Episode 114
How Successful Founders Can Still Burn Out | Adam Williams | #114
The business was working. Adam was running on empty.
A year after leaving his dream job to become a founder, Adam Williams had built a thriving podcast studio... But behind the success were relentless hours, no proper break and a business that still depended on him giving everything.
In Episode 114, Adam reveals the moment he realised that although the business was working, the way he was working wasn’t. We discuss the reality of entrepreneurship, the warning signs of founder burnout, learning to delegate, escaping the founder bottleneck and what happens when your identity becomes tied to your work.
Adam also reflects on ambition, self-acceptance, friendships and losing his mum to cancer at 19; including how grief shaped his perspective on mortality, gratitude and living more fully.
An honest conversation about entrepreneur burnout, founder mental health, starting a business, work-life balance, identity, resilience and building a successful company without losing the life outside it.
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Transcript
Adam, a year ago you quit what you called your dream job and invested your life savings in this podcast studio.
Speaker A:In the first year you got net revenue of 185,000.
Speaker A:But by the end of that year you said you were running an empty.
Speaker A:At what point did you realize that whilst the business was working the way that you were working was not?
Speaker B:Firstly, thanks for having me here.
Speaker B:Um, the.
Speaker B:When I reflected on this question, I was trying to think, was there a individual moment?
Speaker B:And it's hard to find those individual moments, but I started to pick up these like little sense of things that were popping up at the time that made me realize that this, this thing that I built maybe didn't turn out how I wanted it to.
Speaker B:And I think it made me reflect on this, I suppose, concept or idea of like your expectations and your reality.
Speaker B:And I think taking a step back a little bit, I was working at a job, I was, had this great social impact mission, had a ton of autonomy, I was earning good money.
Speaker B:But there was always this kind of voice in the back of my head that said, is there more to life than say, working this corporate 9 till 5 for the next 40 years of my life?
Speaker B:And you have these big ideas of, oh, if I had a business then my life would be amazing and everything would be great and the grass would be so much greener.
Speaker B:And I did take that leap.
Speaker B:That was enough motivation for me to go, I want to leave that, that kind of.
Speaker B:Or sacrifice the, the good life I had for the non guaranteed great.
Speaker B:But when you then start a business, the first six months or 12 months to your question, everything's fun, everything is new, everything is novel.
Speaker B:You have this, you have, have access to this untapped motivation that's just like limitless.
Speaker B:And you wake up every day and you're like, yes, yes, yes, let's, let's, let's do it right.
Speaker B:And then you start to get to a point where you've used so much brute force to build this business that, and I remember it, one of the kind of moments I remembered, it was like 11 o' clock a Tuesday night.
Speaker B:I've been in here, I'd worked since like 8am that day.
Speaker B:And I was just like, I don't know if I can actually carry on at this pace anymore.
Speaker B:Like, I haven't, I haven't built the business to survive without just like brute force.
Speaker B:And I think that initial brute force stage is absolutely necessary.
Speaker B:You have to go through that.
Speaker B:But there comes a point then when you have to be like, all right now I need to actually build some operations in because I was just trapped.
Speaker B:The business couldn't well work unless I was putting in that exact amount of output, which was like 100 of what I could give at that time.
Speaker A:Yeah, that initial spark, that brute force is what you need to get things moving.
Speaker A:But you need to also set up the background stuff which obviously you realized.
Speaker A:When you say you reflected on the expectations versus the reality, what were your expectations going into it and what was the reality that you found on the other side?
Speaker B:I think everyone fetishizes around the idea of having a business or like some people do, right.
Speaker B:You got people that are like, oh, if I had a business I could like work when I want and you'd have loads of money and like life is just like easy and great and you can, how great would it be to just like not work one day?
Speaker B:And it, it technically is a lot of those things, but it's also the complete opposite and there's a lot of trade offs.
Speaker B:So I think my expectations going into it were like, it's going to be a lot of work, but it will give me that element of freedom.
Speaker B:But to be honest, the first like six months and only really up until recently, that kind of freedom element just wasn't there at all.
Speaker B:I was a little bit fortunate that from like a revenue perspective, I think where we're a podcast studio in London Bridge, like the demand has always been there.
Speaker B:So there's never that level of stress from a financial perspective, which I'm very grateful for and I did have that expectation.
Speaker B:I did think I'm going to be stressing around money.
Speaker B:Fortunately we haven't had to.
Speaker B:So most of the kind of stresses come from like questioning what you're doing.
Speaker B:The first six months is like I have no questions about my life.
Speaker B:Like, like I know what I'm doing every day wake up with purpose of like this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker B:But then as the business starts to grow and build and whatever and you think about, okay, what does the next three years or five years or ten years look like?
Speaker B:You then just start having all these second guesses and questions over and over and over again.
Speaker B:And I think I didn't realize that would be a part of it.
Speaker B:I just presumed that you'd have so much focus and clarity that this is like, everything's great.
Speaker B:I know what I'm doing.
Speaker B:But also I think running a business is, is constantly questioning what the am I actually doing in my life right now.
Speaker A:Just spinning plates.
Speaker A:Yeah, everywhere.
Speaker A:When you say that at the end of that first year, you're running on empty.
Speaker A:What did that actually look like in your day to day life?
Speaker B:So I kind of mentioned it earlier that like the first few months, unlimited free motivation, like sound great, all good, but they kind of got to a point where you'd wake up and you'd look at your day and you'd look at your to do list and you're just like, I don't, I don't even want to do this anymore.
Speaker B:And I know that's such a weird thing to say, but the, any kind of love for it just started disappearing.
Speaker B:And at first I ignored that because I was like, that's a bit weird.
Speaker B:This is like my business, my baby.
Speaker B:Like this is what I wanted to do, right?
Speaker B:But I, on reflection, that was signs of burnout, right?
Speaker B:When you lose the motivation for the things that, that usually give you motivation.
Speaker B:Like I would turn up at, I don't know, 8, 9 o'.
