't realize like I speaking of read I had some difficult conversations with management at points about different things about progression and I was the only person in read history to get promoted and then demoted again so that you get a bit of a theme for different jobs I get promoted. Yeah I was just gonna I was just gonna ask you that's two jobs in a row isn't it you got promoted and demoted. It's me I'm the problem it's me.

22:28 But yeah, but I think I, I tell you what my thing has always been with jobs is I've got this honeymoon period where I like when I'm in it, like I'm so excited and then I'm like, but this actually doesn't fulfill me. Whereas with what I do now, it's always a honeymoon period. Like I'm always excited because there's so much variety, whereas I've always found that in certain jobs I get bored. And I think, but what I'm saying about like the lessons learned, like some of the difficult conversations I had during read.

22:57 have made me like learn lessons later on in life that I'm like, ah, actually, I was unreasonable. Do you know what I mean? But you only learn and you piece it together. It's the gift of hindsight, but then you have to go through those situations and that's what builds resilience and make you a better communicator. Okay, well, last time I asked for a pay rise, I actually ended up getting in trouble for it. So what can I do next time? And only through kind of those experiences can you truly learn.

23:25 Okay, we got and we've got fairly philosophical and deep early on, which is good, you know, it's a good depth of conversation. So it happens. What did you what the key learnings and if you were to look back at read and go right, these are the things that I learned from that period of time, what would they be? And I think one of the things that I really took away and it is from Robert Green's book as well as like never at outshine the master. Like I think I used to think I was brilliant.

23:55 But I think that everybody is also replaceable in a work setting. Like I think is when you're an employee, an employee or an employer is about being a team. And then you can be a top performer within that team. But like trying to outshine or make demands based on certain things, it's like you've got to, you've all got to road together. If that makes sense. And that was, that was one of the big things.

24:25 I think I thought character would get me further. I think I've always relied on personality, and personality's great, and personality will get you through the door and job interviews and stuff like that, but actually, putting in the, we're kind of looping back, but putting in the hard work is definitely one. Did I work hard in that job? No. Like, I didn't do anything to develop my skills inside or outside of work, really. Like, you're...

24:54 You're not, you never have polished or finished article. You should constantly be refining your work ethic. And so I can't imagine you as someone who, uh, did when you said I did nothing, but what you mean is like you clocked in, you clocked out, you kind of, you move things along, but other than that, you didn't invest into yourself with the aim of, right, I want to be better at everything. I thought my, my character and my personality was enough to get me through. Like you.

25:24 When we talk about sales, you think, gifted the gab, can chat to anyone. I thought, that's what I am. I didn't see sales as a skill. I didn't see communication as a skill. I'd clock in, I'd do the bit, I'd have a laugh. And some days the results were good, and some days they weren't. But there was no process, and there was no discipline. There was no formula. It was just like, I wonder what guy's going to turn up to read today. Is he the guy that drank 16 pints over the weekend?

25:53 probably don't do much or is it the guy that's probably got to make a bit of extra money this week because he's got a video shoot coming up. Cool. Right. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. It's weird because like you talk about the charm and the personality, which really fast forward 10 years or whatever. And that's, that's one of the things you're most famous for most recognizable for is the personality, but like bringing the personality to business and to sales.

26:22 So it's interesting, isn't it? How, uh, without the, without doing the hard work, rolling your sleeves up that, that grit that you spoke about doing the hard stuff, that's not enough to, that's not enough to set you apart and for success. But after doing the 10, 15 years of labor, the personality and the charm is that's what sets you apart because you have got the repertoire of all the skills and things that you've built up. There's nothing like, like, there's nothing.

26:50 interesting about a 22 year old who thinks that he works in sales and thinks he knows it is like what have you done what have you got to show like it's one of those things but i think like once you've done the reps you've done some of the heavy lifting and you've you've been i started cold calling at 16 and every job i've had has pretty much been telemarketing after their on the phone rejection one after the other you go through it like it takes a lot but like it's not going to get you down anymore

27:21 All right. And so why did you leave them? What was the reason for departing Reid? Being completely honest, the advice that my mum gave me was I there'd been there'd been some changes with commission and I felt like I'd been I felt like I was the victim. I felt like things were unfair. It was unjust as an employer. Now I can look at it and go, I was completely fair. I was in the wrong. I was being stubborn. And actually, I would have had an even better career.

27:51 if I'd been able to say, you know what, it is fair, I get it, but my ego and my pride was too big. So I started looking elsewhere, I found a company that was looking for a sales person that sold digital theatre products. So it was like Netflix but for theatre, well I've got a drama degree. And when I interviewed, they said like, your commission structure is going to be, you're probably going to work, I think at the time I was probably after commission, I was only about 30k with three, it wasn't loads and loads, but it was extra money.

28:20 I think they said my commission was going to be about 70, 80 grand. I thought, yep, I mean, applied, got the job and culturally, I hated it. The people were nice, but not my type of people. And it was really small. There was no room for growth. And what I later learned was 80 grand is on the table, but you'd have to be an account manager for five to 10 years to even get anywhere near that. So it was a case of.

