Why You Shouldn't Be Afraid To Quit - Natacha Océane
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There's something about not setting limits that drives me to want to just keep going and going and going. Okay. So if there's something that everyone's thinking, wow, this is kind of a real challenge, sign me up for it. Hello and welcome to Deep Dive, the podcast that delves into the minds of entrepreneurs, creators and other inspiring people to uncover their journeys towards finding joy and fulfillment at work and in life.

My name is Ali and in each episode I chat to my guests about the philosophies, strategies and tools that have helped them along the path to living a life of happiness and meaning. In this week's episode of Deep Dive, I chat to YouTuber and Ironman athlete Natasha Ossian. Frustrated by the gap between the findings of the scientific community and evidence-based information reaching the general public, Natasha left her PhD in biophysics to start a YouTube channel

that tests fitness theories and translates the science behind health and fitness. She's a master following of over 2 million across her social media, and her goal is to make fitness science accessible to everyone. In our conversation, we discuss her feelings around quitting academia and her initial fears about putting herself on the Internet. The feeling of having to get that scientific content out there to help as many people as possible so they didn't fall into the same traps that I did was more important to me than that initial feeling of being uncomfortable.

And that's why I kept going for it. And the practice makes perfect, right? As well as uncovering how she cultivated mental resilience and self-awareness through athletic performance. So I guess the first thing I wanted to ask you, you famously do these Ironman things. Like what on earth possesses someone to want to swim for two and a half miles, cycle for 120 and then run for 20? Why do people do this? Why do you do this? It was like a part of my life that I just...

I really like setting challenges for myself. Okay. Just because I feel like sometimes we can be really prone to setting limits for ourselves and being like, no, I'm not going to do that. Or I can't do that. And for me, like, there's something about...

Not setting limits that drives me to want to just keep going and going and going. Okay. So if there's something that everyone's thinking, wow, this is kind of a real challenge. Sign me up for it. Cause I just, I just want to, I don't know what it is. It just drives me to want to do something that is,

I feel like in the past I would have been like, I can't do that. So I guess that for me is why I chose to do the Ironman. How did you first get into it? Well, so I used to do a lot of athletics. I grew up just being really active. My whole family was super active. So they never kind of let us play computer games. It was always just go outside, play, sign up to whatever you can and just be as active as possible. Yeah.

So when I was younger at secondary school, I used to do a lot of athletics, but I used to get really badly injured from it. So a lot of the cross training that I had to do was in the pool, cycling, a lot of low impact exercise rather than like the hard on the track sprinting hurdles high jump, which gave me like ridiculously bad shin splints. So I spent a good nine months doing cross training, which was great.

I think my gateway to doing triathlon, because previously to that, I hadn't really done any kind of much cycling or much. I'd done some swimming, but not really. I never really took it to another level. And then when I got to, it's really when I got to university, I was, I just thought, you know what? As well as doing my degree, I also just want to do an Ironman. Yeah.

Sometimes there's no real like rational thinking behind it. I was just like, I'm just going to do it because I feel like that's a real challenge that I can set myself by the three years. Once my three years is completed at uni, I'll do an Ironman. And so I just signed up to the triathlon club and started doing Ironman training. Okay. And it kind of, I liked it because it meant that I also could, didn't get super injured because I was, I could balance out the swimming, the cycling and the running and not do so much high impact training.

with the running. And then I just ended up really liking the variety as well, rather than just doing one single sport. So while you were at university, you know, you're, you're doing a degree and on the side, you're training for triathlons and Ironmans and stuff. Like what, what did your schedule look like? It was very seasonal. Okay. So, um, I'm trying to remember now because it feels like a really long time ago. Um,

So I did biochemistry. So actually we had loads of lab days. So the days were kind of nine to five for most days, which is quite rare at uni because sometimes you have just like sporadic. Yeah.

lessons here lessons there like especially like my English two lectures a week and I was like that I just can't even imagine it but um yeah ours was quite full-on and it would be morning training and then evening training about five six days a week um but

I will stress that during times of exams, I really took that down to like hardly anything. So maybe seven weeks, 10 weeks before my exams, I would just...

solely focus on revising and learning because my priority really was just getting I wanted to get a first that was the one thing that I went to uni for that's the one like I was the first person out of my family to go to uni so I was like well I need to do myself proud I need to do my family proud um and so really like the triathlon was like a nice bonus but it wasn't no it was nowhere near as important um so yeah I guess what I mean by seasonality is that

During the time like term times like the autumn term and then spring term I could train in the morning in the evenings as well as kind of manage the manage the like the workload from uni and then

during the summer term, hardly any training. And then during the summer break, because we would have really long breaks. That's what I love about uni is you get amazingly long breaks. And then it was just like all training. So then I would do like no work, all training. And then I would just get back, oh, sorry. See, I told you, your microphones would get damaged somehow. And yeah, and then there would be

loads of training during summer and then again it will just kind of go back into that kind of routine so is is training yeah is okay is training for these things fun

So with triathlon, it's quite a social sport. It's a social sport with the triathlon club at university. So there was a lot of us and people do different disciplines as well. So some people would just be doing sprint triathlon. Some people do Olympic distance. Some people do half Ironmans and some people do the full. But when you train at uni, like you do a lot of the training together, you just kind of get split up into like a lane that maybe focuses more on endurance. And so it's,

That is quite fun because you get to meet really, really great. You get to meet people who have the same interests as you, who understand what it's like to go through uni and also train that hard, which is something that I didn't share with my housemates. So my housemates were like, why don't you come out? And eventually I stopped getting the invites to come out because they just knew. And then when it came to doing my Ironman, actually it's kind of a sad story. In third year, we...

We unfortunately had to kind of kick, not kick our coach out, but there was like a, because a lot of the way that sports clubs are run at uni is that they're run by students. That wasn't how the triathlon club was run at the time. It was run by the coaches and they would pick teams

Compliance students which ended up being me to be president or yeah And so when they wanted something done, they would just say can you sign this off? I would sign it off because I just wanted to please someone. Yeah, and I was compliant. Okay, and um and

We started to realize it in my third year. We started to realize that actually this is kind of is not right because we weren't doing we weren't a student club. It wasn't a student run club. It was run by the coaches who were like in their 40s, 50s and weren't really like they'd gone to the university, but they hadn't they weren't.

affiliate they weren't students they weren't professors and so that kind of caused a massive rift like it was too much drama for me to handle and that last year became quite a lonely year because it just meant that a lot of the training I mean I hate conflict yeah I hate it with a passion okay so that meant that I would detour my route to like the to uni or I would just do a

the training becomes lonely. But if you, if you enjoy it, it's not that lonely. I guess it's not, it's less boring than you might think because it's not, it's not the same as just saying, okay, I'm just going to go out for a cycle. Like the cycle rides faster.

more planned than that so you can create routes for yourself where you're doing hill sprints between that route and in during those hill sprints you're doing a particular cadence you're putting out a particular power output and you always have to hit those power outputs so in that sense it's more like

Think of it as kind of like a really good spin class, but you're outside enjoying the environment. Okay. And so in that sense, it's not super boring. It's not that repetitive. It's quite repetitive. Yeah. But it's not as repetitive as you might think. But yeah, I mean, I did sometimes take Mario and Mario was like...

This just, I don't like this. It's not really for me. And I get that as well. Cause it can, it can just be quite. Yeah. Like I tried, um, I've got a few friends from, from uni who were super, super into the whole cycling triathlon type stuff. They had, they had the whole Lycra and everything. And one time one of my friends took me out for like a, I think it was a 15 K cycle.