Speaker B:Clock, I'd be feeling motivated in the morning because I'd like slept well and I'd gone gym and done my morning routine.
Speaker B:And that gets you in a good state, right?
Speaker B:But then you'd get to the end of the day after 10, 11 hours and you'd look at your to do list and you're like, how have I worked this many hours and not actually achieved anything?
Speaker B:And I think that's again, another sign of burnout is one like losing that kind of motivation to do the work.
Speaker B:But then the actual productivity of the work starts to deplete and deplete and deplete and you're putting the inputs there, but the output's not.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then it was only kind of when you start chatting to people and you're like, yeah, that's probably burnout.
Speaker B:That is probably burnout.
Speaker B:I don't think I fully solved that yet.
Speaker B:But yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Do you still get those days that come up now where you sort of question things and you like that same level?
Speaker A:Or I suppose over time you've worked out that when that crops up, that's something to look into instead of avoiding?
Speaker B:I think those signals can mean a few different things.
Speaker B:The signals could mean I actually do need to make a strategic change here.
Speaker B:The signal could just be, no, no, no, you've just not slept properly for a few weeks or you've overworked.
Speaker B:So I have actually had to kind of think, okay, is this me just in a bit of a shitty mood or actually is there a signal here that I need to listen to from a business or Even just life perspective as well.
Speaker B:Someone actually said this on a podcast a while ago that was listening to, and they were a female founder in here.
Speaker B:And they're like, entrepreneurship is essential.
Speaker B:Essentially, just on this emotional roller coaster of, like, one day you're like, my life's great.
Speaker B:Like, I love this business that everything's going really well.
Speaker B:Like, you see a lot of revenue come in, or you have a good day, and then, like, immediately the next day, like, something goes wrong and you're like, oh, my God, I hate my life.
Speaker B:I hate the business.
Speaker B:What am I doing with my life?
Speaker B:And it is literally just how quickly you can recover from those, like, cycles of elation to what the am I doing with my life?
Speaker A:Yeah, I suppose you've got to, like, try and zoom out into this bird's eye view of it, but it's so difficult to do when you've invested everything you have into it, time and money.
Speaker A:Like, it's so difficult to step back and make those decisions from a logical place when you're so emotionally involved in it.
Speaker A:But I suppose over time, again, that's something that you've worked out.
Speaker A:You said that when you were speaking to certain people, you're recognizing that it was burnout, the start of burnout.
Speaker A:Was it you that recognized it, or was it other people recognizing things in your behavior that led to that realization?
Speaker B:A mix of both.
Speaker B:I recognized it, but slightly ignored it, knowing that I still needed to use brute force to, like, get to a point where I knew I could start solving some of those problems and hiring in a great team.
Speaker B:Jamie and Lula and previously Henry.
Speaker B:I would say my friends and family probably noticed it where, from a friend's perspective, I would cancel a lot of social plans for the first six months.
Speaker B:I literally messaged them, being like, I'm not going to be around as much.
Speaker B:I still love you, but I'm just not going to be around.
Speaker B:I need to focus on this.
Speaker B:But it was when I then started going back out and seeing my friends and organizing plans for me.
Speaker B:It was like, I love my friends.
Speaker B:I love spending time with them.
Speaker B:But the thought of, like, meeting your friends after work and having to switch off and be present, like, that in itself started getting to me.
Speaker B:And I was like, why am I not even motivated to see my friends right now?
Speaker B:And then even when I was with or out having a coffee or having a pint, it wasn't that I was thinking about work necessarily, but I wasn't present.
Speaker B:And you kind of just sat there going, I just feel flat like, why aren't I enjoying this moment?
Speaker B:And then you were like, self analyzing in the moment about not being in the moment.
Speaker B:And then that just like gets you into this cycle.
Speaker B:I've always been pretty good at chatting to friends and family around, like, what my current mental state is like.
Speaker B:For me, I process it by talking about it to people, so I was quite open.
Speaker B:So I think it was probably a mix of, like, them noticing, but also me kind of coming to them and actually actively talking about it as well.
Speaker A:What's the inside of your mind like in those moments?
Speaker A:Like those overanalyzing?
Speaker A:Because me personally, when I'm not doing something or I realize that I'm not doing something I should be doing, I start to self critique.
Speaker A:And I think everyone will admit to some level, like, we are our own harshest critics.
Speaker A:But what was the inside of your mind like in those moments when you were recognizing those things?
Speaker A:Like, you said you were in a public space, but you weren't really being present.
Speaker A:And then you were telling yourself off of him for not being present whilst you were there.
Speaker A:And how quickly could you sort of flip that back to positive?
Speaker B:I would say I probably struggle with that kind of thing on a daily basis.
Speaker B:If not, like, you may have a few days when you're.
Speaker B:You're kind of feeling all right.
Speaker B:But it's weird, isn't it?
Speaker B:You almost feel like, guilty for the secondary emotions.
Speaker B:Like the initial emotion being like, oh, I don't feel present, or I feel a bit anxious.
Speaker B:But then the secondary emotion is like, now I'm anxious about being anxious, and then I'm guilty about not being myself.
Speaker B:And I don't know if you experience this at all, but, like, you almost have this weird idea of your future self, your best self, like, that's who, that's who the real Adam is.
Speaker B:And it's that guy, like.
Speaker B:And Chris Williams has, like, you can hear him clearing his throat in the room next door.
Speaker B:And it's like, whenever you're not living in alignment with becoming that person, there's this instant signal of like, I am doing something wrong here.
Speaker B:And I don't know how healthy that is.
Speaker B:I think it's like one of those things where it's like, that's really good.
Speaker B:I think Chris Williamson uses the analogy, like, if you have those kind of thoughts and feelings and you can use that as motivation to get you from point to.
Speaker B:From point A to point B, but eventually that fuel source isn't a viable fuel source to use as motivation going forward in the same way A rocket uses the big fuel canisters to get it into the out the atmosphere.
