I am.
And this is choosing leadership.
A podcast for high performers, with big dreams at work and life.
This is a podcast for people who know deep inside that there is more.
Have you achieved a great deal of success?
But on the inside, you still feel empty and like an imposter.
Do other people see you as a strong leader?
And you wonder why it still feels so lonely and suffocating.
The aim of this podcast is not to provide you more content, but instead shift
the context under which you operate.
I dare to speak to the tremendous power, which you already have
rather than what you believe.
Are your strengths and limitations.
This podcast is called choosing leadership because that is
what leadership is a choice.
And this is the leadership journey, CDs.
I am interviewing leaders with an interesting story to learn how
they got where they are today.
We all have a lot to learn from each other's stories.
Of Viet.
We started very veer now.
And over successes and struggles on the V.
With this series of interviews, my attempt.
Is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us
to learn from their genders sharing
Roy Samuel is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor.
He's currently the CEO and founder of connected and was previously
the CEO and founder of real sport.
He regularly invests in early stage tech companies and also mentors at the
Lerner school of economics, socially conscious spin-out accelerator.
He's also a mentor at the founder Institute and he helps
founders build a meaningful.
In our interview, Roy opens about his views on entrepreneurship leadership
and his relationship with money.
We also talk about how our early experiences shape us in very subtle
ways, which we do not realize and the importance of vulnerability,
transparency, and caring for people.
We also discussed the paramount responsibility of an early
stage startup leader to their team and invents investors.
And how is that very much?
Hi, Roy.
Welcome to the choosing leadership podcast.
Thank you so much for having me on really appreciate you taking
the time to speak with me.
Wonderful.
It's a pleasure to be here with you and to get to hear about your study.
So before, before we start, why don't you give our listeners a
brief introduction of who you are?
What have you been up to daily and any interesting tidbits from you?
Yeah, absolutely.
I'll try and give you the quick version.
Essentially I've been working in startups for about 10, 11 years now.
I founded something in 2014 whilst studying at university,
which was essentially.
Content creation toolkit.
So helping people create podcasts, videos, other types of content, and
then a community to share everything.
And we just got really fortunate with it, but a right time, right place.
Just when social publishing was getting very popular and we actually
applied it to the worlds of sports and gaming, massive sports fan myself.
And it was just.
Big brands started to pay attention to gaming in a big way.
So we just got really fortunate with the timing that we managed to scale
it to about 8 million monthly users primarily UK, us and Australia.
And then that business was acquired by a gaming company in 2018 called.
Off the back of that was fortunate enough to start advising startups as a board
advisor, occasionally as a non-exec and also start angel investing as well
which I love doing and, always great to be able to support new founders,
new entrepreneurs coming through started working my own FinTech in 2019,
which essentially provides tools for the early stage venture ecosystem.
And continue with my work as an advisor and an investor.
Thank you for sharing that.
Can you share what happened or what shaped you to be an honorable.
Yeah, it's a really interesting question.
, my dad was always an entrepreneur with varying levels of success.
I really think, it's easy to see entrepreneurial-ism to see, leadership
and think, oh, that looks great and looks really attractive, but it doesn't.
All the time.
And when it's not always a success, it can have real impacts.
We grew up with not a lot of money at different times.
There were periods for years where you didn't have income and
really difficult periods of time.
And that leads to all sorts of impact on family, life and
home life and all those things.
But he kept on working through and finally made his first bit of money
when I was about 19 years old.
Very much my experience growing up as a child, teenager was one of,
whatever you get in your life, you're going to have to work for, there
wasn't going to be any handouts.
It wasn't going to be anything other than, you know, what have you.
And so I think always had a bit of a drive to me, but for a long time,
I didn't think I wanted to be an entrepreneur because I didn't think that.
Johnny we'd be not as a family was necessarily one, which I'd
want to put my family through.
But it finds you in a way.
And I think, if you're someone who enjoys working a bit more in a bit of
an unusual way, maybe, or a way where you want to really just go into what
you're passionate about rather than.