28:49 go and do something. And I was like, oh, but that I always think about these moments. And actually, that was the moment that doing a job that I didn't really like for six months, I think I was there. That was enough for me to say, let's quit our jobs and let's go self employed as the band, which only lasted another six months. But that's a story for another day. Yeah, this six month honeymoon period seems to be a repeat sort of sort of thing. And is it?

29:17 Is that, um, in terms of like what you learned from each of these roles and like from that, when you learned the, uh, very, very common, by the way, the last like four or five conversations I've had has featured this where someone in sales has left for more money elsewhere and then realize the rug's been pulled from underneath their feet and the commission was never there or the money, the money was never, never, never there. So do you still struggle? Obviously you're.

29:47 you've got a successful company now and you've started multiple other sort of ventures, but you, are you conscious of that six month period? Like in your head, do you acknowledge the fact that you may feel a certain way after six months, but because of past experiences, you've learned something. I think the thing is now, and I think it's like a, I commit to the thing like, like there, I was kind of like in it, let's see what happens. What have you going to just

30:13 ride it and see what happens. I know what's going to happen after six months you're going to get bored you can start looking elsewhere. Whereas with with we have a meeting now I meet when Zach said it up I said I'll commit to a year. I was like I know that usually around three six months but I was like what if I commit to a year imagine what could happen. Whereas now in my brain I've tricked my brain to say I'm committed forever. Like obviously you don't know what's going to happen where will we be in five ten years but it's not like

30:41 I can promise you I haven't looked at a job, but like a job board or anything like that since starting up on my own. But it's different, isn't it? You're building something, your job, your job role is what you build. It's not the same day to day. I think it's completely different. And I think I don't enjoy being employed. I think that's one thing I've learned about myself. And I think that came. I learned that in

31:10 my last job before insurance revolution, but we might touch on that later. Yeah. Do you know what? That seems to be another recurring theme of people who become founders. So I was speaking to Tom Hunt from fame. You'll know him from, um, from LinkedIn, but he spoke about realizing after a certain period of time or a certain number of jobs, he was like, I am a terrible employee. I, I, I should not be employed. Like that's not me.

31:36 And that's when he went down the founder route and that's a very interesting trait. It seems to be very, very common for people who end up being very, very successful in their own ventures. Hmm. Yeah. I just, I always thought I could do better. I always saw things and thought I wouldn't do things like that. No, I think I like, I'm a bit egotistical in that way, but I mean, yeah, it's, it's time for me to put my money where my mouth is and that's kind of what we're, what we're trying to build now.

32:06 Yeah, did you know what my, uh, my friends or my sister will call it neuro spicy. So, so the way in which you always look at, uh, um, a situation or a process or something, go probably, probably wouldn't have done it like that. It would be better if you did it like this, like that's, it's quite a, apparently a neuro spicy way of thinking about life and going into life. So, um, okay, right. So you touched on the fact that you did the, um, role, the theater sort of digital theater thing for six months, and then you decided, right.

32:35 Now's the time I'm going to go in for myself and do the music. So let's talk about the tailor-made. The tailor-made. So the only way that we could really, really make money was a bit of money from gigs here and there. We weren't really doing much. I think at that point, uh, I think that the true story is, and I don't know how much I've told you this in the past. We quit our jobs a week later. We auditioned for X factor.

33:05 We got three nos and Simon Cowell said, why would I want, I've already got one direction, why would I want wrong direction? Which is brutal. People say like, why do you talk about rejection all the time? And I'm like, trust me, I could take it. And that rejection, being completely honest, was, I would say up there is like one of the worst. Like.

33:32 I watched X Factor as a kid, I'm obsessed with it. It was like going to the museum, but getting a backstage pass. And like I processed it. And you know what is a funny one, because it's like, was it were we a bit deluded to think we were going to do well on X Factor? I don't know. But the three years prior, well, actually, the producers had been hounding at our door, saying we want you to come on. We were doing original songs X, Y and Z, and we'd been crowned London's best buskers by Boris Johnson.

34:00 We'd won Pride's Got Talent, which meant we supported Blue on the Pride in London stage. Like we'd done all these different things and we were like starting to get a bit of recognition. But we thought, right, OK, X Factor want us. It's going to happen. We didn't. I didn't think we'd get to the final. I didn't think I'd get rejected at the first hurdle. And the producers, we caught up with them after a few months and they said.

34:27 We're not even going to air your episode. We don't even want you on because you weren't bad enough to be bad. You weren't funny enough to be funny and you weren't good enough to be good. So they're fair enough. So it allowed us luckily the day after the rejection. We were busking with have you ever seen stomp musical, you know, the dustbin lids? Yes. Yeah. And the when you said dustbin lids. Yeah, we were busking with them outside like King's Cross and we were on ITV news. So it was like there's something here.

34:56 So that's what we did, we quit our jobs, we threw ourselves into busking. Busking for four to six hours every day, on the streets of London, on the underground. Some days making £30 between three of us, and some days making £400 or £500. So like, more than a normal job? Probably not. But we were doing what we loved and we thought we were getting out there, blah blah blah. After about six months, six months honeymoon period, do you know mate, we were struggling.

