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Welcome to "Visionary Voices" the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for taking the time today.
Could you give us a top level overview about what it is that you're currently working on
and your journey so far?
Sure, hi Akhil, thanks for having me.
I'm Ivor Stratford, co-founder of a boutique and growing recruitment business, Corpheus,
based out of the UK and the US.
Outside of that, I'm a pretty active angel investor in early stage AI startups, typically
in the US, and training for Marathon to Sarp.
Amazing, amazing.
mean, I want to go right back to the start of your journey into entrepreneurship itself.
So what was the point for you where you said to yourself, hey, yeah, I want to get into
running my own business.
What's the story behind that?
question.
I think it's been there like from like day one, like as long as I can remember.
My granddad had his own company, as did my dad.
We had loads of fun, interesting, some grey area entrepreneurial pursuits through my
teenage years and through university, which meant I could live a pretty good life when I
probably shouldn't have been able to at that point in time.
And I think when I
But when I finished university and started looking for a proper job, the whole thing
seemed alien to me, because I'd never really grown up around people that had a nine to
five working for a big corporate.
So I did that for a bit.
And I think my heart of hearts knew that wasn't going to be a long-term thing for me.
And then after working for what would have been three years.
So I've been working, I figured this out the other day, working for...
13 years, 10 of those I've been running my own company or companies.
So took the leap at a point where I was young, had nothing to lose, but also completely
unqualified.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I hear that as well.
mean, I remember, you know, when I started my first business, it's one of those where you
start the business and you feel so out of your depth a lot of the time, right?
Where you're trying to, you know, close these deals and do this work.
And it's like, I'm just like a young 20 year old.
don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing what I need to do to get these deals across and
get this work done.
So I completely hear you on that where you have the inkling, I guess, inside where you
know, this is the right calling.
But it takes a little bit of time to, I think, build up that confidence of actually
you know, go through with it and building up to, to, a high level.
Um, so I guess during the, the start of your entrepreneurship journey, I mean, what are
some of the, biggest mindset shifts that you had to go through yourself?
Because we know entrepreneurship is pretty much a personal development journey overall,
where there's so many development points that you go through.
And I feel like it goes through different cycles and phases.
Right.
And so for you, like, what are some of those initial mindset shifts that you have to make
in order to transition into running the business and being an entrepreneur?
Too many to list.
uh I think no one is coming to save you, which every motivational speaker now talks about
on podcasts and Instagram and TikTok and all that sort of stuff.
But it is so true.
If you don't work, if you don't perform, if you don't deliver, you do not get paid.
And you give up.
a huge amount of freedom to make something work for you.
I hear, oh, I'd love to work for myself and can set my own hours and have all this
freedom.
And I'm like, dude, you have more freedom now than anyone who has their own company.
Only when it gets bigger and you have big payroll and you have big costs and you have, you
know, big expectations every single week, every single month that you need to perform.
And if you don't, you die.
So I think.
that's been a real shift.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
mean, it's, it's, you just gotta go and hunt right every single day is you out there to do
what you need to do.
And you don't have, I guess, that, that cushion that you get in a typical role or job that
some people might have.
And it's interesting when people say, you know, I love to have my own business to set my
own hours, because those hours you set when you have a business is a lot of hours.
It's probably more than what you put into your regular day-to-day job as well.
And, know, on the weekends on days off.
There's no things such as bank holidays, really.
You have to be, you know, still doing some of these tasks every single day.
And so the work never really ends.
You can't really, I think, turn off, which is the biggest thing for me that I realize is
with the business, it's just always on.
There's never really a time where you can turn it off and, you know, go do whatever you
want to do.
It's always in the back of your mind to some degree.
And being able to be comfortable with that, I think is, is one of the biggest challenges
in new entrepreneurs probably have is, is how do you balance that?
I mean, for you, did you experience the same thing?
where you're just always on and always thinking about, how can I move this thing forward?
All day, every day, seven days a week.
And it's, I haven't got a solution for it.
I'm not sure there is one.
I think it's the piece where it's like, you don't have a boss.
It's like, I do have a boss.
I'm my own boss and I'm a psycho.
