Performance People Podcast

00:03:23.870 — 00:04:01.370 · Speaker 1

This is the Performance People podcast in partnership with JP Morgan. Um, if you like what you see or hear, please do follow us. It really does make all the difference. And subscribe to our channels. I'm Sean Harvey, director of Wrexham is with me today.

I'm a bit overexcited about talking to you about this because this is the story, the stuff of dreams. This is like a fairy tale. What's happening at Wrexham? And you're right in the middle of it, and you've been right in the middle of it since the very beginning of, of the takeover and what's happened since.

What's it like living it?

00:04:01.890 — 00:05:09.640 · Speaker 3

It's unbelievable. And, you know, I always have to take a little step back and not use the benefit of hindsight, really, when trying to rationalize actually what it is that we've achieved. You know, because five years on, everybody says, well, it was bound to happen that way, wasn't it? And when you go back to the very, very start, there was absolutely no certainty of success.

There was no certainty around survival. All we were going to do, we were a group of disparate people thrown together, no real previous knowledge of each other. And, you know, if somebody had looked at it scientifically, you know, would you have push on Harvey with Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mack? The answer is probably not.

But, you know, these things happen for a reason sometime. And everybody got put together. You know, we've got one sitcom, you know. Actor. One Hollywood A-lister brought. Brought together by an Eton educated comedy writer and actor. You know, an A and a bloke from Yorkshire who who's basically made a living out of either upsetting people or saying no.

00:05:10.560 — 00:05:25.960 · Speaker 1

I mean, how did you find yourself in this role? Like, how did. So you were there, like I say, right at the beginning. So tell me about those, like, early conversations that happen, conversations you didn't even know really who you were having them with or who the N players were.

00:05:26.200 — 00:05:49.440 · Speaker 3

Absolutely. C yeah, you know, the whistle stop, stop. The story is, you know, the world's wrapped with Covid and everybody's looking for things to do to keep themselves busy. And Humphrey, who we've already mentioned was a writer on on sunny with with Rob and he suggested to Rob that he should watch Sunderland Till I die.

The documentary.

00:05:49.440 — 00:05:50.040 · Speaker 1

Is a brilliant.

00:05:50.300 — 00:06:33.140 · Speaker 3

I mean, it's brilliant, but. And it's not. It's not a documentary, per se, about the football team. Yeah, it's about the club and about how that club interacts with its community and how the success of the team on the pitch on a Saturday manifests itself into the life of, you know, its its population and its fanbase.

And, you know, the story goes that Rob watched the first episode when Humphrey told him about it and rang Humphrey and said, this is rubbish. I don't understand why he told me to watch it. So I think Humphrey was a bit disappointed, probably because his boss had said, you recommendations? Rubbish. And then 48 hours later Rob rang him back and said

00:06:34.340 — 00:07:34.640 · Speaker 3

it's brilliant, I've watched it all. We should buy a football club. You should find me a football club to buy. And genuinely, that's where the story started, you know. So the world's not got much to thank Covid for. But there's certainly a town or city as it is now in North Wales that has a lot to thank for. And, you know, I've got a lot to thank Covid for from that perspective because under normal circumstances, when Rob made the call to a broker in New York, they'd have been over here trying to find that club and make those those inquiries.

Yeah, of course Covid stopped anybody else from traveling. So who did the ring? Well, he rang me and said, can you help find me at National League or League Two club with a set of criteria. You know, a town. Town that's down on his luck, preferably debt free, somewhere where there's ambition of potential growth.

And you know, I've got a buyer for that football club.

00:07:35.200 — 00:07:38.120 · Speaker 1

Wow. But you had no idea who the buyers were.

00:07:38.160 — 00:07:41.640 · Speaker 3

Absolutely not. And I didn't even try to find out because it was.

00:07:42.000 — 00:07:43.320 · Speaker 1

When did you find out?

00:07:43.360 — 00:07:49.990 · Speaker 3

Well, I found out about a month afterwards, but I think my lack of interest in knowing who it was.

00:07:50.310 — 00:07:50.950 · Speaker 1

Probably.

00:07:50.990 — 00:08:21.070 · Speaker 3

Well, a was appealing, but probably made it a little bit more, you know, mysterious. So and it's daft. And the only reason I wasn't bothered is that I was literally helping him find a club for his clients, and never looked at this as anything other than that. Every conversation I had in those early days about Wrexham, I thought, was there going to be the last because I was doing some work with the charity.

00:08:21.270 — 00:08:25.990 · Speaker 1

Give us a give us an idea of like how bad it was, how bad the situation there was.

00:08:26.030 — 00:08:49.930 · Speaker 3

Well, you know, credit to the West, the Wrexham Supporters Trust, because they ran Wrexham Football Club within their means. Yeah. You know if they had £50 to spend on players spend 50 pounds, you know, if they had 75 they'd probably spent 70 just to try and keep a little bit in reserve you know. So they took the club, you know, from the brink of disaster and effectively kept it alive.

00:08:49.970 — 00:08:50.770 · Speaker 1

Which is amazing.

00:08:50.810 — 00:09:05.450 · Speaker 3

Well, it's it's a story of they wanted their football club for their community. And they weren't actually bothered what the football club was like. Yes, they wanted it to be successful, but it was more important. It was there at the start of next season.

00:09:05.450 — 00:09:22.450 · Speaker 1

And we also know that about football. It is about community. It does bring people together, and it is the thing that so many communities put on the pedestal. It's like that. It's that ritual going to the football, with, with family, with friends, supporting something.

00:09:22.730 — 00:09:53.390 · Speaker 3

You know, the football stadium is is such a wonderful and weird place all at the same time. I mean, never in any other walk of life do you buy a ticket to sit at a football match without necessarily knowing who you're going to be sat next to? And there's no class divide. There's no there's no internal politics.

You go through those turnstiles and you'll have got a common objective to the person you are sat next to, which is to see your team win and.

00:09:53.430 — 00:09:54.470 · Speaker 1

And you're in it together.

00:09:54.510 — 00:11:35.460 · Speaker 3

Well, you're in it together. But it's created friendships amongst people that would never play. You've never played to each other. I mean, you've seen numerous stories and this is true of football as a whole, not just Wrexham. You know, where season ticket holders have been together in groups of 23 for years.

And, you know, if somebody doesn't turn up one week, somebody actually tries to find out who they are. Is there something wrong? Are there missing now? It's a lot easier with mobile phones and social media than it was probably in the late 70s and 80s, but it genuinely becomes a family. But it's a family by choice rather than a family by by nurture.

And you say that, but ultimately, you know, I don't know how many times, you know, you guys have going to go and save him money. I've got to go and see my dad. I've got to go and see my uncle or, you know, my brothers. Well, if you've got season tickets together at the football, you've actually got an appointment to see each other on at least 25 times a year.

That's 25 times a family is getting together in an environment where they all want to be, rather than that fast dinner because dot dot, dot. Now, football generally and sport specifically doesn't get the credit. I don't believe it does for creating that togetherness. Because togetherness isn't just a biological family.

Togetherness is people of the same interest. So, you know, the West did a great job in keeping the football club alive. And as I've said many times, without the work and the approach that they took, the Wrexham story is, you know, it today probably would never have started.

00:11:36.020 — 00:11:50.280 · Speaker 1

So the first time that you met these two Hollywood stars. What was that like? What did you talk about? What was the direction of travel at that moment in time, and how invested were they in what you were doing and what Wrexham was all about?

00:11:50.320 — 00:12:08.880 · Speaker 3

So this was before they actually spoke to the St, the Supporters Trust about getting their approval to purchase a club because they needed the needed to be able to go forward. So this wasn't a straight sort of commercial corporate deal where, you know, engage the shareholder.

00:12:08.920 — 00:12:10.360 · Speaker 1

Did that surprise them?

00:12:10.400 — 00:12:16.480 · Speaker 3

Um, I think it surprised them. But what it actually did was tell them how.

00:12:16.640 — 00:12:17.160 · Speaker 1

Much everyone.

00:12:17.160 — 00:12:42.860 · Speaker 3

Cares, how much everybody cares. You know, so usually for the barter business, you know, make the offer a offer accepted. Due diligence. It's yours. You know, this was like an audition and and, you know, and I don't know that Ryan and Rob about that many auditions. Yeah, they had to come up with the right answers at the right times, the right questions.

To allow them to be allowed to spend their money.

00:12:42.860 — 00:12:47.020 · Speaker 1

Out of view. That must have been a fascinating thing for you to see in action.

00:12:47.020 — 00:13:17.780 · Speaker 3

I watched it from, you know, from from the zoo because it was obviously Covid was on. So it was all done by zoom, you know, and you've got Rob and Ryan, these two supremely confident individuals actually really concerned that somebody could say no to them. Yeah. And it could have happened. You know, there are football clubs in in this country who would have said, no, we're not having it under any circumstances.

This is our club. We've saved it. We own it, will run it for the benefit of our community.

00:13:17.980 — 00:13:24.460 · Speaker 1

What did they say in that meeting? To convince the West that they were the guys to take that leap forward.

00:13:24.500 — 00:13:29.740 · Speaker 3

They basically confirmed to them that they actually cared. Yeah, that they actually wanted the best for the football club.

00:13:29.740 — 00:13:32.660 · Speaker 1

And was that do you think the most important thing that they wanted to hear?