And by the end of it, like I couldn't feel my bum anymore. I was like, why, why is this fun? We stopped off at some like... You have to find, to be honest, if you find a bad saddle, that's game over. Oh, okay. So maybe the saddle was wrong. Maybe the saddle, maybe the cycling shorts, you need some padding. Did you have padding? No, I was just wearing my kind of... I mean, it's game over straight away from there. Okay.

Yeah, like there's loads of small tips and tricks that you get taught over the course of time where you need to put like chafing cream on, loads of things. Okay, yeah. That just makes the whole experience a lot more pleasant. Got it. Yeah, that was the stuff I didn't get into at all. It was just like this endless cycle. Like, when are we going to stop? It was like, oh, we've got another 7K to go. Like, oh my God. Maybe they're not friends. They might have just been pulling your leg. Maybe, yeah. Thinking, yeah, let's put him on this...

horrific saddle yeah tell him to wear whatever he usually wears he's never going to want to do it again um so so in your third year you had this kind of drama going on in in the club which meant that it was a kind of a less social activity but you said that you enjoyed it anyway so i still enjoyed it because i had the end goal of doing the ironman so for me and also i like working in teams but when it comes to sports sometimes it hasn't brought out the best in me so what do you mean in the sense that um

I remember playing rounders when I was a kid and just trying to do everyone's job and just screaming all over the place. And it's just, and I think, and also I'm very competitive. Okay. So if people aren't sharing that same level of enthusiasm, it annoys me. Okay. But I think I've kind of, I've developed enough self-awareness now to realize that,

I'm like that. Got it. So I am a lot better at working in teams. But at the time, I wasn't really much of a team player. So solo sports tended to fare better with me. Because if something, like if I lost, that's only my fault. And I can't blame anyone else other than myself. And I think that was a good place for me to be in at the time. Yeah. So very, very competitive, but you also don't like conflict. Yeah. And I guess that can be a tricky combination sometimes. Yeah.

But I think I'm competitive and then I just do things that it's just, I just kind of, I'm just kind of working on myself. Like with Ironman, I wasn't even really going in to do a race. I just wanted to complete it. I was really shocked when I came second because I just wanted to complete it. That was really my goal. And...

Yeah, I wasn't really going in to compete with anyone as such. Yeah. On that note, how do you feel generally about goals in relation to goals that are within your control versus goals that are potentially outside of your control? Like within your control is I'm going to finish the race to the best of my ability. Outside of your control to an extent is I want to hit a certain time or rank a certain position or compete with other people in a certain way. Mm-hmm.

And often when it comes to kind of especially like YouTube, Instagram, influencing business, that kind of stuff, you know, I think people encourage us to set these outcome goals like, oh, you know, let's aim to hit a certain KPI, a certain subscriber count by a certain amount of time. Yeah. Which always felt to me as being a bit like, oh, but...

It's not within my control. Yeah. Do you get what I mean? Yeah, it's like... It very slightly is in the sense that you might have, like, luck or you can kind of gear your content to being more viral or more applicable to a wide stream audience so that it might have a better chance of going viral. Yeah. But in the sense... But in that sense where it's something that's out of your control. I mean, it's out of your control. Like, I think...

Over time, I don't really let that get to me because I guess I don't get my fulfillment out of goals that are out of my control. As in if something happens, like it happens, that's great. But that wasn't out of any of my doing. Like if I hit that KPI, I could have just been really lucky. Like, yeah, I worked hard, but like sometimes you're just really lucky and that's just out of your control. And you can't be over the moon about things.

that was out of your control that went your way because that would just be, I don't know, credit where credit is due. Yeah, it could have been a hundred other things. Yeah, and so I guess when it comes to... Yeah, when things are out of my control, I don't really...

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So I guess you got a lot more fulfillment out of the fact that you finished the Ironman than the fact that you came second in your category. Okay. Yeah. What was it like doing it for the first time, the Ironman? So it was actually amazing. Really? It was really fun because the day is organized really, really well. Okay. And you've got everyone in this. I was doing it in Barcelona. You've got everyone doing the same event. To be honest, I was a bit nervous because you get a lot of people that have spent like

thousands of pounds on their equipment. And sometimes it makes you feel a bit insecure because I was a student. I had absolutely no money. I could barely afford the race. So my bike was a real, like a patchwork quilt of just people giving me a tire here, a wheel here. We've managed to find this carbon fiber frame on eBay for about 250 pounds.

And me and my coach wired it all together. And like, it really was not a state of the art at all. My helmet was a skateboard helmet because that was the most aerodynamic thing I could find. Aero helmets are so expensive. Oh, okay. So yeah, everyone had really amazing kit and that made me feel a little bit intimidated at first, but the whole day is run so well. Like it's done really well. There's always...

Everyone gets really excited. There's always a really big crowd as well. So it makes you, they keep pushing you right to the end. I remember the marathon, which is the slowest marathon I've ever run because I was just exhausted. That kind of 30 kilometer mark, there were still people out just cheering you on. And it makes you feel, you get energy from that and it really helps you. So that's something you don't get in training. And so I think it was, it made all the training worth it.

Nice. And there's like music going and it's just really well organized. So you just, it feels really nice. Okay.

That's really interesting to hear because I would have thought doing an Ironman, it would be a case of, oh, it's a lot of suffering while you're doing it. And then at the end, you're like, oh, I'm really glad I did that. But it sounds like you had a nice time throughout. Yeah, well, I think because I wasn't going in, I almost went in pacing myself. I wasn't going in to win. I think if you're going in to win and you're really going into race, it's savage. I mean, to do the Ironman in eight hours is insane.

It's nuts. The speed they're going at the whole time is I can't fathom it like it's incredible. But yeah, I think if you're going in it just to complete it like I was and you're well prepared and you know what your nutrition is and you know, you know that you've done all of the training that you can.

Then it's, and you're pacing yourself. I really was pacing myself. Like it's, it's fine. Okay. So I was, I was listening to David Goggins audio book. Can't hurt me. Um, the other day and I was like, and he talks a lot about how, you know, Ironmans and Ultramans and all this stuff. And his whole thing is about how, you know, you,

you realize the power of the human mind and unlocking another layer level of performance. And yeah, what's, what was that feeling like? What's that feeling like for you when you're sort of, you know, halfway through an Ironman, you know, you've got another half way to go. So, um, I tend to think of things in stages. I, I did an ultra marathon last year actually for a video where I was running, was it 50 K? I think it was 50 K. And, um, rather than thinking, rather than breaking the, um,

breaking the ultra marathon down into 50 kilometers or more. I just, I created two loops for myself and I just thought of it as two loops. I don't know why breaking it down into not many, um, not that men also at like sections or like just two things really helped me get through it and think, Oh, it's not so bad with the Ironman. I just thought of it as one swim, one bike,

and a run. And so when I did, when I finished the swim, I was like, cool, I'm a third, third of the way. When I did the bike, I was like, cool, that's the bike done. As when I'm, and when I'm doing the bike, I'm also thinking, I'm not thinking about the marathon after I'm just thinking, right, let's just think about getting off the bike. And then when you've, and then when you've done the, and when you're doing the marathon, I break it down into,

the laps that we were doing, which were 10 kilometer laps. And I just thought, right, one lap done, two laps done, three laps done, four, done. So what's going through your mind when you, I mean, anytime I've tried to do any run of any kind, I get to that point where I'm like, you know what? My Apple Watch is telling me I've done a kilometer already. My feet are kind of hurting. I could just quit. And often I'm like, you know what? There's a coffee van over there. I could get a nice oat milk latte. We'll have a nice walk home. And then I end up quitting. Yeah.

