EP050 - David Gandy - The adventure of trying to achieve | WHOLE MAN ACADEMY

Foreign.

So this is the Whole Man Academy podcast. My guest today needs no introduction, but we're going to give him an intro anyway. I was coming up with what I could think of best to say, which is a style icon for men around the world. He's been on more front covers than you can count. He also likes cars, dogs and music. And more importantly, he's also the Whole Man Academy ambassador. David, welcome to the Whole Man Academy podcast. How are you and where are you, sir?

Thank you, sir. That's a very nice introduction. Makes my morning a lot better.

I was up all night writing it.

Yeah, you got my email there. I'm in London, so they've actually been chucked out of my office downstairs. So we're sharing a kind of officers and my other half's a barrister. So she's got the office today and I'm upstairs and away from.

How's it been then with. I'm guessing that you've had an increased. I think the last time we spoke was on Zoom, anyway, a while ago, in between our silly messages on WhatsApp, which generally include chickens and dogs and stuff like that. But how is it for you with trying to run your career but being stuck at home and being on Zoom all the time, especially when you've got, you know, a little one and little ones don't generally be quiet.

Very, very true. Yeah. I mean, Anthony, I think you have to adapt. I mean, I suppose in many ways I'm probably in a little bit of a better position because, you know, my running businesses and my brand and everything else over the so many years has been done remotely. I mean, I'm never really at home or never have really been at home. No, I would always be on 60 to 90 flights a year. So to me, that the businesses and everything I do has always sort of been done through laptops, emails, you know, on planes, in hotel rooms. So I guess I was in a better position. It was. It was probably strange for me in the fact that I couldn't go anywhere if that sounded. So I actually had to. I was then chucked into something that was alien to me, which is something like a routine. So that was peculiar to me. There were, you know, there were some lovely factors in having a routine, but anything alien, someone just, you know, to people sometimes it's like if you said someone, they're used to a routine and then you. You give them no routine and they're not sure when they're flying and they're at home or they're a million projects on the Go. It would be driving around the bend, but I'm used to that, you know, that that was my kind of routine. So it's been strange. It's been lovely, you know. Lockdown one, we were up north with Steph, my partner's mum, and in many ways, I always had a. I was always thinking of taking a few months off. There were lots of stuff going on. I think I needed a little bit of a rethink, a reboot, in some ways. Want to spend. I've always spent time with Matilda and I made sure I was in London for definitely her first year without too much traveling. But there's always, you know, as I call it, fear of missing out, which is terrible. And it's constant comparisons, so. And you can't get away from that with. With social media and everything goes. We would like to think we would all switch it off, but we are seeing what other people are doing, where they're going, events, work and everything else. I'm a very competitive person. I constantly have, you know, sort of a little whisper in my ear that you should, you know, be at the front of the crowd, be ahead of the game and everything else. And that's very, very, very hard to switch off. And it's a pain in the ass a lot of the time. It's a motor, it's a motivational thing. It's. It, you know, it does. It's constantly pushing and pushing and pushing, but it's, you know, it's hard sometimes. So when Lockdown one came. Lockdown. I mean, we talk about Lockdown one now as if it's, you know, you know, the first film and then the second film, Pre Lockdown two. Lockdown One came down. Yeah, pretty much. And it was. There was almost a relief because no one was doing anything. No one was flying anywhere, no one was working, no one was shooting. We were still continuing. I was still doing as much as I could. I started a lot of other projects. There were a lot of people, unfortunately, in worse position than me that were losing positions and jobs. So I was actually employing people to then start another project. I wanted to. That had been in the pipeline for a while. Yeah. But, yeah, there was a really lovely feeling of sort of waking up every day with Matilda and going for a walk in the hills and not, you know, literally not having my mobile phone in hand. I could go, right, well, no one's in the office. No one's going to be contacted.

Switch on.

Yeah. And I actually found it. I was not, you know, we wanted to go up north but of course I was a little bit reluctant about. I didn't know how long we were going to be there and then Steph had to drag me home really. I was, I was quite happy walking the dogs and walking Matilda and because it gave me that time frame and that sort of frame of mind to relax much more and I get to get out and. Exactly. So many men in the same boat as well that I knew were so busy and they enjoyed lockdown and then they're probably everyone, everyone I knew that said they really enjoyed it were all self employed, all entrepreneurs that got time to switch off.