35:25 for money and that was the period that we moved in with my auntie and we ended up living with my auntie for five years. Me and two of my best friends lived with my auntie. Me and my other best friends were sharing a room, rotating from floor to bed, floor to bed, every couple of weeks. And we were working to kind of bring home a little bit of money and that was everything from pot wash to bar staff.

35:54 anything that was fractional that felt like it wasn't like I couldn't go from a nine to five, five days a week back to that. It was I need something in between. And then I found a job that was selling insurance that they hired purely dancers, actors, musicians. And the minimum you had to do was a minimum of two days a week. So it was sales. It was two days a week. It's what I know. I ended up doing that for a little while. That was union insurance. I don't know why I spent so much time selling insurance.

36:24 Yeah, that's gonna say I've seen the word if I did control left on the word insurance Yeah, I know details. I've got here be a lot don't know how and Then the band started taking off and then we side we signed with the manager We started to get a bit traction. We went on tour with Tom Jones. We went on tour with like Madness did some gigs for Cee Lo Green were due to go on tour with Little Mix. We were backstage and then One of the lads said something that upset one of the girls and we got thrown off the tour

36:55 awful. And lots and lots of these amazing things and working in sales alongside it. And then one day we got a call and it was our agent, it was our manager and it was our promoter all on one call and they said, we don't think we can take you any further. It's probably best we call it a day. And what sort of age are we talking here? So like when did you start fully committed?

37:24 You said you live with your auntie for five years. Like what what ages are we talking? Yeah, so I was Started when we were 20 Just yet about 20 the year before and I think we finished at 27 Alright, so a good third of your life at that point a quarter of your life even now thinking we were gonna make it like like we did loads of stuff like we were radio ones house band like What I think in life is

37:53 You ever seen that James Arthur busking video? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was, we were the guys. Well, are you in that video? Because I've watched that video. Yeah, and it's had quite a few million views, but I'm not bragging, it's fine. I'm going to watch that video. Yeah, you'll enjoy it. But I always think in life, like, you've got to have evidence, and sometimes, whatever it is your career is, or what you want to do, what your path is, you start doing something, and there are bits of evidence along the way that say, you're on the right path.

38:20 So after a year of moving to London, we got crowned London's best buskist by Boris Johnson. That is like a bit of, and even six months into the band, a visiting director came to the university and went, I wanna manage you guys. And he did a showcase and we ended up like meeting Mika's manager and stuff. So you get little bits along the way and then we did the tours and we were like, yeah, it's happening. But then the evidence started to slowly move away and the phone stopped ringing a little bit and.

38:49 we were doing the same thing that we've done for a couple of years. And actually, life typically compounds. So if you think in terms of like five years of like what happened for like, surely it compounds. If it, and I mean, this is a hard one because this is business, but say, we've got three years of businesses and I look at all the successes we've had. If the next three years started to decline even more, well, I'd have to question myself and go, well, why is it declining? Is it the economy or blah, blah, blah?

39:18 Or is this maybe not the right path? Do you know what I mean? So it's like, it's about knowing when to quit as well. So one of the lads in the band said, we're being dumped, we should do it on our own. We can go against the system. And actually the logical and the emotional responsibility, we put everything we can into this. It's time to call it a day. And I think that's, people don't, people talk about like following your dreams, but I think about knowing when to quit your dreams is also important.

39:46 Yeah, there's a couple of things that, um, in there's a theory that confidence is a series of successful outcomes stacked. So you you've got confidence and you've got arrogance. Arrogance is believing you're good at something without any evidence to support it. Whereas confidence is repeating something multiple times and being successful at it. You've got confidence because you know, you've done it before and you had a successful result to that 10 times. You got confidence. So you've got you have this confidence. And then all of a sudden.

40:16 You said the success stopped and you started the conference was all chipped away out because you had these negative, um, negative outcomes. And I'd know in marketing, we might call them positive signals. Have you got positive signals that suggest growth? Great. Carry on in sales. Have you got pipeline that's growing and your, your win rate is maintaining and all that sort of stuff. Great. Carry on. Um, yeah, that's it. That's interesting. So when you got to that age 27, then was that, did that feel like a

40:45 huge crossroads in, in, like you said, it was either you've got to accept, not accept defeat, except you gave it the best you the best, you know, you tried as hard as you could and it just, that's not your destiny. Was that like a massive crossroads for you mentally in terms of like where you wanted to go in life? Yeah, but I, but I also think that, and this is a real interesting one when I kind of think back on it, because I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this phase of my life,

41:16 It's like you're in a... a corrupt relationship. Do you know what I mean? If you're self-aware enough, you don't get the call and think, where was that coming from? Oh, that's so like, oh my God, I've just been dumped. It's like, I get it. Like, I saw that coming. And actually, I remember having a conversation with my auntie coming upstairs and it was maybe three or four months before. And everything was changing. The two lads in the band had got long-term relationships and they'd like settled down. It was like, oh...

