George Veness | Founder & CEO of JAB Boxing Club: How to improve productivity through fitness

PureGym reports that 66% of Britons don’t believe they look after their health as much as they should. Since good health is key to being productive, I wanted to hear from an expert about how founders can use fitness to boost their productivity. 

Following his retirement as captain of the England boxing team, George Veness, Founder & CEO of JAB Boxing Club in London, launched his business to make elite performance accessible to anyone & inspire his members to take control of their health.

Keep listening to hear George’s advice on how you can build fitness into your weekly routine as a founder & why exercise is so important for maintaining your productivity.

George's Advice:

• Be pleased with your product before you start; believe in it and the team around you will too
• Pursuing fitness is a discipline, which will give you health and strength
• It will relieve stress
• And, just as important, it will give you self-belief, courage and emotional well-being
• The basics of fitness are nothing new. The essentials are: movement which leads to strength / rest and recovery (including hot and cold therapies) / good, natural food, fresh and not manufactured / good sleep
• When you are fit you will have better focus and clarity, you will make better decisions for your future life and you will be able to push boundaries
• Keep company with great people
• Follow a lifestyle with good habits and stick to your regime
• Don’t get distracted
• When you are making a long-term plan, break it down into manageable parts, like months; keep your end goal in sight and get there steadily
• Celebrate milestones
• Enjoy challenges
• Try keeping a diary where you write down what you plan to achieve
• Keep your vision simple; this way you will communicate it better both to your team and your customers

FF&M enables you to own your own PR & produces podcasts.
Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2023 MD & Founder of PR & Communications consultancy for startups Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. 

FF&M recommends: 

• LastPass the password-keeping site that syncs between devices.
• Google Workspace is brilliant for small businesses
• Buzzsprout podcast 'how to' & hosting directory
• Canva has proved invaluable for creating all the social media assets and audio bites.

MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link &  Licence

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to season 11 of How To Start Up, the podcast helping you start and scale your business with advice from entrepreneurs on what to do now, next, or never. This season, we'll be hearing about all things productivity from amazing entrepreneurs sharing how they've hacked theirs. Hosted by me, Juliet Fallowfield, founder of the B Corp certified PR communications and podcasting consultancy, Fallow, Field & Mason. Our mission is to enable you to master your own storytelling, whether that be via PR or podcasting, all with a long term view.

 Pure Gym reports that 66 percent of Britons don't believe they look after their health as much as they should. Since good health is key to being productive, I wanted to hear from an expert about how founders can use fitness to boost their productivity. Following his retirement as captain of England boxing team, George Veness, founder of CEO of JAB Boxing Club in London, launched his business to make elite performance accessible.

To anyone and inspire his members to take control of their health.Keep listening to hear George's [00:01:00] advice on how you can build fitness into your weekly routine, why it is so important, what impact it has on your productivity and focus, and how you can maintain that going forward as a founder.

Hi George, 

it's wonderful to have you on. I'm very excited. I think you're the first, GB sportsman we've had on the podcast, so it's very exciting. It would be wonderful if you could just kick off with an introduction as to who you are and a bit about the business you started.

Yeah. So I grew up in,in the East end of London. and I started boxing when I was six years old. I was, yeah, I was well early in it. And my grandfather took us cause of my brother, he took me brother and then I went and there's about nine years between me and my brother.

When you're that young, I don't know whether I sort of, I did fall in love with it. I can remember the nerves of first walking in that boxing gym and I had a West Ham kit on and there was so much fear, and you had to spar And just jump in there.

And then once you get in into it, it's just that's what you do. 

Boxing, you [00:02:00] do get in that flow state, don't you? They've talked about it as a sport in its own right, that you get into a different mental state. And you were doing this from six.

Yeah, I think all like all top athletes get into a flow state, which is where you're performing at your optimum. It's basically being so present and in the moment that that's where you work best, right? It's where the adrenaline kicks in, et cetera. And I fell in love with it and was in it for a long time.