00:13:32.740 — 00:13:44.409 · Speaker 3

I mean, the majority of members of the WSC wanted to see the club go forward, and the club wasn't going to go forward under its current in its current guise. And

00:13:45.410 — 00:14:28.930 · Speaker 3

people were prepared to gamble but wanted to be convinced. You know, how many times have you heard if it's too good to be true, it usually is. And that was the real concern. That was the real thought going through a lot of people, you know, would they be ridiculed for making this decision? Is it a scam? Is it fraud now?

It wasn't a scam. It was never a fraud because Rob and Rome fronted it themselves, you know. But if they'd had done this without doing themselves and done it via a third party or a broker, or even put me up there to have the conversation, then I don't think they got the club. It was because they did it themselves, and they proved to the people that WFC there was a brighter future that just needed to have trust.

00:14:29.530 — 00:14:48.750 · Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. Like you say, they've got to go on the journey with where these fans have come from and what it means to them and what they want for the future. But in those early days, did it say in the business plan that you were going to be knocking on the door of the Premier League in a matter of years?

00:14:48.790 — 00:15:51.530 · Speaker 3

Absolutely not. I mean, you know, you know, I come from a I've come from an administrative background and you learn to be conservative and not set yourself a bar that's so high. It's you can only fail. And I think if anybody would have said five years ago, our aim is to be in the Premier League without a smile on your face.

Which mean Rob did say he wanted to be in the Premier League. He didn't put a time limit on it, but, you know, but he did it with a smile. But we put a mission statement out really early. But basically it was it was more a list of commitments and it was to look after your club, do right by your club and try and make your club successful.

I'm paraphrasing. And the day that we leave. Will. Will. Will leave it in a better place than we found it. We found it today, you know. And the objective was to get to the EFL. You know, what should it be? And was, as it turned out, immediately achievable. Albeit, you know, we didn't get there first time of asking you know either.

So.

00:15:51.570 — 00:15:58.250 · Speaker 1

And how important was that. That it wasn't at the first time of asking what did that sort of teach you and what did that determine? Well.

00:15:58.570 — 00:17:13.120 · Speaker 3

What I learned very, very quickly, you know, and, you know, I had 33 years in, in the, in the, in the football industry. And I've seen those things and I've done a lot of them. But what I realized really quickly with Rob and Brian is that their approach was going to be different. They were going to be storytellers.

They wanted the club to act in a completely natural way, and they were going to find the way of telling that story to a wider audience. So people look at the documentary, which was always behind the business plan that they had. But the documentary tells the story of the club. The club doesn't perform for the benefit of the documentary.

Yeah, now. And that's where. That's why it stays authentic and that's why it stays genuine. But every good story has to have jeopardy! And what the American audience, it turns out, didn't really get before the Wrexham story was told was this principle of the pyramid. The the, the worst team can become the best team, and the best team can become the worst team.

And you can tell.

00:17:13.160 — 00:17:14.439 · Speaker 1

Because they don't do relegation.

00:17:14.439 — 00:17:22.120 · Speaker 3

The promotion and relegation, you know, it's you have a bad season, you give them a better chance through the draft system. The drop of being better next season, you know.

00:17:22.160 — 00:17:26.280 · Speaker 1

That must have been a concept that was completely alien to Robin right at the beginning.

00:17:26.280 — 00:17:29.540 · Speaker 3

Well, it was alien to Rob and Ryan, but it was a bit that excited.

00:17:29.620 — 00:17:29.820 · Speaker 1

Their.

00:17:29.820 — 00:18:13.740 · Speaker 3

Course because they could start at the bottom. If the National League, you know, the conference was the bottom. I mean, it isn't, as we all know, but it was far enough away from the Premier League, which is the definite top. Yeah. For the story. It's for the story to be told. And the fact that you can pick a team up and take it from one league to another to another to another with a concept that people could buy into because equally it can go the other way as well.

So that real concept was one that excited everybody. And the answer is, could you actually do this by doing things differently? And that's where that's where Rob and Roy started.

00:18:14.060 — 00:18:15.540 · Speaker 1

I mean, there's a whole big

00:18:16.660 — 00:18:41.210 · Speaker 1

conversation around the growth in social terms. And like you say, storytelling, the documentary and everything else. But you've still got to do it on the pitch. Yeah. So what do you do to make sure? What do you do from your perspective to make sure that everything is being done in a footballing way, the right way, so that that opportunity to story tell is as good as it can be?

00:18:41.250 — 00:18:56.650 · Speaker 3

Yeah. So if you come from a background where you've got two people who own the club, who want to learn and want the best for the club, but don't actually know how to do it. Mhm. So they, you know, they were like sponges ultimately for taking on information.

00:18:56.650 — 00:18:57.650 · Speaker 1

And they love sport.

00:18:57.690 — 00:20:28.130 · Speaker 3

And they love sport. And equally I, I understood very quickly what the main drivers were for them. They want to see the club successful. Absolutely both on and off the pitch. They want you to deliver community benefit, but they want you to be able to tell the story. So what the approach I took was I knew what we needed to do on the pitch.

I'm not a coach. I've never I've never picked a player in my life, but I've seen what it is that you need and know time to put it into practice. So job number one was to find an experienced manager who we knew would share the values of the club was all things to all people. Had to be the priority in every single, every single decision.

And we needed to get promoted out out of the National League and knew that we might not do it first time. And the pressure and the spotlight that was going to be on, on the club via a documentary meant that we couldn't really have a shrinking violet. We couldn't have somebody who was just doing the first job because it would have killed them.

So getting a good manager and then trusting that manager to recruit and to find the players that he felt would get us promoted was key. But alongside that was defining a set of parameters where you can do and this was the Robert Ryan. You can do anything you want as long as it sits inside these parameters, because if we do that we will go off track.

Yeah. Don't. Don't go so far. Left field. But you know you've got. You've got a wide enough.

00:20:28.570 — 00:20:30.650 · Speaker 1

Well parameters do that.

00:20:30.690 — 00:22:14.560 · Speaker 3

They've got that. You know effectively we've got to stay authentic and genuine. So that's on one side. We are not going to do gimmicks which is why it was always important the club had to come first. The documentary came second. But what we then realized was with the shine, with the on the other side was the light that the, the, the spotlight.

The documentary shone on Wrexham ultimately allowed us to do all sorts of different things, bring in different sponsorship. You know, we were a football club that was selling nontraditional event inventory. You know, we were effectively selling TV advertising as a football property. And that's financially what made the difference.

So Robin Wright had made the initial cash investment. But the investment, the one thing that I don't think anybody truly valued and that was their time and image. I never realized the power and size of celebrity until Rob and Ryan actually came along, and how that can be monetized, and it affects everybody around Brexit in different ways, but ultimately capitalizing that on that, but only as part of the Wrexham story, not for their own benefit, was the parameter on the other side.

So you've seen all these wacky things that have been done, but none of them have actually stepped outside the road and the pathway that we set down to get us promoted and obviously then subsequent promotions. So, you know, it's been a great learning curve for a lot of people. And it is the proof, the that you don't always have to do things the same way, but you do have to do them in a manner that's still consistent and recognizable by running a football club.

00:22:14.600 — 00:22:34.540 · Speaker 1

I think that's a really astute way of viewing it, because as a as a footballing man that's been in and around the game, and a leader within the game for a really long chunk of time. Like you say, you've had to adapt, right? You've had to adapt to a new normal with Wrexham because it's not the same way that everyone else is playing it.

And it's like you say, it's effectively just a trailblazer.

00:22:34.580 — 00:22:41.939 · Speaker 3

Yeah, I, I was right at the start. Somebody said, what's my role? And I said, my, my role is to stop this football club from going down cul de sacs

00:22:43.180 — 00:23:12.660 · Speaker 3

because I, I know what will work in the long run and what won't work. How do you make it work is the bit where, you know the anti types can have their full, you know, full play. But there is a there's a script that we need to follow and follow this script. You will not waste time. You will not waste on a jet and we won't go down, you know, blind alleys.

So just keep going. I'll, I'll just keep tightening those reins and bringing them in and in and in. Because we knew we'd start as a novelty value.

00:23:12.700 — 00:23:13.180 · Speaker 1

Yes.

00:23:13.180 — 00:23:42.040 · Speaker 3

But if we were going to be successful, we had to get nearer to the mainstream Because that's the only way, you know. Otherwise, why aren't everybody else done it before? So so effectively we've used that big advantage at the start. Created a new fan base, created a new model. But in subsequent seasons, as we've gone through the pyramid.

We've brought it nearer and nearer to what everybody else is doing. It's just we've still got all these different noise about the club being different.

00:23:42.080 — 00:24:07.400 · Speaker 1

Well, that's really interesting because like you say, you're knocking on the door of the Premier League. How serious does it suddenly get? Because you start off with this National League club, Conference League club, which is, like you say, full of hope, full of optimism. The pyramid means that you're starting from here and you can only go here.

And that's so exciting. But suddenly it gets so serious because on every single step of that ladder, it ups the ante, right?

00:24:07.440 — 00:25:16.770 · Speaker 3

It does. But arguably the most the biggest step was getting out of the National League, getting out of the conference because we had to break the 15 year cycle. Well, it was 14 years when we first tried it and failed 15 years between the club getting relegated and getting promoted. That was the biggest breakfast, because when we did that, obviously the field opened up in front of us.

The story of taking this non-league non-league club in back into the Premier League, back into the EFL had been achieved. Then it was a case of, well, how far can we go? But by this stage with two series is Super Series into a documentary and we've created a brand new fanbase that potentially has never been interested in football or soccer, as we call it, the blue collar in the US before, but they fell in love with the community of Wrexham.

The story of the club and the reason that they did that is that it was relatable. You know, the stories that people, that people watched on the screens, they had an uncle like that or an anti like that or a brother.