And there's no let up.
There's no rest.
And it's
There does come a point where it becomes unhealthy.
I am obsessed.
I definitely have an obsessive type personality with everything that I do.
So I find it hard and I'm still struggling with it as recently as this week to find that
downtime and time to kind of relax and rest and recover.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
I mean, you mentioned about getting addicted to things quite easily, obviously the good
and the bad as well.
what type of, I guess, challenges have you had over the last few years where maybe it's
impacted negatively in the business or for yourself as well?
Loads.
I think the biggest one, and I've become a bit more open around talking about it, is
drinking and alcohol.
I stopped drinking May 2022, so three and a half years ago.
And I think that was a...
I know there's not huge amounts of time, but that was coming from a place of, I want to
work all the time, I want to make things happen, I want to drive, I want to grow, all
those types of things.
but I had no let up or shut off from it.
So my way to kind of unwind is like go out with friends, go drinking, go to the pub, have
a few drinks, which would lead to more and more and more.
And that would quiet my brain down from wanting to be working.
So that was the solution I was using to the problem we were just discussing.
I guess the counter is it wasn't a particularly good solution.
So you then get stuck in this cycle of
going out on a Friday, maybe Saturday, feeling terrible on Monday, still having that
innate drive.
And I just ultimately felt like I wasn't fulfilling my potential and made the decision to
stop.
Yeah, May 2022.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, incredible that you made that decision that this is what needs to happen in order
to move forward with things.
Uh, and you know, it's, what we said before is because it is always on, you know, you need
to find some way to, to quieten the noise a little bit in your head.
And I think all entrepreneurs face that, but what that looks like is, very different for
everyone.
I mean, for me, you know, back when I started the journey of entrepreneurship, I then
picked up smoking, right?
So I started smoking a lot.
And then it was interesting because.
The way I rationalize it to myself is this, you know, it's my two minutes, five minutes of
stepping outside, getting fresh air.
It's not really fresh air though, is it?
And having a smoke, right?
And it's interesting because then that progressively got worse and worse where it was like
more intense, even more cigarettes, all these different things.
And again, for me, it got to a point where I think you look around you like enough's
enough and you just switch your brain just like that.
And it's like an instant switch really, right?
Where your brain just says, no, this is enough.
We can't take it any further.
And then you just change as a person.
And you go through that.
transformational period.
And I think in the journey of entrepreneurship, those transformational periods come up
multiple times.
And that's the amazing thing I think with it is you do really work on your personal
development throughout the journey, right?
And I don't think other types of roles or jobs really give you that level of personal
development that entrepreneurship does.
But I think it's the personal development piece, I think is also out of necessity.
And you think you're ready to do something and start a company and win customers and hire
people and you start doing those things and you just get more and more out of your depth.
Now, some people are different and this definitely isn't me who just take to it like a
duck to water.
they're fine, they make it look really easy.
The whole thing is exactly that and I think I've learned more about myself and developed
way more in the last three and half years than I have in the last 33 years through taking
things more seriously, still having loads of fun, but going on that journey and then I
mentioned earlier this is like my, I think next year will be my 10th year of being
an entrepreneur, whatever that, whatever that really means and running my own business and
having all those things that come with it.
And there was 10 years is quite a big time to do anything was then looking, this was a
couple of weeks ago, looking back as like how far I've come to what I thought five years
ago, I was crushing it and I knew everything there was to know.
I looked back and I was like, I knew nothing.
And I'm sure in 10 years time, I'll look back on like moments like today and go, God, I
literally knew nothing then.
yeah, completely agree there.
so I think that's, that's kind of part of the fun of it.
Um, and assuming, you know, nothing and just constantly being kind of hungry and eager to
learn, um, I'm running with it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So you mentioned about, you you are running the business and you also are an angel
investor as well and work on that side of things.
So I'd love to learn more about the business specifically.
So what is it that you do um itself?
What's the service and who do you serve?
And, yeah, how are things going with the business as well as, you know, we go into 2026.
Sure, we Morpheus, we support early growth stage tech AI businesses.
I say across the US and across Europe, it's a bit of a lie.
It's predominantly New York, SF in the Bay Area.