But the people who actually do running presumably have that thought of, I could just quit and then just keep going. Yeah. So what do you tell yourself to keep going in those moments when your mind and body are saying, oh, you know, but you could just quit? Do you know what? That thought never crosses my mind. Really? That I could just quit. Okay. It's really weird because even when I do, even when I'm training at the gym,

quitting never feels like an option. It doesn't even cross my mind. It's like, I couldn't even quit if I wanted to. Oh, wow. I don't even know. I don't, but I don't really know where that comes from. It's just that that thought never crosses my mind. But with the distances when you're running, I will say that,

the more you train for something, the shorter distances feel. So yes, a marathon feels like a long run, but if you're going for long runs all the time and you're always doing a 20 kilometer run, you just think, oh, I'm just running double that. And distances feel a lot shorter in your mind.

So there is like a mind training as well that happens when you train for longer distances where things just feel shorter in your mind. And does the sort of training to do Ironmans and that kind of stuff, do you find that the sort of mind benefits translate to other aspects of your life as well? Or is it quite like confined to that one arena of... I think it gives you a lot of mental resilience. Okay. So whenever...

So in that same vein, when I'm saying like, I can't like the thought of quitting just isn't an option. I think of that in every aspect of life, whether it's when it comes to work or relationships or anything like it's just, I mean, it depends if it's a really bad relationship. Or it depends if it's a PhD. But yeah. Oh yeah. My PhD, I did quit. But yeah, I guess...

It just, it gives you a lot of strength knowing that you've, you've done something, you've proved yourself that you can do something. That means that if you feel tired or in a rut or whatever, you can get through it as well. I think, but actually one of the things that I found I was more comfortable

gave me more of that was when I was able to do a backflip not because like some people always are able to do a backflip and it's nothing it's really just a personal thing for me but I managed to do a backflip on my own without assistance and I don't I'm not going to do it I was going to say that that's pretty cool I'd love to be able to do that but that it took me two years to get and it was so emotional for me and I was like you know what I managed to do that

And so you just have to keep pushing through. And so I just apply that to other aspects of life. If I want the reward at the end, which I didn't for my PhD. And that's why I didn't. That's why I quit. Oh, okay. So yeah, I was going to ask you about that because...

Um, I was, uh, Stephen Bartlett talks about this in his, his book as well, where he talks about kind of a quitting framework. Um, and his model for this is, I think something like, you know, will, will this be hard work? Uh, and is the reward worth it? And if the reward is worth it and it will be hard work, then it's worth doing. And if it's going to be fun, then it's, it's worth doing anyway. But if the answer, if, if it's not worth it, then there's no point in like suffering through a lot of hard work.

that you're not enjoying just for the sake of this reward that you actually don't want. Yeah, I agree with that. So I guess, so you're, I think you would have graduated undergrad at 21, done the Ironman then, and then you decided to start a PhD. Was it straight after or did you have like a master's in the middle? Straight after. Okay. Then when did the YouTubing career start like in this whole thing? After PhD. Okay. Yeah. I started doing my PhD and there was nothing else going on. I was solely focused on that.

And then I saw, have you ever heard of the BAMF Film Festival? Yes. Yeah. It's pretty famous. Yeah. I went to, most people haven't. Oh, I mean, amongst like the videographer type community people whose YouTube videos I watch, it's famous. Yeah. I went to see it once and that was maybe six months into my PhD. Yeah. And I remember just looking at these amazing,

amazing camera work amazing stories being told and I'm always a really outdoorsy person it's super outdoorsy and it was just it was incredible and I sat there and I was like do I actually enjoy what I'm doing because prior to that I I had never had any self-awareness

So prior to that, I'd never ever questioned whether I was happy or not. Being honest, in my undergraduate, I wasn't really happy. Like if you'd asked me straight up, how are you? I probably would have cried. Oh, wow. Just because that whole question just opens up so much. Like, how am I? I don't know. I'm stressed. I'm freaking out. I'm nervous. Like I'm not happy. And watching the Banff Film Festival was one of those moments where I just sat and I thought, I don't think I'm doing the right thing.

I think I'm just doing a PhD because I'm at great uni. The reputation is really good. At the end, I'll get a doctorate. Is that the only reason I'm doing it? And I think like being self-aware, you have to be completely honest with yourself in a non-biased way in the moment. How are you feeling? And being honest with myself, that was the answer. I was purely doing it for the reputation, for the doctor at the start of my name.

Not because I was really enjoying it. Like, I didn't really enjoy the work. In fact, it's funny because I talk about my PhD and I like the project, but I...

like doing an undergraduate better in the sense that I when you do PhD you become it's very much about Optimizing for a particular experiment and you spend six months optimizing for a particular experiment So you actually become an engineer of mass spectrometry, you know, you become an engineer like, you know the machine so well Yeah, but all that biochemistry that you learn in undergrad just it's not important anymore because you're just trying to optimize for this one experiment

And I didn't like that. I didn't like that I was forgetting the biochemistry that I loved and that I was just becoming so specialized in one thing. And it took me like a while to process what I'd gone through during that BAMF Film Festival. And slowly, slowly over the course of another six months, I was like, yeah, no, I'm really doing this for the wrong reason. When I was doing my PhD, I liked watching YouTube videos. I've always been into fitness.

I, but I felt like there was a lot of misinformation on, in the fitness industry on YouTube because there was nothing that was science backed. Everything was anecdotal. And I had had experience

I had had, I had developed like relationships with food or relationships with over-exercising that I can attribute to social media because at the time I was really easily influenced, didn't really look at things critically and just believed things that were said. Like if people said it in a nice way and they looked really pretty and things like that and everything looked really nice, I would go along with it. And that meant that I ended up in a position where I wasn't

I wasn't really performing well because I wasn't training properly. I wasn't eating properly. And my PhD...

Think what they didn't do with my undergrad is we weren't taught to critically analyze papers But that's what we did really well at UCL is a lot of it was really well analyzing papers Look at the methodology. Is it flawed? How is this study carried out? Where is this study published? all of these things make a huge difference and I realized at that point like there's a real gap here and

There's a gap in on YouTube where there's scientifically based fitness content that is delivered in a really friendly, accessible way. And that's kind of where I started. So once I finished my PhD, then I, sorry, my MPhil. Yeah.

Was tutoring and starting to think about making YouTube videos. Okay, so when you had that moment of kind of the that period of realization where maybe I'm doing this for the wrong reasons That feels like it would be quite quite a scary thing because you've been working for this thing and following this sort of ladder and then you're like Oh, maybe maybe I've been climbing along with the wrong ladder and if if you're a sort of side hustle tutoring

What was going through your mind in terms of like what you were gonna do with your career, what you were gonna do with your life? Like were you thinking about those things before you decided to quit? - To be honest, I don't think I, it's a weird thing to look back on because I don't think I was fully present in that moment.

There was a lot of reflection. There was a lot of thinking about the future and there wasn't much thinking about the actual present. I only really developed self-awareness like a couple of years later. So in that moment, I think I was just so flustered that I didn't really... All I knew was that it felt wrong. And so in terms of thinking, oh, is this going to harm my career or whatever...