You have to do I think entrepreneurial-ism sometimes comes around.
So it was definitely something I was aware of growing up, came back and forth
on the idea of it, but it started off in entrepreneurial-ism quite early and then
really started founded my first business by the time it looked at university.
Yeah, this is very relevant for me as well, because I have
seen my father do the same.
Jump from one job or one business to another business and mostly
with very different levels of success or failure, right?
The way we, the way we use these two words.
But I think even as a bystander, even as a bystander to that, I learned a lot.
I grew a lot, I think, in, in maturity in talking with people.
So I'm sure that the journey is like a chips, you, without
you being aware of it at times.
And if you consider what I am doing, like setting up as a coach, this would
be my four to start up all 42, like where I'm really stepping out on my own.
Yeah.
And I think my father maybe did maybe 10 or 12 that I can
at least remember if not more.
Yeah
This is the thing I think when your, I think if you grew up with quite
an easy life, maybe sometimes you're a bit more sheltered sometimes.
Not always, but more sheltered from the harsh realities of what
it means to make money and to not have money and all these things.
But if you did have that experience growing up, I think.
You mature at a much quicker rate.
So I think if you, at eight years old, 10 years old, whatever, it
might be, start having to face those realities of, what the real world is.
I think it definitely means that when you come into 18, 19 years old, you're
already a few years ahead in terms of having a bit of a bit more focus, maybe.
Yes.
I think that's very true.
Yeah.
And since you also mentioned about.
Money while growing up, I wanted to ask how has that shaped your relationship?
Like with money, with finances, with capital.
And just to give you a context, I think money has always been a challenge for me.
And I've grown in my relationship with money, like started with
being very careful about that.
And then as I became an entrepreneur, I see that was limiting me.
So I expanded my view, but I still sometimes get the, those like moments
of anxiety, especially for something which is monetary is at stake.
So I wanted to ask you, how has that.
It's really interesting.
I think I've got a very strange relationship with money and it's not
being a good one for a long time.
My, my dad always used to tell me and it's funny, this is not necessarily a
good lesson, but it's only money right.
In the sense of, because I think he had money coming when he goes
so many times during his life.
My money's one of those things that sometimes you'll have it.
Sometimes you won't have it.
That was what I was told.
So the idea of like building savings, the idea of building, trying to build wealth
from those things, it was not a concept taught or practice in my household.
It was this year we've got money next year.
We might not who the hell knows it will be well be.
And I think that when I started earning money, cause I started, working really
hard and trying to do all these things.
It meant I didn't have.
Necessarily a lot of those fundamentals about what it meant to save and
how to be smart with your money.
I really didn't know until him that really had to try and figure that out myself.
And I think when I was maybe younger, I was probably a bit too relaxed with
money and I didn't, cause it didn't matter because if it didn't have
money, I was used to not having money.
So if I have it, I spend it.
So I don't think I was very good at that.
Now, obviously after my first exit, that was really cause it
was like, okay, now I've actually got something where I can change.
And if I'm not careful, now then I could read.
Yeah.
So that was really the moment when it changed for me.
But yeah, it took me a long time to get there.
So 26, I would say I had a really bad relationship with money in that sense.
Yeah.
So tell me a little bit about what you do currently, which is basically investing
into startups and putting your money in.
And then how does that give meaning, meaning to what.
Yeah.
So
after we sold real sport, I knew immediately I wanted
to start into investing.
That was the goal.
And I was really aware of the issues that founders have when it comes to raising
capital, connecting with the right people, getting access to the right networks.
What I was fascinated by was when I started angel investing as you, how
many barriers to entry there were as an angel investor, because when you're the
founder, you're living and breathing the business, you're going to get after it.
You're going to make sure you're in the events you're going to get into.
You're going to try and get into all the right places as the investor.
He might be working on your own full-time projects.
You're managing other opportunities.
You're looking at doing other stuff.
