The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - E10: Dom's Diary - Mental Health, Addiction & Quitting Business

Episode Date: February 12, 2018

In this chapter, Dominic McGregor, Co-Founder of Social Chain joins me to talk through his story of building Social Chain, the pressure's of entrepreneurship, mental health, his struggles with addiction & his recovery.Dom's EverydayHero challenge - https://calmchallengeevents201718.everydayhero.com/uk/TeeTotalRunner

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly, to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. This week may be my favorite chapter of all time. In chapter 10, I fulfill a promise I made to you in chapter 9 by inviting on my business partner, Dominic McGregor. He comes on the podcast today to share his deep, dark secrets and his incredible story. So many of you will know my story. But this whole time, I've had somebody stood right next to me. And he's a completely different person.

He chooses not to take the limelight. He has a different perspective on the world and he's built in a different way. He has an incredible story. You'll hear things from Dom that, you know, I was honestly frightened to share with the world. When I first hired Dom back in 2014 to join my startup, Wallpark, because he had grown a large social media page and I was looking to advertise the platform on social media. I messaged him online and I met him in a bar and I encouraged him to drop out of university and join me full time. And surprisingly and courageously, he did exactly that. We've worked together side by side ever since for the last six

years and we went on to start social chain together many many years ago. Through that time we've been through it all. We've lived together, we've worked together, we've traveled together, we've slept on floors together, we've argued, we've had celebrations like you wouldn't believe. Dom has his personal struggles and me and him as I said are different people. And there are things that I've always wanted to ask him. Today was that day. This is his story of success, of mental health issues, of alcoholism, of the street. So without further ado, I'm Steve Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening.

But if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Okay, Dom, a lot of people that listen to this podcast would probably follow me across Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and Instagram. And they know a lot about social chain, but they don't hear a tremendous amount about you. So my first question to you is, from your perspective, why is that? Good question. why is that good question um i think the reason people don't hear a lot about me is a couple of reasons so i don't like to put myself out there too much which again you what you put out there you get back so that's probably a very main reason secondly the role i play is a little bit different to what steve plays and what you play what you play um because it's much more about like bringing people together and getting shit done

um and I think you know being frank you know I probably wasn't someone that maybe like a year ago two years ago could be someone who's put out there. So what is it you do then? And make the distinction between what I do at Social Chain and what you do at Social Chain. Yeah. I've always seen it mainly like, the way I think about my head really, is like a little bit like external, internal,

like a little bit like, we've always said like marriage. So what I do is solve problems of how things are working at the moment. So solving what, you know, we've got problems with a campaign because, you know, two parts of the business aren't working very well together. Things aren't going smoothly.

Needs to be something to come in there to fix it, to tweak it. What Steve does is the role, do you do, that's weird, I'm doing it this way. What you do is much more about the external kind of the noise of who we are, getting ourselves out there, always being the face, always being a rapper in the business,

bringing them through the front door, being that kind of side of things. But then also more of the stuff that involves inspiration and the kind of perception of who we are internally as well, while mine's more nuts and bolts pulling things together sticking things together this can be more efficient like that and obviously because i spend a lot of time doing external facing stuff i put myself out there i'm speaking on stages i do the podcast youtube channel all these things i have a cameraman following me at all times

i get a tremendous amount of credit right i get like a disproportionate amount of credit how a lot i think something that i don't think anybody would understand and one of the questions i want to ask you because i feel like it's a question that people must wonder is i i definitely just being completely honest because that's what the podcast is all about i definitely get a lot more credit than you do um in terms of people using my name when they think of social chain or when they think social chain how does that sit with you i don't care because i know like we've said a number of times he can't alter history so i think it comes from being secure myself i know what role I play. I know where we came from. I know the story.

I know what we do here. I know what we both do. And it doesn't matter to me. I think I've always been the business's most important thing here. Social chain is us. So it's about making sure that is always going forward. Question then. If social chain was two Steve Bartletlett's would it work no it would never

work same question to you if social chain was two dom mcgregor's no same question to you oh you mean the same question if there's two steve bartlett's no no no it never we know it would be a completely it would be a completely different place i don't know i don't know i don't know if it ever would have been possible to be honest it wouldn't go anywhere no because my my no no it wouldn't it wouldn't go anywhere if it was two Dominic Gregors it wouldn't go I'm saying it would be a complete I know it wouldn't I wouldn't even started there was a problem you know so I was gonna say if you like dropped me in if you dropped two of me in no it would it would hold I think it would hold on for a little bit because Steve wouldn't want to jeopardize it because of other Steve but I think I i think i'm very very strong-minded in like the

ways the ways that i think should things should be i think over time i've got more like open to um it sounds really bad but like i'm very like i'm very very specific and if there was another very very very specific person from very early on in terms of like minor words and these like tiny things I really don't know if that would have worked. We've always said about having like complimentary traits and that's why it's worked

there's so many times when things have been realigned and things have to have to talk where conflicting personalities where similar personalities already would have clashed over their perceptions and we say about ego quite a lot if you have two really big egos who are very the same type of ego in the room they but like you say they both think their position is right they don't have the they won't have the foresight to be humble enough to say well could do this way especially and i always

think that the the biggest impact well is the biggest impact we both made is in the early days you know when it was just two of us when with hannah and obviously everyone else there that's when we defined the place and you know that's when it took a lot of like work you know being honest you know you know you get me there you've been doing a lot more public speaking lately yeah which is the so we've we're now i don't know three years into social team probably like five years into doing this really but um three years as a company you've now sort of decided to take the stage and start doing more of the outward facing stuff what's a A, inspired that? What's given you the courage to do that and how are you finding it? Well, what's given me the courage is the self-confidence. Like I, I guess crippled by,

ever like most people, I crippled by their own anxieties about themselves, how they're looked, how they're perceived. One of the biggest things I hate about myself is my voice I've got a very distinct accent you can hear it right now it's not clean it's not the best and that's what my perception of myself is so I speak quickly I don't know I know so I've always shied away from long public conversations because of that reason but also because of how i perceive myself and maybe not being a very natural presenter that it's how are you finding it i love it now honestly i've got i've got over them um the voice thing i'm not getting not over yet but i'm more embraced it what do you mean by the voice thing just like how i sound i don't like how i sound it's just an accent though yeah i't it? Yeah, I know.

But I struggle, I think people struggle to understand me sometimes, which is again, probably self-deluded, but. I think I did, in the earlier days, I would always, I'd say, I would always say to you, what, what, what, what? And then you'd say, repeat yourself, what, what? And I could never understand what you're saying.

And then you've got, you're much more articulate than you were back then. Because I just had no idea what you're saying most of the time at you're much more articulate than you were back then because you i just had no idea what you're saying most of the time at the start and that's that was a huge i've had that my whole life people and i was like god i need to speak slower and then when you spend in front of people the minute you feel like you lose their attention that's when you start going into yourself even more so the idea of public speaking and I couldn't wasn't confident my voice just triggered everything what's um what's the the most annoying thing that I do what's like the most annoying thing in terms of working with me

what's that what's the hardest thing to deal with that I do? The thing that's most irritating. I'm pretty sure it should come to mind pretty quickly. And you can say you can be a sandwich. What is the most irritating thing? There's so many I'm joking. Irritating thing. Sometimes forgetfulness.