41:44 We're not even like hanging out as a band as much anymore. Like life was changing. We were growing up. And I said to my auntie one night, I said, I actually feel like it's drawing its way to an end. I think I'd like to like go and explore and travel the world and maybe go on the cruise ships. I'd already started looking because it was only a few weeks after that that I had interviews and auditions lined up. So like, I already kind of knew, but it is hard and-

42:12 It definitely took a couple of years after it because it's grieving. Like whether it's a person or a time of your life or a friendship or a moment, whatever it is, you're still allowed to grieve that moment and it still hurts or it's still like upsetting that it's over. But I knew that if the decision is to put one more year into it, even if, even if the payout was tenfold what we did, I don't think I wanted to pay out anymore. I think I was past.

42:40 whatever that was, that chapter, I think I was like, cool, I'm happy to like say no, let's move on. And then I had some exciting chapters after that. Yeah, I thought that the chapter analogy is nice, like chapters, sections of life, but it feels as if around that 27, 28, 29 seems to be a natural.

43:04 Chapter in most people's lives that I speak to like they I think it's you're in that gap between Being in your 20 so you've got an excuse for maybe things not going right or you've got an excuse for making mistakes or an excuse For something you did wrong in a relationship and then you get to like 28 29. You're like fuck. I'm nearly 30 Would would with 30 year old me do that did is this where I saw myself at 30 30 Also seems to be the age where you're like, I want to be married and have a house and have kids which we all know now

43:33 very unrealistic sort of target date to be able to do those things given the cost of everything. But it's, it seems to be that 27 to 29 is a natural chapter in people's lives. In pretty much everyone that I've spoken to, would you, would you like to get Simon Cowell on the podcast? You've had some pretty big names on the podcast recently. Would that be someone who you would get on the podcast? You know what?

43:58 I'd love to have Simon Cowell on the podcast. I think it'd be brilliant. And like, I think it was Rita Rora and Cheryl Cole. And you know what? Like, I get it. Everybody's got a job. You know what? If I was an arse to somebody that Cole called me one day, I've just had a really bad meeting and I just, I lost it. Like, everybody's got a job to do as well. Like, I get it. Like, do you know what I mean?

44:26 You're on an entertainment show. It was late at night. You've been there all day. So had I, but I'm not looking for any empathy. It's like you were tired. Some lads come out. They did a cover of R. Kelly's Ignition that wasn't very good. Your job is to think of funny, witty things to put people down. Was it the seventh time he'd said that line that day? Probably, but yeah, no love loss. I'm so grateful because actually, Jamie, like...

44:53 Let's imagine the world where that didn't happen. So I got through to the final, okay? Say I'm in the final and it's the TaylorMade versus Reggie and Bollie. And I probably would have been held to being a band for the rest of my life. And I don't think I would have had the self-awareness to work out who I am, what I'm doing, blah, blah, blah. I'm happy with who I am. I love the journey. I probably wouldn't have met my partner.

45:22 I wouldn't have had my son. I wouldn't have been running a business with my best friends. It's like it all it all happened. So Simon come on the podcast. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That was the yeah, that wasn't from the angle of like trying to get your own back or like, why did you say that to me? More so from the like he's had them quite well. He's had a couple of serious accidents. He's had a kid since then. And.

45:46 You see all this stuff online about him changing as a an individual realizing what's important in life. And I think it actually would be a great conversation about that. So just not my way, the conversation about you getting that know and what has happened to you and then story of what's happened to him. I would, I think that would generally be a very, very good episode, but Hey, that's it. Let's manifest it. Let's make it happen. Right. Crew ships.

46:11 I'm intrigued. So you, you were 27 ish. You had thought, right, I'm going to start looking at other things. I want to travel the world. Crew ships. So I knew somebody that was on a cruise ship and I said, I was a singer. So I wanted to go on a cruise ship and sing like that. That was what I wanted to do. And the girl said to me, can you play an instrument? I said, not well enough. She went, well, I can get you a job doing, um, doing quizzes.

46:39 and a bit of entertainment and a bit of bingo. She put it through. It was very quickly after I was actually with, I was actually seeing somebody at the time and I said, listen, I've got this opportunity. I'm moving to Australia. Two weeks later, it was like bang. It was just, that's a story for another day. But it was just very, very quick. It was like, right, bang, you're in Australia and you're just doing this every day. And my job was, it was like butling to mortar. My job was to entertain and.

47:09 What did I learn from that job? A lot of communication. It was wild as you can imagine and I'll happily answer anything on the cruise ships So just for context I did one cruise ship in Australia, which was just bingo host entertainment hosts making people smile and laugh Second one was from America from Miami and that was singing every single night So I got a lot more money and a lot less hours worked But they were both equally great and then obviously kovat hits and there's no need for a cruise ship singer during a pandemic

47:39 and life pretty quickly changed over there. But the cruise ships was amazing because you meet different people from all, I would say that on that cruise ship, there was probably somebody from every part of the world. Like you've got every kind of culture, it was amazing. Now you've kind of given us like a whistle stop, whistle stop tour of the cruise ships there, but how long did you do each of those for? Six months for each, six months I'd say.

48:08 funnily enough six months ago. Yeah, six months. And then the six month singer, I can see the episode now. And then, yeah, I went back to London and did a bit of sales in between. So six months on the cruise ship in Australia, from Australia, six months on the cruise ship from Miami. Were those like the thousands of people cruise ships? Yeah. Big, big, big, big. And what was your... See, I've still not heard you sing. So what style of music was it that you were...