So actually getting access to really good deal flow, getting access to all the
right entrepreneurial community is getting access to spin-outs and accelerators.
It's basically full time.
In and of itself.
So I thought, okay, interesting.
How many people want to be involved in that conversation, that investment
conversation, and can't get access to it because they don't have the time
they don't have the infrastructure.
So I thought it was a really interesting idea.
So I started to build an infrastructure for angel investors and family offices
as well, potentially VCs in 2019 to help structure origination, to structured data.
When looking at angel investors.
Just building that through 2019, we launched in February.
It's funny in March 20, 20 lock down here.
So always a good time to bring something new to market, but we actually found, we
were quite fortunate with it because the tools we were building to make the angel
investment and early stage ecosystem a bit more structured, we're really well
positioned for the lockdown period.
So we're now seeing investments ranging from.
Really early stage and at 25 30 K SIS sort of staff the biggest one we've seen
so far, there's a 2.6 million investment into the series, a, of a consumer AI
and lots of transactions along the way.
So I'm still regularly angel investing myself, but also doing it through
the platform that we've built and seeing great deals that way.
So it's a super interesting time in terms of early stage investment.
Yeah.
And what do you find most challenging about about angel investing
and also about this new role?
Because you have innovate started from scratch.
So what is new?
What is the most challenging part?
I think the most challenging call is.
When you find deal flow in a space that you're not really familiar with,
because if you find a business that you think you really like, and you
like the entrepreneurs, and you'd like the founders involved, but
you don't know the space very well.
It can be quite difficult to know whether it's going to be a good investment or not.
But I think it comes to trusting people.
Fundamentally, this is what I learned.
The first angel investment.
It was a big one for me.
I know for some people it's not, but I invested 50,000 pounds.
My first, that was the first angel investment I made after my exit.
And it was in a mental health technology platform.
And I really liked the space.
I'm a big believer and supporter in mental health.
I wanted to invest in that space, but as it turns out, the business was fraught
in many ways, but totally back the.
You'd have thought the founders were great.
And as it happens, the founder of that business, she's now the COO of my FinTech.
So that was a really great learning experience for me that, you back
people because you want to be involved with the right people and
want to support the right people.
And, you know that you can build stuff with them.
And even if it's as a portfolio company, if it's bringing them into.
The way that I've learned to deal with that issue of not necessarily
knowing the space inherently is saying, do I trust the people?
Do I believe in this person, do I want to work with this person?
Gotta, gotta make sure that, you can go to bed at night, feeling happy
that you've given someone your money.
And then I think that's a really nice way of dealing with that.
Yeah.
So in this in this new journey, tell us is there anything new
that you are discovering about yourself as a leader as a person
it's?
Yeah, absolutely.
Because the business that we built last time was a very different one, real
support we got, we had about 60 people at the time that we sold it, but it was
a really different type of business.
And I think with connected, what I'm learning is you've really got to nurture
all of your people to go on, not just the journey for the company, but their own.
And you really got to help those people achieve what they want to do
because ultimately, unless you've got the right team to execute on things.
And unless that bought into a personal plan, as well as a business
plan, that is just not going to work people is everything right.
And you can have the bet.
And with real sport, we were just very fortunate that the team that we
have the start was, it seemed you had all the way throughout in terms of
an executive team, but it connected.
Cause I think the ambition is big.
We're trying to do as big as.
For me launching into Europe this year, it's going to be a
much, much bigger organization.
So making sure that you put an arm around everyone give
everyone their own personal plan.
It's so important, but it's a difficult thing to do.
Yes, indeed.
Indeed.
It is.
I think many leaders that I'm talking to these days, Even if they understand
the value of connecting with people and exactly what you shared, not just helping
them in their journey in the company, but also in their personal journey.
But they have this challenge that they have no time for it, or
their share deal is too booked.
And they have so many like testing demands size of either something
going wrong or something more.
How do you deal with that?
And especially now, or maybe you are, you're investing in and you're talking to
tens of founders and groups of founders.