What about for the gym? Because I know, I think on one of the questions that we'd sent through to you when we did a bit of Q and A for the whole mad academy, you'd said it gave you a chance to have a rest from gym. Because I'm guessing for, you know, the last 20 years you've pretty much been at the gym every day, you know, if not twice a day sometimes, especially with a shoot coming up. What was it like having a. Giving your body a break from that?

It was good. I mean I was. When we were up north, there was loads of physical work going on. I was sort of taking the dogs for probably good 6, 7 miles of strenuous walking, which, I mean, which I do in London. But it was different when we were up in Yorkshire, Lancashire and there was just a lot of physical work. You know, I think I was talking to you and I was building fences and felling trees and building, you know, hen coops and nothing. You know, I mean there was, there was basically one shop open which was screw fix. So I would go, I had no idea how to make a fence. But you know, there's enough YouTube videos to. On everything to teach you how to do it. Lovely. You know, to be able to do something physically for as well. And so that was, that was working and I didn't, I didn't do a press up, I didn't do a sit up, I didn't obviously go to a gym. They weren't open for three months. Absolutely nothing apart from the, you know, the physical exertion of the work. So it was, I think, I think I needed to give my body a rest as you said, For 20 years I have pretty much been working out. It's something I've always enjoyed and it's not something I did because of modeling and being in that. It's something I did for myself, you know, the well being myself. I just always have kept healthy. I played A lot of sport. And when I stopped playing plot, I continued in the gym. But again it then became something with having children and working so much and having that. It wasn't almost a pleasure. It was something at half past eight in the evening that I would have to drag myself to the gym and I wasn't enjoying as much. So I think the rest was nice. It was not easy going back. I was so surprised how. I mean I lost about 8. About, yeah, 8 kg in weight just from losing muscle mass. Stupidly went back into the gym thinking I was pushing, you know, sort of 45kg aside on my bench, you know, and I'm so chuck 25 aside on. And there was a very embarrassing first instance of dropping it down on my chest. Couldn't. Couldn't get up. Had to roll it down my chest rather. And yeah, and so carried on and just the pain over the next few weeks of starting again. Yeah, was extreme. Extremely difficult, but almost great to have something to aim for again to get to my body back to kind of where it was before. It felt much more rested. You know, everything before when I was going, there was a little twinge here and there, but I was always feeling. But I felt refreshed and I think my. I think it kind of did me some good. Of course then I finally got back to making some progress and I changed my workouts as well and came back. So I was just getting into it and then they shut the gyms again for low round two.

Yeah. Just as you got back to it.

Yeah, just seeing some decent progress. But I am training more at home now, just kettlebells, press ups, stretching, everything else. Because I suppose, I know, I suppose with them saying that it's going to be four weeks, you know, when before we didn't know how long it was going to be, but I suppose I hope it's four weeks, I hope it is the 2nd of December, but I suppose having a time frame in mind is easier for me, I suppose.

I think it helps mentally, doesn't it, to have an end. An end goal, as it were, of like, I can get back to the gym. What I was going to ask you because we, on one of the previous podcasts we interviewed a guy that does a lot of bodybuilding and he was talking about how, you know, it's when you're really cutting body fat to that extent. And I know you haven't gone to the bodybuilder side of it, but obviously for you, when you've got a shoot coming up and you're going to be, you know, without any clothes on. How difficult was it for you to or what were the measures you would take to try and make sure that your body is in what you feel is tip top condition for that one day or how many days of shooting.

So yeah, I mean sometimes it can be difficult. I mean I would always hopefully if we knew we had something like light blue shooting or underwear camera or something like that, we would always have months in advance. So I'd always sort of keep my body in a condition which mentally to me I always thought was pretty decent condition.

Yeah.

And then when we had a shoot I would then start preparing for that. So it'd probably be two months to probably six weeks before much more intensive training. Stripping down, eating sort of less saturated fats and a little bit less carbs, but not much. But never the dieting side of. You know I always. People presume I don't really eat much which is ludicrous. I'm a 15 stone guy.