I didn't worry so much about it. Okay. I think, cause I, and I still think this, like if I really want to go and do science again, can you, can I swear? By all means. Yeah. Fuck it. Like I just go and sign myself up in like to an undergraduate and then go through the whole process again. If I have to, if I want to, if that is really what I,

In even 10 years time, I decided that actually I made the complete wrong thing. I'll just go off and do that again. Like it always felt like I wasn't closing a door in that sense. And so, yeah, I guess, and I was in such a, I was really down. Like I think back then, like it would have been depression, although I hadn't really, I wasn't really seeing anyone for it, but I struggled to wake up. I always felt tired. I,

had no drive to do anything, even things I enjoyed. I just, what's the point? And so I think because that feeling was so strong, I just, I was just like, no, it's not right. Interesting. Cause like I often speak to people who are in the middle of doing something that they feel like, maybe this was a bad idea. A lot of the time, the people I speak to are doctors in particular who are doing, you know, practicing medicine and feel like, yeah,

maybe I made the wrong toy choice 10 years ago when I decided to go into medicine. It's a really hard one. I don't think the education system here helps us much because you have to start specializing when you're 14. Yeah. How do you know? Suddenly you have to start gearing your work experience, volunteering, et cetera, because you've decided I want to be a doctor. Yeah. Your A levels, all of that starts to just get funneled down as early as the age of 14 when you have no idea. And I think it like doesn't equip you that well for like a world that is

you need multiple skills. Like it's, it serves everyone.

I think I've done better not being specialised than being specialised. Yeah, because I guess within biochemistry, you could have gone full-on into any of those subspecialties, become a pro-mass performative forever and that kind of thing. Yeah, that's what I thought. I was like, oh, I'm going to go into doing biochemistry, then I'll get my PhD, then I'll get a postdoc, then I'll work my way to becoming a professor. Okay. That was like my career. And then, but I think...

When I saw that BAM Film Festival, it reignited... Because I've... A little bit like you, you said you were really creative. You did graphic design, right? Yeah. My thing was textiles. And I... I always... I just... I love it. Like, I love the artwork of it. I'm not so much like a...

No, it's not really like the high street stuff that I like. It's really like the high-end architectural stuff. Sorry. I've scraped your mic again It's really the high-end architectural stuff where there's just so much intricacy in it that it's in so much manipulation of a particular fabric like that's the stuff that I really enjoy and and and so when I saw the BAM Film Festival, I was like well, I want to do something that's more creative and

And I love fitness. And I, and I, since having done like my MPhil, I can, I'm now reading all of this scientific evidence on training and nutrition and,

I feel like I've never heard of on social media. That's not the message. What I'm reading here from these papers is not what's coming out to all of us in magazines, on the media, etc. And I just, I think I knew that I wanted to be a part of that so much that it didn't feel like so much of a leap of faith. I also don't really have, I don't really

I don't really care so much about what other people think either. Like I really, I really don't. So my professors were like a bit embarrassed that I was leaving because it's not a thing that you do. You don't quit a PhD. Most people that get a start a PhD, they just stick it out. Um, and I think the uni also kind of,

look down on you a little bit. But I just don't care. I was just like, I'm going to do it. So you started the YouTube channel. What was like, what happened next? What were the early days like? The early days were...

beyond cringe oh like okay I think the first ever video I made which I've taken down and I don't even know where it is I wish I still had it yeah um is this Halloween fitness video don't ask me why I did it I just it was a Halloween like skit fitness video it was horrendous okay but I remember just going to pure gym at like midnight filming it on a phone

And then that was my first ever video, I think. And then other videos, I don't know why that was my first video. I think I was just thinking, yeah, let's just do something like a little bit fun. And then it started being more like...

informational videos. But I was really, I really struggled with speaking in front of the camera. I was really camera shy. Even, I'd say even like a year and a half in is when I started getting comments from people saying, oh, it feels like your personality is coming through. Because the first year and a half, I felt so much more comfortable filming things than

And being behind camera. So a lot, even like my what I eat in a day would be three minutes long, no talking, just video edited, food being put together and like just, and that's it. And so it really took me a really long time to warm up to speaking in front of camera. So a lot of the early, early days are just,

It's hard to watch. It's really hard to watch. I don't think you'll find them anymore. So the speaking to camera thing...

You know, these days I have a lot of contact with beginner YouTubers who are wanting to get started, wanting to stay consistent with it. And one of the prime things that holds people back is, A, I'm worried what my friends and family and parents will think. And B, I don't know if I can, I'm not confident on camera. Yeah. So you decided to start a YouTube channel despite knowing that you weren't that confident on camera. Yeah, I think because the thing is, I feel like I really had something in me

Like there was, there really is, there was really a gap for scientifically based content delivered in a really fun way, a really accessible way. And I just felt like that wasn't being met, but it meant that I really had to go through that initial uncomfort, like feeling uncomfortable about it to get to that stage. And yeah, I mean, even though it was kind of like unpleasant and awkward and it was

I couldn't have anyone else in the room whilst I talked to a camera. It just, because I knew I wasn't being myself. I knew that there was a part of me that I just, I couldn't get it out in front of camera. And, but because the feeling of having to get that scientific content out there to help as many people as possible so they didn't fall into the same traps that I did was more important to me than that initial feeling of being uncomfortable. Right.

And that's why I kept going for it. And the practice makes perfect, right? Yeah. Like I personally hate public speaking. I hate it. It makes me feel so nervous, but I'm still going to do it because I'm not going to die. I might die of cringe. Like looking back, I'll be like, Oh, that was really badly delivered or you really don't sound eloquent or whatever it is, but I'm not going to die. Like it's not the worst. It's going to happen.

It's just, if people say stuff, they say stuff. Like I've spent, I mean, I don't know if you have siblings. I have a younger brother. Like you just, you just take the piss out of each other all the time. And it is what it is. Yeah. How was the growth in the early days? Like, can you remember how many videos it took you to hit a thousand subscribers or kind of those? I think the growth was really slow. I mean, the early, early videos, because they were so bad, like I,

I'm not like I'm not surprised like they were just really bad videos like hard to watch yeah there was some information but like someone else has delivered that information better um and so I really can't remember I think I started in 2000 I think I started in 2016

And I think by the end of 2016, I don't know when I started in 2016, but by the end of 2016, and I did one video, which was kind of like a... Sometimes you do these videos that are kind of... You don't necessarily...

Want to do them, but they're good to do because it gets your channel out there and that at the time was cheat day challenges Okay, so I did a cheat day challenge that got I think a million views or something and that grew me my first 10k and so and then at the start of 2000s, but I don't know how many videos I posted until then I think maybe I had

maybe 15 videos. I'm not sure. Okay. Something like that. So not very many. It was still like a really early channel. Yeah. That grew me 10K and then

And then I, I don't fully remember. Things really did happen like stepwise though. Like I never had like a one video that just everything took off from there. It just kind of, it really happened quite gradually, which I actually appreciate because I think sometimes it's nice to grow with your audience as well and get to know them. One of the things that I always do with my YouTube videos, I try and reply to as many comments as I can as possible. It's really important for me to feel close to my audience.

And I think that also gives me the confidence to speak to them in a way that I would with my, to any friend that I have. But I really do treat them like friends because many of the comments that I get are still from people that I've seen from three years ago that have kind of stuck with me the whole time. And so I think getting to know your friends

your audience as you grow is really important and it it made me feel more confident and it made me feel because I think if I if it just happened all in one go there's kind of like a oh I don't know what to say it's kind of a disconnect isn't there between you and the audience then yeah like the people who go viral overnight it's like what do you do now yeah and I I for that I'm I'm kind of grateful because I think I would have struggled the other way yeah

Okay. Even though as a YouTuber, you're always like, oh, I just, when's that break going to come? Yeah. So in the sort of like first 15 or so videos where you're not getting that much traction, you're putting the videos out, it feels really hard. You're like, oh, this is terrible. That kind of thing. What was it that kept you going and continuing to make the videos, even though like video number one wasn't a viral hit? I think...

really like it's what I, what I said before, just that mission driven thing of evidence-based fitness stuff. I just want to help as many people as possible. Okay. Um, I want to help. I want to empower as many people as possible to understand the science and be able to use that how they want in their training. Um, so yeah, I'll give, I give like recipe ideas, but, or, but I don't really give cookie cutter things. It's more about

allowing people to understand the fundamentals of training, training smart, eating properly, and then whatever your diet, however you like to train, you can use those principles. And you have the power because you know that it's scientifically backed. And that...