So supporting founders typically from, they've raised a big seed round or a series A.
We'll come in and we start working with them on helping them hire world-class talent.
helping them make their first leadership hire, building out their go-to-market team,
building out their engineering team, and really helping them build their business.
And with just huge emphasis on talent, understanding the customer, what it is that they
do, why they exist, what their mission is, and really helping them to try and achieve and
deliver that through access to talent and people.
Right, right.
Yeah, it makes total sense.
Cause of course when they raise that funding amount, they're looking to really grow in
scale.
So they seem like the perfect, you know, client for yourself.
And I guess in the early days, what did the business growth look like?
How did you go ahead and find those first few clients?
And I guess what were your inputs then and how's that changed to how you're doing that
growth strategy now as well?
And how's that developed in that 10 year period?
So the last five years since I've been running Morpheus, be six years in March, it started
life just before COVID.
I think the day we registered the business and put money in, Boris shut the country down
and said, don't go outside.
So that was a crazy, so it was just so scrappy.
It was looking at network, relationships, black book, who do I know?
do the first couple of people that I hired, who do they know?
just going out and having conversations.
Now that was a really good time to be doing that because everyone was at home full time.
It was new to everyone.
Just spending 12, 14, 16 hours a day on Zoom, on video calls with people all over Europe
and all over the US.
So it was just scrappy, relying on network, relying on relationships and trying to use
those to turn into opportunities.
Fundamentally, we still do that today.
We do a whole bunch of things differently, I'll talk about in a second, but from a
go-to-market standpoint, we will forever be, as think as long as I'm involved, a very
scrappy business.
I think that's why I enjoy working with founders early stage, getting to know them, some
that are not going to be paying customers of hours for a couple of years, but I look at
and go, I really like you, you have something.
Are you raising any money?
because I would like to participate.
So we've still come an awful long way.
So we still have that kind of scrappy entrepreneurship, hustler type mentality.
That being said, we are way more structured now in terms of what each individual
consultant or leader or team will focus on, whether it be geography, whether it be stage
of business, whether it be kind of market or sector that they're in.
For someone...
ideally a group of people to own that particular market and really dominate and build
their own brand in there and help us develop our own brand in there.
And I guess the only final point to add is we're just doing a heap of in real life, in
person events.
And I placed a big bet on that earlier that start of 2025 and placing an even bigger bet
in 2026 on, on what that looks like.
There's no shortage of AI tools, agentic.
agents, SDR, tools and things out there that you can turn on, configure and multi-stage
sequence contact everyone on the face of the earth before the weekend.
And I think there was a time and a place for that.
I'm sure there are things out there that are very good as much as I'm very pro technology,
pro AI.
It's a whole customer base and it's where I invest money of my own.
We're just so all in on like in real life in person connection, whether that be founder
dinners, run clubs.
We, a few months ago, we rented a mansion for two days in San Francisco and brought
together 60 founders for founder wellness in the morning.
What we were talking about earlier, no chance to switch off.
So we're doing like yoga on the beach with San Francisco or with the Golden Gate Bridge in
the background.
A couple of panel discussions in the afternoon with like
founders with multiple successful exits under their belt and then a dinner in the evening.
And we're going to those things and hosting them or sponsoring them and paying for them.
But we're not there like handing out decks and business cards.
It's just getting to know people on a human level and building relationships, which I
think is a really overused word.
And just, you know, as recently as today, we've just had a conversation with a customer or
prospect in New York.
that have raised north of $50 million.
Their founder came to a dinner that I hosted in January, 2023.
So nearly three years ago, that started the conversation.
Yeah, we've kept in touch and they reached out and said, hey, can you help us?
We're hiring 70 people across the US.
Incredible, incredible.
now has the potential to be one of, if not our biggest customers for 2026.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
mean, the biggest thing I'm getting from this is optimizing for having more just
conversations with our ideal clients rather than that hard sell that transactional sell.
And it's so funny because this is the exact same industry that I'm in where we say to
clients, hey, instead of sending these transactional emails and pitch slapping everyone
that you speak to is how can we just build relationships with these people?