Forgetfulness. We've had conversations about this. It's happened.'s happened this is you know things go move on two months later we revisit it's like we had a conversation about this i've forgotten we've forgotten that's that's dementia yeah probably might be pretty convinced but it's things with them you know it happens what's um what do you think the most annoying thing that you do is in terms of working working with working with you uh over promise over promise yeah why do you do what so take too much on maybe not a promise no promise is probably wrong take too much on okay try and do too many things why why is why do you do that don't trust other people i think that was a hard thing at first to get over.

I always think I could do a better job than people. I also think you're a bit of a yes man. Bit of a yes man. I know I definitely was more of a yes man. Yeah, you were. Definitely more. Too much of a yes man. Yeah, because I was, again, I think trying to...

I think what's always been weird is... And I've talked to a lot of people about this now is when you don't not that you don't have a tangible output you don't have like a I did X today or I did Y, that shift in your life of from going like where I started was running communities and

growing the pages back at Warpack from going from that position I still remember when you sat me down and we first did the investment and it must have been about a week after you said to me you're not gonna run any pages anymore that's really well it's a really weird feeling i was like what do you mean the cost for context when dom says pages he means twitter pages so when i met dom dom was running a bunch of twitter pages and um yeah yeah it's good and that was very strange and then that transition between doing that where you've got like a clear result to not actually doing a tangible output but actually helping other people

growing them doing much more um leadership leadership oriented things was a very difficult transition so on that point do you think do you think that um entrepreneurs are are made or do you think they're born this is a question i get asked all the time it's do you think you can do you think some people are born entrepreneurs or do you think you can be made into entrepreneurs you answer first and i'll tell you the answer what i always say i i've been asked before and i always my opinion is that no one's born anything a lot lot of life is nurture. And it comes through like the early stages of development. So playing sport, playing,

things you could look at any influence over. It's how your parents and how you interact at school. And you do develop certain traits like leadership, for example, which can translate into business. A natural curiosity of wanting things to be done better. And I think that a lot of it is nurture and then however putting yourself into a position where you run a business you can learn it's a skill I honestly think it's a skill rather than something that you're born with yeah so I think

I think obviously um not a lot you've really got to um define what you mean by entrepreneur because there's a very sort of like stereotypical idea of what an entrepreneur is and it's kind of like in my mind it's a bit of like a show pony risk taker fearless kind of type um whereas entrepreneurs are problem solvers yeah and there's there's so many different types of entrepreneurs so you've got like a mark zuckerberg who was a coder that built an amazing product and learned how to be an entrepreneur you see when, when I say entrepreneur, we're imagining this person that's like really good with people. This is what I imagine anyway, really good with people,

like a bit of an extrovert as well, risk taker, kind of big ego, that kind of thing. Whereas really, if you look at the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, when you think about, you know, like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs and all these, you know, they didn't start that way,

but they're made into that. And from knowing you, when I met you, you were kind of a bit, I wouldn't say you were a bit shy, but only to me. You weren't shy to your friends, of course, but you're a bit shy to me in a professional sense. And I think you were low confidence, but going from there, when we met in that bar in York, I think it was a Revolutions bar, to now, has kind of answered the question for me that you can be made one because you can be hammered enough times and hit and you can kind of teach yourself to be one,

which I think will give a lot of people a lot of peace of mind, I guess. Anyone that maybe doesn't look like the person they want to they want to become i guess um one of the other questions i had was about your personal journey so just from my sort of account of knowing you we met when you how old's 19 20 20 i must have how old was i then you were 20 i was 20 as well um and we've come a long way in that time so you've had a very sort of interesting personal development journey much more interesting than my personal development journey um you've gone from being someone that was very very low confident to taking on great responsibility and i would say at times in the early days like really struggling

with the the stress of that and then getting to the point where alcohol started to become a bit of a um i don't know what the word is started to become something that would help you get out of the stresses of running a business and you know this is just my perception of the situation um and as things got harder and harder you you began to escape more but you didn't i didn't just feel like you were escaping from the job and the stresses of the job I also in some respects felt like I represented the stresses of the job so we were living together at this point and um I speak to some of my friends about this who are in similar situations where if you work with me and we're with business partners but then you also come home and live

with me it's kind of like the stress comes home as well and that's kind of what it felt like at one point i think i think i think i had stress from so many angles where do you think where was your relationship a crap relationship which which one hannah which hannah you've dated three all dom's girlfriends by the way have all been called hannah in a row i think that's a bit of a psychological thing yeah yeah but that was like i wanted to get out of that so badly and half it was just that work everything i don't i don't ever think i don't think it was coming home to it i actually you know we had i actually enjoyed it the house was like at first was better than anywhere but

then i think everything just got on top of me everything from because i hated this girl i absolutely hated this girl she was i don't we don't need to i mean there's so many girls that you've said called hannah so i'm not really saying which one it is but i couldn't stand this girl because she was just so anti your career and well your ambitions and it was almost this competition and obviously it was like the third wheel i'm it's always it always it's always gonna happen like that and like i i wasn't i hate thinking about it me as put like then i was just i didn't like myself i hate myself what did you hate about yourself everything how i was you know like how i was with her like i i don't know if I ever said thank you for, like, how it ended.

But, like, basically what Steve did is Steve just sorted it for me. And I really became a person I didn't like. Really became a person I didn't like. You said you hated yourself. What did you hate about yourself? I hated everything. Everything to do with me. How I looked, how I was acting, how I was speaking.

Really hated myself. And that, when you've got this kind of, like, base layer of, like, crap going on, on top of it, hating yourself, you know, we need to, in position right now, we need to love ourselves because we're putting ourselves through a lot of stress. And a lot, not stress, stress is not the right word.

Just a lot. And, like, you need to love yourself and i hate myself and and you you at some point near the end of your relationship with this girl you developed a so just to set the scene you've got this you know this job and at the time social chain was it was still a startup and there was tremendous financial pressures nothing was guaranteed we were obviously looking at the bank balance all the time, trying to figure out if we were going to be able to make payday. Clients cancelling left, right and centre because we just weren't set up to fulfil the work properly at that time.

Going home every night at midnight, 1am, 2am, 3am. Unsure how you're going to pay payday in a couple of days' time. And then you've got your girlfriend's giving you a hard time. There's all these other sort of more personal pressures that you've exhibited upon yourself. And then you start developing a fairly unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Destructive. Destructive, I think it is.

Destructive. And we had this term, didn't we, which I used to call you drunk dom. Yeah. And the thing is, you it's that you know what what social change started out you know we had a lot of you know we're struggling for paying people but we're having a lot of wins as well so a lot of things to celebrate as well as we were growing and at first everything started off as a celebration you know we would all go out at weekends and have fun and that was it and i think the more it was quite funny because the more

you know not many only me and you know what it was like the more it was quite funny because the more you know not many only me and you know what it was like you know no one else knew at the time what we were where we were and I think you know when we're trying to put a smile on celebrate with everyone else and we there's things going on in the background it's like that's when you you start just keeping more drink drinking more and more but you the relationship you had with drinking was like nothing I'd seen before. You would drink one beer and then if you drank one, you would drink until you just wouldn't stop. There wasn't like three or five.