48:37 From Miami we had a country night. We had a soul night. We had a motown night. We had a pop night we had a

48:48 80s night, I sing anything, but I also had another singer, a female singer. So she, she did all the nice singing. I was just there to get on the dance floor with the grannies basically. Okay. This is a, a side question. Favorite song. You know, I, I used to love singing Tennessee whiskey. Chris, is it Chris Ableton originally?

49:16 No, it was a cover, but hey, he made it his own and that's what's important. But Tennessee, I'll tell you why, because I remember I'd never heard it and then I had to learn it before I went on the cruise ship. And I went for lunch with my dad and there was this piano player around Liverpool and he was singing that. I was like, oh, that feels like a kind of nice moment. Like I've never heard this song before and now I'm hearing it and it's like anyway.

49:47 It is a, it is a blooming good song. Yeah. It's great. And there'd be, everybody would be in the audience from like Georgia and they'd be going sang it sang it tie off and I'd be swinging it around. I can picture it. See it. Um, right. So what did you, you, you touched on a couple of the things that you learned there in terms of like communication skills, you've taken out of your normal environment and just thrown in a deep end. What was, um,

50:13 COVID brought that to an end sort of swiftly, but what did you take from that year that gave you enough to sort of make a decision on where you wanted to go? Like, what did you learn from that year? Interestingly, so like, I had a lot of like self-awareness and self-development, so much so that I, when I was on the second cruise ship, I wrote a book. Now it never went anywhere, it never did anything. It was just a bit of like a...

50:40 and memoir, but it was really good for processing everything. I talk about that grieving thing, the lessons I learned. It was also definitely a point towards the end of the band where I went through a bit of a social anxiety where I was like, I don't really like speaking to people, I don't really feel very confident, which I think is kind of normal because there's so much rejection at some point, like you're busking every single day and people are saying you shit to your face, which is like cold corded, but I think there was definitely that. Definitely like...

51:10 got my confidence up and when it came to speaking to people again, and I learnt like the kind of the fatal rule of it's all about everybody else. I used to sit with people for like 30 minutes or 40 minutes and then talk about like what it's like in Australia or what they've been doing or whatever. And you've just got to be interested, haven't you? So that was kind of like a big lesson.

51:39 And I think just like doing the thing, but it also made me realize like, Oh, I thought I wanted to go on the cruise ship. So I said, this would make me happy. It hasn't like, what do I, what do I, what do I really want? You keep getting the things that you want. I was manifesting this singing job on a cruise ship. I got it. And then I was like, is this what you want? Like I enjoyed the deep work of writing in the middle of the night and doing stuff like that. I was like, what do I want? I also was very.

52:07 The first half of the cruise ship, I was very disciplined. The second half, I was drinking and probably smoking a lot as well. And it had some, so much of a knock on effect to my work, my work ethic and things like that. So it was a case of like, I definitely learned not to indulge in bad habits. If you want to be a high performer. Do you know what? There's, there's quite a, there's quite a few things in that year then. So you became very self-aware. You started, it sounds kind of like a

52:37 journal book hybrid, which made me think about Matthew McGonaghey's Green Lights, which is basically a book where he looked back at all of his journals because he did a journal basically his whole life. And he looked back at all these journals and then wrote a book about his life based on these journals that he used to keep. So I was just sitting there thinking you could do your own Green Lights book about the year on the cruise ships, which I think would be very, very interesting. So you were very, very self aware. You realized that you

53:07 another thing that you thought you would want. Another thing that you thought would be, would make you happy in tick boxes, whatever perhaps wasn't, which I was reading a book up to last week, finished it last week called The Midnight Library by a guy called Matthew Hay. Love it, yeah. Do you know the book, do you? Yeah, I love it. Do you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the Christmas film, It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah. It's one of my favorite films and it's just, yeah, it is. And you know what, it's interesting you say that, but like.

53:37 there will be people listening to this and I felt it, but I felt like I was destined for greatness or good things. But I felt like I just didn't know how to unlock that thing, that whatever it was. And it's only the last few years I've started to figure out how to do that. Yeah, and then before we, because that is a fantastic segue into We Have a Meeting. But before, I just wanna, for those who haven't read Midnight Library, it's a book about...

54:04 a woman who is very, very unhappy. And she, I think towards the start of the book, she tries to take her life, which doesn't ruin the book, don't worry. And then the book is about this midnight library that she goes into, which is the the place between life and death that you go for for as long as it takes to find a life that is the life that you want to live. And you're able to pull a book off the shelf and live that life.

54:29 And you'll live that life until the point at which you're disappointed with that life. And then you go back to the Midnight Library. It's just this vicious cycle. But it's a it's a book about realizing that the life you're living, like realizing the beautiful things in life, realizing the good things, you know, realizing that the world isn't against you, all these all these amazing sort of things that you can take from it. So highly recommend to go and read Matthew Matthew Hague's Midnight Library. It's not massively long, but very, very good book. So definitely go and read that.