I was going to say I've, you know, I know you, I've met you. You can't maintain a, you know, a six foot plus figure etc. Without eating a decent amount of food.

No, I mean you know the amount I walk, you know a day with the dogs and having children and work out and train, I'm constantly on the move. I mean someone, a trainer that I know, a good friend of mine, he worked out that I need over 4,000 calories a day just to maintain my body. That's just maintaining, that's not putting anything else on. And 4,000 calories sounds like a lot of fun but actually sometimes it's quite hard. So there's a lot of supplements just to get that 4,000 just to bulk up the calories just to get. So I don't really. I cut a little bit of the saturated fat but I don't really eat that much anyway. So the diet doesn't change a lot more protein because you're training so much more. Yeah, the extremes some guys of course bodybuilding is vastly different. You see the guys on men's health and there's side to me and I've done been very fortunate to do men's health covers and men's fitness and stuff like that. But when you see some of the guys and you know those fitness models is the extremities that they go to to get that body. I think does set a standard that is not achievable for guys. If I have to Maybe I'm saying that because I've never Achieved it. But I do think I can. I, you know, people ask me about my training and my eating and I think what I achieve is probably very achievable or how my body is quite achievable, though. You know, some of them, when people are cutting and then they're, you know, they're shooting that, you know, the salt depleting and, you know, sort of really dehydration themselves. Now, I have done that. Now. I'm not saying I haven't done that. Actually, on the last, the last light blue shoot, I did do that and it worked.

Yeah.

Felt horrendous. But you, you pretty much drink. You have to drink load of water to just, you know, get all the salt out of your body. You then spend about two days not really drinking like thimble falls or espresso cups. I was in Italy at the time of, you can drink coffee because that's dehydrating and little bits of water. You feel horrendous. You look great. You know, I mean, every bit of. And you know, the fun side was as soon as that shoot was finished, you've never seen me and you sort of eat so much pasta in my life.

That was my next question was, would you binge on afterwards?

Like calamari, Just keep bringing it. I'm like, so, yeah. And it's not something I advise people particularly do. I don't think it's particularly really healthy.

Well, you just said that. That's the thing I was trying to say to people. Look, you know that the fitness models on the front cover magazine have, you know, probably got a great baseline of muscle mass and low body fat maybe, and then they hit it hard in the way that works for them in the last few days. And then you've got great lighting as well. So it's not to say they're not in great shape. I'm like, look, it's not achievable for many to maintain that because as you said, it actually ends up being quite painful. So I get it.

Yeah. And you have to forget some of those guys. That's how they make a living. That's how that is what they do on a daily basis. That's not what I do on a daily basis. You know, it's another part of what I do. But yeah, so I always, you know, people were surprised and say, well, how, you know, how long even. You said you eat twice in, you know, twice a day in the gym. Well, I've very rarely done that and probably even when I'm training, six days A week when for something, it's an hour a day. You know, I might go a little bit over, but basically it's an hour. And I always say to people, 45 minutes in, you know, an intensive workout. And I always sort of say that to people because I think you have 45 minutes. If I said I spend two hours in the gym, people would be like, right, well, I haven't got two hours. I would understand that. But everyone's got 45 minutes. And, you know, there's an intensive workout that you can do. And always say, sort of that time frame is a good way of, I think, a mindset that, yes, I can achieve that. And of course, people say, well, how much cardio do you. And they quite enjoy that. I say, nothing.

Zero.

Don't do cardio. Yeah, zero. But. But I, you know, if I showed them, I walk 50 miles a week with the dog, then. And I'm, you know, I don't stop. I drive my other half around the bend. You know, from the time I get up, the time I go to bed, there is no real stopping. There's no sitting on, you know, the sofa for a few hours watching Netflix or. We have a daughter, we have a dog. I have businesses. I'm at the gym, I'm shopping. There is. She says to me sometimes, can we just watch a box set? Just for what? And I'll be like, yeah, yeah. Half an hour into it, and I'm like. And I'm off somewhere. What would she be watching? What would she be watching, Steph? I mean, it varies. We don't have arguments about sort of. She can go into the depths of things that I do not want to watch, which is Jersey Housewives. And I can't even think of other things she watches. Kind of. There are certain. I don't even know. I haven't even.