Because ultimately from those relationships, naturally the business will
grow from it, as long as you speak to as many people as you can on a consistent basis,
that compounds and you saw that with that previous example that you gave back in 2023 and
now that's come to fruition.
Like you never know where these conversations and relationships will end up going and
what's going to happen with it.
And I think having those strategies, those methods, those dinners, those events, or in
this case, you know, podcasts are to connect with people and build real relationships.
Ultimately, that's the main, I think the main thing, especially B2B businesses should be
aiming for and, and it's interesting on the AI front because we've worked with and
consulted with companies who have massively adopted all these new technologies, AISDRs,
AIBDRs, whole thing, and they're not getting any results at all.
And, uh, you know, the reason for that is again, they're not building these authentic real
connections with people who of course they can work with as well.
And so, I'm very much aligned with, you know, your thought process around there of let's
just have conversations with our ideal clients, build those relationships, as we said, and
then see where things go.
And not hard sell.
And I think in recruitment as well, because naturally with my background working in
recruitment for about a year doing their marketing, a lot of our clients fall into the
recruitment realm.
And a lot of times with recruitment, guess, you you can, you let me know if this is right
or wrong, but you have a conversation today, but they might not be hiring for six, 12, 18
months or unknown, but you still need to just keep constantly build it, build that
relationship up with them.
And eventually that will then come through as a potential deal in the future.
Yeah, I think people typically won't buy from you because they don't trust you.
And I still believe that cold calling works.
I don't think it's the sole channel we should be using.
But we're also using it in a way where, hey, it's either I'm calling from a recruitment
business, we help companies like you.
I'm not hiring.
Cool.
I don't care.
I was calling because we're hosting this dinner and we've got this founder who's gone
through three exits and worth a billion dollars doing a talk.
Do you want, I guess you probably don't want to come because you're not hiring.
no, no, no, no.
When is it?
And it's just so disarming and we're not going in and we're going there to provide value
straight off the bat.
They get something out of it.
We've had, and we should probably document this more.
We had one founder dinner.
em earlier this year where two guys sat, I know both of them really well, I sat them next
to each other purely for the reason that they're a similar age.
They've both been through two exits.
They're not in a dissimilar industry.
And I thought they would just get on.
Since then, one of them has quit his job.
And the other guy has come out of like startup entrepreneurship retirement.
They founded a company and have raised a pre-seed round and are gearing up for a seed
round because we put those people in the room.
Now, I like to think slash I'm pretty confident once they start really moving and grooving
and they're going to be hiring, we will be top of their list of people to talk to off the
back of that.
So how can you provide value in a non transactional way?
Be human, build relationship with people, care about them, stay in touch, again, share
stuff consistently of what you think will be a value or of interest, whether that's you
listening to a podcast.
which is topical because we're doing one now, and you listen to it and you send it to
someone you're trying to work with or you want to work with, listen to this, thought it
could be interesting to you, and you send it via WhatsApp.
Like it takes three seconds, but the thought that goes into it, and if you do that
multiple times a week over a long period of time, you will get results.
I have these conversations with people, some of whom work for me today, and make those
suggestions, and they'll say, yeah, I tried that, doesn't work.
How many times have you done it and for how long?
10 times this week.
And I'm like, dude, I've been doing this 30 times a week for the last 10 years.
But I can also then probably attribute hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pounds of
dollars in revenue off the back of not that one WhatsApp, but those multiple touch points.
And it just puts you in the hot seat and just helps you stand out.
It is so easy to stand out, I think today in anything you do by being like,
consistent, being honest, showing up, working hard, doing the right thing, not being a
dick.
You do that for a long period of time.
People will come to you and they'll say, hey, I'm struggling with this.
Do think you can help?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And it's interesting because we're starting to see the effects of us doing that because
when we started this business, it's been about a year and half or so now since we
formalized into the pod.fm and all those conversations from last year, they're now
starting to come into fruition at the end of this year.
And it's interesting to see the time from my first contact to close.
Um, you know, it does take a long time, a lot of, you know, with the deals that we, that
we work with.
And so to your point, as long as you can do it for long period of time at high enough
volume.
just be consistent with it.