00:25:16.810 — 00:25:30.610 · Speaker 1

I love those scenes in the pub where where you know, the locals are seriously holding those guys to account on stuff and giving them quite a tough time. Like, it's not an easy rite of passage, is it? It's like they've got to earn their stripes.

00:25:30.650 — 00:26:32.670 · Speaker 3

Absolutely. You know, when Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mack turn up at Wrexham, they're not actors and TV stars. And the successful people down in the day job. They are the cochairman of the football club with a different set of responsibilities. And nobody actually gives a damn, really. What? How they made the money or where the real fame and fortune is.

It's how they get judged as how they perform as cochairman of our football club. And that took some getting used to for everybody. But all of a sudden they come over to Wrexham now and are completely normal, you know, whatever, whatever normal is in that world. You know they, they can genuinely walk around Wrexham and nobody bothers you know they in that capacity.

They are the owners of the club and I think, you know, that's a wonderful escape for both of them from the novel world. But actually it's something that probably hold dearer and more serious than probably everything else that to do.

00:26:32.750 — 00:26:58.310 · Speaker 1

I mean, we see on the television screens and in the various streaming clips and everything else, their reactions to a magical moment that happens with Wrexham. And it's it's visceral, isn't it? You can really feel it. I mean, you know, I know just from being inside my world of sport with Ben, like, those magic moments are so special, and sport is almost the only thing that can give you that.

So do you feel like they've got something out of that that you just can't buy? To some degree.

00:26:58.550 — 00:28:03.340 · Speaker 3

It's you know, they're working. They you know, Rob and Ryan both work in a scripted business. They know the ending before the start. You know, any football fan or funnels. You know, when that starting whistle blows. Oh, the flag comes down. Whatever spot it is, you have no idea what's going to happen now.

You know, if you've got the fastest boats, you know, in Ben's world, you know, or you know, you've trained and you know, you you run 100m 10s quicker than everybody else. You know, you've got a better chance of success, but you can still fail. Yeah. You can still fail. Always. Now the jeopardy! Of course, if you're not that far better than everybody else, you know, and the English football system, you know, which I was obviously.

Well put it in as we know, is built on teams have been promoted to me, teams have been relegated to it. Our teams are already in it. So there's a natural sort of leveling off of there's an old handicap system. Everybody's got the opportunity to beat everybody else and the their on merit

00:28:04.420 — 00:29:06.700 · Speaker 3

so that that whistle blows and they sit in that stadium like everybody else, not knowing how this is going to end and not knowing how it's going to end has just encapsulated them. And I actually think it just captivated a full audience that sees their vulnerability in that moment. You know, they are the same as we talked about it earlier, the demographic groups that go to football, you know, you can be the most successful stockbroker, a private equity business person.

You can, you know, successful surgeon, or you could just have, you know, a standard base office job. But for that 90 minutes in football's case, you're all in it together and there's just no class system. And I think that vulnerability and how you could be exposed to what 11 lads on a Saturday afternoon do is just really sort of captured Rob and Ryan in the same way as it captures football fans up and down the country.

00:29:06.740 — 00:29:14.540 · Speaker 1

I can't believe that they wouldn't be the type that wouldn't come in and do a team tour. But they do team tours. No they don't. They get involved.

00:29:14.580 — 00:29:24.180 · Speaker 3

Not lots of so from day one. It was a case of the football has to be left to do what it needs to do to give us the best.

00:29:24.260 — 00:29:26.740 · Speaker 1

Not even on the morning of a really big encounter.

00:29:26.740 — 00:30:46.570 · Speaker 3

So we've got we've got some golden rules that we've put in place right from the start. And Rob and Ryan are the biggest supporters of this. You know, team sheets now go in 75 minutes before it used to be 60. So sorry for sorry for the boring the boring technical stuff in a in a star in a story. That's not supposed to be that.

So 75 minutes before the game. They are. If they've been to the dressing rooms to say hello to the players, they're in that period between them arriving and the business starting. And the golden speaks. The players speak to the opposition from time to time. Wander round, but on 75 minutes they're out there.

The professionals have to be allowed to do the professional job, and it wasn't a big ask at all because they understood it, of course, because they were there to see their team and give their team the best chance of winning, you know. You know the greatest respect. Rob and Ryan aren't going to add anything 75 minutes before a game.

There's going to be influence in 90 minutes. Phil Parkinson is in his coaching staff. So they they let them get on with it and then often go in afterwards and talk to the players about what's going on. And some of that joining celebrations, some of it's, you know, commiserating.

00:30:46.610 — 00:31:00.170 · Speaker 1

How do they feel about the fact that football is such a low scoring game? Because one of the things about American sport is that score just ratchets up and up and up, whatever you might be watching. Do they feel that's bizarre, that sometimes you can be playing a game and then still leave it goalless or.

00:31:00.210 — 00:31:34.590 · Speaker 3

Well, there's two, there's two. There's two things. I think Ryan got that principle from the start. Being Canadian and you know, I think he played hockey, ice hockey as a, as a kid. So I think there was a general view that understanding that. Goals, goals win. Goals win games. Yeah. Um, and I think, you know, Rob's more of a general sports fan and obviously NFL in particular.

His love for the Philadelphia Eagles is, is well known. But but the sooner you realize that actually you can be one upon one down and you're still in the game.

00:31:35.030 — 00:31:35.590 · Speaker 1

Yes.

00:31:35.590 — 00:31:45.670 · Speaker 3

And I think the key point is it already takes a second for a game of football to change. Whereas some of the American sports, the better.

00:31:45.670 — 00:31:46.790 · Speaker 1

You did one and done well.

00:31:46.790 — 00:32:16.450 · Speaker 3

It could be one and done before halftime. Yeah. And I know that happens occasionally in over here, but it doesn't happen that often. And as we say, because the way the pyramid works and it is a level playing field inside that division, you know, some get, some do better than the others, but generally they're all starting from the same place.

It really does mean there's not many, many walk overs or there's not many easy games because, you know, the bounce of the ball can change everything.

00:32:16.690 — 00:32:52.530 · Speaker 1

We normally start this podcast with the defining moment of my guest, but we have spoken for half an hour about everything that actually relates to your defining moment in a slightly sort of, you know, a different manner. But you pick this Bradford City promotion to the Premier League, and now you're sort of eyeing up promotion to the Premier League with Wrexham.

I guess there's a perfect, perfect moment to have to have stumbled upon. So just tell me what that was like, like going back to 1999 and achieving that with Bradford City. The lessons learned from that, and actually how you've been able to sort of take that learning and that and apply it to where you are now.

00:32:52.930 — 00:32:59.920 · Speaker 3

So, I mean, context, you know, 1999, I'm 29, you know, I've started.

00:33:00.000 — 00:33:00.720 · Speaker 1

Five minutes ago.

00:33:00.760 — 00:33:01.520 · Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:01.960 — 00:33:02.280 · Speaker 2

Yeah.

00:33:03.080 — 00:34:31.739 · Speaker 3

How about half pep around us? Some people would say. I, um, you know, so I was lucky enough to start in the football industry in 1993, so I was 23. I've left school without any A-levels. Went to work in the insurance business, and I was involved in non-league football. Chance meeting with a gentleman called Geoffrey Richmond, where I tried to persuade him to sponsor the team at Farsley Celtic, which is where which is where I was involved in Leeds basically must have put me on his radar, unbeknownst to me, and three months later he offered me the job as secretary of Scarborough.

So if I have had the right to ask him to sponsor the team, I probably would never have had this opportunity. Um, got to Scarborough. He then bought Bradford City, so in 1994 I went to I went to Bradford City with Bradford with League One at the time. Yeah. Um, or the equivalent, the equivalent of League One, and we started on this mission of could we get Bradford promoted now?

So I'm a Leeds lad, so I'm back at back at home in Yorkshire. You know, I understand the mentality of the people that are in in the crowd. And we started to build this football, this football club. So we got promoted from you know League One to the championship, you know under Christian Martyrs management.

And then we had this opportunity where we recognized that the championship in that season, 98, 99, was going to be probably weaker than it had been before. And

00:34:32.899 — 00:35:25.840 · Speaker 3

we thought if we could invest in the playing squad, we've got a really good chance. Oh, we've got a better chance than we would have normally of getting promoted. So we invested relatively heavily, about 5 million pounds up to that summer. Brian paid 1 million pounds for two players that Bradford had never done before, and we had Paul Jewell it was the manager and Paul John had recently come from being in the dressing room and just got a group of players together in very much the same way as feelings that he knew could do the job.

It was only ever going to be short term. There was we're never going to buy 18 year olds that were going to be worth multi millions in the future if they were at the club already. They were staying, but we were bringing in seasoned professionals.

00:35:25.880 — 00:35:26.200 · Speaker 1

To do.

00:35:26.200 — 00:35:49.040 · Speaker 3

A job, to do a job and that job was to get to get promoted. So the biggest signing was Stuart McCall, free transfer from Rangers. He came back to the club where he'd started, but he basically managed the team for the 90 minutes on a Saturday afternoon. He put the game plan to get people to put the game plan together.

00:35:49.160 — 00:35:55.510 · Speaker 2

Sorry, this is just a letter. Maybe after we post on the Question. Plugged in though.

00:35:55.510 — 00:35:56.070 · Speaker 1

So

00:35:57.350 — 00:35:58.350 · Speaker 1

what's happened?

00:35:59.590 — 00:36:01.350 · Speaker 3

Gosh, that was my better answers as well.