It was like you go and keep on and got to the point where we would lose you because you'd be at the bar ordering your own drinks and guzzling them down and i'll never forget that night where we came home and um you were you had the lights off and it was like three three a.m in the morning and you were in the front room drinking a bottle of wine with the lights off and i just got home um and i think that was maybe the start of me realizing well me thinking like this this isn't normal um what was that whole period like for you what was the did were you did you have a did you consciously think alcohol was helping that's what i always wondered did you realize did or was it a very sort of unconscious thing it was it was so totally unconscious like i say it's that everything for like it started off as a celebration you know we'd go out we go neighborhood every weekend we

celebrate and like by like drink four drink five when i'm when i'm gone you don't realize anything because you don't think anything yeah and then i just when everyone else was celebrating i remember the neighborhood opening we went with me you alex Alex, someone else sat upstairs, and I just, you know, everyone else was celebrating the neighbourhood opening, but I've got this, of course, pressures of, like, crumbling on me, like, oh, God, I'm thinking about everything, I'm not there, I'm not actually there in the moment with you guys, I'm just sat there drinking my drink, drinking it quickly,

getting this feeling of going a little bit numb, making myself go numb. And just, I wanted to get away from everyone. I didn't want to get away from anyone in particular, but at work, I just wanted to get away. I wanted to go off by myself. I wanted to be in my own little space because... Did you ever think about quitting?

I thought about selling. I wanted to sell. You know, when the offers started, this is a strange, when the offers started to come in and people were interested to buy, of course, head was turned. And I was like, all right, you know, this, we could, we should sell.

And I was, I know I was very pro of selling to some people that came in in the early days because it was a way out. And I was like, okay, you know what? If I get the security of selling some, you know, the shares and then I'm all right, I can sort myself out. I feel like, okay, you know what, if I get the security of selling some, you know, the shares, and then I'm all right, I can sort myself out,

I feel like I've completed something, and kind of in the back of my mind, I knew, you know, if we could do that, I could then sort myself out. What would you do? What was your plan? I had no plan, because I just know I wanted something, and I was, like, I was seeking something in myself, like, and this is when I was drinking.

I've said to you a million times, but once I stopped drinking and now every single time I get an offer, I don't care about it. You know, in that moment there, and then I was seeking, like, I don't know what I was looking for. I was just looking for something like the one when the hook group wanted to buy us i was you know i snapped the hands off then because it would have meant security and then so you get out of this fairly toxic relationship as you alluded to it wasn't uh it wasn't it didn't happen easily did it um i remember

you telling me one night you said right steve i'm gonna go i'm gonna go meet her and i'm gonna go and end it and then you went um met her you were out for four or five hours i sat home waiting you came back and you're still in the relationship and in fact she managed to convince you that you were the problem and that in fact your career was so selfish that she was the victim yeah and so you came back really upset about what you had done to her by having this career um and i think again that for me it was just another sign that you you weren't really in control of the situation yeah i wasn't i wasn't in control of my own emotions i wasn't in control of the relationship and i'm i know it sounds stupid but like i hate that person i see i see him now in other people and i've drunk dom drunk dom that that guy you know so even in sober when he was

in relationship and i just look and think how how are you like that when it's so obvious you're in a bad relationship, it's so obvious you've got a problem, because you've been through that, obviously, but it's so obvious to see now, but at the time you're just so gazed with everything, you don't know you're right from wrong, you've got all these voices in your head,

you don't know what's going on with you, you're not happy with anything, you're not happy you're not you're not happy with anything you're not happy with yourself you're not happy with your relationship no one's like no one's like making you feel good you're putting so much pressure on yourself and you know something's got to change at that point and you um because you were in that state where you were struggling with these external things i really just from hearing you now it's evidence it's sort of clear that that's why you lost control of that romantic relationship yeah in the sense that you would you were almost quite submissive to this person and she was quite naturally a bit of a manipulator so i remember

the day after you'd i think finally broken up with her and she calls you on the phone and she says if you don't leave work right now and come and see me i'm gonna crash my car and she's driving on the motorway and then she screams she screams and she hangs up the phone to make it seem like she crashed yeah and obviously you're very upset by that as everybody would be because you know you believe this person but she was really playing to this guy that wasn't in control of himself and she knew that yeah and she so and then so what we did that day obviously i'd already banned her from everywhere she was banned from the house, she was banned from the office because, you know,

I just thought she was a bad influence. I always felt really guilty, I'll be honest. I always felt really guilty because I'm a bit of a control freak, as you'll know. Like I'm very controlling when it comes to a lot of things. And I was always really worried that I was controlling you,

that I was controlling the room. That's how it felt sometimes. I felt like I was, I'm like, is this just me controlling Dom? No, do you know because when I when I first met her we will have stayed

on Lisa's floor yeah so I was like I've met a girl she lives in Manchester I can stay at her house you know I can like get a bit of a base

and I was like this sounds like a good idea you know not like Lisa's so for context when we when Dom met this girl me and Dom were basically homeless

yeah and in a sense that we were we'd moved out of our place and we were looking for somewhere to live yeah so yeah so and you know I latched to that I looked for any kind of like stable base and I was like I fell into it I was like this got a house I can stay there I can I can do something you know and she so she she ended up she gave her those phone calls where she you know she threatens to kill herself you obviously get very upset we say to you listen go go to thailand today literally booked the flight went to the airport that day you just flew away because your

men are going on holiday with her went you to africa um you flew away talk to me about the day that you quit alcohol and how that happened or what made you quit yeah in the end so i think i was always a danger for myself which i could deal with i knew i broke my damaged my ankle one night and i was hurting myself you know i remember my birthday this this is like my birthday went out my birthday was on sunday went on right on the saturday i spent the entire sunday in our cinema room which is pitch black no lights just there in the dark and you guys came in and asked if you want to go to town for to bar and grill i said no i'll stay here and that for me that for me was like a moment when I was like, what, it's my birthday. And I'm just sat in this black room, hungover, not seeing anyone.

And I was like, that's when I really started to think, what the hell am I doing with myself? And then a couple of incidents happened when I was still doing damage to myself, but I wasn't doing damage to people. I thought, you know what, as long as it's not too bad, you know, no one's, I don't think people are catching on. Obviously people knew. And then, I'll just be honest, I quit drugs first, you know.

I got that out of my life. I was like, I don't need that. And I thought that was a problem. What drugs? Coke. Doing coke, you know. And I felt that was a problem. I thought that was the problem, so I got rid of that.