And long story short, I went through my career as a young star. I was always a chunky kid. When I got to about 11 years old, my trainer said to me, you've got to lose weight, otherwise you can't fight. Cause everyone I was having gym shows with and boxing against was much bigger than me.

So I.went on a diet and whatever. And I lost about two and a half stone when I was 11. 

 A white male kid in East London being told at eleven to go on a diet. 

 Exactly. So I was like, I actually forgot about this story. And then the other day, my girlfriend reminded me and I was like, fuck, I can't believe [00:03:00] I actually done that. So I was like, yeah, I lost two and a half stone and I gradually started to take it more seriously.

Where my trainer said to me, you, you've got to start doing your running, you need to be doing this many runs a week and you need to be living like this, et cetera. So that disciplined lifestyle started to get ingrained from me from a really young age and I was someone that had a 50, 50 record from our first 

dozen fights. And then as soon as that lifestyle kicked in, I went 25 fights unbeaten. My school started to get better, which I didn't go to a great school, but  academically, I improved. And it was something where it changed my life, like from a young age.

And I know, most people will probably say that's so young, but

 when you grow up on a council estate and you're surrounded by criminality, violence. There's beautiful things in terms of a council estate, you can have really close knit environment and know a lot of people in community.

 And you can also [00:04:00] have a lot of violence, a lot of criminality, a lot of wrongdoing, And when you grow up around that, a lot of kids, if you was to walk them into a boxing gym or any sports gym, but a boxing gym specifically, because it teaches respect and teaches you discipline. 

It gives you a second home, And that's what it was for me. And it had real big impacts on my life where it shaped who I was. And it was something where, even though I stopped boxing, I've never come away from the sport. I've just loved it. And, it taught me how to win, It taught me if I put my mind to something, I can achieve what I set out to do. 

You put the work in.

 Yeah, exactly. And I think,long story short, going into the fitness industry, so I come out of boxing, I trained fighters,cause I couldn't get out of going down to the boxing club that naturally led me into being a trainer and being a personal trainer, 

it was like a gradual progression. And when I was in the fitness industry, there was nothing in the industry that I was impressed by. And the reason I say [00:05:00] that was it was great. They was doing what was selling in terms of, your usual methods, corporate companies creating fitness concepts because, it's becoming bigger in the market, etc.

But there was nothing that had the same soul and feeling that the boxing club had, or I

would say that I got from it and that top sports clubs had. And what I couldn't understand about that was, yeah, it's great that people train and they're healthy and etc. But the biggest benefits of training and the lifestyle of it is what it does for you emotionally.

It's the emotional impact it has on you in terms of, yeah, relieving stress and all this stuff and the physical benefits of what it has, but also it's empowering you, it's giving you courage, it's giving you discipline, it's helping you be determined, it's helping you relieve stress when you hit these times, especially as an entrepreneur, when you're rolling the dice constantly, it makes you believe in yourself and that you can achieve things [00:06:00] that are not guaranteed, which, you know, in business.

That you are rolling the dice. 

 Someone I look at and I spoke about recently, was Ben Francis, You've got to respect a lot of what he's doing more because as a normal entrepreneur, he could sell out and be the next three generations be after him, be made.

Cash wise financially. 

 in

 To continually roll the dice and try and grow your business when you're in that positionis, is inspiring, do you know what I mean? For you, I mean you were, what age were you when you were captain of England boxing team.

About 16.

16. And do you mind me asking how old you are now

32.

and how long have you been running JAB boxing?

Five years.

Amazing, because it sounds like that discipline and awareness of what you were getting from that discipline. So the first instance you were going to train to get better at boxing, but then you saw all the other added value elements to what that fitness was giving you, [00:07:00] community, emotional wellbeing, mental strength.

Do you want, are there any others that I've missed on the added value from what you've got physically training. 