It's not your thing.

I mean, there was. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, what was the one, like, they got wedding on first date kind of thing? These people that got together.

Yeah.

Which I have to admit, during lockdown one, I got so into. It was ridiculous. And I used to say to Steph, oh, do you want to put your program on? And she was like, do you want me to put my program on? I was like, yeah, I'm not.

I'm not fussed, but yeah.

Yeah, no fuss. But, yeah. I just want to see how John's getting on with his new bride. Yeah. It's pathetic. But, yeah, I mean, I'm not, you know, I was always Sopranos and Mad Men My two favorite programs. There's been a few, you know, great documentaries. I am quite, you know, I do love a documentary and I do love World War II documentaries, so I can see why people would, you know, especially stuff like, oh, my God, are you sure you can watch another Second World War documentary? I swear you watched this one last week.

Have you seen them on Netflix? It's World War. I think World War in color or World War II in color.

Yeah.

I found myself watching that late at night. Was brilliant.

Yeah. And there was the one, I forget his name act. He's a famous director, but he took all the footage From World War I, all the black and white, put it in color, and then because there was no sound, he got people to lip read what all the soldiers are saying and then cast people that he thought would be their voices so that you can all hear what they're saying as well. Which is an incredible.

It's a good effort.

Yeah. Watched that on Remembrance Sunday, which was good. So, yeah, we have sort of different viewings. She puts down, too, and this is really quite a good thing for people sometimes. I said, she's a barrister. She's far cleverer, far more intelligent than. Than, you know, kind of I am. I said, how can you, as a barrister, watch this? This is awful. And she said, because, David, if I'm dealing with. And I'm choosing family law, if I'm dealing with certain cases and I am hearing things that most people will never hear. Well, not, you know, a lot of people not even believe things that are going on in the community with children, parents and everything else. She said, I need to completely switch off, you know, and she said, that is my. I'm probably not even paying attention to it, but that is my thing to switch off. I don't have to worry. It's not the news. It's not a documentary to think about. It's something where I am for, and, you know, half an hour, I'm completely just gone. Switched off, which I. Which is fine. But then, you know, when she's not in court, she still watches them anyway. So I'll ask you on the upside. You know, I was speaking to Tej from Dragon's Den yesterday. I was shooting with him, and he was actually saying the amount of incredible ideas, the amount of entrepreneurs that have come from this, and said, right, well, we're out of our big corporate jobs. I'm going now. I've now almost been forced. My hands been forced to now start the company I've always wanted to start. And I Think as a nation and entrepreneurship in Britain, I think that's what, you know, that's what we're known for, that's what we've, you know, the government have always wanted to support Conservative government, always want to support. And we have a Conservative government at the moment. So hopefully that has always worked quite well. However, I always am worried that during this time that there's still a lot of people during lockdown. The markets have done very well. They all shut up the other day. We're talking about. They didn't do very well in March, of course, but now since the March, they're higher than they were in March. So there's a lot of people at the. The higher end making a lot of money, the rich and richer and there's going to be a lot of the poor that are affected even more.

I was just thinking, it is the divide, isn't it? If people owned gold, if you owned Bitcoin, if you owned a lot of these different assets, then they're going one way and the average man on the street is losing out. Well, that was one of my next points, was I would describe you as a entrepreneur, whereas I wonder, what would you like to be remembered as? Because I know you're, you know, you're invested in several businesses and obviously with the whole man academy, I know that, you know, business is your thing. It's not as if modeling is your one career, as it were. Where did that come from?