00:36:01.870 — 00:36:07.830 · Speaker 1

Great answers. Cracking and kicking on gas. Bradford 99. Everything's coming back.

00:36:09.230 — 00:36:10.710 · Speaker 2

I brought some fresh batteries.

00:36:11.310 — 00:36:17.710 · Speaker 1

We've got a problem with batteries and we die. That's brilliant. It's so interesting. It's so.

00:36:17.710 — 00:36:18.430 · Speaker 3

Good. The parallels.

00:36:18.430 — 00:36:18.830 · Speaker 2

Are great.

00:36:18.910 — 00:36:24.310 · Speaker 1

Yeah. They're amazing. They're amazing, aren't they? God, there's just so. There's.

00:36:26.070 — 00:36:46.350 · Speaker 1

You think also. Like, I suppose we haven't talked about the timing. We did talk about it with Covid. The timing of everything is so essential, isn't it? Like when you look at, like you read. I don't know how much you read stuff, but you read like Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers or something like that. And he put together coincidence with luck, with chance, with talent, with rigor, all those things.

00:36:46.390 — 00:36:47.550 · Speaker 3

All great opportunity.

00:36:47.590 — 00:37:58.590 · Speaker 1

Opportunity opportunities like and then and then what happens with that? How do we then them manifest something special with that? I had Ben Ryan on the podcast. Recently you come across Ben. He's the performance director for Brentford. Yeah, he used to be his make. Is this an amazing story? He used to be the, um.

He used to be England rugby coach for the England rugby. Totally sort of fell away from that system. Got really despondent with it because it just wasn't really working the way that he thought it should be. I got the call from was about to step back and take a role in UK sport, the back of the office kind of gig and um, got a call from Fiji saying we're looking for a head coach to coach of Fiji and rugby sevens team.

And he was like, well, right now I'm a bit bored at sea. I don't really know what to do. And his wife said, look, why don't we just take it? It'll be like a good extended holiday and see how you get on. They went and won Olympic gold. Yeah. It's the most wonderful kind of story of how it will evolve. And now he's back at Brentford, which was his boyhood club that he always loved, and everything else.

And it was great talking to him about some of those, you know, really

00:37:59.630 — 00:38:34.470 · Speaker 1

basic learners stuff like, you know, they couldn't train like other teams would train because they didn't have access to any of that stuff, nor did they have the mentality to sort of be interested in any of that stuff. So the way he had to adapt his training regimen, so that actually it made sense for those players.

And it was like train them on the sand dunes because they had access to that. But my God, there was no better place to do it actually. Like, you could try and find that stuff in the gym and you'd never get there. But actually the sand dunes provided that environment. It's just fascinating, those performances of insights, I think, that you can get from different groups of people doing their thing.

00:38:35.270 — 00:38:36.550 · Speaker 3

So where are we starting from here?

00:38:36.870 — 00:38:37.910 · Speaker 1

We're good. Radford.

00:38:37.950 — 00:38:40.470 · Speaker 2

We're good again. Can we just do claps again?

00:38:42.270 — 00:38:43.710 · Speaker 1

That's never happened before, has it?

00:38:43.750 — 00:38:45.350 · Speaker 2

No. It's plugged in as well.

00:38:45.350 — 00:38:46.830 · Speaker 1

But is it all right.

00:38:46.830 — 00:38:49.260 · Speaker 2

Just the batteries in the such an answer.

00:38:49.300 — 00:38:50.380 · Speaker 1

All right. Okay. We'll crack.

00:38:50.380 — 00:38:50.500 · Speaker 2

On.

00:38:50.540 — 00:39:05.180 · Speaker 1

It's all good. Okay. Bradford, 1999 is your defining moment, and I feel like it sets the scene and makes complete sense. When you think of where Wrexham's at in its storyline now knocking on the door of Premier League football.

00:39:06.700 — 00:41:51.650 · Speaker 3

I mean, context. You know, I was 29 at the time and yeah, relatively new into the football industry, certainly in comparison with some of my peers at the time. But to take the story back, I left school at 18, having failed me A-levels, and went immediately out and worked in the insurance industry. And but during that time I was always involved in non-league football club, volunteering in Leeds at Celtic, and I had a chance meeting with German coach Geoffrey Richmond, who was the owner of Scarborough.

But his business was in Leeds and, you know, it was a chance meeting a cricket match, of all things, because I played cricket. I played cricket at the same place. Not too many, not too many standard. And we got to a point where I actually asked him if he'd sponsor the team and, you know, got the proverbial clip around your ear.

You know, I'm not interested. Uh, but three months later, he'd obviously remembered and offered me the job as a club secretary at Scarborough. Very quickly, he sold his business and bought Bradford City. And that's how I ended up at Bradford City in 1994. So we had this situation where I was back at home.

We wanted to try and get Bradford promoted to the Premier League and set about this journey of trying to get through the varying divisions and, you know, went through experience managers and eventually hit on a way forward that having people in charge, you who actually understood the dressing room Mentality, and what it took to win was actually a really key component of being successful.

So Chris Kamara was the first manager, and it was actually the manager that got the Bradford promoted from League One to the Championship. And you know coming in definitely understood football was those who've seen him subsequently you know in on sky can can testify to. But you know he also you know knew how to manage.

He knew how to motivate. And he was the first manager. And following on from that we ended up with Paul Jewell. So Paul had only recently given up and we worked out probably which was going to be our third season in the Championship at the start of the 9899 season. That actually when you looked at the teams in the division, they probably weren't as strong as they've been the previous year, which sometimes happens with promotion and promotion and relegation.

So we found some external investment support from the Rhodes family and spent around 5 million pounds that summer.

00:41:51.690 — 00:41:53.250 · Speaker 1

Because you could sense an opportunity.

00:41:53.290 — 00:45:26.720 · Speaker 3

Because the opportunity was there. And they also comes a time that if you do something the same for too long, it's not going to change because everything else evolves around you. So that opportunity was we sensed and made that investment and ultimately got promoted to the Premier League. And, you know, the last game in 1999 and it was a funny season because Sunderland absolutely ran away with the league.

We went head and shoulders above everybody else, but everybody else was very much of a muchness. And, you know the players we signed all delivered. You know, Stuart McCall was signed on a free transfer but sort of led the team on a matchday. Apollo Jewel had this wonderful insight into actually how to win games from a, from a tactical perspective.

you know, and that was promotion to the Premier League. And so you know, put me, you know, 29 all of a sudden I'm sat round the Premier League decision making table. You know with people I've only usually seen on TV. You know there's you know, I remember the first meeting I ever went to, the first chairman's meeting.

I went with Geoffrey and, you know, the Premier League in those days, judge. And you remember you used to have a big round table, and they used to have a round table because they didn't want anybody to be able to say they were ahead of it. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, so, you know, it used to be nothing but a gantlet.

And I remember to this day it went Arsenal. Aston Villa. Bradford. Chelsea. So I you know, so if Geoffrey didn't go to some of the meetings but when I, when I, when I used to be, you know I used to go to David Dean, Doug Ellis, John Harvey, Ken Bates, you know and I'm 29 at this stage. And there's these absolute icons.

And I just to digress, like what's been this meeting? So I'm sat between Doug and Kent and obviously Ken and David didn't always see eye to eye on that, as it's probably fair to say. And even if they did, I don't think either of them would allow each other to think that they did. And I remember being sat with my hands in my pockets and the vote and obviously they all, you know, hands up to come up.

And I remember Ken Bates, who I subsequently worked for, whispered in me and said, well, you're going to have to take your hands out of your pockets now. So me and Duncan go through them and he's just way was wonderful, you know. But but that's that was that experience. And this was a club that never even imagined it would be playing in the Premier League at any stage.

How did he go about it? By getting things right on the pitch. Needed to create an environment to allow that to happen. And we got to this wonderful position where we were successful, and Bradford then not only got promoted to the Premier League, but also stayed in the Premier League for a season which was arguably the bigger, the bigger the bigger achievement.

But it was done through good, good, solid management of a team, recruiting the right players, creating the right environment, respecting the system but having to approach it slightly different. And the analogy to where we are at Wrexham now is exactly, exactly the same. So it proves it wasn't by chance, but what it does prove is that you've got to have the support throughout the club to enable you to achieve it, because many have spent more money than us at Wrexham, many have had more goals than us, but we've still got exactly the same opportunity.

00:45:27.160 — 00:45:28.880 · Speaker 1

What happens if you get there?

00:45:29.920 — 00:45:32.839 · Speaker 3

Yeah. Good question. And

00:45:34.040 — 00:45:44.140 · Speaker 3

it's it's one of those things you can never get promoted soon enough. You know, you should always try and get promoted as quickly as you can. Um, if you were retired.

00:45:44.180 — 00:45:45.220 · Speaker 1

Why is that?

00:45:45.700 — 00:46:28.259 · Speaker 3

Because there might never be another chance. You know, you've got to take the chances when they're in front of you. If you were building a business that wasn't as emotional as football and sport is, you'd say, well, no, actually, we need a couple of good years trading to really get ourselves some reserves and then we can expand accordingly.

Well, at that stage, the industry might have changed or your competitors might be stronger. So you've got to take that advantage. And the reality is, I don't think you can ever really be prepared to get to go to the Premier League. All the clubs that get promoted, even those that are your your clubs, as are described.

Nobody's really ever fully prepared because

00:46:29.580 — 00:47:03.880 · Speaker 3

you don't know what you're going to find when you get there. Now there's a group of clubs that are Premier League life as you know finished between. You know, if we have a good season we might be challenging for those bottom European places and we want to be trying to be safe by the time we've played 30 games.