When I was about 14, I had a little bit of alight bulb moment. And it was like, you, I suppose in the spiritual world, you'd call it a little bit of an awakening where it was where I started running a lot and I was training hard and I was in the championships, et cetera. And I started to get into, looking into and reading about performance. Tony Robbins was the first one, these sort of books that, that, It's all about mindset. And I used to think to myself,like there must be more to it than the physical stuff because I'm trained as hard as I can and the mental side started to become, I started to have questions in my mind about that.

That was where the most impact come from for me, because I've used that inquisitive, thought process. And that's what's helped me progress. I haven't had the answers and I'm obviously [00:08:00] clearly learning a lot along the way. and I've just chucked myself forward, but it's allowed me to have the self belief.

And I think the self belief is an important part because most people don't believe in their self. Do you know what I mean? And we're very restricted on the limits and the mindsets that we grew up around and are within society. And I think especially in British culture, if you are to talk outwardly about what you want and what you want to achieve, it can be looked down

upon a little 

bit. 

I was very much brought up of, don't be arrogant. Don't be cocky. Know your place and that whole expression, know your limits. We are our own limiting belief in that sense, but from what you're saying about we don't believe in ourselves, I really believe myself five minutes after boxing class or a run.

And is it that physical adrenaline that pumps through your brain? That then triggers you into thinking, I can do anything. Cause it is that high that you get after a workout that you come back to your desk [00:09:00] and you come back to your laptop with clarity, problem solved. It's almost like a meditation in a way.

You come much clearer in what you're doing. But for you, is it the physical feeds the mental and the mental then feeds the physical? Chicken and egg, which comes first for you?

Yeah. I think there's getting up and doing it and getting yourself in there. Then there's the way you're talking so your language, the people you're around, your environment, your community, and then it's the habits, right? For us, training is an activity that, that one gives you massive health benefits two make sure you feel powerful, fit and strong, which is your body's natural sources for, achieving stuff and getting the best out of yourself.

It starts with that. It starts with movement. It starts with getting yourself to a level of physical performance, and then I think that naturally impacts the mental side. And then I also think it's the language you use and the people you're around and you're naturally attract people to that community into that tribe that want to that either [00:10:00] do think the same or want to think the same.

That's where we've had the most power in our community. And we've noticed the most difference. And when I was creating JAB, our new club, I read a book by Rick Rubin called the creative genius. And we were upscaling the cluband, perfecting our business model and perfecting our product.

And I, it was basically don't create what's out there already create what you truly love, what you want to be a part of, or what you want to listen to, or, what you like. And for me, I'm very early in my entrepreneurial journey. I want to achieve a lot in life financially, also emotionally.

And, in terms of pushing boundaries on that and to do so, I want to train like this. So I want these resources around me. I want to be around people like this and I want the gym, the club to be a place [00:11:00] that brings me back and gives me power. And it's about bringing that spirit. And that's what boxing clubs do for people, good ones, anyway.

It's about bringing that spirit into the fitness scene so that me, you, anyone can come and do it, can come and join in on it, even if you haven't boxed before, been a part of it. And you can use this as your secret sauce to be able to empower you to walk out of that gym and attack your goals and reach what you want to reach.

Yeah, someone said to me very early on, as long as you're deluded in what you're trying to do, if you're doing something different for the first time that's not been done out there before, you don't know it's going to work yet. You need that utter belief in your business is going to solve someone's problem and somebody needs it in their life.

But if you can come out of a workout first thing in the morning with a little bit more of that bolstered yeah, I can do this feeling. Everything's much more enjoyable for one, because you're attacking it with a proactive glass half full lens rather than, Oh my God, this is really hard.

I'm exhausted. Glass [00:12:00] half empty lens. But I was very fortunate enough to do one of your classes last week in your beautiful new space in Victoria. And I encourage anybody to pop in and do a session because what you were saying just then about community and a way of thinking, a friend of mine, very,established in the art world.