Like, you know, I don't need that, that's not me. For a bit of time, maybe it's my head I got better, but I don't think I did. And then went to the races. alcohol-fueled day. I got back about 8 o'clock, middle of the day, to Piccolino's in Alderley Edge. And I just went in there, started sealing bottles of wine off people's tables, generally just disruptive, shouting at people in front of some of the team, and then realised that, got thrown out,

started walking down the street, shouting again at other people, you know, just for how can they throw me out. And then, yes, I regret regretfully probably the worst moment my life said things to someone who um i probably consider to be one of my closest friends um and someone that works in the team very good very very good friend of mine who's been here since day one i care about about deeply. And waking up that morning, finding out what I said to him and the manner in which I acted towards him,

he was only trying to help me. He was actually trying to get me to bed, take me home. What did you say to him? To this day, I can't remember. Did you know what the topic was? Yeah, I know what the topic was, yeah. Was it about his performance within the team yeah was it about his performance within the team it was about

his performance within the team and his perception from other people and me saying things about

that and I on hearing the demeanour of the conversation I had with him drunk

drunk completely drunk. You know, this is, like Steve said, this is drunk Dom, this isn't me. I realised that I'm hurting other people. Yeah, so just from my perspective, because I was also out and about that night, I just went for some dinner with some friends.

And obviously there was two different Doms. There was the Dom in work, he was the super nice guy, the team player, the calm know the super nice guy the the the team player the the calm collected funny guy at times i'd say the butt of the joke as well but predominantly the reason why you're the butt of the joke amongst even some of the team was because of the other dom yep and obviously when you're less secure in yourself you kind of make yourself the butt of the joke and you'd been that guy for a while and then there was this other dom which was the drunk

dom which because of how out of hand it was getting, was doing damage to real world Dom. And the problem we have when we're trying to lead people is we need to, like leadership is a given thing. People give it to you. And if they don't respect you because of how you're acting in work or out of work,

you cannot lead people. And so this was the problem. So I was at dinner at Sir Karner I think it's a restaurant in Manchester and started getting texts from people in the team saying um it was Alex and Sam that texting me saying like it's in Dom's out of control he's he's been kicked out of Pippa Kalina's he's walking down the street he's just said something to somebody um and I think that was the the first moment when we had a conversation which was really really not pleasant and yeah i

remember on texting you and you texting me saying that you know in your you were absolutely wasted but you were saying that you wanted to sell and i remember that moment thinking it was it hit me like a ton of bricks because although i was like i was so pissed off in the moment i was like fuck you whatever i was also like that's pretty serious if you're at the point where even drunk version of you is like it wants out because that's what

you're saying you want it out I was like that's pretty fucking serious I wanted out because I couldn't I didn't think I could deal with it

and what are the you know you do so much now on things like mental health issues and your recovery from you know drinking too much i guess and

the way you've progressed what do you did you have mental health issues and if you did what were they because i know mental health is a very broad thing it's not necessarily depression or anxiety what it is but mental health as i've come to understand through my own sort of education of it is such a broad thing from you know ocd to hoarding like what are the the mental health health issues you think you've had yeah i had i i had an anxiety that was like what i had what how does that what was what did that feel like imagine imagine you've you've you're talking to yourself and you're talking yourself out of everything talking yourself out of everything yeah you you don't like for a big example so um because i always wonder if i've got anxiety you have everyone has

yeah everyone has but it flares up and so what i learned was how to manage it to notice when you're having moments of being i'm feeling anxious right and what to do in their moments and just to be aware that you you have it because i never talked to me. Because I never knew what anxiety was. How does it feel? How does it feel? Something's pressing on your mind and you know you need to talk to someone about it, but you put it off

because you don't think it's the right time. You want to get them in a different situation. Take, for example, a client not paying. You'll hold that information to yourself, try and solve it yourself, but you'll not get anyone else involved, you'll lock it away, until it's a point where either it's got so far out of hand

that you need someone to come in to help you, or you've solved it and it can go away. Is it like a feeling, though? Is it a feeling like of nervousness? Or anxiousness? Yeah, you get it. Because sometimes I get this real, feeling though it's it's a feeling like of nervousness or yeah anxiousness yeah it's yeah you get it because sometimes i get this real when i when i've got something on my mind and i'm like i'll put i've compartmentalized a little bit and i start feeling like super anxious

i think like that's almost like almost like a kind of almost the feeling like that i get just before i go up on stage i get that for a while in my insides. So I had that, that's what you get. But naturally what I do is I take on too many things. So when you've got these- You're just adding to the fucking- You're not solving it. And like some small things that made a big difference to me

like at work was like getting a calendar. You know, we didn't have a calendar for the first two years. We were just roping stuff, getting a wonder list wonder list you know learning how to deal with the problems put in front of you small changes make such a big difference um but look the main thing was when you get that feeling of being anxious solving it and i had to write down like every single time i felt anxious over a problem and then say what i thought the outcome was going to be so for example if if someone someone asked for a pay rise and someone asked for a pay rise and you um you don't know

you don't know how to react because it gets this anxious in your head because you're thinking about paydays coming up we haven't got enough money to pay people and you start thinking about a million things before you can even go back to them and say, this is where we're at. And they pile on top of each other. They pile on top of each other, and then... Making all of them great. And then I was drinking, and I was forgetting about them over the weekend. Then you sober up.

Then you sober up, and you're like, it gets on top of you. Got you. So that's interesting for me. And that's just work things, and there's life things as well. You know, you look at yourself, you look at how you...

So this is a weird one. I get a small dose of like social anxiety where and it comes out more i'm drunk that's why i go off by myself because sometimes i don't know what to say to people in conversation because i think because you've got everything going on back in mind sometimes you're just a blank person like you'll be there in social situations but you won't be there because your mind will be gone away and you just sat there and you're like i don't know what to say to people because i've got these million things i'm thinking about so i don't want to appear socially awkward so i'm just going to

leave so you never you never really spoke to me about that feeling yeah why i didn't speak to anyone about it i've not the only person i spoke to about it was the guy I was seeing I spent so long trying to understand myself I'm still not there no one ever gets there and it's like understanding the triggers you have how you are um when you say when you say the guy you're seeing you mean after you quit drinking you went and sought help etc from somebody yes but but you never you never I was sat next to you this whole time while you were feeling these things think about why didn't you just turn to me and say this is how i'm feeling it's really tough and i'm you know i think it's for the same reason a lot of

guys don't speak it's just feeling feeling inadequate don't feel like you're up for it um feel like you can solve it yourself you don't need help that kind of whole thing you know i can get through this you know i'm not weak sign of showing weakness i think that did you did you not think that i had any weaknesses or what was your perception of what how i was dealing with all these things i thought i always thought you were so good at like putting them to back your mind that they Roeddwn i bob amser yn meddwl bod gennych chi'n dda iawn am roi nhw i'ch meddylch, ac nid oeddent yno. Nid oeddwn i'n gwybod. Nid oeddwn i'n gwybod.

Roeddwn i'n meddwl, roeddwn i'n meddwl, roeddwn i'n meddwl, roeddwn i'n meddwl, roeddwn i'n meddwl, roeddwn i'n meddwl, roeddwn i'n meddwl, roeddwn i'n meddwl, roeddwn i'n meddwl, I didn't even think, I didn't even know I should speak to someone about it. That's really interesting. I thought, I thought, I thought my, me as a person, I didn't know I needed help. You told me I needed help.