Because I think I had got into a position where I was so confused about training and nutrition. I really didn't want anyone else to feel that way. And so I felt like it was like my duty. I was like, you know, this is my calling in life. Like I really need to, let's get to the bottom of this. Like let's really try and help as many people as possible. And that's why sometimes I did videos that I, like I didn't necessarily, didn't always particularly want to do because I knew that that would impact

give me the tools to reach more of the audience. Like sometimes my titles will say, like it will talk about fat loss in a certain way because I know that at the time where I was struggling, where I didn't have a clue about what was going on with like fitness or nutrition, I would have clicked on that title because someone else will do it and they'll deliver it with poor information. And so yes, there's always like a compromise between that marketing as well. Okay.

So it sounds like you had a clear kind of strong why behind the thing that you were doing and that let you be like, all right, yeah, this is just what I'm going to do. Yeah. Because I have this message that wants to come out. Yeah. That's interesting. How was it for you?

For me, my why behind it was a bit more... It was a bit less altruistic. It was... It's okay, it doesn't have to be though. Yes, I was running a business that helped people get into med school by teaching courses for the BMAT and UCAT and those exams and things. And I thought, "Oh, there's no good free information about this stuff on the internet." Great, let me make YouTube videos teaching people how to do this exam stuff in the hope that maybe if, I don't know, 100 people watch this video, one or two of them will think, "Oh, this guy knows what he's talking about. Let me sign up to his course."

So it was started off as a marketing driver for the courses. But then very quickly, it was like there were medical applicants in the comments being like, oh, can you do a video about interviews? Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Let's get all my friends on camera giving interview tips. Stick it on YouTube. That got traction. Oh, can you do a video about personal statements? Sure. You know that and it sort of grew in that way. But I always had in the back of my mind that

I don't just want to do this for fun. I want to treat this properly like a business. And so when I started, it was a case of I'm going to like without fail one video every week for the next like three years and see what happens.

And I kind of knew that my first 100 videos were gonna be crap because I knew nothing about, I was bad at camera, I was bad at video editing, didn't know anything about anything. But I knew that if I just did enough of it, then eventually I'd get to the point where the videos might even be decent. - Did you save the good ideas for later on once you knew you'd get better? - Yeah, I had one good idea that I knew was gonna be a banger. It was a video about evidence-based study tips.

because this was something no one ever teaches us. I'd done a lot of research into that in my third year when I did a BSc in psychology. So I was like, I've got a banger presentation on how to study for exams with all the evidence. I just need to turn that into a video. But that needs to be like my 100th video rather than my first video because I'm just not good enough at the video thing to do justice to this thing. What about you? Were you holding back banger ideas? There are times now where I hold something back because I know that

I know that that, what am I trying to say? Um, like the circumstances will come in right where like there's, we've got like the right equipment to film this or we have like the funds to be able to hire like a specific, like, um, not event, a venue. Yeah. Like even the Ironman video, I've, we've wanted to do that for a long time, but I wanted to do it in the right environment.

circumstances. So be able to have a drone, be able to do drone footage, be able to hire the Olympic pool, all of these things, like the budget is more for a video like that than, than a regular video. So some videos I'll, I'll wait just a bit. Um, but a lot of the videos I, if I'm making something, I make it so that it's as timeless as can be. So especially with the science, the science explained videos, um,

Those I will I tend it's not I don't feel like I've had to wait but I will spend a long time making it Because I know that I only have one shot like I'm not gonna make that video again. Okay, it's not I

Some some videos you just can't keep milking like and and I also From as a as a creator like I don't like repeating myself I don't like having to always do the same thing over and over and over again Like I like to do it do it really really well to the best of my abilities and then cool I've done that I've done that topic we can leave that now. Yeah, I

So within that first year, maybe around 2016 time, you went to 10K subs off the back of this cheat day video. When did YouTube start becoming commercially viable for you?

So I think I hit, I think that was like July, 2017. I think, I think I was about like 150 case ups where I was like, okay, now I feel like I can spend a really good amount of time just focusing on YouTube and I can say goodbye to my tutors, my tuties. And it worked quite well as well. Cause it was like the end of the year. So you don't have to find new people. Yeah.

So it wasn't kind of just leaving the parents. Just before exams. Yeah, yeah. And were you doing everything yourself at the time or did you have an editor? Like what was the sort of... No, I think I was doing everything myself. I think Mario helped me a little bit as well. But maybe...

mainly everything myself. Okay. And did you know how to edit videos and do the camera stuff before you started or? No, I just taught myself. Yeah. I feel like one thing I'm good at is I'm really quick at learning. So I just, I just taught myself and I wanted it so bad. Right. So you just, you just teach yourself whatever you need to teach yourself. Yeah. I find that, you know, a lot of

But the editing wasn't like good at the start. It's always really shit. It improves over time. Yeah. You think it's amazing when you've done it. Like in the early days, I was like, this is shit, man. I've got a crossfade transition. But yeah, it wasn't amazing. Yeah. I think like generally when I speak to older folk, they're always surprised that, oh, you know, how can you just do this without a background in that or without a formal qualification in the thing?

Whereas I think kind of our generation and younger just tends to assume you can just teach yourself anything on the internet. And so who cares if you've never done video editing or never known how to use a camera?

There's YouTube tutorials for everything out there. If you go into that mind. Yeah, you're right. Sometimes I speak to like people's parents or like older people and they're like, oh, wow, what's your qualification? I don't have one. I just kind of you just do. Yeah. And yeah, like you might not be the most technically advanced or whatever, but especially when it comes to being creative, I think.

even with graphic design, I ended up teaching myself quite a bit of graphic design last year. And, um,

I think luckily I have quite a good eye for design. Yeah, because your thumbnails are super aesthetic. It's like all this stuff happening and it's like, that would have taken a lot of effort to put together. Yeah, they do take a while to put together. But I think if you have an eye for something, it really helps. And then the technical stuff like comes later. I found that with photography as well, because I really love photography. I like taking more like architectural, like neutral shots.

But I think, yeah, if you, and I think you just don't set limits for yourself. Yeah. That goes back to the thing about the Ironman as well. Yeah. Like if you just think you can do it, just keep going for it and just keep learning and try and learn from the best. And how do you think about your sort of personal brand these days in terms of kind of mid to long-term? Like, do you, and so for me, for example, I'm always asking myself,

you know, five years from now, 10 years from now, what am I going to be doing?

And I often think, am I still going to be making YouTube videos in my 40s and 50s? That feels a bit weird. And part of me is like, hell yeah. And other parts of me is like, yeah, but who's going to want to listen to a 50-year-old making YouTube videos? So how do you think about the longevity of your personal brand? That's a really good question. I actually don't know if I've really thought about it too much. I think I'm still at a position where I have lots of content I want to make. So I don't feel like I'm thinking, oh...

oh, I'm kind of scraping the barrel here. Like, and I don't, if I get to that stage, I think that might be a place where I go, okay, let's take a step back. Like, am I, because I find that just kind of, I would find that very unfulfilling, like kind of sad where it's just like, oh, okay. I really, I have no more ideas. Like- What are you in a day version 25? Yeah. But I think,

I mean, especially with your content as well, there's longevity in the content that you make in the sense that there's a depth to your content. So there's more longevity in it. And I think a little bit the same with me. In the sense that for me, I don't think people tune in to just watch me do a whole lot. What am I trying to say? I guess people aren't just watching me for me and like the current life that I'm living or whatever.