And I always tease her saying, I work in the podcasting sector and the communications industry. You get a world, the art world. You never talk about a boxing gym. You always talk about a boxing club and clubs are things people belong to for a while. And I feel like that community thing is super important.

Could you explain why boxing is different to say other sports people could do to lift them up?

Every, every best sporting film is revolved around boxing.

And the reason, think about it, you've got Raging Bull, you've got Cinderella Man, you've got Rocky.these are iconic sporting films that, that are, what else is there, these are iconic sporting films that are revolved around boxing.

And the reason being is because, and I, you [00:13:00] don't, I've already got this until, like going on the entrepreneurial journey and overcoming and going through COVID and learning about managing people 

and even having children and not having no sleep of the night and, And, and then you've got inflation and then you've got to deal with this.

it is overwhelming regularly.

And I think you have ways throughout the week where one day you're performing really good. And then one day you could doubt yourself and depends how you wake up and it depends what's going on or what someone says. And that's totally normal. I think a lot of people glorify entrepreneurship. It's you've got unlimited annual leave and everything's ready. It's hard work, but if you can do things to bolster yourself and strengthen yourself, so when you get those bad days, you're more prepared and they're less severe.

I think is what exercise for me anyway does. 

 What's happening in the body? Like, why is that helping me? I say this because I only went back to exercise last week with your class. I used to box twice a week. I used to run three times a week in my head I still do it. I haven't been doing it for about a year and it's really affected [00:14:00] my mental load, moved house.

 Still running the business. And someone said to me, you need to reset your nervous system. And I've been listening to a lot of podcasts about that and there's like exercise, sleep, exercise. What is it with exercise that's helping us? it's really simple, right? We've been designed as human beings to be able to go out, hunt for something, get dopamine hit. endorphin rush go again, right? It's just part of survival. So movement and exercise and pushing ourself is part of that survival. The only difference we're doing now is we're setting goals in terms of our life.

But what we have now that we've never had is technology and the modern world and cities, right? You don't realise how much stimulus is going on around you that's affecting your mental load, which we've never had to deal with before. So we need community because we're lonelier than ever because of social media.

 We need movement because we're becoming, we're sedentary and quite lazy, in terms of that, And, mental health is bigger than ever. To keep it [00:15:00] simple, don't take Ozempic and inject yourself to lose weight. It's not about that. It's not about losing weight.

It's about moving your body and being mentally strong and physically strong because that's what's going to help you achieve more in life and live longer. Do you know what I mean? And so I always believe, if you look into performance and you look at top athletes perform, boxers, so they do their skill based sport, which is revolved around a skill, which is mainly cardio.

They'll do their strength conditioning, which is mainly to build a strong body and to make them strong and injury free for their sport. They'll do their recovery, which is normally hot and cold therapy. Again, It's been around for hundreds of years.

 With our nutrition, which is eat whole foods for any food that runs, flies, swims or grows, right? Sleep well. All of these five things that I've just gone through that every athlete will go through when it comes to performance, are natural resources that have been around for thousands and thousands of [00:16:00] years.

So when you look at performance, the only thing that's happening is that we're going back to the basics. It's just now basics of being backed with science. So like Wim Hof, for instance, cold therapy reduces inflammation in the body, which is one of its sort of main benefits. All he's done is back cold therapy has been around for years, right?

But he's just backed it with science and he's talking very passionately about it. Now it's a worldwide phenomenon. Everyone's doing ice baths, right? This is great. This is amazing, but it's just going back to the basics. Even, the barefoot thing it's becoming a thing, right?

It should be because we're made to run. We're made to be on our feet.

Sprints, not marathons every day. And actually last week's guest was talking about digital debt and the sense that we can only really sprint at work for an hour and a half. And we need 20 minutes, half an hour to rest from that. And we can probably only do four sprints a day. Whereas a lot of entrepreneurs are trying to run marathons at sprint pace every single day.