Okay, so let's go back to that day then. So the day after you get very drunk, you wake up, you realise you've damaged a few things, a few relationships, etc. I messaged you and I said, let's meet at the office. And's meet at the office and we met at the office and we had a conversation um a very private honest conversation in which we talked about um you know we were very honest for the first time ever i think and i think the only thing that stopped me on that day being mad at the damage you did because the way i always felt was like drunk tom would create a mess for me to clear up yeah and the only thing that stopped me being mad on that day at all was just how honest you were about your situation it was the first time that was the first time

where you were actually honest yeah about how you're feeling and you can't be mad at somebody when they tell you that they've been you know struggling with some stuff and that they want to get a grip of it and that they want to you know so that was and and then from there you you know you said i told you you needed to see a guy i it and that they want to, you know, so that was, and then from there, you know, you said, I told you you needed to see a guy. I can't really remember that. I certainly didn't make you go and see him. So you get all the credit for that.

No, and I think, like I said, the first time I hurt someone else, I think I could deal with hurting myself, but hurting someone else, that's not me. And it's not complete contrast to who I am as a person. I don't hurt people, you know. I'm not me. And it's not complete contrast to who I am as a person. I don't hurt people, you know. I'm not that. And I think that bit on me,

knowing that I've done that damage to someone, and alongside, like, actually speaking to someone about it for the first time, being told by my best friend that something's not right with you, is, like, that hits all in the space of 24 hours and you know you know that's the lowest point and that that low point that day is like the day i never want i you kept using that feeling how i felt that day as i'm never going back there i'm never feeling like that again and the thing the thing that's I've always wanted to to hear from you from is um entrepreneurship and being you know let's use that full letter word the boss and all these

things and um being you know the CEO and in charge is something that's glamorized um on social media in movies in magazines in culture in general there's this obsession with you know being the the entrepreneur and this the association is that you are on private jets and you've got jet skis and all the money you want and the biggest smile in the world but there's another story which nobody tells you about um what is that other story from your perspective and that other story is like almost the reality it's almost you know you, you do see the priority, you do see that, but you don't see the actual work that goes into getting there.

And I think the reason the entrepreneur is this flamboyant person is because of what they learned through the journey. They learn to become, like you say, you learn to become that type of person through going through hard times. What are the hard times? Hard times, where do you start hard

times um questioning whether this is like constantly questioning whether this is the right thing that you're doing you know we how many times have we changed course of what who we are as a business you know it's taken us two or three years to find our identity um here's here's one of the hard times i think you just mentioned there as well just to add is being the the buck stops with you so if you come this is one of the things that i've i learned that um this is the first sort of challenge i think the entrepreneurial gods give you they say everybody's problem is your problem as well as your existing problems yeah and unfortunately you can't pass it to anybody um and also because you're in charge nobody's going to tell you what to do or how to handle it um which is also one of the the you know perceived upsides

of being an entrepreneur is nobody tells you what to do but also you know at moments where you've got a you know a 25 year old um guy or girl come to you with some serious problems whilst you're dealing with your clients you know massive client problems and then massive financial problems and then massive personal problems and then more of the same repeated the same day and then every single person adds another problem to the mix and everyone adds one more to the it's almost as a conveyor belt that comes to your desk that's one thing i said i said to the guy when i was seeing him you know every time we'd celebrate winning a contract or a new person would start that was like another layer on top it was more worry you know the more people we got in the team

the more people we had to pay more money had to make the more issues you know and the the growth of it, the growth of Social Training was so quickly and the amount of people we got in, the amount of clients we won. The minute we won, as soon as we won a client, my first thought was, God, how are we going to do it? How? Are we going to be able to deliver this? What happens if it goes wrong? We've got a lot of backing on this being a success um and then you you know another thing would happen you get more people on top and then like steve said you've got your you said you've got your personal stuff as well

um and it's i just remember those days i mean i've talked on my podcast before about that day when we got hacked and you know we had all of our clients at one point basically tell us they were going to leave um we had a team waiting who just want you know we're waiting to go to paintball and we had to tell them but we had to try and fight to convince our clients that we didn't hack you know it wasn't us that had sent them those malicious emails etc um and i remember that day you know someone in the team's boyfriend had dumped them and they were in a terrible state and they needed picking off off the floor you know your clients be picking off off the floor you've got you know family issues at home and all these

things going on and you are 23 years old like at these times yeah you're 23 years old you you're barely trying to figure out the world to yourself and you're being forced to be significantly beyond your years without the qualifications or without the stress and so what one thing that i've learned is um how much it changes you and i've seen you change uh it's hard to see yourself change but i can i know what old steve was like and also know what dom's like and um the change i've seen in you is probably more drastic going from that that kid that i met in that revolutions bar to the like the weathered um tough hard uh very very very impatient i'd say now with when it comes to bullshit um a very very low tolerance for bullshit or people bullshit people that are causing problems

or that are egotistical or that are doing things with with bad intentions your reaction now is you very much want to wash your hands with them very quickly probably you're probably more impatient in that regard than i am um and it's just interesting how in three years you can change so much the very sort of character of who you are because of the experience that you put yourself in but i just want to take you back to so on that day you know this is this is the moment your life changes in your own words the day that you sit down and you admit you're struggling and you say you're going to go see this guy and you said you're going to go quit drinking honestly didn't believe you of course i didn't believe you yeah i'd known drunk don for so long for my whole you know my

whole life working with you and you know being friends with you that's the only guy i'd known junk don for so long for my whole you know my whole life working with you and you know being friends with you that's the only guy i'd known so i didn't see how you would do that um but here we are how long has it been now what month we january 19 19 months 19 months yeah 19 months without a drop of alcohol um ran multiple marathons uh you've lost i don't know you're probably skinnier than me now which is concerning um healthier than ever transformed in sense of your leadership skills total respect from everyone in the team and beyond people that don't you don't know this but people that didn't respect you then are literally intimidated by you now and we've got a mutual friend um who i won't name but he literally told me this weekend he was like dominic's like intimidating now you went from being this the

the the joke in the group to being the you know the so good at leadership that you're intimidating people talk to me about that journey from the start meeting this guy what he taught you what he taught me he so i said i said it was always like lessons all right he he gave me the he asked me the questions which made me i always frame it he made me think about myself he asked me questions that i've never been asked before about family about relationships about work and he made me think um and i start i first understood what i was going through it took him about 50 minutes of me talking at him to say okay this is this is what you've got this is what you're dealing with this is how we're going to like get over it and the minute he told me what i had and

he said the word anxiety it things that had fallen into place i was like okay this is this is why this is this all makes sense now um and it it was i just he just made me think about myself he made me gave me confidence gave me some ways of getting over it what what did you learn about yourself from him uh where to start um You learn your triggers. You learn... I lost who I was. And I won't forget when I used to go home to York to see my parents.