The business side? You see, I still am a little bit. I suppose I'm a little bit shy of calling myself a businessman or entrepreneur in many, many ways. It came from, I suppose, the working side. I call myself a grafter. I graft. That's. It's a. I think it's a bit of an Essex thing. And I say there's a lot of people who have built their own businesses in Essex are entrepreneurs. And I think hopefully we can all say that we didn't have the best education, we didn't go to the best schools and a lot of people probably left school early, but they've been quite successful, very successful. My peer group and when I was at school have all done very well, but it was because of that. We call it just grafting, just working and working, working and working really hard. Like, I don't think was given to you, so you work hard to go and get that. And I suppose that was instilled into me from my mum and dad. My dad started companies when he was, I suppose, late 20s. It was his first company, started with a Lot of group. Then he left that and started a few more. And my mum, we worked in the companies as well. So I grew up with a household until Mum and dad were working from 7, 8 in the morning whilst me and my sister were around, of course. But they were still on the phones. They were still. They had to deal with America as part of one of their businesses. And they were still on the phone at, you know, midnight. Yeah, it was part of life, you know, it was. We would sit down at dinner every day, but pretty likely halfway through the phone would go and dad would have to go and go and take a call and then that was just part of it. So example was set by. By my parents really, at the end of the day. And then I suppose I could have kind of fell into. Yes, there was the modeling side and I was very fortunate. That went very well. I won't bore people with kind of how that progressed. But pretty much a lot of my first sort of five years into modeling was just totally observational and was seeing how the business, how the industry worked. And if I could find Gap or if I could find. And I didn't really realize this, but I was, you know, I sort of looked at and thought, well, the women, the female models and the female super earn five times the amount the top male model does. We shoot the same campaign. How does this work? And I was fortunate enough to work with Chrissy turning 10 and a lot of other, you know, sort of Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. And I would literally question them. I will ask them, how did you achieve? How have you got there? How have you. And constantly discuss. I used their platform. That was it. I just needed sort of one chance, which Dolce and Gabbana light blue, which, yes, it was a chance, but we instigated that, by the way. We put ourselves in a position where we needed to be. And then as soon as that campaign came out, then I pushed the button on, right, this is where we need to go and set goals and those constant goals. And we went from there and then from when I was in a fortunate position to sort of being a very comfortable position with money and investments and built my brand. And I suppose I never really looked at it, that I built this brand and I built the companies that I did to look after me. It didn't seem like entrepreneurship, but actually you then realized that when someone said, a businessman I still sort of talked to, he said, you know, you've built this, you know, this is kind of on your own. You've got agencies, but no one Else has done this.

Yeah.

And then I just started looking into, well, how can I help others and how can I help, you know, sort of small young brands and people started approaching me and I started investing whilst constantly adapting my brands and my companies. And that's how it kind of developed really into then being called an entrepreneur, which I still, I think is laughable sometimes.

So if we wound the clock forward, I know you and I are pretty much the same. I think I'm a year older than you or a bit touch more that. But let's say we're sitting together and.

I look far younger, which is annoying.

It's just a filter I put on. It's all the special products I use. But if we were sitting 40 years from now on, rocking chairs in the Cotswolds with a nice glass of wine, what would you want to be remembered as? Would it be the man of fashion or the man of business? Like the entrepreneur, do you think?

That's a good question. I haven't really thought of that. I lost another question. I don't know, Antoine. I suppose the side that gives me most pleasure in many ways is kind of not the charity side, because it sounds a bit wanky, me saying that. But when you can see something that you can help with, say we do. You know, I said to you, we've done talks on Holman Academy and a guy's come up to me on the street and said that that helped me so much. Yeah, that one guy, by saying that. And thank you so much. We have a little chat for this. You feels like you've achieved so much.

Definitely.

And that will go on for sponsoring my old junior schools. And I just got the report from the junior school of all the examples of all the kids that have done very well and achieved so much from this game. And. And that does. You know, you're never. And I never really say what we do with the charities or. Because we don't really. We don't post much about actually what is being achieved half the time. Because I'm not doing it for publicity, I'm not doing it. But that, for me is something that is quite special.

The impact.