Think there's more depth to some of the content that I'm making which has longer longevity Which is why I don't over sexualize myself as well because I think that the more I do the more I make it about like physical appearances or things like that the less longevity

Because it's about how you make someone feel and I want people to feel really good. And I think a feeling lasts longer with you than just like an admiration. Yeah. You're not deeply thinking about it. I think that's the same for you. Yeah. I mean, as a dude, the whole sexualizing. Unless you do sexualize yourself. I mean, I'd love to have six pack abs. I'm sometimes thinking like if I had six pack abs, I could do the backflip, slow motion. Then do you ever get the, how...

Because I guess kind of a female fitness influencer, there's like a certain aesthetic that does well on Instagram. Do you feel the temptation of like going down the sexualizing route to get more views effectively? That's a really good question. I feel like there are times where I look at something and I'm like, did that...

That really did just do well because she has a really big, amazing ass or like whatever it is. I don't feel tempted by it. Sometimes I think, oh, it would have kind of been easier if we do more.

like slightly more sex, like more skin. Let's just show more skin. Like let's show this angle instead. But in the long, I think the thing about me is I always play the long game and that's a very short term game to play. If you're going to play it that way is very short term because you're providing someone with like eye candy and that only lasts for so long. Um, so I have always made it a real effort to not go down that route because I

It's just not a long-term play. And I do really want to be in it for the long term. So you've got like...

stupidly large amounts of followers on both YouTube and Instagram. I imagine you get people who kind of look up to you as a role model creator, even outside the fitness space. So what advice would you give to maybe someone who is just maybe graduating from uni, not really sure what they want to do, likes the idea of becoming a creator, maybe on the side of their full-time job or whatever,

and wants to try and emulate your success, for example, what advice would you give? Being passionate about something really helps because just creating something for the sake of creating, I personally find quite difficult if there's not like a purpose for creating something. So going...

having something that they feel really passionate about will come through in their content as well. In terms of like just going for it, like,

Try not to worry about what other people think. Like it, it just, it holds you back and then you're only holding yourself back. So if you really want to go, if you really want to be a creator, then just start making something. And don't worry about the first 10, 100 videos being shit. Cause they're all shit. They're shit for everyone. Unless you're an amazing film student, which they've already done their a hundred videos. Yeah. But like at uni, because the, the likely, the thing is like these, your early videos are,

they don't really get seen by anyone. But you just need to have them out there so that you, knowing yourself, that you've gone through it and it hasn't just been something that you've spoken about doing. Like you've actually gone and done it. So seeing that project through and also giving it time. I think it's really, I think it doesn't help when you hear stories like Charlie D'Amelio getting to five million in like five days. Like those stories don't help because that's really such an outlier.

The truth is that these things take a really long time and you have to be prepared for it to take a long time. And it's okay if it takes a long time. Like whether or not you end up in YouTube's algorithm is up to YouTube. Like it's not really something you can control. Like, yeah, you can make videos that you think will appeal to a larger audience. But at the end of the day, like if it doesn't,

And then it doesn't. Like, if you've done your best and you've really gone for it, then that's really all you could have asked for. You can't really blame yourself. Don't be too hard on yourself. And especially don't be too hard on yourself when you're trying to be a creator because setting up an environment for yourself where you can be creative is a really important thing. I find that I can't be creative if I'm in the wrong environment. It just...

it doesn't flow. Like some people really good. They just, as soon as they're on camera, they just switch it on. And you might be one of those people. I'm personally not like I'm, I'm quite emotional in the sense that if I'm in the mood for filming, I'm really in the mood for filming and things. I don't even have to think about it. I'm just like, I know what shot that's going to be. Yeah. This looks amazing. Yeah. I'm really happy with this. Like things just flow. Um,

So if you're creative in that respect, like be self-aware, I think self-awareness is, is key for everything. Um, it helped me so much, like in across life, not just making YouTube, but just being self-aware. Just what do you mean by self-aware? Because you said earlier that you weren't self-aware while you were an undergrad and it was only after a few years that you suddenly became self-aware. Uh, what was that process like? Um,

So self-awareness is the ability to look at yourself and how you're behaving right in that moment in a completely impartial state.

So, and that's a really hard thing to do. Like, if you're feeling angry, imagine yourself in third person looking at yourself and being like, you're being angry, like you're a dick or like you're behaving like a dick. Like when you're in that moment and you're frustrated and you're angry and you're that emotional, it's hard to think, okay, I'm being really angry. Why am I angry? Or what can I do about it? That I think is...

That, I think, is what self-awareness is. I think for me, it started off with self-reflection, where I would behave in a certain way and then I'd look back and be like, oh, yeah, I kind of behaved differently.

really badly or like, or however, like too emotionally or, um, and it's, I think the process of being self-aware is to take that emotion out and be really honest with yourself and not worry about, is it, is it that right? Should I have behaved that way? Like, and it is part of understanding your personality. And then once you can understand your personality, you can, you can find solutions for yourself and set things up for yourself that help you, um,

in your life, literally across all of your life. Like I think the first time I ever developed self-awareness was I was seeing a life coach and he specializes in neuro-linguistic processing and I was frustrated. I was frustrated because I was always arguing with my mum and we were always, always, always fighting, always.

about the smallest things. And I said this to him and he was like, okay, let's practice and let's do some self-awareness. I was like, what do you mean? It's her fault. It's not my fault. It's her fault. And he was like... And so...

we started to kind of like work through that and I started to realize how I was feeling in the moment and what I could do about it. And it's really about taking control of how you feel in that moment and what you can do about it impartially. And I think it makes you feel, I think over time it's made me a lot better at being a creator as well. Um, and a lot better at

life and feeling aware of being self-aware of how I'm feeling in the moment. So talking about balance is

Like, I don't think I've, I don't think that balance is something that I practice every single, I practice it every day, but I don't have balance every day in the sense that I don't have, like, I don't get my workout in. I don't get my like rest time in. I don't get my every day. It doesn't work that way. It's kind of snakes around in

And you go through moments of imbalance and moments of like balance. And then in the, in the middle, you're sorry, you've got, you go through moments of imbalance. You go through moments of like on both extremities and in the middle you find balance. Okay. Um, and that can be over like the course of a month or a year.

Like in the last six months, when I wasn't posting YouTube videos, I was working a disgusting amount. It was disgusting. And I wasn't getting enough sleep and I wasn't working out how I usually work out and I wasn't doing all these things. And I was self-aware because I knew that that was an unsustainable way to work. And so what can I do about it? I knew that...

I had to work in that way, but it wasn't something that was sustainable. And so I need to find a solution to start to bring that back in. And so I knew that I had to find a date at which I needed to start slowing things down. I booked myself a holiday and then I start getting back to moments where I feel like,

more in balance, catch up on sleep, start training, finding more of a routine. But I think it's being aware in that moment how you feel, being really honest with yourself, completely impartially,

As if you were just a third person, you didn't even know that person looking in on the situation and thinking, right, how are you behaving? Yeah. How are you acting? How do you feel? Why do you feel that way? What can you do about it? And it's different from self-reflection. Yeah. It has to be in that moment. In the moment. That's the really hard part. Okay. And I guess in that moment, you sort of take your own feelings seriously and seriously ask yourself, okay, what,

what has happened to kind of make me feel this way exactly so it's not about shutting that emotion out you have to feel it but be aware that you're feeling it and thinking and think about the environment that's around you and thinking okay why do I feel this way what can I do about it and kind of really taking control because I think before there were a lot of things where I was like oh I I

Why is this happening to me? Blah blah blah. And in most of those situations, the cause was always me. And it's just about being really honest and not feeling like embarrassed. Like some things it's hard to be honest. You know when you're answering like a personality test and it's like, I wouldn't do that. But secretly you do. And it's okay if you don't think it's a good thing. You just have to be really honest with yourself. It's the only way you get to like the root of it. Do you spend much time on social media?