My mum would just be completely different from me. And telling this guy all these things about, like, the small things about my mum not, like, wanting to see me and you know um how family think you change as well um makes you think like that's not me as a person and then i went he sat down with me and said like look what do you think your values are what do you want to be known for who do you want who do you want to be in five years what do you want people to think of you and we kind of did that exercise um and then he said to me what you need to do then is all your

actions have to sit within your values so if you don't think something aligns with who you want to be or how you want to perceive you can't do it not you can't do it but you shouldn't do it because it's not who you are um so i had a real big session with him where we just spoke about what i was known for growing up how i was, how I thought people perceived me. And he said, look, that's who you are. You're still that person. You've just lost him. And it was really hard, really hard, like, hearing, like,

because my mum said that to me, that she feels like she's lost me as well, which was really hard to hear. And then, yeah, I think through that, it comes down to your personality so loads of people have told me they're going to give up drinking loads of people have told me they want to do try January and fail but really

you know you've said it as well you've said it to me and it always resonates with me I can't remember off the top of my head you'll jump in it but change only occurs when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of making a change and you said that to me you said that to me i can't remember a number of times um and that was that was something

that always resonated with me and i was like okay that's never that feeling that feeling i had that that morning waking up i'm never having that feeling ever again i'm getting past that um i'm never going to be there again and i was just so spurred on by who I think I want to be what my values are and never letting myself get into that position of feeling like that ever again Who do you want to be and what are your values?

So I've going back to when I was younger I was always really active and really sporty. That was something that I really loved. I always loved doing that. I always saw myself as loads of friends, loads of people that I really liked in social situations, which I started to lose. And then as well, I guess one thing is that I always saw myself as really ambitious

and I really always saw myself as someone who takes on challenges and solves them, but also overcomes them. And I turned it into a game for myself. I turned it into a self that I out-call as the enemy and out-call as the opponent opponent from sport you're going to beat it and that's how I framed it and who I wanted to be is I I wanted to be um I've got this image in my head I've always had it I've always like looked a couple years forward of this kind of perception of this person of who I am um describing not far off where I am now

like I've got obviously the journey is never complete but I'm in just nearly under two years time transformed into

this person who when I was sat there hung over after doing what I did this is who I wanted to be I don't know

how you've done it to be honest honestly i fucking i guess it must be the pain of staying the same or something but it takes to not drink for 19 months when you're your age despite everybody pressuring you go and have you know go and have a drink and then and then to do the running thing as well i'm like christ not drinking but then to run marathons every bloody other day and to run you i think you've run like 12 was it 12k yesterday yeah 12k yesterday on a sunday i was like i was in bed like watching netflix with my dog um and you're out there running at like bloody 2 a.m in the morning i don't know where you get that that like drive to i guess you know i don't know to It must have, like, because, you know,

people, they'll want to make a change and it'll last a month and they'll be like, you know, back to my old ways. So it's pretty tremendous that you've been able to completely shift the course of your life for a sustained period of time, I think. Yeah, and I think it's only in hindsight you start realising how dark things got.

Like, I'll never forget. And this is, I haven't told, I haven't, I've only told one person this, because I had a very open conversation with someone who's a friend, who was going through things as well, and he asked me, have you ever thought about it, and I went, thought about what, and he went, killing yourself, and I said, I said, said no i've never sat there and thought uh okay i'm gonna kill myself never thought about that um but sometimes you know and this will be our complete saying it when when the train's coming past the station you just think oh what if what if i jumped you know oh i'd be all right and i had i and i had that thought with a couple of things.

Was that at low times or was that... That was the low time. That was a low time. Going down to London, I'd sit there and think, found another station, what happens if I jump? Who would miss me? What happened? And honestly, I had that a couple of times

and it's only when you like all these things i'm saying have always only been in hindsight like understanding my anxieties and understanding my triggers and understanding what sets me off um i've only been discovered in hindsight when i know about myself so when you you have that such a contrast of who you were versus the path you're on now you'll do everything you can to just move forward and not go back and how important was taking that first step just to go and speak to somebody because it is incredibly hard i think you know it's people you know people often think you know i don't speak to somebody about the way i'm feeling because i want to be brave but But for me, there is nothing braver than being like, holding my hand up and saying,

do you know what, I need to speak to somebody. I couldn't, I really wonder, if I went through some serious like mental health issues, would I be able to go and speak to somebody? I don't think I'm that brave. Just because of the stigma, it's a terrible shame but you know speaking to you about it that's what we spoke about it and that was me talking about it yeah and i think if i can say it to you you know i've said it i've said it now and but how important was it though for to go to go and

speak to somebody about it because you've yeah it was the most important thing it was the most you know it was the biggest most important first thing was find you know someone telling me something's wrong something's telling me someone who knows me better than anyone telling me that something's wrong that was the most important thing in my life the start was you admitting it though wasn't it the start was that day you admitted it yeah to yourself i think i admit to myself yeah and i mean it's you but you know you we spoke about it you know you know you it wouldn't have happened if if you didn't happen but then the second part of that was then acting upon that and having a conversation with someone who knows what we i had

the same i said the same thing to him that said to you you know that day same i said exactly how i felt and he can put it into a into a structure that helps me overcome it so one of the things i was always wanted to speak to you about is money so we talk about how you know not having money is uh in terms of paying your staff and you know cash flow issues and all these things which we went through for a good 18 months non-stop of you know like probably five months in is in terms of paying your staff and cash flow issues and all these things, which we went through for a good 18 months nonstop, probably five months in a row where we're just like, I have no idea. I remember that one month where we looked at the bank account

and payday was just around the corner, I think a week away. There is no money in the bank, but there is a team to pay. And there's many, many bills to pay, probably, I don't know, £60,000, £70,000 worth of bills to pay in a don't know 70 60 70 000 pounds worth of bills to pay in a week's time no money in the bank and just that mad scramble to sell something um which we did and we always seem to get past it sorry and get them to pay yeah then paying was a different story this is such a funny story we managed to sell to a company at the time a campaign and one of the kpis was there would be a trigger payment if we hit a certain objective yeah and we're very good at our jobs and we've always been good at social

media i mean it's why social chain exists but the the objective basically to save social chain in hindsight was getting them to be the number one trending topic um in in the country so it was really if the if this brand doesn't become the number one trending topic in the country so it was really if this brand doesn't become the number one trending topic in the country we fail we fail

that is the truth that's the crux of it isn't it I remember you messaging me this has to happen we have to we have to make them

the number one trending topic in the country or it's goodbye I think that was the last campaign I did I ran

probably one of the last times I've sold I think it was the last we... Probably one of the last times I've sold in London. Because I think it was the last... I remember we were in the white room there and it was... I think it was me and Hannah who stayed late to do it and we were like, this has to happen.

And Hannah was so shocked when I celebrated. And I celebrate... You know, probably not since Tippy Tap that I celebrated like we'd, you know... That's just unbelievable. We'd just done it. Because I think you were in London, weren't you you i can't remember but i remember messaging the client the next day and be like hey we did it can you send the money please um but anyway moving on so

the point i was going to make is okay so not having money in a business is tremendously stressful but what about on the opposite side of it being you know 22 years old at the time when we first started getting a little bit of money and it wasn't even a tremendous amount of money. It was just more money than we needed, right? Yeah, you got a spare. How did having too much money impact you? I guess... And does money make you happy? No, money doesn't make me happy.