How do you manage your time?
How do you manage that pressure of a demand on your time?
Yeah it's so tough.
It is really tough.
I brought in a, an EA back in the last year, which has made the
biggest difference and I always avoided doing it because I thought
it was actually, it could be seen as ego thing I was so against it.
And I, I basically had to, I sent a message.
So my team, my core team, and then last year saying guys, I don't want
this to come across as an ego thing.
I don't think I'm in a different position to anyone until I actually start to think.
Now my time has gotten to the point where if I don't make a change significantly,
it's going to harm the business because I didn't, I was having less and less
time to spend with the core team.
So I think your job as a CEO in many ways, Is to protect your
time to spend with your core team.
So bringing in an EA has massively helped on that side and trying to limit the
amount of time I spend on smaller tasks.
So I can really just be there for my team.
Cause once you, what you're seeing when you've gotta trust them, right?
So it's your job to just be a bit of a safety net for those guys,
so I think that's been a massive help, but yeah, you need to know.
You need to put the hours in, right?
I don't buy into this idea of if you're a founder of a business, you
could do a four day working week.
I don't believe it's your responsibility.
I think your responsibility is to your team and to your investors.
If you've raised capital from angel investors, we're not talking about
VCs where it's, an institutional fund, for example, what if you've raised,
if you've raised money from angel investors, these are real people.
It was spent, lots of their they're called hard-earned cash, which is that
children's inheritance money on you.
You owe it to them to be an absolute machine on that side.
So you've got to, you've got to find the Simons of the 80
hour weeks, all the rest of it.
I'm a big believer in that, but still protect your time to focus on the most.
Yes.
I think there are two key things which you shared.
One is about responsibility and I always say responsibility is
a hundred percent in unfunded.
So you can put in all the, for the 40 hour, weeks of four day, four day work
weeks, but at the same time, not at the expense of your responsibility, as long
as the responsibility is taken care of, you can, you'll get, you're totally free.
It's a, it's your role as a founder to exercise your creative freedom and
take care of your people, but not at the expense of your responsibility and.
Sometimes that means taking some tough decisions as well, either
on your personal time or like even on the wider organization.
Absolutely.
I completely agree with you that it's really interesting.
I think one of the big responsibilities is to the team.
If I am not.
Helping push forward the organization so that everyone on my team can
be on an amazing journey and build their own track record and all those
things I'm doing wrong by them.
So it's a shared responsibility thing, for sure.
I'm very fortunate as well that my, my girlfriend understands
the entrepreneurial journey.
Her, brother's an entrepreneur.
She's seen it from a very early age where means to have that commitment.
I think sometimes.
For example, if you're with someone who doesn't understand,
it can be very difficult.
So I'm really fortunate for that.
Yeah.
And the second thing which I wanted to highlight, which often goes unnoticed
is what you shared about your ego mate.
When you hired your EA and many times people or leaders stop themselves
because they have a hunch or they have a sense of how others will perceive them.
And what you hear is very powerful because you put your
responsibility first and then.
Even opened up and say that I feel this way, what should I do?
Or like you invited other people in and that's not easy.
So I want to acknowledge you, but like for anybody who is listening,
this is so important to not get lost in your thought patterns and then
to put your responsibility first and then your preferences, your strengths,
your weaknesses, all of that.
Second, I think that's very important to what.
Yeah, I totally agree.
And you're right.
It's about transparency as well.
Being transparent with your team of being authentic and saying, look, guys,
I'm struggling with the idea of this.
That I'm just going to be honest with you guys.
It's super important, but, and it's one of the most difficult things to striking
the balance because you need to show and truthfully be very considerate, very
open to what other people think about.
But you also need to be decisive enough that people have faith in you as a leader.
So it's getting that balance of saying, I want to listen to everyone and I
want to take on board all of your ideas and managing that with, but don't
worry, guys, this is the decision.
This is what we're going to do.
So it's a really fun one.
So that to get the balance on, but this is the challenge, right?