Uh, yes, large amounts, but I choose not to. Oh, okay. It doesn't make me feel good. Okay. Like, and I'm self-aware to know that it doesn't make me feel good. So because it doesn't make me feel good, I just, all I do is I just create the content that I want to create. And also I tend to find that seeing too many things, especially in a similar field, um,

starts to cloud my judgment where I was like I'm doing well on my own like I've found my feet like I know what I want to create I don't necessarily need external cues as to what I want to make and I think that's a danger especially with fitness where people are looking too much at what other people are doing and they all start to become one and

And you start to lose as a follower, you start to think, well, everyone's just kind of the same. Like you followed a person for a reason. If everyone feels the same, you've ruined it for everyone. So that's why I don't spend so much time on social media or anything like that. Cause I just, I don't, it doesn't make me feel good and it doesn't help me in my content. But then I'm trying to make content that does make people feel good and

So I'm always trying to make content as like a, as like an anti-content, like the content that I, cause a lot of the content just doesn't make me feel good. So I'm thinking, what is it about that content that doesn't make me feel good? And I might get it wrong sometimes. Um, but I always try and make content that would make someone feel, you know, some people just have that vibe where you look at their page or you look at their content and you're like,

oh yeah it's like a really nice yeah this is really nice some people really have that and so i tend to stick to those people and then i yeah i don't spend so much time on it how how do you come up with ideas for your own stuff for my instagram for your own stuff on my own stuff like youtube because once you've been doing it for four or five years you said that you've you've got loads of ideas like how how do you come up with them how do you save them like what's your process for that

Sometimes some videos are more like they're situational. So it's things that have happened in my life that I think, okay, this can be quite helpful. It's something that I've never thought about. Speaking about my back injury was something that I never thought I'd speak about because I'd never had a back injury and I hadn't really had an injury that has impacted me so much in my training. So that's, I kind of draw inspiration from that.

events that have happened. Um, and I, and also sometimes with content also, I like to keep up to date with the science. So if there's like a paper that I'm particularly like interested in, or I see something that they've mentioned, that's unusual, I'll have a look at it. Um, with nutrition, there's so many things you can talk about. I think the thing that I try and do is I try not to put myself in a box. So as much as

as much as I am in kind of the fitness space, I can also dig into wellness. I can also dig into like the broader, like how do you integrate health and fitness into a lifestyle or like a more productive lifestyle? There's, I, and also like actually creating, just being creative. Like, I guess I don't,

to put myself in just like a fitness box and that's all I do and that's all I'll specialize in because as a creator I think that makes you

I think that narrows you down. Whereas rather than narrowing stuff down, it's good to keep your eyes open to what's going on around you. And so I would say like looking at things with the fitness industry from a business perspective. And I like, I have lots of different interests from different fields that I try and draw into my own content. Okay.

So I think there's a balancing act there where a lot of the traditional advice on how to grow on YouTube would say that you want to find your niche and you want to stick to your niche and stick to your lane and niche down to blow up.

And yet at the same time when you have like a sort of a personal YouTube channel like you and I do where we have all these different interests and we want to talk about them. Do you ever feel that tension that like, well, I maybe want to talk about this thing, but I'm sort of in the fitness, health, wellness space and I'm maybe not allowed to talk about that thing. Do you?

Do you worry about that at all? Yeah. Sometimes I, yeah, I do get that. I do feel like sometimes like there'll be a vlog that I want to make that I'll have to word in a particular way or like market in a particular way so that people don't feel like it's too much of a change from the other content that I make. Um, but on the whole, I don't think I've reached that point too much yet. I still feel like I have a really solid amount of content that I want to make. Um,

And there's a lot of collaborations that I want to do as well. And that helps as well, bring in like widen the space as well. Nice.

I don't know. Did that help? No. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I was going to ask. So you said that when you were going through your undergrad, if someone had asked you, how are you? You would have kind of burst into tears because like that's a big question. Yeah. And you said that you're not you weren't particularly happy back then. Yeah. Do you do you think you're you're happy now? Yeah. Yeah. I'm really happy now.

I think before, like I was saying, I had no self-awareness. So that meant that I would continually have four hours of sleep every

and not do anything about it because I just in the moment didn't wasn't being honest with myself like are you tired 100% yes um but I didn't ever take a step back and think right this is how you sort the problem out all I kept doing I just kept doing the same thing just on repeat so being able to develop self-awareness for anyone I think is like just is so helpful it

It helps you in realizing like who you are, what environment works best for you. I'm more of an introvert as well. So surrounding myself by lots of people doesn't help me. I like sometimes just having real alone time or just being around people who just don't draw lots of energy out of me. And I think being self-aware, you can be honest with yourself and manage your life so that things work better for you. Okay.

What are the bits of your life where when you don't have them, you feel like, okay, I'm a bit off balance?

I'm I'm I guess what I'm trying to get at is do you find that you're happier when when when you train during the day do you find that you're happier when you I don't know get eight hours of sleep like have you figured out what those things are for yourself yeah make you more content and happy and stuff yeah so I'm just naturally quite an active person I like being active I don't necessarily have to be in the gym but I like being active um I also like being outdoors um and yeah I've

I function so much better if I sleep better. So yeah, those three things. Those basic things, yeah. Yeah, those basic things. Like, I think that's why I really like your office. It's why I like the place that I chose to live in because it's got lots of light and I don't feel like, I feel like I can see the outside and it makes, it might not make a big difference for other people, but for me, it really makes a difference. Just to feel like I can just see the outdoors and,

Yeah. I noticed myself, I kind of struggled during COVID because that whole restriction of like being able to go outside and like going out and doing things that I know helped me, I couldn't do. So that's why I like, I did struggle during COVID. But yeah, I think as long as you just keep working on that self-awareness, it really helps. Amazing. So I've got a few questions to end with, which are more like, yeah,

Sort of rapid fire in the sense that the questions are rapid, but the answers don't necessarily have to be. So if we're down to just sort of go in random directions. Okay. So what advice would you give to your younger self? Start practicing self-awareness straight away. Amazing. Okay. Who's had the biggest influence on your career? Mario. Okay. How so? So he has an...

he's one of those people that is emotionally intelligent and just intelligent, like just baseline. Um, he has always had really good self-awareness. So he's really been able to like assess situation, but just more than that, like he's taught me so much about business, about managing myself, managing my life. He is my manager. Um,

how to work effectively, productively, how to manage relationships, how to, yeah, just he's, yeah, Mario, for sure. Always. Great. What's one tip for someone who's looking for success? Be prepared to work really hard and you have to make sacrifices in order to get there. Like it's not, I don't think success comes without sacrifice. Yeah.

Oh, interesting. Would you disagree? No, that's a nice quote. Success doesn't come without sacrifice.

I don't know. So there's a big... Well, there's a sort of movement these days, a sort of the anti-hard work movement. Okay. Interesting. And I think like it's like... To be successful? Yeah. Or is it an anti-hard worker to have a nice life? Or is it an anti-hard work to be successful? I think it's an anti-hard work to have a nice life rather than to be successful, which is where the nuance is. But I guess kind of back in the day...