Speaker B:It then loses those and uses a different fuel source.
Speaker B:And I feel like I don't know where I am in that kind of journey right now of still using the I'm not where I want to be yet fuel.
Speaker B:But I know like I know at some point I'm going to have to kind of flip that mindset to be I'm happy with who I am now, but maybe I can be better.
Speaker B:And that's what Mark Manson says about it is I'm good enough now but I can always be better.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And this is almost touching on to like the paradox of self development whereby to be in point A and want to move to point B, you have to recognize that point that where you are now is subpar.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because it's not as good as where you want to get to.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But there's always going to be a future or better version of yourself.
Speaker B:There's always going to be a point B.
Speaker B:So that means you're always living in a place of being subpar.
Speaker B:That's not probably not a very good life to live if you're always feeling like you're behind.
Speaker B:Well the answer to that one would say is like oh, have more self acceptance.
Speaker B:But if you dial up self acceptance too much, are you then at risk of being too complacent with who you are and then not being able to change?
Speaker B:And again it's like I don't know if there's a specific answer.
Speaker B:It's very meta.
Speaker B:But again Mark Manson kind of concludes that with I am good enough as I am now, but I can always be better.
Speaker B:But on a day to day like it's a constant bow.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's balance, isn't it?
Speaker A:And I suppose the counter to that you're always in like part.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:You're always in a position where you're in place A rather than place B.
Speaker A:So you're in a subpar.
Speaker A:You're also always in a place where you're in place B for a previous version of you.
Speaker A:Like there'll be a version of you in the past that would look at where you are now and go wow, I want to be there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Do you know what the Sorry.
Speaker B:That she just reminded me of a shower for I had and it was kind of first time.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was the first time I'd like had that frame of thinking that's just reminded me and it was.
Speaker B:This sounds a little bit egotistic but it's Almost exactly what you said there is.
Speaker B:If I saw someone else living my life now where they'd quit their job and they'd started a podcast studio and they were doing all these things, I would be so jealous them because I'd look at that and go, that's my.
Speaker B:That's my perfect life.
Speaker B:Like, that's what I'd want to do.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:And then it was just smiling at myself being like, oh, but that is me now.
Speaker B:But like, it's so hard to like reframe your mind to have those moments to be like, I am literally living adam's dream from 14 months ago now.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker A:It's something that I probably more in like the gym setting growing up.
Speaker A:Like, that's.
Speaker A:That was my thing.
Speaker A:And when I was like first starting off, I'd look at, look at like guys in the gym be like, oh, shows like that size as I wish I was a bit more muscular, a bit stronger, I could lift that.
Speaker A:And then like now I still sing that and I'm like, I'm tiny.
Speaker A:But then I look back to me then and I'm like, actually you'd have probably been pretty proud of like where you are actually.
Speaker B:You're a.
Speaker A:What you can do.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, somewhat.
Speaker A:But yeah, like, it's that, it's that idea of just, it's balancing self kindness with still wanting to be more and like keep progressing yourself, which is I suppose just the balance of life, like trying to control that inner thought experience for yourself.
Speaker A:I wanted to touch on your past job.
Speaker A:So as I said at the start, you described it as your dream job, but you, this is also your dream.
Speaker A:So you've, you've left this job that you enjoyed.
Speaker A:You found some positive feeling from.
Speaker A:To start this.
Speaker A:Talk me through that process for you.
Speaker B:So my old job, zero gravity, like incredible social mission of helping kids from lower opportunity backgrounds get into education and careers.
Speaker B:Platform of 32,000 members and we would double their chance of getting into uni and in some cases double their chances of getting a job.
Speaker B:I joined as the founding service person, came in, built out the go to market strategy from scratch.
Speaker B:10X their revenue in about 2 1/2 years.
Speaker B:Had a ton of autonomy, was paid all right, loved my colleagues, had a great social mission, was working in the city for the first time.
Speaker B:I was selling to these big like city firms.
Speaker B:So I got to play small startup life, but then I got to go into the big city offices and play corporate for an afternoon and stuff.
Speaker B:On paper, when I was in my early 20s.
Speaker B:That was my dream job, was to be like in a job selling something useful to people, you know, taking on that consultative role, living in London.
Speaker B:It almost goes back to what we were just saying, though.
Speaker B:It's just like, that was what I wanted.
Speaker B:And then you have it for like two and a half, three years and then it's just like, oh, actually this isn't the goalpost anymore.
Speaker B:Like the goalpost is now completely shifted.
Speaker B:And if anything, the fear of staying in that job was more scary than quitting my job, investing my life savings and loaning a load of money to then start this business.
Speaker B:Like that.
Speaker B:This seemed like something fun and exciting.
Speaker B:Whereas staying in any kind of corporate role, perhaps where like the next 40 years of your life you can roughly map out like that to me was like that.
Speaker B:That's scary to me.
Speaker A:Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker A:What was it about that that was like so fearful that it was less scary than leaving and jumping into the unknown?
Speaker B:I think a couple of things.
Speaker B:One is the, like a sales role, specifically, like sales cycles are very similar.
Speaker B:You can sell to different people and you can sell a different thing, but the actual sales cycle and the frameworks and the phrases I would use, it would kind of repeat over and over and over again.
Speaker B:I'm probably someone that likes a bit of novelty and change and changing things up and taking a risk, but equally and again, don't want to talk bad of the odd companies.
Speaker B:Zero gravity.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Great company, love them, great team.
Speaker B:But there was all these moments where your financial future was in the hands of someone else.
Speaker B:Like someone else got to determine how much value you're worth.
Speaker B:And I get that.
Speaker B:That's like, that's life, that's jobs, that's never going to go away.
Speaker B:But for me, I was like, I need to take control of some of those things.
Speaker B:At the same time, the concept of a job and working, you're always trading time for money.
Speaker B:That is the equation and it doesn't change.