It's a fun.
Yes.
And I love that you are calling it a fun challenge because this can often
become a very lonely journey for people and feel like a burden and what
you did when you invited your people in and when you are transparent
is actually lets go of that burden.
It makes it easier for others to help you.
And also acknowledges that leadership is not a loneliness.
Yeah.
Even though it feels lonely to a lot of people but by definition it is
not only, it cannot be lonely because you are working with us so many.
Yeah.
And I think one of the things we're trying to do with connected, as well as
getting a, in the same way that you are, leaders to talk to each other as well,
because it's important, it's so great to be able to share those challenges.
As you said, share them with your team, share them with other peers.
It's it really is important.
And I think.
I'm fortunate.
We're fortunate.
We're part of a generation which does value that.
Whereas probably two years ago, if you were a leader, you couldn't even be
seen to be second guessing anything,
yes.
So when I used to lead teams in organizations one question which I always
use to start a one-on-one meeting was tell me something I do not know about you.
I always found this question very valuable because even if a person is somebody
whom I have known for many years, there is always hidden sites of that person.
And this question allows that to come out.
So can you tell our listeners something which most people do not know.
I've just got to say, I really liked that.
That's a really great technique and I love the idea of, really trying to get to know
your people, even when you've known them for years, giving them that now, have you?
Yeah.
Okay.
Religion.
So I spent the first seven years of my life between London and Amsterdam
which most people don't know.
So yeah, we were spending half the week there, half the week here.
And I think I've got a map.
Affinity still was adopted and loved being there.
And it's strange because I don't have the most memorable.
From then whenever I go back in, I really feel a deep connection with the place.
So yeah, that's something I very rarely speak about.
Yeah.
Thank you.
And is that seven years of your childhood or seven years after you?
Yeah, exactly.
From when I was born.
So those about seven years old.
Yeah exactly.
And it's yeah, I have, I really have some very basic but fond memories
of it and it's interesting because.
You don't know how much you consume or influenced by culture at an early stage.
And it's so hard to know, but whenever I go now and I really
still feel that affinity with the place and can speak to the people.
And it's a really interesting one.
Does, the nature versus nurture idea,
yes.
And I think the more I read about or study about psychology and how we
are shaped, like those first six or seven years of our lives shape us a
lot, even when we don't realize it.
Like even even now I have been in Amsterdam for seven years.
Every time I go back to.
There is something which changes and which is outside of my conscious control.
Because there is a sense there is a, sometimes there is a smell.
Sometimes there is a feeling sometimes it's about the people, but
there is something very different.
And I see that.
Think differently, I talk differently.
And if I'm not aware that can actually prove detrimental to what I am trying
to achieve as a coach, as a leader.
So being aware of those subtle influences from our very childhood
and many times they can, like they can become our hot buttons.
Yes.
As really interesting it's is that what few of my friends have
started having children recently?
And, they'd been telling me about books that they're reading about
how much that imprinting is, all these things, which can just seem,
but it must be such a challenge.
I don't know if you've got kids.
I don't have kids yet, but it must be such an interesting challenge
of trying to manage that when you know how a formative, the six, seven
years are the try and get everything.
I think that would be very stressful.
So I have a two-and-a-half year old son and it's always on the top of my mind,
especially given my knowledge of human behavior and the kind of people I talk to
in so many of these conversations involve sometimes going back to what happened
at a very early point in their life.
And sometimes it dividing or like having them see the world differently.
Especially if you have grown up in in a war zone, or if you've grown up in
extreme poverty it can shape you as a person and as a leader, which might not
necessarily be to your advantage in the.
It's fascinating.
My, my mum grew up in communist, Hungary and they escaped and she
ended up in refugee camp and, all, but then they were sent back and then
when they go send back to hungry, people had taken over that house.
They could bet on go with it.
And it's fascinating.
And as a kid, I didn't see it, but now I see so much how that's influenced down to.