54:58 Right. Okay. We have a meeting. I've heard it from a Jack's point of view. So Zach's episode will go live before this because we had some interesting, funny conversations that were just perfect to sit right before this episode. So let's hear it from your point of view then. So the other half of we have a meeting. Um, you came, you, you came off, um, you came off the cruise ships. So this is ballpark 29 ish age wise.

55:28 Yeah, yeah, I think it was 28 You came off the cruise ships in this period of time where you were very very self-aware and Learned a lot about yourself and you were sort of journaling and writing How what happened between the cruise ships and we have a meeting then how did that come about? So I'm gonna I'm gonna give you that the real quick like bang. Let's do it. I was bored I wanted to start working at Amazon So I was just like it's a bit of extra money. Whatever night shifts at Amazon

55:58 I'd never listened to a podcast before. I started listening to a podcast. I fell in love with podcasting as an art form and thought maybe I wanna do that. Kept listening to these comedy podcasts and they all said there was this woman in Brighton that teaches standup comedy. I thought, I've always wanted to be a standup comedian. Like the Midnight Library, that's one of the books. So I went down to Brighton during the pandemic to study standup comedy. She made it really, really...

56:26 hard to enjoy because she was a very stern woman. Now I thought this is meant to be fun. Realized stand-up comedy wasn't for me. I'm working this job in insurance sales. Surprise, surprise. Again. It's a bit of a toxic environment. Most people have been there for five years. Lots of money on the table. I was taking on more money than the cruise ships. There were some lovely people there. I just didn't feel fulfilled, happy, content. I thought, is this my life? What am I doing? But it was a pandemic. And was that for six months by any chance?

56:56 I was actually there for 18 months. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, so I did the six month that I thought, do one more year. So I was doing it. And the first year just flew by, it was the pandemic. I was like, I have to be there. The second year, I was like, started to, I was talking to my partner about this on the weekend, and the catalyst was I'd got to Piers on a work night out. This was in the April of 2021, so.

57:25 eight months before I joined, we have a meeting, got too pissed, fell over, cut my head open, and woke my best friend, my roommate, in the middle of the night, and he gave me some stern words to the next day, about what are you doing with your life? Now I didn't feel like I could just quit alcohol, because I thought, what are people gonna think of me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I said, I'm gonna do a marathon. I'd done a half marathon in the past, where I was like, I'm gonna do a marathon, because it's something I can just say I'm doing, and then people won't say, oh, are you drinking tonight? It was a bit of a cop-out.

57:53 And then I started reading all these books about marathons. I started reading Jesse Itzler, he was an entrepreneur and he spent some time in the monastery. So from April to December, I'm on this real journey. I'd already done a bit like self-help, self-discovery, stuff like that, but I'm on this discovery of like, getting better. I was like...

58:13 business, entrepreneurship, what am I going to do? I loved the podcasting. I applied for a job at the BBC and that was going through like an apprenticeship. So doing all these different things and I was really, really getting like my mind together. And in the July, Zach texted me, I've had a brainwave, I said, are you okay? And I'm worried about you, you don't think that often. And he said, I'm going to set up my own business. And it wasn't really like, he said, if it gets going, would you come on board? And I was like, yeah, man, why not? And I was really happy for him, but I was also thinking.

58:41 I've applied for this job at the BBC to do podcast production. I'm probably going to get that. It'll be fine. Whatever. And the more we spoke, obviously we speak all the time anyway, his best friend, the more we spoke, it was like, this sounds exciting. And then I saw what he was doing and he was smashing it. I was so proud of him. I was like, but what if I'm not good? What if I, I know I've done sales, but it's a different type of sales and it's more B2B and my background's more B2C and what if I bought all these what ifs? And then.

59:11 We eventually had so many conversations. I said, you know what? Fuck it, I'm in. And the week after I said I'm in, I got rejected from the BBC. And I said, I'll give you a year. And then I handed in my notice at work. I said, I wanna leave for the media effect. I wanna go and start the job in November. And he said, listen, don't burn your bridges here. Just like, ride it out a few more months. Why don't you do until November. You'll be here till the middle of December and just start the new job in the new year. New year, new year.

59:41 And that was the year, the month I turned 30 as well. In the same time, I'd met my now partner in the November and it just felt like 30 was around the corner. I moved out into a new flat, met my partner, I had my new career and it felt like this is the time. The last decade is the point where you've played, you did fun things, you did the crazy things you wanted to do. It's not to say fun isn't on the table anymore, but this next decade.

01:00:11 Why don't you try different things? Why do you not, why don't you focus on not leaving a job after six months? Why don't you try staying in a relationship? Why don't you try and like not drink all the time or whatever it was? And it was like, 20 didn't work for me. Although it did work for me, I learned so many lessons, it didn't get me to where I needed to be. It was like, right, let's try 30. And here we are.

01:00:37 Now, you know, you said you were going to give a very, very quick rundown with the episode that I just mentioned with Zach. He gave a bit more of a detailed overview of the company and things. And I think if you want to go and learn a bit more about the first few years of we have a meeting with Jack and Zach, go and listen to that episode if you haven't done already. Because what I want to do now is a bit of a roundup in terms of some quick fire questions, just to sort of capture some of the things that the highlights that say.