Speaker B:Maybe if you're at a company and you're at the right stage, you'll get some equity and that equity may pay out in the future.
Speaker B:A little bit less common nowadays in terms of kind of mid or junior to mid roles.
Speaker B:So for me it was like that 40 years.
Speaker B:I can picture it.
Speaker B:I can see what that looks like and that's actually not something that I want.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What does this give you?
Speaker A:This running this studio that that job didn't?
Speaker A:What was missing from that?
Speaker A:That this gives you, do you think, more autonomy?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And control.
Speaker B:Not over Just the, like when I start work or any of those things, I don't necessarily think that's too important, to be honest.
Speaker B:Plus I probably work more hours than I did in that job anyway.
Speaker B:But it's like today I want to work on X work.
Speaker B:Like today.
Speaker B:That's what's interesting me the most.
Speaker B:So I'm going to focus on that project.
Speaker B:Yeah, or you're always going to have like emergency things or like just things that need to be done, answering emails and the invoices and stuff.
Speaker B:So I like the autonomy of, like, I'm going to focus on this now.
Speaker B:But equally like your learning curve, I think of like life and career is exponential when you're running your own business.
Speaker B:Like the amount of things that you have to touch as a business owner every single day, whether it's, what's your finance strategy, what's your pricing structure, how do I edit a podcast in a particular way, how do I deal with email comms going out, how do I think about my social media strategy?
Speaker B:Like, and that's just like, that might just be some of the things I, I think about or cover just in one day.
Speaker B:Whereas I think if you're in a job, it was like, okay, I need to prospect and do 50 cold calls, send some emails, do some qualification calls, do some demo calls and then follow up emails.
Speaker B:And that was kind of the same activities that I would do each day.
Speaker B:So whereas now I think I do fry from having like the novelty of having to think about so much and trying my hand and learning how to do a cash flow analysis for the next 90 days.
Speaker B:Because we've got a second studio opening and it's like, that doesn't sound very fun at the face of it, but I was like, I'm actually buzzing to do that.
Speaker B:Me and Claude just sat down for four hours and it's just like, let's just, let's just figure this out as we go.
Speaker B:So I think, yeah, novelty and autonomy over the actions that you're doing, but then also like choosing who you work with.
Speaker B:We've got Jamie and Lula and the team.
Speaker B:Like, I enjoy coming to work, working with these people, not just because some of them are in the room.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think you have more control.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:And I suppose you, like, you learn more things, you're trying out your hand, all these things.
Speaker A:So you're seeing it as an opportunity to learn about something, see if you get on with it, you can offload it to someone else potentially, but not the start.
Speaker A:You're doing everything right you're just.
Speaker A:And I just want to jump back into that first six months you said about that really intense period.
Speaker A:Remember I spoke to a couple of times and it was just nonstop.
Speaker A:You said you're doing like 10, 11, 12 hour days whilst that you realize now that wasn't a permanent way to work going forward.
Speaker A:What did that period of the work teach you.
Speaker B:Going into that period?
Speaker B:I signed a like mental contract with myself that I was going to sacrifice every single other thing in my life other than this business, like dating, social, did keeping like gym and exercise and stuff because I knew that that was important.
Speaker B:And I realized that when you are able to sacrifice these other things in your life that pull your attention, it's really liberating to wake up and have one goal, one focus, one thing.
Speaker B:Taking your attention albeit within that it subdivides by like a million different things.
Speaker B:Lots of eyes is really liberating.
Speaker B:And you can achieve cliche but you can achieve so much more than you probably thought was ever possible.
Speaker B:Like I look back at that now and I'm like cool, I wish I could dial that back up again a little bit just for a few months and see what else I could achieve during that time.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think I learned like the usefulness of it and it also gave me a lot of confidence that I can achieve a lot more than I thought I could in life.
Speaker B:Like I've always had a good sense of like core like deep in a belief of confidence that I can go and achieve things and stuff on a day to day basis that doesn't always float up.
Speaker B:Like I still have to actively remind myself that I can do those things.
Speaker B:It's not just like unlimited confidence.
Speaker B:But I think coming off the back of that like six months I looked at it and I was like fucking hell Adam.
Speaker B:Like kind of didn't know you had that in you like we hoped we did.
Speaker B:But like it's nice now to look back and see evidence.
Speaker B:I think on to give a more balanced answer though.
Speaker B:Like I also learned that like while I could do that a couple more times at some point in the future, definitely not sustainable.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's definitely harmed some of my like friendships and stuff now as well.
Speaker B:And not in any kind of bad way but it's like the, if I look back at like okay, what's my core memories outside of work over the last year and a half and it's like I don't really have any.
Speaker B:Yeah, necessary sacrifice perhaps, I don't know.
Speaker B:But I am consciously trying to like reconnect with friends and get back into dating knowing that that's.
Speaker B:Now that tank is kind of running on empty.
Speaker A:Do you think it was a necessary, necessary sacrifice?
Speaker A:Would you do it again now if you were in the same place?
Speaker B:I think now you've got more resources, you can be more smart with your time and.
Speaker B:But at the start of a business you don't have resources.
Speaker B:Like it's just you and you're just like this just has to work.
Speaker B:I just need to put in the time.
Speaker B:It's nice to know I can dial that up.
Speaker B:I think it's just if I do, I dial that up in shorter periods.
Speaker B:So last time it was like six, seven months.
Speaker B:I could probably do three, four weeks and then a bit of a break and then dial back in again.
Speaker B:And I think that's probably how I design my life in the future is going into mini sprint periods then having many retirement periods on like a shorter cycle.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Microdosing it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I just.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That that's.
Speaker B:I'm more excited to work in that way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Than any other way.
Speaker B:And I guess that's where corporate life maybe didn't work so well when it's just like almost a constant, not necessarily sprint but like a constant marathon run.
Speaker A:After the first six months it got to the point where you realize that you need to bring more people in.
Speaker A:Obviously again at the start you didn't have the resources as you said.
Speaker A:Like it has to be you.