It's such a, he approves it, especially when it's something so
extreme, as you said, but yeah.
Tied to them.
So I also think it's one of the reasons I'm such a hard worker is,
from where they've come from and it transcends through the way that they
brought me up and everything else.
Yeah it's really interesting.
And one of the very recent discoveries that I had is that drama, especially
if it is a very severe can pass down generations, genetically,
and it can actually last till.
Three generations.
Yeah.
So there is, there's a lot of studies on animals now but a therapist and
also psychologists are discovering that, that trauma, unless somebody has
intervened can actually stay on for three generations, so hidden in your
genes and it can shape your behaviors.
It can shape your, so the animal studies is that like you, you give an electric.
To somebody, to an animal and their unborn children will be very.
Those electric shocks their unborn children.
So
that's the, yeah.
It's, if you buy into the theory of evolution, it makes total sense.
It makes total sense.
It would carry down like that, but I'll ask fascinating.
That's so interesting.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
I've learned something very new today.
Yeah, I'm mostly.
So tell me, coming back to the present moment, what is it that
you feel the most grateful for?
I think everything that so much of life is luck.
So much of life is luck because I'm very grateful that, with real support we got
the right thing at the right time and it'd be so grateful for so many opportunities.
Although we didn't grow up with money we grew up in a better position.
90% of the world, probably, just by virtue of the fact that we grew
up in, a country and a city with serious infrastructure, so I think
you gotta be grateful for everything.
It doesn't mean you have, I don't believe in, determinism.
So I don't believe that, we're following a pass in any way.
I think you've still got to work incredibly hard and all those things.
The world is a mystery, right?
And if things are going your way, it's just because of luck in many ways.
And, always grateful for that.
So I think I have been really lucky in life in having opportunities and
having opportunities to work hard.
Thank you for sharing that.
And I think that's a very important point that there is so much more than.
Play a role in the final output, right?
Whether it's a success or failure.
And then there's a lot which is outside of our control.
So this first of all, it makes it easier for people to take risks
and also makes it easier when the desired outcome is not the one.
Absolutely.
When you look at COVID, if you were a business that happened to be building
something which worked for that time, it's pure luck, or if you were
a business that was flying, but you happen to be in events or something
like that, that's just an example.
Like I look at the story of.
Cool.
They were built great.
Clearly a great founder, clearly great technology and all the rest of it.
Right time, place mat, miraculous, this happens overnight.
They would just ready at the right time.
And now suddenly they're all billionaires, everything else.
It just goes to show you never know what's gonna happen, but that's why you
should never get too high when we win and never get too low when you lose.
Because the next game is around the corner and who knows what's going to happen.
Yes.
So coming back to, again, the same idea of balance and some sense
of equanimity without having, experiencing the highs and lows.
And I think experiencing some highs and lows makes it easier to experience the
future highs and lows in a balanced.
Yeah, definitely.
So when we were doing real sport, the last business we were over in the us
filming stuff, some stuff for the MBA, for some content, for our platform
speaking to one of the players he was playing on a team called the Houston
rockets and he was saying, the only way they survive a season is 82 games.
It's a Ruby attendance, basketball season is exactly that when they win, it's great.
Cool.
That's fine.
If they lose, it's okay, fine onto the next, you've got to, you've got
to try and balance get that balance,
Can you share about somebody who made a big influence on your leadership?
And can you also share about what happened is, did they say something, did they do
something that shaped you into intellect?
The kind of person that you are.
It's a really, it's a really good question.
I think for sure, obviously, your family influenced you in a big way,
your family friends in a big way.
I think one of the things I learned about leadership from maybe from my dad
is you can be a very different person in the boardroom versus our home.
. And it's really important that you actually have a
separation for multiple reasons.
One, one of the main ones is things will happen in your personal life.
Things will have in your personal, you cannot take that out in the boardroom.
You, you really cannot because you're going to let emotions influence business.
A bit and the two do not mix as we all know.
So I think that's one of the things I learned is you need to
be able to create that divide.