Money doesn't make me happy. What it does, it gives you freedom. You know, having money give having money it's disposable money you can do things and we were partying that's what we did but what was what was the was it all is it all upside no what's the downside so for me and this is kind of what i was i was alluding to i guess was i guess a bit of a sense of anti climax yeah thinking i remember we had a conversation in the old flat where i i think me and you realized that we were not motivated by money because i remember standing to and saying

this was before social chain was a company really and it was in in the sort of gap between wallpark and social chain remember saying to you there's was in in the sort of gap between wall park and social chain remember saying to you there's 20 30 000 pounds worth of business in my emails if i just go downstairs and send an email then we make the money but i just can't be asked because i'm not because 20 another you know a couple of grand isn't going to make me happy so there's no motivation to do it but and what that taught me in that moment when we had that conversation is that i don't do this for the money i i mean now when we when we sign big deals and you know we sign major clients i'm tremendously happy but the reason isn't because of the money no no it's and that's that's what i came to learn the thing from that conversation which um stayed with me

is i think and i'm just going to be completely honest at the time you were pursuing a girl do you remember this you're pursuing a girl i know exactly who you mean yeah from york yeah i know exactly who you mean and she and i and i think because you thought that money was the enabler of all possibilities which is what when i say the anti-climax what i mean you thought money basically when you're going to grow up you think it gets you everything yeah but you couldn't get this girl and and you and you were putting pressure on yourself because you're like well I've got I've got some money now not a huge amount of money just a couple you know you're doing you weren't a student anymore you weren't a broke student anymore but you you thought that the money would get you the girl yeah and because it wasn't

getting you the girl you were struggling with that. And I think you're completely right. You know, you think the money side of things is success. You know, that's like an open door, but it only exposes cracks in who you are as a person. And I think that's the way you see about... I'm so glad that I managed to make a bit of money when I was younger because it teaches you about yourself. It teaches you about what you value.

It teaches you about what you want in life. And right now, it doesn't make a difference because I wasn't happy then. I know I wasn't happy then. I went through a year of not being happy with myself, obviously. And no amount of money would have changed me. It would have destroyed me. What makes you happy? What makes me happy now number one thing that makes me happy is like seeing other people happy and that comes from like seeing them here progress seeing them here um do things every time like

today we've had such a great day with good news i'm so glad that people are winning and it's like we've we've built an environment here where people can can do that i think that that's what gives me the most satisfaction now still want to sell no why no um this is this is this this is me i think i was like i i don't know i didn't i saw the work stress as a as the enemy but then you know I had the girlfriend in one area at a time, but then I realised that this social chain, this is me. It's everyone who built it.

This is our purpose. And I think I needed to... I learnt that. I learnt that. I don't know why I didn't know it, but I learnt that this is like... Everything I'm doing is for this. This is,

this is who we are. I think, I think it's, it's important to note that through all the hard times, I obviously went through the hard times too. And I never, I think the only thing. I think that one question I wanted to ask,

I wanted to ask you that I'm not. Sure. Is like, like, one question i want to ask i want to ask you that i'm sure it's like like i always assume you dealt with it by switching off and forgetting and like same way i did so i was thinking no i'm i get drunk and i party you would always go to your bed and you'd watch youtube videos um and you forget about it that way what how did you deal with it um i think that i think it comes i think a lot of it and i've only learned this from speaking to that, I think it comes, I think a lot of it,

and I've only learned this from speaking to you now, I think it comes from your inner dialogue and that person that speaks to you in your head. And I think, so I think, you know, we talked about it's important that you go and talk to somebody. You're talking to someone the whole time. You're talking to yourself.

And whatever that person's saying back to you will shape your perspective on the situation. And only in hindsight do I think now, the guy that was talking back to me was very good at rationalizing everything and he um he was so he he had such an innate self-belief that he probably wasn't that scared of failure so to him it was all a bit of a game as opposed to it being real life and although as you know as the business grew there was more real consequences i just never thought it was going to go bad i never i never believed it was going to go wrong even in that you know and then i talked to you now about being addicted to the hard times i think the guy talking because i felt it i felt the bad

tough days the moments thinking i literally have have had so many moments in those in those early stages where i think wow what the fuck like today is so bad surely there is no human being that can deal with this and not break like i've literally said that to myself i'm like this is the worst day ever you couldn't make this up but that's the kind of tone that i'm taking in my head it's like this is so fucking bad and you know what i mean it's not like oh my god i can't deal with this it's oh my god this day is this is there's no way you can make this day well and then someone would come in or send me an email and make it well i'd go there you go this is the fucking this is but i'd also that voice would be like this is the test yeah it would be like it would be asking me back can you deal with this and then you know all you got to do is get over one small little

bump and then you can do a little bit bigger one. And then you keep doing that for a couple of years. You can do hills and mountains. And then you almost feel a sense of like invincibility, I think at a point. You become better and better at rationalizing bullshit. And I've seen the same in you where the news you can take today results in very little reaction

versus if I'd given you that news three, two years ago, you would have taken that shit home. You would have been thinking about it all night you probably would have had a glass of wine so you almost become this is why i say the word like numb and weathered yeah we're both fucking a bit fucking haggard here do you know what i mean honestly i've got no emotion it sounds like i've got no emotions i don't know what you mean i don't get excited i don't get sad that's an interesting thing i said this on the podcast podcast about you just stay in the middle. You get the best news in the world, you go amazing. But you don't feel shit.

No, you don't feel anything. And then you get the worst news in the world, you think, oh, fuck. You don't feel anything. And you don't feel shit. And because you realise that it's much more healthier for you, but also the people around you, for you to just be unmoved. Yeah. And that's where the running comes in. So you talk about talk about like you had that person telling you you can go more you can

do more this is a test i didn't have that my person was telling me oh but what about this what about this you know so many like what ifs and asking myself more questions and like from the running you realize that like i always say running is a mental battle you can do that you can do that you can do that you know you can keep keep going keep going keep going keep going and that's like that fell into that that kind of got me through through everything that you just keep going it's you know everything's fine so you've come from you've come from so you've kind of traced your whole journey though you've come from kid in york in a in a bar in york who's very very nervous not really speaking much you've gone through that process of dealing with the pressure

that you um you were given um by this the nature of this lifestyle struggling to cope with that struggling to cope with that speaking out about your struggle, overcoming the destructive side of you, burying drunk Dom, coming out the other side where you've now turned it into a positive thing. You have a blog, you're raising money for charity, you're one of the most vocal people in terms of mental health issues

and mental sort of awareness that I know now. You use every opportunity you can to use your sort of platform to talk on those topics um you're you know raising money currently for calm for calm charity which is what's calm calm is the campaign against living miserably it is um focused on raising awareness of male suicide suicide is the number one killer of men under the age of 45. And obviously, suicide comes from guys not speaking out, having internalised a lot of their problems and looking for a way out.