Speaker A:It has to be brute force and you got that point where you're ready to bring someone in at that stage.
Speaker A:How difficult was it for you to hand over part of the runnings of things?
Speaker A:It's something that you've created from the ground up.
Speaker A:How did you find that personally?
Speaker B:So we took on the first team member, Henry, who's now moved to Australia a few months ago.
Speaker B:He joined in August, end of August.
Speaker B:It was only about three months in that they then brought on first team member.
Speaker B:To be honest, the kind of offloading of responsibilities and those types of things, it, it wasn't too difficult because I had no choice.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It was like there's no way I can do all of these things right now.
Speaker B:So like it was, it was more through necessity.
Speaker B:I definitely think I still to this day struggle to offload the more client facing activities.
Speaker B:But I think that's more based on the fact that my entire career has been sales and client facing.
Speaker B:And it's like that's where I'm most confident.
Speaker B:That's where I know I add most value.
Speaker A:Value.
Speaker B:And I think if you hire people that are just genuinely decent people, they're nice, you know, they've got the right kind of almost like skill and will.
Speaker B:So like the, the willpower, the, the want to do something and then also the skills that go with that, skills you can kind of teach.
Speaker B:But the willpower kind of just has to be there as a necessity.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Or as a foundation.
Speaker B:So when I brought in Henry, like within, you know, like a few months, there was a level of like, I trust you to do your thing.
Speaker B:And then over the kind of six, seven, eight months he was with us, it was like more and more responsibility would then go on to him.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Going on to the question, it's like out of necessity, I had to offload some of those things.
Speaker B:Yes, it's probably difficult sometimes, but I still probably don't offload the things that I enjoy and I know I probably add more value on.
Speaker A:Okay, so you, you base it on the things that you're maybe good at.
Speaker A:Obviously the things you enjoy as well, you sort of stay on top of as well.
Speaker B:And, and what the business demands are.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's just like is, am I becoming a bottleneck in the growth of the business?
Speaker B:And, and I'm, and am I a bottleneck that makes life harder for team members?
Speaker B:And if yes, it's like, then okay, really need to offload it.
Speaker B:But I still, I won't mention names, but like, I know an example of a very big agency where the founder does not relinquish any of the decision making power.
Speaker B:And that means that those individuals in the team are working way above and beyond what they need to, because to try and get things signed off, to move on to the next stage.
Speaker B:So then waiting for the owner, the founders to come in and be like, yes, yes, yes, and put in their input and then that delays things over and over and over again.
Speaker B:It's almost getting to the point where I know some of those individuals are like, we can't work here anymore.
Speaker B:And it all comes down to the founder's confidence.
Speaker B:I don't know if it's confidence in their team or confidence that,.
Speaker A:Or maybe.
Speaker B:A bit of ego maybe of not wanting to let go of that power.
Speaker B:Like, I don't know what the kind of psyche behind that is, but that I think is the biggest thing that will stop businesses growing.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, I've seen that in a few spaces where people can't let things go.
Speaker A:It's that micromanaging essentially.
Speaker A:Like everything has to go through one person still.
Speaker A:It's like There has to be a point where certain things that aren't like, risk, critical things can be offloaded to people in a position who are competent enough to make those decisions.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And also, like I say to a team all the time, like, you're going to make mistakes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like, if we're doing 30 podcasts a week, like on average over a month, let's say 1 or 2% of something's going to go wrong.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But equally like, if I look back on the last eight months or like over 12 months now, how many mistakes have I made when it was the first time I was doing things?
Speaker B:It's like, if I'm going to make mistakes, then I expect my team to make mistakes as well.
Speaker B:So even when you are a linking power, it's just like you kind of have to know that there's going to be mistakes in there.
Speaker B:As an owner, you have to take extreme ownership on.
Speaker B:Okay, am I building the right processes and training in place and stuff like that?
Speaker B:And Jamie's gonna hate hearing that because amount of like, SOPs I've built on notion over the last month or so is probably killing him at the same time as well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think that's such an important point to make as well, about making mistakes and learning from them.
Speaker A:Like, no one makes a mistake on purpose, but if we look back at it, what can we learn from it?
Speaker A:How can we make it better in the future?
Speaker A:And when I spoke to Sean Conway on this podcast, he's done ultra endurance events.
Speaker A:He did iron 105, 105 iron man distance in 105 days, all sorts of crazy world records.
Speaker A:And the way that he frames mistakes or failure in his case is just by changing the word.
Speaker A:He just calls it a hiccup.
Speaker A:And the word hiccup versus the word failure seems so much smaller.
Speaker A:So he set off on this idea to do 105 Ironmans, 105 days, and within the first 10 days, fell off his bike, damaged the ligament, his ankle, and couldn't carry on.
Speaker A:And like, a lot of people would have been like, it wasn't meant to be that that's it.
Speaker A:He just like it was a hiccup or go again in less than a year and then he just smashed it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's like changing something that seems so minor can change a lot going forward.
Speaker A:And for someone like yourself who is like working with people now and to be able to instill that in them is such an important thing.
Speaker B:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker B:It's like, I'm sure Jamie Won't mind me saying.
Speaker B:It's like when, I don't know, early in the few weeks, like, one mistake was made on one edit, and then from that, when we went to fix it, we then ended up learning not only how to fix that mistake, but there was two other things that we then came across that we were like, oh, actually, like, this is also how I would do this and this is also how I do that.
Speaker B:And then we just reframe that situation from that.
Speaker B:One mistake has now led to, like three separate learnings.
Speaker B:And two of those learnings would never have come up because I would never have thought to teach those types of things.
Speaker B:So for me, it's just like, where's the opportunity in that situation?
Speaker B:And I also always ask myself the question, like, is it people or process?
Speaker B:Like, if something's gone wrong, okay, well, did I build a process for it?
Speaker B:Like, have I done my bit to make sure that whoever's doing a job has the things that they need to do those things?