Not sleep. Not eat properly, not move. And [00:17:00] from what you're saying with JAB, you've created a place where people can tick off all of those five things. 

An environment, a lifestyle. Yeah, exactly. And so I think as a entrepreneur, in any business, to be honest, no matter what level you are. But the decisions you make daily were what will shape the next five years of your life, right? So you need to have clarity and you need to be in a good place when you're making them decisions.

What are the things that keep us in a good place? It's them five things that I've just mentioned.

And I think the expression, the workout that you least want to do is the one that you need the most. Like this morning I got up at 5. 30 to get the train in and I was like, I knackered but I'm going to drag myself to the gym. The getting myself there was the hard part. The workout was actually fine and then afterwards I'm high as a kite.

I'm like, I can do anything. I can take over the world. It's so exciting when you've got that buzz. But it's the self saboteur at the beginning that's telling you, don't go. Whereas actually then when you've done it, you, as I said, never regret a [00:18:00] workout.

Yeah, of course. And I think that's if you go back to what it's doing for our body, if you didn't have that feeling, That's where you're getting the most dopamine hits and the most, chemical rewards are from not wanting to do it, doing it, and then you achieve that at the other end.

 I wanted to go for a run the other day and I was like, I really don't want to do it. And then it was one of the best runs I did because I really didn't want to do it more than normal, made the run even better. It's like, if I dread a workout, I should actually go, yeah, it's going to be great.

Yeah. the thing is, in terms of like, if you look at society life is super comfortable in terms of we have a roof over our heads. With live in heating. we have water, clean water. We, can have what we want when we want on our phone within 24 hours or within an hour. 

Life's good.If you can keep that level of, them challenges in your life, physical challenges, stuff that actually mentally gets you in terms of like training and training to a decent standard, these [00:19:00] things keep you strong. 

What you're saying about community resonates so massively because I love co working offices and I'm a member of SoHo Works and I go in at least twice a week and seeing the guys this morning, it just anchors me in a way that I've got this community around me. I've got people who've got my back, but for me, my email, my inbox runs my life.

My calendar runs my life and carving out time for a workout. I could sometimes feel guilty for it. And that's why I have to do it first thing in the morning before anything else interrupts it. Lunchtime, forget about it. Why should founders bucket time for working out? 

I think what's your goal in life? What do you want out of life? I think for me, yeah, I want to be financially successful. I also want to be 60 years old and be able to go for a run, play football and do whatever I want to do. And I think if your goal in life is to be financially successful, healthy and happy, then you need to hit one of them three things every day.

 Yes, it will help you perform better, have more clarity, have more focus, have more discipline in your work life for [00:20:00] sure help you make better decisions for sure. We know that. But it's also about. How do I want to live the next 30, 40 years of my life? how do I want to be when I'm 70?

That's what it's also about. like,you are what your habits are. What your daily routine is, that's what you become, right? So, surround yourself with people that are living that and thinking that way. Everyone needs to train.

Everyone needs to move. Whether it's a power walk, whether it's a run, whether it's yoga, whether it's Pilates. Mine is boxing and functional strength training and recovery, ice bath, saunas. That's what I'm into. That's what I love. That's what makes me feel amazing. So that's what I do. But whatever your thing is, you do that.

We're on a mission to say, this community is like really impactful in a positive way. I'll get messages daily on people saying this has changed my life. This is doing wonders for me, et cetera, et cetera. We're on a mission to spread this around the world. I want people to feel it, to be a part of it, and to experience it.

And, have an [00:21:00] honest opinion. does it impact your life in a better way? Because if it does, then this is what you should be doing. And it should do. And I think that I'm not the only person doing this. I don't think. We need more people in the fitness industry

that ain't just big corporate brands. There are people that are going, we are living this lifestyle. We've got hundreds of people that are living this lifestyle in terms of they're part of our community. They're positive to be around when I'm down, they bring me up. They're training hard regular.