You know, there's a mid-table mediocrity that's a very fulfilling and rich place to be. Whereas everybody else that struggles on, struggles on the periphery and there's no way of making that jump first season. So you can never really be prepared. All you've got to do is have your eyes wide open and stick to your principles.

00:47:03.880 — 00:47:06.600 · Speaker 1

There's a storyline. Go up, go down, go back up again.

00:47:06.640 — 00:47:07.200 · Speaker 2

Well, you know.

00:47:07.640 — 00:47:10.760 · Speaker 3

At some point some clubs and some owners have made.

00:47:10.800 — 00:47:11.120 · Speaker 1

A lot.

00:47:11.120 — 00:48:13.990 · Speaker 3

Of money, a lot of money doing that. But I think where Wrexham is, it's never been about a financial return on investment. Now a financial return on investment follows success. So I'm not saying there's no interest in financial return because of course there is. And we've now got investors in the club who are probably motivated by that.

But ultimately, the return on investment that we always were going to use at Brexit and back in the early days was how much community benefit we could deliver. You know, one of the first conversations with Rob and Ryan was, you do know this money that you have put in and you are effectively writing off. You're not going to get it back because football clubs eat money.

And, you know, it's very difficult unless you sell it to get it back. And with the greatest respect, who are you going to sell it to at that at that particular time? Because if they hadn't been successful on the pitch, they were giving it away to somebody to take over, which.

00:48:13.990 — 00:48:15.150 · Speaker 1

Is now, but now.

00:48:15.190 — 00:49:16.210 · Speaker 3

But now it's a very valuable commodity. But the point is, it's still run on the same principles of delivering community benefit. So it proves that if you actually do things the right way for the right reasons, the financial returns follow rather than being focused on the financial returns and doing the community benefit as an adjunct to that.

And one of the things that really helps about our documentary is, you know, you know, the clubs run for the benefit of the documentary. We've already said it. You know, the documentary tells the story of how the club operates, but what the documentary's existence does is keep the club really honest and everybody inside it to his principles, to his principles, because the story people fall in love with the story of Wrexham, the football club from its community as it is.

They don't. They won't fall in love with it either, fall out of love with it if it changes. So we have to stay the same. So staying the same.

00:49:16.250 — 00:49:18.370 · Speaker 1

Can you do that for Premier League football?

00:49:18.410 — 00:49:50.120 · Speaker 3

It changes. It changes, but the principles don't. You know we are here to to try and bring benefit to the community of Wrexham. And actually the documentary holds you to that. So in holding it to you, you're working on all the right principles. Bizarrely, the very principles supporters trusts want to withhold as being the documentary created from a completely different angle, is probably the best enforcer of that position.

00:49:50.240 — 00:49:55.960 · Speaker 1

And has everyone jumped on board with that now? Because it's had some time to prove that?

00:49:56.000 — 00:52:28.909 · Speaker 3

Absolutely. And, you know, it is more difficult when people haven't been on the journey from the start, because if you if it's embedded in this is the way we do things and we've been successful, you know, benchmarking makes me. Makes me chuckle because everybody wants to benchmark to see how successful you've been.

Well, if we are the unique football club, we always say we are. Why do we worry about what everybody else is doing? It only ends up being an artificial justification of people to have people try and say, we are doing well. There's only two things really that tell you if you're doing well. One is a league table, which you can read in any newspaper or on a website or any content.

So you don't need to. You don't need some special measure to be able to do that. And the other one is being honest with yourself that you're trying to run the football club for the benefit of the fans. You know, the question about who owns a football club often comes up, and I often talk to you what what Wrexham has been the best example now?

There is absolutely no doubt that the board, including me, are effectively custodial custodians of a football club for the town and the people of that town or city that come through the turnstiles. So if you own a football club from an equity perspective, then effectively what you earn is the ability to play in any one division at a particular time, you know.

So if you own Manchester United. You own the ability to play in the Premier League for that season. If you are on Preston North End in the Championship, you know if you're in Burton Albion in League One. League two. You know so. But the real oh the heart and soul, the owners are those that come in through the turnstiles.

You know, the fans and the community from which the town take its name. Where people get that wrong and where that gets praise. When clubs have clubs have issues. You know, the one thing, though, is that both those parties have a joint obligation to give that football club the best chance of success. And if you can harmonize that ownership from an equity perspective and heart and soul ownership for football clubs will be successful.

And that's what we've managed to really do at Wrexham, because it's been one of the founding principles and it's best described with You look at people of Wrexham now. There was a time when people who came from Wrexham

00:52:30.070 — 00:52:32.030 · Speaker 3

would say they came from North Wales,

00:52:33.110 — 00:52:35.670 · Speaker 3

or even some of them a town near Chester.

00:52:37.510 — 00:52:49.670 · Speaker 3

People in Wrexham now say they're from Wrexham and that's because it's now the proud. It's not looked down upon, you know. And we've got a profile.

00:52:50.190 — 00:52:56.470 · Speaker 1

So Ryan and Rob realized they've done that. So they know that's what has been created there. Because it's extraordinary isn't it?

00:52:56.510 — 00:53:44.570 · Speaker 3

You can't put a financial value on self esteem and you've created a successful sports story. But the far more successful story is what he's done for the city of Wrexham and its and its community, the proud. They now feel confident. You know, hospital release will no doubt be down. Businesses are beginning to come back to Wrexham and we're in a position where it's created belief and it is possible.

So that's the biggest success story about Wrexham now what's going on in the pitch, not the story that's told that actually the residual benefit to those that live in Wrexham were there for years, decades and hopefully centuries to come.

00:53:44.610 — 00:53:50.810 · Speaker 1

What does the final question, what does the business plan say now about how far off Premier League football is?

00:53:50.850 — 00:54:52.189 · Speaker 3

Well, you know, at the time we're recording, we're arguably 14 games. If you include the Premier League side, if you include the play offs away from, you know, that shot getting to getting to the Premier League. So we're as close or as far as that. You know nobody wants a story that doesn't have ups and downs.

You know we've been on the story of three back to back promotions and chasing a fourth. And the reality is, if we can achieve that. I would argue it's probably going to be the greatest sporting star of the world has ever seen. Now people will have individual experiences that they say Metro. But generally, you know, on any form of analysis for back to back promotions must be the greatest achievement ever, primarily because it's never been done.

So

00:54:53.310 — 00:55:38.980 · Speaker 3

we're as far away as we were at the start of the season. And as we are as near as we are today, the one thing is that we have given the team on the pitch the best chance we've given the community. The best chance and the sign of any good board or ownership group is that they're sitting back and enjoying the ride on exactly the same basis as everybody else.

And that has to be the secret of success. Allow people who know what they're doing to do what it is that they're doing best, but be able to keep everything inside a set parameters and on a road that ultimately can deliver everybody's dreams.

00:55:39.260 — 00:55:50.180 · Speaker 1

I love this story, and whatever happens, it's going to be an amazing watch, whichever way it goes. Yeah, so fingers crossed it works out the way that you feel it should be and it should go.

00:55:50.220 — 00:55:54.340 · Speaker 3

I think one of the, one of the senses of success is when the neutral

00:55:55.620 — 00:56:00.580 · Speaker 3

can turn around and say, hey, I've got an interest in this story and I would love it to happen.

00:56:00.820 — 00:56:02.460 · Speaker 1

Everyone's second club, if not their first.

00:56:03.020 — 00:56:27.600 · Speaker 3

You know, it's authentic and you know it's genuine. And that's what we set out to achieve. Yeah, because the criticism on day one of anyone was it's a gimmick. It's not authentic. It's not genuine. It's two blokes just coming into play. We're going to do that and leave. Well, actually, what we've managed to prove is if you do things the right way around, then everybody can support it.

00:56:27.760 — 00:56:41.880 · Speaker 1

Yeah, we love it. I love it. It's brilliant. It's a great story. In fact, Ryan's just got involved with Australian SailGP. So what would be your advice to how they how they approach that? I'm not sure how much you know about sailing, but it really matters, right?

00:56:41.920 — 00:57:18.580 · Speaker 3

No, it's it's about creating spotlights. Everybody's every you know, you use the LGBT, GP, um example. But every town's got a football team. Yeah. Every country's got a SailGP team. What Rob and Ryan did successfully was shine a spotlight on that particular team and used their image. And I said before, I never knew the strength or really understood the power of celebrity and how it can magnify and multiply.

So my best advice to the SailGP teams.

00:57:18.620 — 00:57:20.180 · Speaker 1

I don't know why I'm helping the Aussies by then.

00:57:20.220 — 00:57:22.460 · Speaker 3

Well, I think you're helping us, but.

00:57:22.460 — 00:57:25.180 · Speaker 1

But that's the league as a whole. That's the league as a whole.

00:57:25.220 — 00:57:26.300 · Speaker 3

You're helping the sport?

00:57:26.340 — 00:57:28.420 · Speaker 1

Yes, yes. Which needs a spotlight on it.

00:57:28.460 — 00:57:57.820 · Speaker 3

You're quite right, you know. You know, fans of Cardiff and Swansea are actually happy that Wales is in the spotlight, of course, because people in America no longer think Wales is a county of England. Yeah. You know, it's standing alone. So sometimes you have to take that little step back to see the greater good and to grow.

But my best advice to the Aussie SailGP is you better open those minds because they are going to push boundaries, and all they need is somebody like me to make sure those boundaries aren't crossed.

00:57:58.780 — 00:58:03.140 · Speaker 1

Sounds like a job application. No. Yeah. You don't want that gig. You don't want that?