Speaker B:And then, okay, if it's.
Speaker B:If the process is that, does it actually work?
Speaker B:Did I actually, like, have we repeated it enough?
Speaker B:Is the actual kind of learning retention there?
Speaker B:But if not, if it's people, okay, is it just human error?
Speaker B:Is it like the back end of a long day when we've had a busy week?
Speaker B:Like, those things are going to happen?
Speaker B:Like, that's just kind of part of life, really, in that.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:Another thing that I wanted to ask you about, which I've spoken again a lot on this podcast about.
Speaker A:Regardless of where people have been in their life, what journey they've been on, identity is a word that always crops up.
Speaker A:And I think with founders as well, and especially in your case and a lot of people's case, where that first portion of it is so intense and it's everything in your life you said you dropped, like almost everything else.
Speaker A:How do you stop the idea of you being a founder, becoming who you are, and making sure that at the core you are still Adam?
Speaker B:I don't know if I've worked that out yet, because what I've noticed is a lot of my self talk and confidence relates to how good a day or month we've had in the business.
Speaker B:And that's not even from like just a revenue perspective.
Speaker B:It's just like, how are things going if you've got lots of exciting things going on?
Speaker B:It's like, yeah, I'm opening a second studio and we've just hit this number and we're scaling the team and we're doing this, this, and this.
Speaker B:It's like, naturally you.
Speaker B:You kind of get some confidence, like, things are going well, you feel good, but.
Speaker B:But equally when vice versa, things aren't going to go so well.
Speaker B:I have started to notice that.
Speaker B:And it's almost like when I was questioning things around the business, and it was just like, then you start questioning things about yourself as well.
Speaker B:So I've.
Speaker B:I don't know if I fully learned how to separate my own identity from the business.
Speaker B:But then I also have to recognize that I'm only a year into doing this, hopefully for an entire lifetime.
Speaker B:I'll have time to kind of figure that out going forward.
Speaker B:I've already recognized that I need to kind of build up other areas in my life so my identity isn't just tied to.
Speaker B:To work.
Speaker B:Like I was trying to think the other day, I was just like, I need a hobby that isn't on a screen.
Speaker B:That also isn't exercise, because you can't.
Speaker B:Because I'm just like, oh, yeah.
Speaker B:My hobbies are surfing, climbing, yoga.
Speaker A:Like, someone asked me, what do you do for fun?
Speaker A:And I was like, I go to the gym.
Speaker B:They're like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And I was just like.
Speaker B:And I actually had a bit of an accidental crisis on the safe run at Sunday night.
Speaker B:And I was like, what do I enjoy other than working and then doing some kind of movement?
Speaker B:But I yet to find a hobby that keeps me entertained.
Speaker B:And like, it doesn't overdo your brain, but, like, stimulates your brain enough that isn't a screen.
Speaker A:Reading fiction.
Speaker B:Pardon?
Speaker A:Reading fiction.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Red Rising.
Speaker A:Just finished that.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But again, that's like on the commute before bed.
Speaker B:I wouldn't call that like a. Yeah,.
Speaker A:It's not like a. I do that.
Speaker B:So I don't have to make awkward eye contact with someone on the tube.
Speaker B:But going back to your.
Speaker B:Your question, I think I haven't figured it out.
Speaker B:I know it's a issue that I'll probably have to face further down the line.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Kind of ready to face it as and when it comes up.
Speaker B:I don't see it affecting me too much in a negative sense.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right now, like, it's not.
Speaker B:I'm not having an existential crisis.
Speaker B:That's too bad.
Speaker B:Too often.
Speaker A:Too often.
Speaker B:Too often.
Speaker B:It's good to schedule a mentor in every, like, once a month or so in that, like, it's.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's such a. I see it a lot.
Speaker A: of people retire having done: Speaker A:And over those years, they've made this job their identity.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's the thing that they are.
Speaker A:It's who they are.
Speaker A:And that you get this a lot in the military and other services where you do these long careers and it gives you purpose that then when you retire, you sort of feel lost and you then become a retired firefighter.
Speaker A:That's still got to say that, because that's who I am.
Speaker A:And I spoke to James Elliott on the podcast, who was a paratrooper and.
Speaker B:Watch a lot of his content.
Speaker B:Yeah, he's really, really good.
Speaker B:Years ago, like five, six years ago.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So he's.
Speaker A:He's an ex paratrooper.
Speaker A:He then went out and studied, like psychology and understands a lot about resilience and stuff like that.
Speaker A:And we were talking about identity with him.
Speaker A:He was talking about how we.
Speaker A:The words we use.
Speaker A:So rather than using words like firefighter, police officer, military, using adjectives and verbs.
Speaker A:So over a noun, use adjectives and verbs.
Speaker A:So creative leader, things that can be molded.
Speaker A:So for me, something like service would be something that I would then say, because I think back to when I was doing PT work, I was serving the person that walked into the gym for the first time.
Speaker A:When I then moved into the fire brigade, I'm serving the person on their, like, potentially the worst day of their life.
Speaker A:Doing the Samaritans, volunteering on the phones for a year, serving those people, like doing the podcast, hopefully serving the listeners with some information that can help them reflect on their own life.
Speaker A:So that's just one example for me.
Speaker A:But I think it really stuck with me, that idea of using words to describe ourselves that we can actually mold through whatever you do.
Speaker B:I really like that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Is there any words that come to mind for you?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Interestingly, I was at the Crater Leaders, like, business retreat.
Speaker B:You go to like a spa and like a champagne spa outside London.
Speaker B:And training.
Speaker B:You do, like, workshops and keynotes, and then you have a nice spa session.
Speaker B:And one of the sessions was actually on identity.
Speaker B:And a bit of a cliche that got everyone to go around the room and introduce themselves to like a random person.
Speaker B:But you couldn't tell them what you do for work.
Speaker B:So it was just like, I am someone.
Speaker B:And then you have to do it like 10 times.
Speaker B:So you do the easy ones.