I suppose it is the impact. Yeah. And. But sitting 40 years from. You know what, I don't even really care. I know it sounds stupid. I don't really care. I hope someone says, there you go. He was a good guy. I'd be happy with that. Whether it was because of what I achieved with charity, what I achieved helping those, or I helped, you know, so I helped build new British brands. But it all started from fashion. You know, that's where it all started. So there is a site, don't get me wrong, when someone goes, oh, you know, how do I get millions of messages a week from guys going, how do I become a model like you? And I have to sort of say to them, well, you know, there's a very long story here, sit down. Yeah, but, you know, I won't bore them with it, but, you know, modeling was actually a very small part of what we actually achieved. So now, yes, I'm ambassador for lots of brands and. But that's what we do. We're constant collaborating. So there's not really that. The modeling side of things, of how other models work, of castings, of going to different jobs and working different brands, you know, that, that ended in 2007, you know, almost that point. So that distance, that, that was a stepping stone to then what we did from there. And then we did, you know, we had the brand with M and S, that was another stepping stone. And in between that, we had books and other businesses. And then you have to realize where you're going from there, which is another five years and another five years. So I'm constantly sort of setting goals of where I need to be or where I should be. I always think it's important to set goals, and I always, I can't understand people that don't because I think game is a game of chess and business is almost game of chess. And you're. You need to know where that checkmate is going, and that's your ultimate goal. And you constantly have to diversify and move everything to get to that point. But I always say to people, if you don't quite know where your point is, how are you, where are you going in some way? So those goals change. Those goalposts are always moved. But, you know, how you actually get to that position is it changes.

I think that sums up part with the whole Man Academy. You know, when we first started it, we, we didn't know what it was going to be. It was kind of a let's, let's get guys together to talk, and that will be great. And then you realize that at some point there has to be a, an actual tangible end to it. What is it that you're going to create for guys? How are you going to have more impact? And hence why we're launching the Mastermind in January. So if we talked about the whole Man Academy, we're very lucky to have you as our global ambassador. And I like the word global before because it sounds even more impressive. But what is it for you that drew you to the whole man academy? And we're happy to put your name towards it because I appreciate that the David Gandhi brand doesn't just put his name to anything apart from Batsy Dogsham as well. We'll come on to that.

Yeah, no, I'm quite specific about where the name goes frustratingly to lots of brands and people. There's always been, I suppose I've spoken about this when we did the talks at Gutanhox and that was first time I probably kind of opened up about my mental well being as we've discussed calling it mental health. But sometimes some negative connotations on items, people don't want to talk about it. You know, people like to run away from the mental health element to it. My God, we don't, we don't want to talk about this. Which is exactly what we don't want people to do. I'm not suffering, I've said before I've had dark periods, I've definitely haven't suffered as badly as others but I've had darker times which I suppose you could put down to a very sort of minor element of depression and where I suppose I'm a little bit different, where someone looked at my life and I do and they said, well, how have you, you're traveling the world, you're being paid a lot of money, you're doing very well.

What right have you got to be.

Looking at a logical point of view? Yeah, absolutely none. But that's got nothing to do with it. And we've seen that example with a lot of famous actors, sportsmen who are all in a very fortunate position. But yes, you do have to take yourself back sometimes to and put things in perspective. But that's a very difficult thing to do sometimes when your brain, your mindset is playing, I always say, sort of playing games with you a little bit. And it is. And I would always know I would snap out of these times and I knew I knew how to in the end would, how I would get out of them and you know, I knew one day I'd wake up and it is like a switch, you know, one day you, you, you, you cannot function properly, you, you cannot think about all these positive items and then something will change. And sometimes you know that that switch is something that you didn't want. You know, I remember I was quite, I was in a low period and it was going on for a little bit longer and I can't remember what happened? Oh, I had an accident, a car accident and freakish car accident. The car slid on some mud and I went and crashed the car. And it clicked me out of this element, this slightly darker period. And where most people probably be depressed of they're watching their car being written off and dragged off of this muddy field in a transporter van. I was laughing and smiling about it the next day for no reason. I have no. But I was. Something had clicked inside me and my brain said, that could have been a lot more serious. I think that, you know, see how fortunate you are to be where you are when that could have been a lot worse. And it was no one's fault. And it's like having a little insight. A little insight, yeah. And I've always taken myself off. Another thing I've sort of done with things as well is I've traveled the world. I'm fortunate to travel the world, but I've continued to. My parents always took. They educated me through travel, educated me and my sister through travel. So we saw a lot of cultures. We were in South America and Alaska. And this sounds like we had a very privileged upbringing, which I suppose it was, but we weren't particularly very well off when we were. But this is the way that dad wanted to educate us. And we still continue to do that. We still continue to do that. And when you take yourself back to seeing how other people live, it's a bit of a reset to your brain, to putting things in perspective. There's a couple of other charities stole for Soldiers, which is another one of my charities. And when I go and talk to the soldiers and you are talking to the ex servicemen and women who are talking to you with sometimes three or two prosthetic legs, half an arm and a very disfigured face, and I've never heard them moan once about anything. They just want to achieve and they just want opportunities, things like that. Put things into perspective. Now, a lot of people agree, no, no, you shouldn't put things in perspective. A lot of people can't see it that way, but it does. It works for me. I'm not saying it works for everyone. So when we go back to Wholeman Academy, it was like, I can talk about these experiences where people probably think, I have this, you know, wonderful life and I should never have these dark periods. But when you do, no one can stop them. And it doesn't matter what position you are in life, and if you're incredibly privileged and everything else, they can happen. But a lot of time, it's through chatting and talking. And I just wanted to use my experience to say to guys, this is how I have got through those periods. This is how, you know, this is got through them. These are my experiences and I'm happy to talk about them. And that's pretty much a wholeman academy of what we're saying. You know, talk. Men don't talk. We all know this. This is what we say. Men don't talk. Women talk. They chat. They got it. You know, that in some ways, they are far superior to men in that respect.