And I think that's where a lot of people fall down and the clients that we've worked with
that have struggled a little bit, it's been around the consistency of the following up.
Like how do we, how do we engage them?
But being consistent with that, that will then let you the end result that you're looking
for.
And I think the biggest thing of realization for me over the last four or five years of
just running an agency in general is that there's no silver bullet that's going to save
you, right?
It's just a bunch of small actions every single day, which as you said, it's compounds
over time.
and then you'll see that throughput and that result that you're looking for.
And I think the same goes for everything, right?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
mean, on to, on to running, right?
Where we're talking about marathons and all these things.
I mean, I'd love to hear from you, you know, so you're running a marathon next year.
How's, how's training going and what's that looking like for you?
Training is soul destroying.
It is horrible.
So not to keep going on about the non-drinking thing, but when I stopped drinking, I
replaced that with running.
So rather than going to the pub on a Friday night, I would put my trainers on, headphones
on, and go for a run.
Albeit back then I was probably 30 kilos heavier and I could run for maybe 15 minutes.
So it still left me with lots of time.
But I just started running.
and stupidly entered the London Marathon in October 2022.
So I had like five months to prepare for it.
And I just started and I didn't stop.
And I was just super consistent with it.
Now it was easy or certainly easier to be consistent because what I would have done
ordinarily is I would have signed up to something like this, trained for three weeks, gone
to the gym.
ran four or five times a week, eaten perfectly and make a little bit of progress.
We'd then have a big blowout on a Friday, skip my Saturday morning run, skip my gym
session on Sunday.
Monday I'm still feeling a bit low, lethargic.
I'll probably get some junk food for lunch.
And then I'm like, oh, back to square one.
What's the point?
So that, that consistency piece did London marathon in October 22.
And it's really snowballed from that.
and to the point around kind of personality types earlier, it's now got out of control.
No, for sure.
And it's interesting what you mentioned about before, when you would start something like
this.
think, I think every single human on earth goes through this as well, where you say, Hey,
I'm going to do this big fitness goal or whatever it's going to be.
You do it for a little bit of time.
Then something happens, right?
Again, it might be, maybe a drink, maybe it's a smoke, maybe it's, um, know, um, junk
food, whatever.
But then one small action happens and it creates this domino effects.
And then a week later you've not done anything, you know, everything's fallen off.
And it's interesting, I went through this actually quite recently where after the ultra I
did about two months ago, two and a half months ago is I was on a high for a couple of
weeks.
It was great.
I was resting up, just recouping, didn't get my strength back.
But then we went out to, I think it was a wedding that was quite far away.
So we had a lot of traveling involved, uh not much sleep was happening.
And then when I noticed it, then my diet started slipping.
It's like, yeah, I picking up this from this pizza.
It's fine.
And then one thing led to another and two weeks later I looked back and I was like,
wow, I've not been working out, I've not been eating cleanly, I've not been sleeping well.
Like all these things were off the back of one small action which I made, which was, you
know, starting to eat more junk food, because I was a bit tired one day.
And so it just goes to show when you're building up these compounding effects, you know,
one action can really throw off the growth that you're going to have on the personal
development side, but you know, tying into business, same thing on the business side as
well.
And so it goes back to those consistent actions that we said.
But yeah, more so on the fitness side, it's so easy to get thrown off and you've got to
really be diligent, I think, to make sure you continue to push.
Yeah, think it's yeah, I agree.
I think it's one thing you can one tiny change can then unravel
quite quickly.
I fully agree with that.
think the other thing you mentioned a minute ago is also that kind of expectation of you
when you start something, if I start this now, I'll probably be sub 10 % body fat in six
weeks and I'll look amazing for a holiday.
you don't, your expectations are often wildly ambitious, not necessarily a bad thing.
And that's where people give up.
They start something, they have these expectations of what it will feel like or what
they'll look like or how much money they'll make, all those things.
and they go on that journey, they don't see results and they think this is a waste of time
and then they give up.
Just remove the expectation.
Just, just as it's daily reps, it's doing the right thing, day in, day out.
And you know, even now with the marathon to Saab thing, which is the biggest like physical
undertaking I would have ever done ever.