00:58:03.180 — 00:58:07.060 · Speaker 3

No. I'm quite. I'm quite happy at home and looking after sport in North Wales.

00:58:07.780 — 00:58:23.250 · Speaker 1

It's been so lovely to have you on. Thanks so much for telling us all of that because it's fascinating. We're all captivated by it. We're all so interested in it. But mainly we're rooted in you guys achieving success, which is, you know, hopefully the end the end game. So thank you.

00:58:23.290 — 00:58:24.050 · Speaker 3

Thank you.

English (US)

00:00:03.960 — 00:00:22.000 · Speaker 1

If you create a different movement environment or a different environment for the brain, the brain can then change. I mean, we can speak for hours about the neuroscience of treatment, etc. but creating a little window of novelty is what opens up a window for change, especially if you're dealing with chronic pain.

00:00:23.480 — 00:01:59.590 · Speaker 2

This is the Performance People podcast brought to you in partnership with J.P. Morgan Private Bank. If you like what you hear or see, please do subscribe. It makes all the difference to our podcast and means it can be as good as possible with the best guess on as possible. Talking of best guests, we've got Kieran Cozier alongside me today.

I should say Doctor Kieran Casey, who's alongside me today. He's written this amazing book, Why Movement is Medicine? This chimes so deeply and resonates with me massively because I was one of these people. There are multiple versions of these, no doubt up and down the country and up and down the world all over, who have this real dichotomy right now of whether they should have surgery for some sort of spinal or neck complaint, or in fact, whether they just need to move more.

And I guess you're going to you're going to tell us the, the latter and explain why that might why that might be a thing. One of the most amazing things about your book, I just want to start off by saying this, because what a clever idea this was. So your preface, you start by saying who you are and that you believe that life is a gift and you say it should never be taken for granted.

I mean, it's dream like that for a living. I have the privilege of potentially altering the trajectory of someone's life. That all changed the day before yesterday. I nearly killed someone. I mean, what a hook for a book, because you then spend your entire time rummaging through the book, trying to find out what on earth happened to this person, what on earth happened in this storyline?

And it is clever because you string us all the way along right to the very, very end. So when is that your idea? Where did that come from? That thinking? Because normally these sorts of books, you know, they, they can be long, hard going. So was that a tactic to just keep people engaged?

00:01:59.630 — 00:03:00.600 · Speaker 1

It definitely was. Um, so yeah, I am not a writer. I haven't even read that many books in my life. So it was a bit of a like lockdown project. Um, I had this draft of a book that I wanted to perhaps one day do, and then Covid hit, and for a few months, I wasn't a chiropractor. I was literally nothing, you know? So I just threw myself into finishing this book.

So I had no, uh, plan plan for the book. I literally wrote it first. And then retrospectively, we were like, right, we need to find a hook. We need to find a name for it. And, um, I had all sorts of, like, catchy names, like pins and needles and like, like, I suppose, weird things. Um, but yeah, I think, um, why?

Movement is like, medicine became the actual name. Because once a patient knows why they have to make a change and we use that like we use education to help them to motivate a, a patient to, to want to make a change. Then movement becomes medicine.

00:03:01.200 — 00:03:29.920 · Speaker 2

If you're watching this podcast, you'll see that Kieran has literally sat right on the edge of his chair with his back perfectly straight. I mean, he is the picture of posture, health. Um, and I suspect you're really judgy about everybody that isn't looking like you right now. I mean, I feel terrible that we're sat down doing this podcast because littered throughout the book is this reference to the fact that, you know, sitting is effectively the new smoking.

So I feel terrible that we're sitting here doing this. Just just explained a little bit of a thing thinking around that.

00:03:29.960 — 00:04:03.340 · Speaker 1

Yeah. So, so good posture. Bad posture is such a massive talking point. Um, I don't think that there's just like one bad posture. Um, a posture is bad if you cannot get out of it. So I slouch a lot as a break. It's perfectly fine to slouch. As long as you're also able to sit up straight. Stand straight, move, etc..

So, um. But yeah, sitting is smoking. Um, sitting is the new smoking. There's studies done where it just shows the amount of time that you sit is directly correlated to the the potential for your back or your disc injuries.

00:04:03.340 — 00:04:33.900 · Speaker 2

So but all of us are sitting here panicking, literally sitting here panicking when you say that because we're thinking, oh my goodness. I mean, you know, most people have had a good chunky amount of time, sat behind a desk, whether it be at school, whether it be, you know, in um, at work, in and around work, just driving the car, sitting on the sofa, watching the telly.

I mean, there are so many reasons at a restaurant, reasons why we would sit down. So how how can we how can we work with what we are already in?

00:04:33.940 — 00:05:21.830 · Speaker 1

Correct. So so let's us so let's make it very clear like we aren't trying to fear manga anyone. That is the worst motivation to to like say that if you set you, you will get x and y and Z. It's just an educational tool. Um, you just need to get moving. Um, sitting is perfectly fine. As I said, I slouch a lot and slouching is perfectly fine as long as you can a get out of it, and b know what to do as a movement snack during the day.

So, um, lots of my patients. Phase. Phase one is we just get them introducing movement snacks, um, things like a like doorway stretch to get the shoulders opening up. Something as simple as that and something for the hips normally to to get the actual pelvis able to tilt and just move slightly easier.

00:05:21.830 — 00:05:47.710 · Speaker 2

And you're I mean, when you say you're sort of you're you call them snacks, but these are sort of bite sized things that you can do to improve yourself that are on your Instagram page. And this Instagram page is like exploding. So you're obviously really connecting with a group of people that feel like they they really need help.

What do you think is happening there? Where do you think? Why do you think they're coming to you for these these moments that they feel are helping them?

00:05:47.750 — 00:07:13.940 · Speaker 1

Yeah. So I think on the internet there's so much out there, there's so much good stuff out there too. I mean, there's there's a million people doing exactly what I do. Right. Yeah. There's so much good out there. Um, and I think to be seen, you have to be a little bit different. So I've got this persona of 80s music.

I was born in the 80s, just about 89. Um, so it's 80s music. It's a serious face. Um, and then we often use blocks like, like yoga block and, um, such a simple tool. I mean, like, if you haven't got a book a block, you could stand on a book, for instance. But if you create a different movement environment or a different environment for the brain, the brain can then change.

So, um. Yeah. I mean, we can speak for hours about the neuroscience of treatment, etc. but creating a little window of novelty is what opens up a window for change, especially if you're dealing with chronic pain. So I think that's what people see is like, oh, that looks weird. And then people try it. And it's something so simple, like standing on a block and then pushing against your like head as an example.

And that experience for the brain is like, so novel. It's like it's the brain's never done it before, never experienced it. And if you've had chronic pain in your neck just by, um, reintroducing a new a new movement stimulus, the brain has this potential to actually learn that. Um, so we call that neural reeducation.

It's my treatment protocol.

00:07:13.980 — 00:07:15.180 · Speaker 2

This is Nari.

00:07:15.300 — 00:07:33.420 · Speaker 1

Nari. Correct. So, um, it's just we've just put all the relative science into a treatment package. Um, I haven't invented neuroplasticity. Of. Of course, it's just it's just packaging it in a way that it is user friendly to the public and to to other clinicians.

00:07:33.460 — 00:07:50.340 · Speaker 2

I guess that's the thing, because people assume when they're faced with the challenge of surgery versus movement, how on earth can I get myself to a place where movement can actually do what they assume surgery would do straight away? But of course, it's not that straightforward or simple, is it?

00:07:50.420 — 00:08:33.680 · Speaker 1

It never is. And, um, we were speaking earlier, so my brother is an orthopedic surgeon. He's he uses the latest robotic tech. Like, he really is a great surgeon. And I interviewed him the other day as a podcast episode. And there is a stigma of like, oh, manual therapists hate surgeons. It's like, no, like surgery is essential if it is needed.

You know, um, surgery is at one spectrum, we're at the other spectrum, and every patient falls somewhere in there. Um, so yeah, I think there should be more love between professions. Um, I think historically professions are fighting over patients, and that's silly. You know, um, I think we should all put the patient's needs first.

And in doing that, you have to sometimes refer quicker than you think. You know.

00:08:34.039 — 00:10:00.950 · Speaker 2

It's interesting because when I first discovered that, definitely I was I was experiencing some really strange sort of symptoms, um, associated with, with disc issues and my back and everything else. First of all, it was things like, um, the first signs of that, I guess, were things like, um, a warming sensation down my hands and up my arm, which I couldn't really attribute to anything in particular.

And I wasn't struggling with grip or anything like that. It was more just the sensation, and I'd wake up and both arms would feel hot in the morning, and I'd have that sort of that. That wasn't tingling necessarily, but it was like a sensation. That was what was going through me, and it felt very foreign and very strange.

Um, and so with that, you sort of ask to inquire further about what might be going on and what might be happening. Um, and this concept that actually we've I suppose over time we will have wear and tear. And I suppose if you've been sporty when you were younger, which is what I was, I guess we didn't really prioritize anything around recovery when we were 14, 15, 16 and bashing out loads of hours, you know, on the playing fields with hockey or tennis or whatever it was doing, team sport, you know, as soon as you finished that, you'd rush in, grab your lunch.

That would take you ten minutes and then you'd be off to the next lesson and you weren't ever really thinking about the recovery aspects of it. I mean, how important is it that nowadays we just prioritize recovery or take it as seriously as we do the training or the performance aspect of a thing?