01:01:07 top three tips for I mean that that like if people have listened to watch that like that's a very wild journey in terms of getting to the point of 30 and then figuring it out and having massive success like this there's not many people who can say they did seven years in a boy band like that so I've definitely not had that conversation yet and I doubt I will have another one like that but what would be the the top three tips that you've learned from that

01:01:37 10 years between, well 14 years between 16 and 30, what would be your top three tips for climbing the career ladder? Do the hard, dirty work while you're young, because it's not enjoyable to do it when you're older. Like get your reps in, whatever it is, like even just working a job like McDonald's or sweeping floors or cold calling people, it's crap, but at least you know you can do it and you've built up some stamina.

01:02:05 and some muscle and you're building your resilience. You only build your resilience by going through hard times. So do that, do the shifts that you feel are never gonna end where you're knackered and you're tired because you'll look back at them one day and you'll laugh. So even if you're going through a crappy time at the moment now, it won't last forever. That kind of takes me on to number two. It will all work out in the end. And it, what do they say? It will all work out in the end. It'll all be all right at the end. If it's not all right, it's not the end. So like eventually.

01:02:33 there'll be a point of peace. But there are periods in your life that are for work, are for struggle, are for recovery. It's working out what they are and when to kind of go hard and when not to go hard. But it will work out eventually. So even if you're on a path that you don't feel is right for you right now, that doesn't mean that that's your path forever because you can change at any moment. So it's like, how do I, I didn't just quit my job like that. I waited for the right opportunity and we have a meeting, what's the right opportunity. But...

01:03:03 It's about preparing and not just going kind of off the walls. It's like making educated risks. And, and finally, it's my favour is remembering that you'll die because one day you'll be on your deathbed and you won't care about all the worries and all the grudges you'll, you'll think about the good times with the people that you like. And I'm very honoured that I get to build a business with a best friend and do these amazing things, but there's been hard times.

01:03:33 And I know that in the future, because of my evidence now is that I look back at hard times and I laugh and I've learned from them and I might look back at them with nostalgia or whatever it is, but they don't last hard times aren't forever. So I've grabbed my phone here because there's something I want to read out because it links perfectly to this and it is something which those listening might have heard of and it's called this too shall pass.

01:04:01 Now I know you know this, Tom Hanks has sort of referenced it, but I'm going to read this out, because I do think that it is very, very apt after the three things you just explained there. So, this too shall pass. King Solomon wished to humble one of his ministers named Banias, so he requested that Banias bring him a ring that has magic powers that can make a happy man sad, and a sad man happy.

01:04:25 Benaiah searched high and low for such a ring and finally ended up at a merchant, one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. The merchant was stumped with this request, but his soon grandfather appeared from a back room. Without saying a word, the old man took a gold ring from the display and engraved it with this to shall pass. When Benaiah returned to King Solomon, the king and all his ministers asked with delight if Benaiah had found the ring. They knew Benaiah's mission was impossible and smiled in anticipation of his humiliation.

01:04:54 Baniah handed King Solomon the ring and his smile faded as he read the inscription. It reflects the temporary nature or ephemerality of the human condition that neither negative nor the positive moments in life ever indefinitely last. Now that is the, the old Jewish or proverb, but this too shall pass is when, when shit is bad, this too shall pass. It's only up from here. And when it's really, really good.

01:05:20 This too shall pass. Enjoy it whilst it lasts, because the chances are it's probably going to turn sour at some point. And that is something which I think links nicely to the three things you just said there. And if you've, if you've tuned into the sales stoic, you'll know that I'm also a fan of the, the remember you will die. I've got a tattoo on my arm here, which is memento mori, which is the Latin version of remember you will die. Now just as a very quick

01:05:45 explanation of remember you will die for those who don't know what it actually means and are probably thinking why on earth do you keep telling people that they're going to die on your social posts what is the what is the whole momentum or you remember you will die thing it it's using it as as motivation because you could you could leave this earth any second to let that determine what you think say and do i believe that might be marcus or alias and one one day we'll all be dead and this

01:06:13 this worry, this feeling will all be gone. I heard something lovely the other day. It's like, learn as if you'll live forever and live as if you'll die tomorrow. Was that right? I don't know, it's your quote. Yeah, yeah, let's say that. Yeah, so you learn because you don't know, like you want to be curious like a child, but obviously it could be our last day on earth. We don't know how long we've got left.

01:06:43 So treat things with kindness, don't take life too seriously, don't dwell too much on the sad times. As I'm older now I'm grateful for the sad and the bad times and all the things that you would say. Whether they are sad or bad that's a perspective thing but because without them I wouldn't appreciate.

01:07:07 what the good stuff is. So even though I've had crappy jobs. Yeah, that's my heard that very recently. It's like by definition, if to have a measure of something being good and bad, you have to have appreciated the bad. Otherwise, how can something possibly seem good? By definition saying, oh, that's good. It's like, okay, but on what scale? You must know what bad is. So you have to have experienced the bad to enjoy the highs or experience the lows to enjoy the highs. Another book actually, that's just made me think of you. You may have read it.