And also I think things are not going well in the boardroom.
You don't want to necessarily take that home as well.
So I think that's a really important part of leadership is being able to.
Remove emotion from judgment.
But I think I'm done.
I'm still learning so much still learning so much that I feel like my journey
in a leadership position, my journey as a leader is so at the beginning
that I still feel like every day I'm learning so much about what I mean.
To be a leader, a good leader that I don't think the defining
moments come for me yet.
Thank you for sharing that important lesson about the space between who you
are in different roles of your life.
And then to not let those boundaries.
Spilled as, especially not in a negative way, you can let it,
fill it out the positive way.
Yeah.
I think one of the good ways to look at it as, no matter what's going on in
business, if you're flying and you've got a hundred employees and you're
about to do a big fundraiser, you still got to do the dishes at home there.
You still got to help out around the house.
If you want to have a happy home life.
It's that separation of no matter what's going on that side, you
got to stay humble and the other as well and not let it influence.
Yeah.
And since you spoke about your journey, and that you are in their early stages,
can you share a little bit about where are you headed and what does a
successful future look like to you?
I think success is doing everything you can to reach your potential.
Whatever that means, that could be financial, it could be creative.
It could be raising a family who are happy, many different people
have different views on that.
But I think that you need to go for it, whatever your view on success is.
And I don't want anyone to think that because capitalism says
success means bank balance.
It does not.
I think whatever success means, do you need to go for it a big way for me?
I enjoy building.
I really love to build things and I love to see how far I can take them.
So this year we're launching in Europe, we've been going through UK.
So we're launching in Europe, hopefully launching in the U S next year.
So it's going to come with lots of new fun challenges again.
But yeah, I just want to keep a building and see where we get to.
I have that, I love that.
How you started with your definition of.
And at a lot of people are already leaving a definition, which they have inherited
from the culture or from their family.
And I think such a, that is such a powerful lesson that like, while
you can build things, you can also build your own definitions.
You can build your own boundaries, you can build your own values and
then you can and you can step up for them rather than without giving a
thought of what are you living up to?
And so that's.
So valuable.
I want to highlight that.
Yeah, absolutely.
For some people I know they've exited the commercial world because for them,
success is living happy, balanced life.
So that means they want to go running 20 miles a day in the mountains, whatever it
might be, and that's equally as successful because I think that's what success is.
It's identifying what you want and being real to that.
And being honest to that,
Yeah.
Thank you.
So to wrap up our interview up, is there any advice that you would give to
somebody who has a big dream or who wants to create something, but they haven't
tasted success or they haven't gotten around to the level that they want.
Yeah, definitely is.
It's love.
Learn to love the journey, because the idea of, I think what you're
going for will always change, and especially if you do start reaching
success, your idea of, oh, actually, no, I thought that would be good.
I don't know, but this would be good.
And then you reach that it moves further back.
So you just got to love the journey because you'll always be on the journey.
Yeah.
So this is another wisdom.
So learn to love the journey.
I think these three words learn love and journey are so relevant to leadership.
And many times we either forget about learning or we forget about that.
It's a journey or we forget to love the whole thing.
So all three of them actually make the journey what it is.
Yeah, totally.
And I think you've got to be really honest with yourself.
The second you stop, loving the job.
You need to evaluate whether it's a journey you want to be on, or if there's
something else which would make you happy.
Cause there's no point doing it.
If you're not going to wake up every day being like, I love what I, that you've
got to make sure that you're happy.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you Ray, for your time and your insights to vote for anybody who is
listening, where can they find out more about you and maybe connecting.
Yeah, just find me on LinkedIn Roe.
It's a quite red name, says only a few of us on LinkedIn and Samuel.
I'm always happy to connect with as many people as possible and
learn about what they're doing and you can also go to connect a.co.
Thank you.
Thank you once again for your time.
And totally I'm sure everybody who listens will love this conversation.
Thanks
so much.
That's it for this episode of choosing leadership with summit.
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