00:10:01.470 — 00:10:46.710 · Speaker 1

I would say your recovery is directly proportional to the amount that you can heal, to the amount that you can recover. Um, I mean, it sounds so obvious, right? Um, but yes, sleep is such a major pillar of, of of like, health and sleep is essentially when you're doing nothing. Right. Like, it's like when your body is truly recovering.

Um, and obviously some people battle to sleep. So then we have to do a few tricks to get them to help them sleep, you know, powders, etc.. Yeah. Um, but yeah, there's lots of things that will help sleep, you know, exercise your your overall diet. Um, social interaction. Love. Like we can speak about those, um, major pillars for like, health.

But yes, recovery is essential. Um, no one takes it seriously enough. No one does.

00:10:46.750 — 00:11:07.400 · Speaker 2

I guess elite athletes have always known about it. I mean, you yourself are an elite athlete for South Africa, so you've got that background too. What is it about that that it's taken so long to sort of democratize into a wider mainstream chatter, I guess, to really make people understand better that recovery isn't just for elite athletes, it's for everyone.

00:11:07.960 — 00:11:55.420 · Speaker 1

Yeah, it's a good question. Um, my wife, when I met her, she was not an exerciser. And I was like, you have to exercise. And she's like, why? Like, to her, exercise was just what you did at school. Uh, pe. So I think there is just this global education gap, you know, um, and that's why we write books and that's why we start talking is because we want to just educate and.

Yeah, um, education is key. Um, once, once black people understand, then they start to to think perhaps I'll, I'll introduce some good sleeping habits or some recovery, some better supplements. I've been dealing with patients for 15 years now, and people are difficult. And, um, Everyone has different motivations.

Some people lack a bit of fearmongering. But. But it's a small percentage of people. Um.

00:11:55.660 — 00:12:16.700 · Speaker 2

People just basically impatient as well. I mean, I think that's the other thing. Surgery, when it's thrown at you, feels like a solution that can that can make things change and happen faster, perhaps. I mean, it's so ironic because of course, there's so much more that goes goes with that. But is it that people are just these days so impatient and want things really fast?

00:12:16.700 — 00:13:07.110 · Speaker 1

Correct. And, um, they're rarely, rarely is a quick fix for anything? Um, by the time you see someone in a clinic room with with pain, it's normally chronic based. So it's been there for weeks, months, or even potentially years. And there is no quick fix for a a painful movement pattern. So yeah. So as long as we teach people to expect.

Right. Like you have to put your head down for the first phase at 6 to 8 weeks. That's how long the first phase of like, um, neurological changes happen. Then it's like once people have committed to a bit more than five minutes of scrolling, you know, so so you just have to somehow see what motivates the patient in front of you, um, and try and get them to commit to, to just some small habit over a few weeks.

Um.

00:13:07.630 — 00:13:19.230 · Speaker 2

How do you see and how do you see these sort of changes as they evolve? I mean, that must be a really interesting journey for you to go on with each with the I know every client is different, but for each and every client, that must be interesting to sort of see how that path.

00:13:20.030 — 00:13:37.590 · Speaker 1

Yeah. Um, I think a lot of it is we ask a patient, what is your pain preventing you from doing? And, um, I see people of all different ages. And if you think about, like an old person who has grandkids, it might just be pick up my grandchild again, or it might be put my shoes and socks on again, you know.

00:13:37.630 — 00:13:38.870 · Speaker 2

So it's really simple.

00:13:38.870 — 00:14:29.770 · Speaker 1

If you can get someone to, to to just get them able to do those small things again. It is euphoric to them. Um, I always wanted to be a sports chiropractor, and I realized that sports people are difficult because. Because you're always fighting for the 1% and or even, like even, like half, half a percent. So sports people.

Yeah. Like, it's hard to find that small gap. But if you see the average person, um, you can get massive improvement, you know, like massive movements, improvement, massive pain improvement, sleep improvement, everything. And, um, that's really fulfilling. You know, um, yeah, I so I started off seeing sportspeople, but you quickly see their mum and dad and their grandparents and their kids and stuff.

So it's definitely become more a family practice as opposed to a sports and family practice.

00:14:29.810 — 00:14:46.500 · Speaker 2

You're absolutely right about those marginal gains what they're looking for. Those incremental changes are obviously so, so much more marginal than what an average person might be expecting or might actually be able to achieve as well. Um, these eight movements that you recommend? What are they?

00:14:46.740 — 00:15:56.880 · Speaker 1

So the move made eight are the eight movement patterns on my YouTube channel. Um, there are just eight common movement patterns that we recommend to patients if we want to get their spine stronger and moving better. So some of them are hip, hip based because you want to be able to get the hip and pelvis more mobile, but also stronger, and then you want to get the spine itself stronger.

Um, I think historically some people are scared to move their spine because perhaps they hurt their spine bending and then they their brain and they're so like consciously and subconsciously, they've they've learned to not bend or be scared of bending. And often fear of movement is actually worse than the movement itself.

So we want to introduce movement again, whether it's spinal flexion and extensions, side bending, twisting, those all good movements. But but like very often, um, a very common comment on my Instagram is like, oh, you mustn't bend the spine. And I'm just like screaming. And I'm like, why? Why? Like it's the best thing for your spine.

Um, but obviously you have to be be very careful to tell people on the internet to do X, Y, and Z without getting a lawsuit. So there's massive disclaimers. Do not do anything that you see online.

00:15:58.760 — 00:16:02.520 · Speaker 2

Okay. So that's the that's the move. What do you call that. The move made eight.

00:16:02.560 — 00:16:03.200 · Speaker 1

Move made eight.

00:16:03.200 — 00:16:06.080 · Speaker 2

Yeah okay. The move made eight. So just break those eight down.

00:16:06.120 — 00:16:08.720 · Speaker 1

Cool. So the big three is push pull left.

00:16:08.760 — 00:16:10.120 · Speaker 2

So pull left.

00:16:10.160 — 00:16:57.930 · Speaker 1

Okay, so if the gym has any pushing movement, any pull movement, any squatting. So like hip hinging movement then we've got spinal flexion and spinal side flexion. Then we and then two for the spine that people don't think about is calf raises. So um yeah speaks for itself. And then there's a muscle on the front of the shin called the tibialis anterior.

People don't often strengthen that that actual muscle or that movement pattern that goes that comes from L4 five in the back. So if we can strengthen that nerve root pattern. It increases people's balance. It just decreases the chance of them falling so that that particular muscle is part of our spinal program.

And then the eighth one is the split squat. So like a deep hip hip extension with a hip hip flexion.

00:16:57.970 — 00:17:12.370 · Speaker 2

Do you know what I've got really into recently. Which I have to then counteract with some other, um, exercises which don't necessarily make you feel instantaneously like they're achieving something, but clearly are in the longer, bigger picture of the thing is nerve flossing.

00:17:12.410 — 00:17:13.209 · Speaker 1

Yeah. Cool.

00:17:13.449 — 00:17:28.290 · Speaker 2

Love a bit of nerve flossing? Yeah. Brilliant. Because you genuinely, instantly feel an effect. And if you are tight on either side, it feels like you're you are at genuinely releasing and flossing love. Extraordinary feeling.

00:17:28.290 — 00:18:00.470 · Speaker 1

So that was probably one of my biggest hit, uh uh, videos was we introduced a nerve floss, but in an atypical one because you get nerve mobilization, right? So if you like, um, uh, think about it. If you shorten your neck nerves, but then lengthen, um, in the arm, and if you come back that way, that's kind of moving the nerve in the sheath.

But if you trying to increase the nerve tension itself, you almost want to do that sometimes. But you have to be very careful and do it very incremental.

00:18:00.830 — 00:18:06.030 · Speaker 2

I think that's the problem. Everyone thinks that more is more, and it isn't always, is it? Where nerves are concerned?

00:18:06.070 — 00:18:18.710 · Speaker 1

No. So with everything long term you have to do it. Incremental. Um, that's how the brain brain works is there has to be a small degree of change with consistency. If it's too much, it's like a trauma to the brain.

00:18:18.750 — 00:18:42.080 · Speaker 2

So if you sit in an office, which most people you work do, um, what are the key things that you can do every single day? And how long is this going to take you? Because as I said, most people are impatient and want quick fixes, but they won't necessarily get them. But what can you do every single day to improve your situation with regards to neck and spinal injury.

00:18:42.120 — 00:19:21.680 · Speaker 1

Yeah, very good and very common question. Um, the first thing is the mindset of just make it part of your life. So if you stand up every 30 to 60 minutes during your workday, go walk as far away as you can from your desk. Go find a doorway and stretch through the doorway. So get the shoulders just moving backwards because they're all forward of our keyboards, of our phones, etc. so do something for the shoulders to get them back and then do something for your hips.

Whether it's a glute stretch or a little lunge hip like a hip flexor stretch. And when you get back to your seat, actively sit up as good as you can. Or if you have a standing desk, stand as as as good as you can.

00:19:21.720 — 00:19:24.800 · Speaker 2

I mean, would you recommend that everyone should get a standing desk?

00:19:24.880 — 00:19:52.900 · Speaker 1

It's a it's a good tool to have, um, some people don't like, uh, don't like standing too much standing. I'd say it also isn't good for you, like obviously varicose veins, etc., etc.. So the key is just movement. Every 30 to 60 minutes you have to be moving around. So if you have the luxury of a desk that goes up and down, it's perfect.

You know, stand stand sit. Move around. Um, the key is just avoiding the repetitive stationary postures.

00:19:53.300 — 00:19:55.780 · Speaker 2

What we're trying to avoid is technique, isn't it?