And I post about it on LinkedIn and I'll be putting some stuff out over the next couple of
weeks on other social media channels and stuff on LinkedIn is like, wow, that's amazing.
So impressive.
And I'm like, no, it's not.
Doing that is not impressive in any way, shape or form.
What's impressive, I think it's you've promised yourself you're to go and run 10 miles
before work tomorrow morning.
It's three degrees outside, it's pouring rain, you still go and do it.
And you do it again and you do it again and you do it again.
So the only reason I'm in a, I haven't done it yet.
So it was a long way to go for training and getting to the start line and finishing it.
But the only way I'm able to even...
think about doing something like this.
It's because of all those three mile runs when I've never run three miles before a few
years ago and doing it and then doing it again and doing it again and so on and so forth.
That's the hard bit.
So I'm hoping by the time I get to the start line in the desert, like this should, I mean,
it's not really fun.
It's gonna be terrible.
But that should be the fun bit because of all the little things that have happened and you
know, the...
not drinking, being really focused on what I put in my body, what I eat, drinking water,
sleep, all those sorts of things.
I'm definitely not perfect at, but I'm significantly better than what I was.
And I know it can be, you're doing like stuff socially, and I'll try and still make really
healthy decisions on food and what I'm eating and what I'm doing.
And now it's not a case of like, because I'm super conscious or worried about stuff, it
just makes me feel better.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And it's interesting.
It's the, it's those small wins that you get from doing those daily actions that again,
start to compound.
And what I found with the, with the ultra is when I was actually doing the ultra, I was
then pulling on those wins that I got throughout the year of those training runs that I
didn't want to do all these different things.
And you kind of bank that and you can then use that in the future when things get tough.
And so it's essentially building up that mental toughness, that resilience, discipline.
Um, so when you are in the thick of it and it is tough, you're in pain and everything like
that, you then call on those, those wins that you've had that you've been banking for the
last few months, few years.
Um, and you can call on that and then that will help you push, push to the end.
Um, and, and it's interesting, you know, running specific, I think running itself is, is
just so unique because it's just one action consistent, know, that keeps going on and on
and on.
and the fact that it's, it's just, nothing changes throughout the run.
It's the same thing, you'll read your thoughts the whole time.
And the questions that start to arise are questions that you've never asked yourself when
you're in the thick of it.
And it's such an interesting, I think, transformative period, let's say, that you go
through at the back of it.
And what I did after the ultras, I actually journaled a couple of pages on the thoughts I
had and everything, so I didn't forget.
Because you come to these transformative moments throughout it where...
or where it just changes you as a person.
And it's such a cool experience.
It's hard to put into words how it feels and what it's like for people that might not have
done it before, but it's just incredible.
know, when you're halfway through, you're like, I can't do anymore.
And then you go and do another 20K or 30K or whatever it's going to be.
It's incredible, the thoughts that go through.
Yeah, this is a real roller coaster.
I I did part of training and ultra a couple of weeks ago on the South Coast.
And then did the half marathon, same event, a half marathon on the Sunday.
And the first three miles of the ultra on the Saturday, I was like, I can't run any
further.
I'm done.
And then you get to a point, you have this kind of euphoric runners high.
You start more sprinting, but going way quicker than what you should.
And halfway through, you then want to break down and lay on the floor and cry and call a
taxi in the middle of some field.
And then like four miles from the end, you're just like, I feel brand new.
And the thought, I will often like stop.
I'll send myself a voice note.
I'll write something down on my phone.
I've been out running for 10, 15, 20, 30 plus miles on my own.
No headphones.
for large chunks of it and you get to go to some weird places in your brain that most
people don't go to.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it makes me like so, so happy, like thinking about this because it's, it's just
such a cool experience going through it.
And, and yeah, cause I remember with the, with the ultra that I did before it's so
interesting because when the event was starting, there was, there's one road in and out to
the, to the event.
so we left on time, but there was a huge traffic trying to get into this event.
And so it was like, there's only five minutes till the start.
And I was like, well, I'm gonna have to run to the start.
And it was like one mile that to run in order to get there.
And I was running this one mile and I was like, I'm done already.
can't, I can't do it.