They're doing it. They're moving forward in their careers, whether it's entrepreneurial or whether it's working, for another brand or whatever it is, they're pushing the boundaries of their life. And that's what it's about. It doesn't matter if you're, a bus driver or a cleaner.

It doesn't matter where you are in your spectrum of wealth. It doesn't matter. There's a limit in front of you. And there's a goal that you have in your life. You are able to go and do that. And the easiest way for you to go and do that is one, be around great people. And two, have [00:22:00] a lifestyle with good habits.

On that, do you time block your workouts? Do you have a rigid, I'm committing to this schedule? Is it easier for people to do that? Cause I think when you start a business, you're pulled in a hundred different directions and as we talked about, you're wearing many different hats and it's easy to become not focused and distracted by, if you're on Slack and email and LinkedIn and WhatsApp and Instagram, what's your advice to someone to build this into their day?

So I would have a clear structure in terms of, to be honest with you,I'm late a lot and can also be away with the fairies a lot, but I'll make sure I'll probably, I'll train most mornings basically. so I'll either train every morning or every lunchtime.

 The only reason I won't train in the morning is because I'm teaching myself, basically. But if I wasn't teaching, I'd be training. Sometimes I'm training of an evening, but also of the morning. So I would pick, right? This is going to the gym is like a meeting, like you just got to turn up.

Don't matter how [00:23:00] hard you do it. You just turn up and the beauty of group fitness of what we're doing is that most people have a gym membership and there's no one there to hold them accountable. So there's no one to hold them accountable and there's no one telling them what to do. 

They don't really know what they're doing and you don't get most out of it. And then there's no community. So what we wanted to create was for one, there's a level of standard that your coaches have to uphold. So they're putting on this program, this experience for you to come in, be a part of, and get to reap the rewards of it.

So you don't have to think about it. 

It was heaven. You walk in and you're told what to do for an hour, which no founder gets at any other point of their day. I had delegated that hour to your wonderful colleague and I met people in there. She was correcting my posture and I love the fact that you say you're training, you're not working out.

She was definitely working out with us. It was like the energy in that room was amazing. No one's on a screen. No one has headphones. And every three seconds you're onto something else and you don't get bored. And suddenly the hour was over. I was like, that's the fastest [00:24:00] hour of my day. It was

wonderful. To be able to delegate that hour to somebody else, but be in it with other people was wonderful.

I would say if you, if your goal is to train twice a week, three times a week, four times, whatever, wherever it is, depending on what you want out of it, then set them days or set. I want to get this done this week. And it's like you're to do list, like you have for your business, hit it, make sure you hit it.

It's part of what you've got to do. And you will find that you'll perform better. You'll look better for one, you'll think better. And it'd be that time of your day that you need for yourself. I think the energy of obviously we're all busy, but I think the energy of like work, like that sort of work 24 hours a day and be rewarded for that is slightly changing a little bit because we're understanding the importance of health, mental health and focus.

And I talk about focus a lot recently, because I've been through my career, not being focused. And what I mean by focus is. You've got to be laser [00:25:00] where it's like you can pinpoint exactly what you want in the world, where you're going, what you're going after and how you're going to do it. And you need to stay on that path might deter because of the way society changes or the business model effects, but you need to be focused on that goal.

 The biggest mistake I see with people when it comes to achieving is they lose sight of where they're going and their emotions getting away for one but and then they get distracted you know that this has gone down or this is happening or you know that they fall down and they struggle a week later to get back up rather than flipping it around. 

You know where you want to get to, you can work back from it and you can, yeah, you're not distracted. And the focus, cause everyone in the coworking office I work in, we're like talking about productivity and focus in this whole season of that productivity, but it's got quite a lot of bad rap, people like don't push productivity on people because there's a lot of pressure and a lot of people I've [00:26:00] interviewed before have talked about output rather than looking like you're busy, measure yourself and what you're achieving.