Speaker B:Like, I am someone that enjoys sport or doing this, this, and this.
Speaker B:And I, I like.
Speaker B:I mean, I often do this.
Speaker B:Like, I instantly went to, like, the deeper things.
Speaker B:So it was just like, hi, I'm Adam.
Speaker B:I Enjoy the.
Speaker B:Or I'm fascinated by like the, the texture of my mind and how I think about the world, the good and the bad.
Speaker B:Or I'm someone that experienced grief early on in life and has taken lots from that.
Speaker B:But I really like your adjectives on two Dyslexics to know the difference between those sort of words.
Speaker A:I think it's adjectives and verbs over nouns.
Speaker A:So a noun would be like firefighter.
Speaker B:I believe when, when you mentioned that, I. I think what came to mind was creative.
Speaker B:I think by that I mean, like, I like doing new stuff and like having a problem to solve and like using my mind to do something.
Speaker B:I think leader would, would probably come up.
Speaker B:I think I find myself kind of throughout my career, found myself in quite a lot of leadership positions, particularly when situations are going wrong and it's like you almost enter that flow state of like, okay, like stay calm here.
Speaker B:Well, what do I need to do in, in this situation?
Speaker A:Leadership can be internal as well.
Speaker A:So you're, you're doing external leadership, but you're.
Speaker A:Whether you call it leadership or not, internal leadership is necessary before you take external as well.
Speaker B:I think reflective as well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Or over analytic, however you want to frame that.
Speaker A:Overthinker.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think everyone, everyone, like is trying to be better in life is going to have that feeling as well.
Speaker A:You mentioned there briefly about grief.
Speaker A:We'll see.
Speaker A:You lost your mom at a young age.
Speaker A:19, Was it?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I know you've told that story on other podcasts.
Speaker A:So without going too far into this story behind it, I just want to understand how that at that point of your life sort of shape things going forward into what we've been talking about so far.
Speaker B:Hmm.
Speaker B:So I think we're going too much into the, the context, but.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker B:I was 19 at the time.
Speaker B:10, 11 Months later, she passed away.
Speaker B:I was home living with her in Devon.
Speaker B:I then started university.
Speaker B:I was three weeks into uni in the kind of September, October time is when she passed away.
Speaker B:Obviously I had a whole year to think about that situation and kind of knew it was coming per se because she got diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and then went on to lots of other parts of her body.
Speaker B:Pretty difficult thing to go through as a 19 year old.
Speaker B:Starting uni.
Speaker B:You're trying to navigate like your end of your teenage years, your early twenties, university, moving out for the first time like it was.
Speaker B:I think it's a pretty anxiety inducing period of life in general.
Speaker B:And then I had to try and navigate that alongside a life without my mum.
Speaker B:I think some of the positives I've taken from it are one, my benchmark for stress and difficult times is really high now.
Speaker B:I think the you do hard stuff, you can do more hard stuff type thing like I think when that happened to me so young, when I did, I think if you ask my friends how I dealt with it at the time, I think they would probably all say I dealt with it well.
Speaker B:They would all say I was very kind of level headed, I looked at it for what it is.
Speaker B:But I, I tried to find positives and opportunities in, in every moment.
Speaker B:More out of like necessity, more out of like, I don't know how else I'm going to get through this unless I just kind of take a little bit of a logical mindset towards it.
Speaker B:What I've done since then is spent the last 10 years using cognitive reframing to reframe that entire situation.
Speaker B:To say I can't change what's happened, but I can change the kind of meaning that I attached to it.
Speaker B:And the idea according to reframing is whatever happens in life, we instantly attach a meaning to it.
Speaker B:Often because of our negativity bias, will put a slightly more negative spin perhaps on what it is.
Speaker B:Cognitive reframing is actively going in to go, okay, what, what meaning have I attached to this situation and is that helpful or can I actually choose to change that now?
Speaker B:So for me I was just like, well, can't change the situation but, and this is going to be with me now for the rest of my life.
Speaker B:So what's like the absolute best thing meaning that I can attach to it?
Speaker B:And I landed on gratitude.
Speaker B:I am grateful for my mum passing away because of what she gave me, because of the resilience early on, you know, like a white head and all shoulders, whatever the phrase is, the ability now to help friends and other family members navigate grief as well if they lose it.
Speaker B:And I've had a few friends and ex girlfriends that have lost parents and family members and it's like I'm able to empathize in such a greater level with them.
Speaker B:Like how great the gift is that my mum gave me that I can now go and help other people.
Speaker B:I think the, the other thing that's come from it is this sounds really wanky but like the, the mortality of life.
Speaker B:That again, very cliche saying but like life is short.
Speaker B:But I think when you're slapped with something like that so early, really just hit you in the face and you're like, holy shit.
Speaker B:Like, I really do need to make.
Speaker B:Not only make big decisions and do big things in life, but focus on those small moments as well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like, I'm so much more present when I'm with certain family members now, like grandparents.
Speaker B:And you sit there looking at them going like, this could be the last time that I see that.
Speaker B:I actually have lost two grandparents in the last couple of months.
Speaker B:And it's just like, I'm so glad that when I was with them I was super present.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that's a learning from not doing those things with my mum.
Speaker B:Like, I never used to say I love you.
Speaker B:It was a bit of a running joke.
Speaker B:But I was 19.
Speaker B:I ain't saying I love you in front of my friends.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:But now I'll say I love you to all my family members at the end of every call and often my friends now as well.
Speaker B:So lots of big learnings about, like, life and trying to make the most of it and stuff, but equally trying to think about the kind of smaller moments in life as well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's amazing that you come up with such a, like, profound reflections on such a way.
Speaker A:It's a difficult situation as human beings.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We so often, like, learn these lessons.
Speaker A:And it's Chris Williamson's unteachable lessons.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's that the things that you hear, like, tell your parents you love them, tell.
Speaker A:Tell your friends you love them.