I had another 75, 75 K to go when I got there.
Um, but, but it's interesting, you know, that the first few miles is horrible, but then
when you get into that swing of it, it's great.
Then you get, crash back down.
Um, and I remember for one of the bigger inclines, I think the biggest incline, um, of the
race, which is about 30 K in.
I was like, I'm done.
Like maybe, and I was saying these thoughts to myself.
I was like, Oh, if I slip over, can't, I can't finish.
Then I can go rest.
Also that started slipping into my head.
And so it's interesting that the self-sabotage that can come into it, but you call on
those wins before to help you push through that.
I had a ultra in the summer that was cancelled on the Thursday or the Friday
And it was on the Saturday.
It was a 50 care, 50 K I think or 50 mile.
Anyway, so I had the Saturday free because my whole, the whole day is ruined now.
I could sleep in, go out for lunch, go shopping, toss around.
These were the thoughts in my head.
Two days leading up to the weekend.
And I was kind of going through that thought process myself was like, I plan to do
something.
It's being canceled.
It's out of my control.
If I now don't do this, I'm using that as an excuse.
So I went and did 50k near where I live, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone on my own
because I planned to do an ultra that weekend.
So I think it was maybe 50 miles.
I didn't do 50 miles.
I 50k solo.
That was soul destroying.
That got really boring actually.
it's that like, just sort of a sign of like self respect and self discipline.
Like if I said I'm going to do something and it's canceled outside of my control and I
took that as I can take a day off.
Um, what's the next thing that you give yourself an out for and the next thing and the
next thing that I was in the doing lots of walking on treadmills at the minute, like
sweatsuit on multiple layers, trying to get used to being in the Sahara, which is up to
like, can be up to 50 degrees.
I was in the gym last night and I started late and I was only doing think an hour and a
half.
Um, and I had a call, so I had to run downstairs, grab my laptop, like drip, in sweat.
did the call, I still had 10 minutes left.
I'm sat on the sofas in that nice gym lounge.
I probably sat there for 20 minutes, like debating with myself.
And I was like, I said, I'm going to do, I didn't tell anyone.
I'm telling people my training schedule.
So I went back upstairs, I did the 10 minutes and 10 minutes and I left and I felt like
proud of myself.
I was like, I did that.
Had I not done that, you go and think I'm going to go and lift weights for an hour.
You're 45 minutes in pretty tired.
I've had a busy day.
maybe I'll go home and get some food and you start quitting, like that just unravels in
the complete other way as it does when you start basically doing shit that you don't want
to do.
Yeah, yeah.
It's that compounding effect, both positively and negatively, right?
It goes both ways.
So again, we just need to be super diligent on when we are doing these actions, that we
follow through with them and do what we say we're do and not break those internal promises
um for sure.
And then I guess with, you know, going into next year and so coming back down to the
business side of things, as the industry has developed over time and as new technology, AI
and everything's coming out, how do you foresee
staffing and recruitment shifting and changing over the next year to two years with this
new technology?
And what do you think are some of the things to look out for, watch out for when it comes
down to it within staffing specifically?
So I see this going two ways.
I think there are going to be definitely businesses and elements of staffing that will be
somewhat or completely eradicated through the use of technology, specifically AI.
And I think that is scary for the most part because I big change is scary.
I've placed a couple of bets with startups that I backed to hedge those bets.
That being said,
We are also not a transactional business.
We are very people, relationship, brand led.
And with the point there around, you mentioned earlier, all of these are AI, SDR, BDR
outreach type tools out there.
Great talent is getting dozens or hundreds of LinkedIn, email, phone, texts, Twitter
messages every day from
whether it's a person or whether it's AI, who cares?
And that has really amped up many of whom, and so many of people I know, are just now
ignoring everything.
Just blanket ignoring.
So I think that's a concern that people will then become less responsive than what they
already are.
Because you know, if I spent, same as you, right?
If I spent all of my day responding to every channel where I get messages, I would never
do anything.
And that's not because I'm popular, probably far from it, but it's because of all these
different things that you know are not written specifically for me.
I'm one of 20,000 people that's getting hit that day.