I'm thinking Gary Vaynerchuk kind of vibes of like, you've got to hustle, you've got to work really hard so that you can build a business, etc. And especially kind of post-pandemic, it seems like the idea of hard work and hustling and productivity in some spheres is getting a bit of a bad rep that, hey, we shouldn't be promoting hard work, we should be promoting healthy living and all that kind of stuff. And

And the way I always think of it, it's like, well, it kind of depends on what your goal is. Like if you want to win gold at the Olympics, you know, you aren't going to get there without like sacrificing a lot of things along the way. But if you want like a pretty chilled out, nice balanced life, then by all means go for it. I think it's important for people and this is certainly what I'm trying to do is figure out like, what do I actually want here? What am I optimizing for? I think I've gone through that same phase as well where it was,

there was a point where I actually had not an argument, but just like, um,

speaking about it with my cousin who I'm really close to and she was like, I feel like I never see you. And that's, and I think at that point I was like, oh shit, like I've sacrificed so much that the people that I love, like I just don't see. Like I don't have time for, I'm not making time for them. So there is that. I think maybe instead of like, I think also you have to work smart. So,

One of the things that I used to do when I was younger is I would work really hard, but it was so fucking inefficient. Like, I don't know what I was spending my time doing. It just was not efficient. So I think being really smart with how you work and spending time doing the right things. And especially with fitness, like there's a seasonality to it. I'm not going to make a ton of fitness videos around Christmas time. Waste of time. Yeah.

Complete waste of time. January, okay. March, okay. But like around Christmas time, like I'm not, I'm just not going to stress myself out with stuff that people just aren't interested. People want to enjoy Christmas. I want to enjoy Christmas. Like it's just not the right time to be putting all of your effort into doing something when it's just not going to give you that much return. So I think working smart is...

Nice. A smart way to go. What does the first and last hour of your day look like? First hour of my day looks like just first hour is emails. I just keep checking my emails, which kind of isn't an amazing thing to do. Right. This is like very present. It's not an amazing thing to do to just wake up and look at your phone. But I am guilty of it. And last hour of the day.

I'm just a potter. I just potter around. Just check the plants. Oh, nice. Like take ages, like ages brushing my teeth, just doing things. That's not really anything. That's my last hour. Fair play. That seems very counter to the, I mean, I would have expected a wake up at five, do a meditation, do a go for a run, that whole sort of.

Yeah, a lot of people think like people have very much have an idea of what health and fitness looks like. But ain't nobody got time for that. Not if you want like not if you want to also have like a working life and stuff like that. Like I can imagine that for like the retired people.

the retired like feel good retreat kind of life but no I don't have time to do all of that what material item under 100 pounds could you not live without I think that I couldn't live without I'm quite good at stripping things from my life what's yours maybe that'll give me an idea that's a good question um your glasses maybe they're above 100 yeah no I think um

I guess the way I think of it is like, what's a thing that's sort of underrated that people don't

And so for me at university, it was like a five quid doorstop. I would just like wedge my door open at all times. And my social life was 10 times more interesting than if my door was closed by default. So like that little thing had such an enormous impact on my uni experience that I now recommend it to everyone. Oh, just get a doorstop. That is a nice one. Um, I guess I would say my diary. Oh, you have a diary. Yeah. Is it like a physical diary? Yeah. Well, I, I,

I used to keep a diary from when I was about five to 18 strict. It's actually really crazy reading back. It's like crazy. Um, and now I kind of enter into it every like now and then I don't, I don't journal. It's more just like,

When I'm really feeling something, like I'll just write, write, write. But yeah, I have a diary. Nice. I have several diaries. Yeah, you've got a whole collection. Yeah, a whole collection. And do you find it's helpful to kind of process your thoughts? I think it's helpful, yeah. Especially because the process of writing like really slows down. Yeah, it's not like typing. Yeah, it really just slows everything down. Yeah, I find it helpful. Also because no one is ever going to read it.

Well, hopefully. Hopefully, yeah. Hopefully, no one's ever going to read it. So you can really just put whatever you want and then you can really be like, okay, that's... You're being over the top there or however. I just find it quite therapeutic. I just like getting my ink pen out for it. So yeah, it's nice. Oh, very fancy. If you lost everything, how would you start a business again? Sounds really... I don't know if it sounds really arrogant. I feel like I could do anything. I could be of service to anyone. Also, I have no embarrassment of...

like a... Like, I don't have a, oh, I can't do that kind of job. Like, I used to clean. I used to...

I used to work as a lifeguard. Like as in, I've done so many jobs. I used to be a waitress. Like I used to just do like pots and pans. I used to just go around and clean people's cars. Like I don't have any embarrassment of what job I need to do. So I would just start from there, build up, invest. I don't have a, I don't have much of a,

I don't spend a lot of money like I'm not really much of a spender just save and invest and and Just go about it from there. Really amazing. Um, what book would you recommend to everyone? Well, just one Oh, well one two three like I'm always interested in maybe one thing the one thing. Oh, yeah, Gary color. Yeah, yeah mastery mastery Robert Greene and quiet

Quiet. Quiet is a really good one, actually. That one would top it. Oh, interesting. Yeah, because I guess you identify as an introvert. So that's like a very introvert type book. I also feel like it's really relevant nowadays, especially for like, especially, well, especially in my industry for social media, in social media, like people say things with so much confidence, doesn't mean they're right. Like not everyone should have, not everyone...

If you don't know about something, you shouldn't be speaking about something because you just don't know. Like I don't talk about stuff I don't know because I don't know. It would be wrong of me to talk about it. And so I think it's important in this day and age. Nice. What quote or mantra do you live by? There's one from Eleanor Roosevelt, which is, it goes along the lines of, you won't worry so much about what others think about you if you realize how seldom they do. Nice.

Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. That's a good one. What's yours? If, um, mine is probably, um, journey before destination. I think I've heard you say that before. Actually. It's one of my usual spiels. I just love it. I just think it applies to all areas of life. Um, yeah. What's your take on that journey or destination? Journey or destination? Um, fallen for the, just reach the destination. Don't worry about the journey. Like I, I think I, if like being honest with myself have gone into things where I,

the journey of shit, but at the end I'll get somewhere. Um, I think it's just about measuring like where that's accepted, where the light, like if that's an acceptable way to live by things for certain in certain circumstances, when it comes to your life, it probably helps to go through like the journey because the journey teaches you so much as well. Like, I think that's the whole thing about like success, like,

success can sometimes be really harmful because you can learn so much from the journey. Yeah. And yeah, the way I think of it is like the journey is, is really all that we have at the end of the day. Like I don't know about you, but for me, when I kind of accomplish a goal, there isn't really any sort of lasting satisfaction from that. And it's more about that. Oh,

you know the friends i made along the way was it fun in fact that kind of thing did i learn something do you think because do you are you one of those people who once you've achieved a goal you just kind of shrug it off yeah i think i'm really bad at celebrating wins and things just like all right cool that's fine it doesn't change my day i'm still gonna grab a cup of coffee still gonna make a video like the i i feel like whatever happens i'll just potter around doing doing my thing yeah

Yeah, I think I also do the same where it's like I'm not very good at celebrating an achievement. I just kind of... Yeah, on to the next one. Cool. Keep moving. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. We'll put links to all of your things in the video description, the show notes, whether people are watching or listening to this. Where, I guess, yeah, where can people find you? Any projects you want to shout out or drive, try and get some people to check out?

So you can find me on YouTube. You can find me on Instagram. You won't find me on TikTok.

Not yet anyway. And yeah, I work with dieticians. If you're looking for training programs that are scientifically backed, I've got your back. And that's pretty much it. Sick. That's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you very much for listening. All of Natasha's links and all the resources we discussed will be in the show notes and in the video description if you're watching this on YouTube. Thank you again for tuning in. And if you did enjoy the episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. That would be fantastic so that more people can discover the content as well.

the podcast. Thank you so much and catch you later.