And like what your end result is. If you're being reactive rather than proactive, you're not going to get anywhere. But knowing, going back to that complete delusion, knowing where you want to get to and having total faith that is a good thing will help you get there.

And I love that you're bolstering yourself to get there with fitness.

 I listened to this female entrepreneur about, I think it was about a year ago, might have been now. And she spoke about five year plans, breaking them down into yearly plans and then breaking them down into quarterly, monthly, and then weekly. And it was like, fuck, it was another light bulb moment for me. Cause what I would do is just work myself to death.

And then not reward or not feel like I've got anywhere.

Yeah. Cause you don't know what you're trying to tick off the list. You're yeah, you're buried in, you're doing it all, but you have no sense of completion. 

 And I think that,like I do, I relate it back to sport and I relate it back to [00:27:00] boxing and I relate it back to performance. The way boxers would do it is you'd have a 12 week camp, you'd have a fight, and thenyou'd work out how many times you need to be training a week, in what areas, how many times you need to be spending, what are you doing within them sessions to be able to fight this certain style and achieve this goal.

Yeah. Where throughout that camp, are you going to increase the intensity or change the training program slightly to be able to get more out of yourself on fight night? If I was to use that in my journey now, I would say, okay, I want to be in the States by 2027. I'm going to work back from that.

How are we going to get there with one that makes sense from a brand one that makes sense economically. And another is that in terms of, we're not going to just go there blindly and just jump in where, which would be stupid. We have a community there, and we've tested our product in that market.

So I'm working back from there. 

It's way more rewarding you know where you're going to go. It's not overwhelming because you've mapped out realistically what you actually can [00:28:00] do per month, per quarter, per year, which no founder ever does. And then when you start ticking off the list and you can see yourself getting in that direction and you're nearing that goal.

So exciting. 

 And I think that even for your team and for business, for company culture, when you hit their milestones, you celebrate, you celebrate, you have fun together, look what we've done, look what we're achieving.

Did you have a massive opening party for Victoria sight? Cause your new premises is phenomenal. I hope you 

Yeah, we did. We were celebrating to the lead up though. We were celebrating a lot. Like as soon as we hit a goal every week, we'd celebrate and have a few tequilas. 

 If you say tequila is healthy, then I'm still up for it. 

Yeah. I like a tequila. Yeah. Yeah. it's about balance as well. And just on the entrepreneur side, given that you were training other people and before that you were competing, how are you finding being your own boss? 

So I've always been my own boss. It's probably the happiest I've been on the journey of being an entrepreneur since I left my last gym about eight years ago and I went out [00:29:00] on my own, seven, eight years, it might have been seven years ago.

Went out on my own, had a couple of years of searching the market and really homing in on what I wanted to create. And then,it's the first time along that journey where I've been, where I'm actually like, I think I'm understanding this. I think I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at.

 I'm just enjoying it. I'm enjoying the challenges, whereas before I felt like I was always in the deep end, whereas now I feel like I'm enjoying the game of business and the chess game. And, what I've changed now, which has took me a long time is I actually, I'm really pleased with our product and I feel like it's having impact on people and that has changed the dynamic and my thought process towards it because I internally love it.

Do you know what I mean? And if I was to see any young entrepreneur, I'd say just create something that you love that you believe in and make sure your product is amazing.Before you [00:30:00] go to market and then obviously it's all about execution. It took me a long time to get that because I'm the type of person that will just jump and learn how to swim.

So interesting you say that because I weirdly came into podcasting only in the last five years of my career. I've always been in PR communications and I've always loved travel. It's been my biggest hobby and I'm getting to produce a travel podcast. I'm like, I am marrying all the nerdy parts of my brain in one place and this is just It just doesn't feel like work at all.

And it's when you do that and he's I've created this for myself. You almost feel a bit guilty. It was just like, really, this is work now? That excitement, that abnormal mental profit that's got nothing to do with money is what it is all about. 