So that being said, I think where things and how they'll play out will be, there's gonna
be a bigger emphasis on relationships and with people on a meaningful level.
So we have customers that come to us and say, here's 10 people we would love to hire, but
they're not responding to anything we're sending them.
And we've sent them like 300 messages.
I'm like, yeah, that's why they're not responding.
We'll look at it and go, there's six people on that list that I know, that I can call.
And I know they will call me back within 24 hours if they're in the country.
How, how'd you know that?
I've had dinner with them six times.
We've been to a Knicks game.
We've hung out.
They know we're friends.
Maybe not friends is a strong word, but we're definitely, there's some sort of
relationship there already.
So I think it's really doubling down on relationships, in-person connection, in real life.
knowing what's happening in a market, knowing that market inside out and building a brand
within it.
And whether it be a company brand or whether it be personal brand, think the two certainly
for me are heavily interlinked that give you more reach and more pull rather than just
buying an off the shelf product and thinking it's gonna be the silver bullet.
I don't think it exists.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's interesting because that aligns exactly what we're, we're seeing as well where,
you know, for next year, we're really prioritizing that first part of data.
You know, how can we build some type of community?
How can we build some type of, um, database of relationships that we have, but we can then
call on those whenever we need to.
And how can we increase that throughput as much as possible?
Because I think over the next three to five years, it will, I mean, it's already gotten
harder to.
things like outbound and LinkedIn DMs and everything, but it's going to way harder as well
as these things start getting filtered out just on the inbox level.
So I think that first party data element is going to be just so, so important.
And for a long time, that first party data element was around newsletters itself, like
just get an email list.
But even now that email list is hard to reach them in the inbox because there's so many
emails going around.
So it's like what platform makes sense for us to build that relationship on.
Um, but it goes back to that first party date on building as many relationships as
possible.
Have that all stored there.
Then we can, we can call on it.
So yeah, massively aligned to what we're, what we're seeing as well.
Um, so one of the, one of the final questions that we always ask guests on the show is if
you can go back to your 18 year old self and only take three lessons with you, whether
it's some philosophical knowledge, some business knowledge, general advice, what three
lessons would they, would they be and why would it be those things?
Three lessons to my 18 year old self.
That's a really good question.
So I'm going to deliberate.
think the first one is just whatever happens, don't stop.
And I'm lucky and fortunate that I definitely have that trait, that there's definitely
things that I thought about giving up.
And then a week later, a month later, a year later, things get really good.
So yeah, whatever happens, keep going.
Number two, and this is really cliche, just be yourself.
There's one thing I've learned a lot through like not drinking.
There's no like liquid confidence.
I've got way more comfortable being me and being weird.
And people either gravitate towards that and they actually now I've developed much closer
relationships with people because of it.
And some people don't and that's also fine.
And I've realized that I don't really care.
without sounding like a dick, I just don't, because I'm comfortable in who I am.
So yeah, just don't stop, keep going.
Be really comfortable with who you are and don't try and be anything else.
Just show up as your authentic self.
um And the third is just keep having fun every day.
And that doesn't mean every day from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed is
like a barrel of laughs, but don't take what I'm doing here.
I mean, if I'm really honest, I'm...
purely solving for upside.
I have a beautiful wife, I have a lovely house, we have everything we need within reason.
I'm just solving for like more stuff.
And that I know I've been through those periods of like chasing wanting to buy this or buy
that watch or go to this place or do these things that you think will make you happy
because that's the thing everyone else is trying to get.
So you should try and get it and you do it and you feel nothing.
So just like have fun along the way.
don't think we take our work very seriously.
I somewhere between extremely and insanely hard because again, that's the way I'm wired,
but I'm also having a wicked time doing it.
And if they got a point where I started to dislike it or hate it, I was going to do
something else.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, look, there's so many golden nuggets about this whole conversation.
So thank you so much for taking the time today.
Really love this conversation and all the topics that we covered is very timely for me as
well.
So it's good to get some advice from you and talk about these things.
So thank you so much for taking the time today and I hope to record another one in the
future as well.
Okay, I appreciate it.
Thanks, man.
Thank you.