Speaker A:Be more present with the people around you.
Speaker A:And it's like one of those things until you go through something you don't learn.
Speaker A:You can say memento mori to yourself in the mirror and get it tattooed on yourself.
Speaker A:But until you've lived through something that gives an emotion to also, that gives an extra meaning to that.
Speaker A:That phrase or whatever the phrase is, but it is like one of those things.
Speaker A:It sounding.
Speaker A:Sounds like.
Speaker A:At least the way you reflected on it then it was something that you look back on now and you've learned from it.
Speaker A:And it's just one of those things with, like, how we are as humans, we.
Speaker A:We never learn the lesson until we've gone through the lesson, I suppose, which is so annoying.
Speaker B:Like, I'd love to have taken some of those positive learnings about and.
Speaker B:And still have my mum here.
Speaker B:And I think it was David Macintosh and I had a conversation and it was like, would you bring.
Speaker B:Because he lost his mum too.
Speaker B:And it was like, would you bring back your mum but lose the learnings?
Speaker B:And this is a bullshit question, but, like, I was just like, I don't know if I would, like, of course I want my mum to come back, but, like, I, like, I would be a completely different person.
Speaker B:And as I mentioned earlier, like, I like the texture of my mind and that's only come from going from an absolutely horrendous situation when I was at the absolute depths of my own mental health.
Speaker B:So, like, I wouldn't.
Speaker B:I wouldn't actually want to take that away.
Speaker B:And it makes me think about when I have, like, kids and stuff in the future is like, you want to give your kids, like the absolute best life, right?
Speaker B:You want to give them everything.
Speaker B:But then I was like, I actually don't know if I don't.
Speaker B:Like, I kind of want my kids to have some struggles growing up and whatever that, wherever the.
Speaker B:How that could manifest because only then are they going to learn some of those unlearned or unteachable lessons themselves.
Speaker B:And it's like, how much do you put bubble wrap around your kid's life knowing that you almost need them to up a little bit and go through some.
Speaker B:Some terrible.
Speaker B:At the same time.
Speaker A:We've spoken a bit about how you reflect on where you are now and how old you maybe would have reflected on where you are now.
Speaker A:How do you think your mum would feel about where you are now and everything that you've been through since that moment?
Speaker B:She would have a cheeky smile on her face and probably say something along the lines of, of course you've done that, Adam.
Speaker B:Because she had that inner belief in me that I could do anything.
Speaker B:She was always like the optimistic one in the room.
Speaker A:She saw what you could.
Speaker B:Maybe my dad's the super supportive, but it's just like, he will make sure I understand the risks of every decision early in the conversation of when I'm bouncing ideas off him.
Speaker B:Yeah, my mum was probably on the opposite of like, yeah, it'll be fine, like, go, just do it and you know, you'll be fine type thing.
Speaker B:And she was a business owner.
Speaker B:She had a hairstyle on for 20 years and stuff like that as well.
Speaker B:So I think she'll be proud of that.
Speaker B:I think she'd probably tell me to.
Speaker B:Not slow down, but make sure I'm like, still focusing on other areas of life and reprioritizing things as and when I need to.
Speaker A:Yourself.
Speaker B:Myself?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:She probably told me to find a girlfriend and wife as well.
Speaker B:So, yeah, if anyone's listening.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I think she'd.
Speaker B:I think she'd be proud day and I think it'd be a bit of a comical, like, of, yeah, like, of course you've done that.
Speaker B:Which is.
Speaker B:Is nice.
Speaker A:Nice, nice.
Speaker A:Adam, thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker A:I think it's a lovely way to sort of see out.
Speaker A:So the way I like to end my episodes is to ask my guests to leave a question for the listener.
Speaker A:So I love listening to podcasts and going away and having conversations about what I've listened to with other people.
Speaker A:If you could leave a question now for the listener to go away and start a conversation, what question would you give them?
Speaker B:Actually written this down, so I didn't want to fluff it.
Speaker B:What would you do now?
Speaker B:Or, like, what decision would you make?
Speaker B:If you had 10 times more bravery and weren't afraid of what others think, what would that be?
Speaker A:That's such a good question.
Speaker A:Good question.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:Adam, thanks so much.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker B:Just to say as well, I think you've absolutely smashed me.
Speaker B:Every time we have a conversation about your podcast, it's always like.
Speaker B:And your answer is always, you know, we're still going.
Speaker B:How many episodes have you done now?
Speaker A:114, Maybe?
Speaker B:Something like that.
Speaker B:That's incredible.
Speaker B:Yeah, that is incredible.
Speaker B:As a person that sees podcast day in, day out, like, to get to that number that is genuinely in the top, like 0.1% of people that get to that stage.
Speaker B:So I think congratulations to you as well for being so consistent with this podcast and helping so many of your listeners as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, thank you, man.
Speaker A:I appreciate that.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker A:If people want to find you online, keep up to date with what you're doing, find the studio, make a booking.
Speaker A:Where can they do that?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So Instagram is just ads, will.
Speaker B:So ads w I ll s on Instagram.
Speaker B:I posted a little bit of content about running the business and life in general, but pretty inconsistent.
Speaker B:Not selling myself very well.
Speaker B:But the podcast studio where we're in now is Podcast room.
Speaker B:London Bridge Podcast room has quite a few other studios.
Speaker B:Mine specifically is like the London Bridge one.
Speaker B:And they can go to the website.
Speaker B:Use the Book now tab to see the studio's availability of time.
Speaker A:Sweet.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'll link it all below so anyone listening can just scroll down as well.
Speaker A:But yeah, thanks so much.
Speaker A:And for me, to the listener, if you have enjoyed this episode, please do share it with someone you think would find some value from it as well.
Speaker A:If you haven't already, please do follow or subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching, as it really helps the show grow.
Speaker A:And if you haven't, if you've done that already.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:Then you can leave a rating as well.
Speaker A:But otherwise, thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Stay curious and I will see you in the next one.