And that's what suicide is, quite bluntly, is people's escape route. It's how they end their problems. And you've talked about how you absolutely love the job now. I think we've both come out the other end their problems. Yeah. And you've talked about how, you know, you absolutely love the job now. I think we've both come out the other end in a way. You know, we weathered the storm, the tough, tough times where most people would quit

or they'd fail. And we've come out the other end and it's almost this like the promised land where, you know, we're in these pastures, there's like unicorns and there's obviously all the bullshit every day, but it's nothing compared to the shit we went through. So it seems like we're in fucking, know heaven whatever but what is what does the

future look like for you what are your what are your big ambitions personally within social chain etc um future like i think you know as i said this this social chain i feel like it's me i feel like this is my purpose this is this is who i am This is like, you know, I look around at the people here. You know, I feel like this is the family we've built. I want this, aren't this place to just go to where we want it to go. I want it to create the world, which, you know, I want unicorns for everyone, I guess. Unicorns for everybody.

Unicorns for everyone. Unicorns for everybody here. You've heard it first. But I think that's, you know, we know where we're going on a company level. I think that's also helped me a lot because really at first we never had a plan. We kind of winged it.

And I think that that was something that caused always a lot of discomfort. We didn't know ourselves who we were. And I think that always kept me up questioning, like, where are we going? What this business is it a business i think we when we when we decided on the media chain social chain split in my head it made a lot more sense as like this is who we are now this is like a question like what we're actually doing here like what is the business so you've got more clarity over what the business is where it's going what it what

its importance in the world yeah um we've obviously got an incredible group of people here. And I think this is probably the most understated part of why social chain is so good, but also why we're so much happier. It's because we now have real, mature, incredibly effective, talented people in key roles. And these people are smarter than we are yeah better than we are yeah they fill all of our weaknesses and more they teach us um how to be better um entrepreneurs

and leaders and and managers and teammates and we learned that from we learned that because we you know you're a control freak i'm i i don't like handing things over to people um but we had to learn to we had to learn we had to learn that we can't do everything and that we're not the best at doing everything and I think that when I was like when you first met me I was in a suit and I thought when you talked to me about

someone who runs a business you have this idea of someone who does everything and is very what everyone thinks of someone who runs a business but reality is it's very you know what everyone thinks someone who runs a business is but reality is it's like great people great great people run the business great people great people you know that's how what builds a business it's a definition of a company isn't a group of people yeah and that's it's not down to any individuals or down to anything it's about having a great cohesive working family starting 11 family

where do I want to go personally I'm very happy I'm very happy with who I am right now I've got a couple of things I want to do I'm still finding out you're in a relationship as well and I really like her she works here at Social Chain and this is the moment when I knew

I wasn't just controlling you because I like her and i don't interfere in your relationship so that's when i was like okay it's not me it's it's just that other one was terrible um yeah i think i'm very open-minded for where i'm going at the moment like i'm i know i know i'm on the right trajectory i i want i'm doing more in the public space. I want to do more in the public space. I think I want to make a difference. I think that's coming back to the point of what makes me happy now is seeing people progress and people develop and people be happy. I think if I can...

That's why I'm so passionate about mental health is because I can make a difference to people. I think my... I want to continue to do that and i think that's where i'll go all right yeah and i you've i'm going to put the link in the podcast description for the um the calm fundraiser that you're doing currently so talk to me a little bit about that you're what are you doing you're raising funds and you're what are you doing you're doing marathons yeah so i'm doing 12 races over 12 months right um all different lengths all different

kind of like sizes from um tough mudder which everyone knows about but also some like really cool ones um i did a 12k in france where i was like running for midnight through the snow and then kind of the the whole thing is leading up to the london marathon in april so that's kind of like the big thing apr this year April 23rd I might do it I'll see what my schedule is saying but I might uh now I'm gonna pull it um listen thank you so much for a few things first thing is for being so um tremendously open because it's not it's not easy and it's a very selfless thing to do. It's much easier and much more selfish just to protect your ego and to be a bit closed off. But I think one of the things I've learned from you

is the importance of speaking and being honest with yourself and other people. I've really, really learned that. I don't often say that to you, but I've really, really learned that. And you've inspired a lot of people within the team now. You've gone from someone who, as you said at the start, was maybe a bit of a joke to people,

to now people look up to you. But not just that, they also seek advice from you on a private level to deal with their own personal struggles. And you've become a bit of a magnet, especially to the men within the business, as the team's grown to nearly 200 people now, as somebody you can come to who will be the ear be the ear um as the the guy that you saw was to you um and i think that's so important because there's just not enough men especially in

high positions or positions of leadership that are willing to be that open i think that's something that i completely respect you for and um has been inspiring to me but also thank you for the turnaround you made because fucking i don't think i could have done this alone with drunk domin i think in sorting yourself out you took a you know you really really did me a massive massive favor you made my life so much easier you um you took the weight more with me do you you know what I mean? Took the strain of the business more with me. No, I'll never forget that day. I'm not saying it's you. I'm not told you.

I don't know if I've said it like a little bit, but like that day, I don't know. I've said to people, I don't know if I'd be here, not in social chain, but alive. I've honestly felt that.

I honestly, the way out, the route I was going down, I don't know if I'd be here. It's like when I say like, like thanks for like saving my life because i honestly feel like i had no one telling me the truth i yeah as much as you said and i appreciate that but i i can't get around away from the fact that you very much did that yourself like you I don't know many people and I know a lot of friends who are going through a very similar

thing to you and none of them are admitting it I don't have the courage or the bravery to talk and I admire the I genuinely admire the bravery to say something I honestly question whether I would I don't think I would and that's something that I struggle with. I'm like, and I think, why not? And I think, how are you going to do? Like, if I was really, really struggling at some point in my life, would I say, I just really, and I worry about that, because that's even more dangerous. That's, like, the most dangerous thing.

I've spoken to someone high up here, female, who we both said the same thing she's gone through i think once you break and you feel yourself breaking you never went back and like what i said what me and her said is that we want to we want people not to be to have to break to to realize that they can there's something wrong with them. And like, I, and that's where I think like, you know, you, if you haven't felt like that,

you know, you haven't, like, I don't know if you felt like you've broken or you felt like, maybe you've had that, like maybe like earlier, but like early days you had that and you've had that feeling because you said it to me as well again, like about the stress threshold.

Everyone's got that day where it was the worst day and it was the worst moment in your life and it keeps that day where it was the worst day. It was the worst moment in your life. And it keeps building up that that was the worst day. And everything underneath that you can deal with. You can deal with all the shit that, as long as it doesn't reach that threshold ever again.

And like my fresh, I feel like my threshold now is so high for like that moment when I felt like I wanted to give up on the dream. You know, I wanted to sell it all. I wanted to give up on the dream, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to sell it all, I wanted to get rid of it, because it was on top of me, and that, that bullshit was so, so much that I, I know now I can deal with everything. On that note, just want to say thank you for coming on the podcast, again, your honesty is, is something I hope you never, ever lose, because I think honesty, and that openness, honesty is um is something i hope you never ever lose because i think honesty and that openness and the vulnerability is something that's rare

um is healing to a lot of people so thank you so much i've thoroughly enjoyed it all of the links to dom's social channels and his um go fund me everyday hero okay all are all below in the podcast store and you can find them on my twitter account as well um do tweet me do tweet don what's your twitter.don at dominic mcgregor at dominic mcgregor and let us know what you thought of the podcast and i'll see you again in chapter 11 thank you