I think as a founder,your goal is to create something and have a vision, but also you're the one that's meant to bring soul to it. And I think the way you bring soul is by having that deep passion about something and that's what your team should be feeding off, that's the goal, right?

You need to be able to get as many people as you can to feel that.

Yeah. [00:31:00] And then bringing it back to productivity quickly to end, what is your number one productivity practice that you rely on?

I train every day, I ice bath every day and I write down what I need to achieve and I journal once a week.

Ah, yeah. Someone else said that was a really helpful thing. Just getting it pen to paper.

Yeah, I'm terrible on a computer, so I don't, I can send emails, but everything is done in a book for me.

Apparently it's better for your hand eye contact. If it's pen to paper, not fingers to keyboard, it goes into your brain in a different way. So it definitely works. And I had a question from our previous guest last week, which was Eva, who founded 111SKIN. She's exploring AI apps and looking at how they could help her productivity.

And she wanted to ask you, have you come across any AI apps that you're finding really helpful, or have you just. Gone, no, not for me at the moment.

Yeah, no, I'm not a technology guy. I'm very like, in the stone age,

 I'm pen to paper guy. but my [00:32:00] team are much more organised and better at me and stuff like that. So I'm I'll just leave it to them and follow their lead. So I'll just stick to what I'm good at. Yes, exactly. so I'll just stick to what I'm good at.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And it, you clearly it's succeeding really well. what would your question be for the next guest? Anything around starting a business, productivity, anything that you've got burning in your brain at the moment around business?

If you was to give someonethe steps to be able to execute a startup perfectly, what would it be?

Everybody's going to want that, the blueprint to, because this is my favorite expression ever is experience is what you get after you've needed it because you go through the shit and then at the end you're like, Oh, now I know that I wouldn't have gone and done it that way.

But startup life is that every single day and as long as people are all right with that and completely comfortable with failure and it's no bad thing, you'll be 

fine.

Yeah. The other thing I would say is simplicity. Simplicity is a big [00:33:00] deal.Our goal as a leader is to be able to communicate our vision and our system to the team. And the more complicated it is, the harder it is to be able to communicate.

So keeping things simple and that's even to the customer as well, keeping things 

simple is a big deal. And we talk about it a lot, but the great entrepreneurs, if you look at Steve Jobs and,Henry Ford, I always listen to a podcast called founder, who talks you through stories of, entrepreneurs, brilliant. Have you listened to it? Oh, it's amazing. The great entrepreneurs, they have that in common where they keep things simple.

And I think it's, you can overlook it, but it's very important. When we work in our day job, when we help people do their own PR and we set up press offices in house for brands and businesses, the first thing we do is an audit on their communications and their business. And my first question when I meet them is, can you articulate your business in one breath?

It's not an elevator pitch. It's not a couple of minutes. It's one breath. And [00:34:00] 95 percent of people can't do it. They're so excited and passionate about it. They go on and on. It's no, you've lost people. Just one breath to what problem you're fixing for your client or what it is. It's really hard.

And it took me a year to get ours down saying it again and again. But that simplicity that someone can hear something, understand it, and then take it away. They're not going to remember an hour long conversation. They're going to remember key points that resonate with them.

Amazing. 

Yeah.

it was the same with boxing technique I learned last week as well. It's like very simple instruction and you remember it and you get better at it. So

Yeah, definitely. Fundamentals.

Thank you so much. it's been wonderful chatting to you. 

 Thank you for having me.

I really hope you've enjoyed George's episode. You can find a recap of all the advice he has so kindly shared along with his contact details in the show notes. This concludes our productivity season for 2024 and we come back in January in 2025 with a season focused all around sales.

This will be, I think our 13th season and it's amazing that it's taken us this long to get to it, but it's about time and we're kicking off with [00:35:00] Diipa who founded indē wild in January, so tune in to hear more.