01:07:34 You know, because I know you do read a lot on the sort of books that you read along these lines, but it's a book called Tuesdays with Morrie. Jamie don't. Jamie, honestly, don't even start. Do you know he's my favourite author? And do you know? No, really? I don't know if you want to see it. I've got his two other books, Five People You Make, tattooed on me. So I can't believe I've ever done this before. Well, it depends where the tattoo is. They're on my legs, but I'll send you a photo. I had him on the podcast, Mitch Album, my favourite author.

01:08:04 Jamie, why have we only just figured this out? I'm reading the book right now. Oh, Maurice Schwartz, I love it. Oh, man. Yeah, for people who don't want to. Sorry, that was a real moment. Yeah, no, no, no. I knew you would have read it. For some reason, I knew you would have read it. But it's basically about this professor who finds out that he's got ALS, which is a degenerative terminal disease where you basically use control of the muscles in your body because the muscles degenerate.

01:08:33 And it's one of his pupils is going through stuff in life and reef randomly reconnects with his old professor because he sees him on a program and then he ends up spending every Tuesday with his old professor, Maury Schwartz and they record and they chat and he ends up turning it into a sort of like a true story about the lessons you can learn from dying. Like you you learn the best lessons.

01:09:01 about life from dying. And it's, I'm not gonna say much more than that. That's kind of like the synopsis of it, but I'm about halfway through it. Brilliant, brilliant book. I myself am going through this point in my life where I realized I struggled to get the most out of life. I struggled to get the most enjoyment or to be in the moment, to be present. I'm always thinking, why did I do that? Or I've got that to work towards. I'm never present.

01:09:24 And it's books like this that sort of really helps. So yeah, that's a, there's, there's a midnight library. And Tuesdays were Morrie to two great recommendations of books. And we will get a picture of Jack's tattoo and put it on the screen somewhere here. Do that. Um, you know, Jamie, it's funny cause it all goes full circle, but, and I didn't know at the time my mom gave me that book when I was 14, so as I'm getting into like my career and I'm starting to think about life, I read it, didn't connect with it at all, read it years later. Oh my God. It's so who I am now, but his next book.

01:09:54 actually did get me because I was about 16, five people you meet in heaven. Read that next. Let me know. You'll think we're going to take this offline. All right. I'll tell you what, bring it, bring it in January and I'll borrow it and then bring it, give it you back. Um, yeah, we'll do it. Um, okay. Right. So I know the answers to this, but any regrets of about, you know, career today?

01:10:18 No, I can't have regrets. I'm very lucky with where I am now. I'm very happy very grateful Everything everything is regret means that like I wish I could you know, I'm all right No, you know after covering off this too sharp ass and remember remember you'll die. We can't really go into yeah I've got loads of regrets in life. Yeah um, okay, so

01:10:43 we've touched on we have a meeting and you guys have set up a couple of other things which are going really well and the podcast seems to be absolutely smashing it which is amazing to see. What's next for you? I just want to keep sharing stories, inspiring people, making people laugh and making people feel like they can do stuff whilst growing and developing in the meantime. I'll learn lessons as I go through my career and I think that's part of my mission.

01:11:12 in life mission to share with the world and kind of help the next generation leave this planet a little bit better than when I left it. I wish I'd stumbled upon stoicism when I was 20. We're not sufficient to help the next generation maybe do that sooner. Let's see where we end up. And on the topic of that and telling stories. Yeah, we're working on something. We're working on something that's in the background.

01:11:40 people watching and listening will be the first to know. Um, okay. Career end goal. Like do you have, um, people for me, I used to think I was like, right, I want to get to CMO or I want to get to founder. What did you have like an end thing, goal aspiration where you want to end your career? Not end. I've got things I want to do and things I want to achieve. But I'll tell you that there's a lovely quote by Oscar Wilde that says, if you want to be a greengrocer or a soldier, you will become it and that is your punishment.

01:12:10 like 16 years ago I was a carer for somebody and then I was in a boy band, then I was a cruise ship singer, then Amazon and now I'm running a business. Who knows? Who knows what will happen next? Like I'm doing a podcast, we're doing all these different things. Let's see what the next decade looks like and then maybe I'll change. Maybe I'll go back into music, maybe I won't, maybe I'll go on Strictly Come Dancing, who knows? Like I think...

01:12:39 less worried about the future, more worried about what can I do on a daily basis to get me closer towards my goals? That's nice. I am, do you know what, I, it's again something I'm, I always have to have this like structural plan of where I'm going. I always have to have this like timelines of like, you've got to hit this by a certain day, having like an A to B. And it's something that I'm to your point about, you can't plan it. You'll end up where you're

01:13:09 you know, enjoy being in the present and enjoy the journey along the way. And I think that's a, that's a lovely place to end. And we are one minute prior to our allotted time, which has worked out very, very well. So thank you to everyone listening and watching for tuning in. It's been, um, it's been a great episode and definitely go and read those two books. If there's anything you take, take from this and all of the gems that we've had over the last night and 90 minutes, go and read those books. Um, you can't borrow mine and Jack's, um,

01:13:38 and we will show the tattoo, but thank you for tuning in. We will see you in the next episode. Make sure you follow or subscribe on whatever channel you are listening or watching. But thank you very much, Jack. Thank you.