00:19:55.820 — 00:20:23.020 · Speaker 1

Exactly. And that's just that. And also a cosmetic thing is the bump behind the neck. That's called the dowager hump. Um, that's literally years of bad or like, average posture where the body is actually laying down fatty tissue as a cushion, literally. So you can, can fix the the bump cosmetically just takes years and years and years of better posture.

Take away the friction point and the body absorbs it.

00:20:23.060 — 00:20:48.030 · Speaker 2

As I'm talking to you, I'm so aware of my posture. I keep moving around, knowing full well that I'm probably doing exactly the sort of thing that really gets you, gets you stressed. Let's talk about stress, because stress is so much part of everyone's modern day lives, whether we like it or not, we're in it.

Um, and definitely people that are sort of link themselves to performance environments are really in it. So how do we combat it?

00:20:49.070 — 00:21:50.730 · Speaker 1

Yeah. So again, with stress, we have to realize that stress keeps you alive. So first of all, stress is good for you. Um, because I think stress and inflammation get demonized. You know, we're stressed and information will literally save your life. But when they become chronic and too much, then it's very detrimental to your health.

So if you are like the average person who's in this heightened, uh, life of too much information and too much stress, you want to be doing those breaks during the day to lower the stress levels. And probably the tool to like, take home for that is breathwork. You know, so if you're incorporating this every 30 to 60 minutes, standing up and finding a door to like go stretch, you can almost I wish I created this word.

It's called habit stacking. So while while you're doing a good habit, like stretching through a doorway. Breathe. And you can just do the, the, um, the classic physiological sigh where you breathe in through your nose too hard in breaths at, at, um, all the way out through your mouth. So like, uh.

00:21:53.930 — 00:22:12.330 · Speaker 1

So if you can just do a few of those breaths while doing a stretch, it will instantaneously lower your stress levels. And then you get back to your desk and then it starts to rise again. But as long as you're, like, toggling in and out of stress, it's okay. But you can imagine being being at your desk stationary with heightened stress for eight hours a day.

It's not going to be good for you.

00:22:12.450 — 00:22:31.730 · Speaker 2

Let's talk also about, um, endurance running and that sort of zone two recovery state that I guess is now being talked about a lot more, um, and is much more common in people's sort of training, thinking and psyche. Why is it really important to stick around and zone to.

00:22:32.730 — 00:22:42.020 · Speaker 1

So there's a million good reasons for that. But I think one that people don't often speak about is got to do with your lymphatics. So do you know what the lymphatics are?

00:22:42.060 — 00:22:45.580 · Speaker 2

Maybe you're gonna tell me. So I'm assuming it's got something to do with lymphatic.

00:22:45.700 — 00:23:10.900 · Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah. Correct. So the lymphatic is no. So, so so your lymph is essentially the waste products of your brain's metabolism. So when you're deep sleeping and especially doing low impact cardio. So like zone two tap cardio, your brain is your body is trying to get rid of the metabolites that your brain has actually used.

So that's a major reason for it, right? Um,

00:23:12.420 — 00:23:56.760 · Speaker 1

the other reason is that it's, it's it's it's that exercise zone that is not hurting your body. It's helping your body recover. Um, and I, I probably learned this hard, um, the hard way when I was training for my sub three attempt. You you always compare to people like Mo Farah, who is doing his easy run at four minutes a Okay.

But that for him is is actually zone two or this was, was a um but I mean that is an easy run for him and, and I deal with, uh, quite a few of these like these like marathon, um, guys now doing two, 216, 217. It's it's wild. But if I compare to them, they're easy. Pace is now my tempo pace, you know. So don't compare to someone else's time.

00:23:56.760 — 00:23:59.160 · Speaker 2

But mostly an Olympic champion.

00:23:59.160 — 00:24:22.760 · Speaker 1

Don't compare. Don't compare to anyone else. Correct. Um, but you want to get into that zone most of the time. Um, if, if you're training easier, like I said, like old classics saying if you train easier when you do go hard, go very hard. Like you actually want to create a stimulus to change, but then go back into your baseline zone to for most of your training.

So if you look at like athletes.

00:24:22.760 — 00:24:24.600 · Speaker 2

The proportion of that, would you say.

00:24:25.480 — 00:24:26.440 · Speaker 1

Your, uh.

00:24:26.440 — 00:24:29.080 · Speaker 2

If you were going to put those into a percentage, what would that be?

00:24:30.040 — 00:25:04.010 · Speaker 1

15% is probably a ballpark. Yeah. So if you like look at the intensity. Most of the marathon guys are doing a lot of their baseline zone to to work with a few marathon efforts, you know, and then speed work. But it's it's a small proportion. I mean their warm ups and cooldowns are all zone too. So it's a small percentage.

Um, but if you're recovered and healthy enough to start the red effort, you can go as hard as you want. You know, you can go do like I mean hill sprint repeats, you know, create a proper stimulus for change, but then you have to let the body recover.

00:25:04.570 — 00:25:08.730 · Speaker 2

And that's the bit I guess the elite athletes understand. And the rest of us are catching up on.

00:25:08.730 — 00:25:34.510 · Speaker 1

Correct. And the elite athletes during they they day are having tea and having a sleep. Um, most of us are working so, so again, for the average person and I'll and I like treating and working with average people. Right. Like like me. I'm an average person. I have a job. Um, you have to take it into account that that your 40 hour workweek is not recovery.

It like it just is not recovery. You know so.

00:25:34.950 — 00:25:57.070 · Speaker 2

So I think that is the common misconception, I guess, that, you know, these guys are going out and guys and girls going out and smashing amazing different versions of sporting events over the weekend, then coming into work on a Monday just like anyone else and still doing a a full day. And like you say, recovery is not doing your normal work life piece.

That isn't what recovery means. What does recovery mean to you?

00:25:57.110 — 00:27:27.400 · Speaker 1

So it would be ticking off the five pillars of a of a healthy brain, which would be lens lends. So love like is your home situation good? Like do you have to apologize to someone at home? Do you have to do something? Or. Yeah. Like your love and your interactions with people. Is there a good emotional environment in your home?

Yes. Then you will recover. Really good. Obviously. Exercise. So sometimes it would be actually intense exercise if like for instance, we've got a almost one year old at the moment I'm just taking the bare minimum, the bare minimum for like, exercise, you know, so sometimes it'll be doing intense exercise if you haven't done enough or it's just going back into the zone two type stuff.

But there's four pillars of um, of like exercise. So we can speak about those later if you want. So l e n is the, the, the the novelty and the new environments. So my page is full of those. But at home a like new environment could be go read a book go if you haven't been outside. Go get go get some fresh air. Um. Introduce something new so that'll help your brain take, uh, take a awareness of the current stressful, uh, stressful situation.

Uh, d is diet, so that's obviously what you can put into your mouth, but also what you don't put into your mouth sometimes. And then s is sleep. So, um, prioritize your sleep. You know, put your phone off, dampen the blue lights in the evening, have a routine. Um, for sleep. I think the the body and brain love routine.

00:27:27.400 — 00:27:42.740 · Speaker 2

And the funny thing about sleep is that everyone just sort of does it. But actually you can affect it in a way where you can do it so much better than just accepting it's going to be something that happens at the end of every day, 100%.

00:27:42.740 — 00:28:38.470 · Speaker 1

And um, uh, one of my influencer friends gave me a watch again. So I've been tracking my sleep again. And, um, I did this a few years ago, and it was cool to learn exactly what effects it, you know, and, um, the like the wearables are good for broad stuff, you know, like, if you have an alcoholic drink, your sleep is affected.

If you have a very stressful day and train, train hard, your sleep, sleep is actually affected. So you can quickly see what affects you. Um, so it's it's cool to learn a bit about those things for you as an individual. But then I also found that that the wearable was actually causing stress for me, because then you wake up and you're like, ah, damn it.

Like, I actually felt pretty good, but my watch said I slept horribly, so. So I've gone through phases where I've had no wearables versus wearables, etc. but yeah, sleep is an interesting one. Um, we have a baby now, as I said. And, um, yeah, sleep now is when you really appreciate your sleep.

00:28:38.910 — 00:29:11.750 · Speaker 2

It's so true. It's so true. I think that's the thing about life. Like, you know, you can have all these different protocols, but actually you've got to be able to be fluid with them or at least flexible with them to a degree, because life will throw those different curveballs at you, right? Whether you're a parent or whether you know you've had a particularly tricky day at the office or you know you've had to work late or whatever, would there be so many different variables that account for whether you do or don't have a great night's sleep, you know, punishing yourself because it didn't work out perfectly according to your Woop scores is not ideal.

00:29:11.790 — 00:29:15.510 · Speaker 1

Yeah, and I think it is good for the the listeners to also know

00:29:16.550 — 00:30:03.210 · Speaker 1

you might be in a different phase of life. So don't compare to the influencer online who is apparently getting the best sleep and doing like x x x x y z because. Yeah. Like just see it at your phase of life. Perhaps doing the the like our red line therapy and Zen is not possible for you because your life is just in a busy phase, you know.

So get back to the basics. And I think that's probably a big focus of my whole life. Practice is just getting people back to basics. Um, there's there is lots of noise on the internet, uh, lots of good noise, but there's often just too much noise. So we just want to give people back to the basics. You know, focus on love in your life.

Some kind of exercise, something new, a good diet, some sleep.

00:30:03.210 — 00:30:09.330 · Speaker 2

And get up and move from this podcast show, which is exactly what I'm going to do now. Thank you very much. That's great.

00:30:09.370 — 00:30:10.410 · Speaker 1

Awesome pleasure.