What about mentorship then? Because this is, I guess, as you know, from the journey of the whole man academy, we went from it, you know, just getting guys together to talk to understanding that if you can take a guy. And I always think of myself when I worked in the city, you know, I was earning quite good money. I had a lovely partner, a great family, a convertible car, all the things I thought were important to me. But fucking hell, I was bored with life and I felt like I was sleeping or sleepwalking my way through life. And what I wanted then was a bit more adventure. Call it a side adventure or a side hustle or something to kind of get your teeth into. And that's where with a lot of the guys from the whole man academy now, hence why with the mastermind, you want to take guys that want to live a life of adventure. And like you said, goal setting is one of the big things for me is saying, you know, what do you want to achieve in life? It hasn't got to be something enormous. But what are the two or three things? Or maybe it's start a business, maybe it's climb a mountain, maybe it's do something. And often once you've got some focus that adds, you know, and you take action. Because there's difference between doing all that and then not doing anything at all. I know enough people that have said, I've set goals. Brilliant. What are you doing about it? Well, nothing. I'm busy. So. You know, there's an old saying, knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing. But. But taking those guys say, look, you know, free for a whole year. We will support you and get together via Zoom these days, but help you create a life that you're really proud of, which I'm guessing is one of the big things you've done. You know, you've got a new family. We know you've got a new house and you've got a flourishing career and you've got business and you're. I Would say, you're living a life of adventure on your terms.

Yeah. Yeah. And then that, I suppose from my point of view, I realized that something, you know, in many ways it was the. The achieving and the getting there in life there was actually more exciting to me. And I was happier with barriers in the way and constantly having to think outside the box and how you go when you actually achieve something somewhat. You know, it was really weird sometimes. Some. When I actually sometimes get what I want and I achieve what I want, I get that goal. Then that next day, people are like, why are you not more excited? And I'm like, I don't know. And my grandfather was saying, because sometimes it's worse to get what you actually want than not to get what you want. Because you just go and is that it? Yeah, it's like, yeah, okay, well, okay, I've achieved that. So what am I doing tomorrow now? Something I learned sort of years ago is that always. So probably why I've got so many projects on the go. As soon as I finish one, there's another one ticking away in my head about, well, maybe we could start that. And it's that kind of constant achieving and sort of pushing yourself to be outside your comfort zone.

Yeah.

And I think there's a lot of people, and I'm not saying everyone is the same to stay. And it's very difficult sometimes when you have family and have responsibilities. But we're like you in the city to make that step, to take that step to go. Actually, this is. This is not. I'm not happy. It's time to, you know, get out of the rat race. Yeah. And, you know, but you're. I always say to guys, you know, you have to. It's then a battle with yourself in some ways, you know, it's.

It.

But it's you setting those battles. It's you setting those boundaries of where what you want to achieve. And I think we are all in the mindset and I think lockdown might have helped here of being in the rat race that money is the element that houses and cars. And we can say it's not. But guys, especially in the masculine element of achieving, achieving and sort of, you know, is, yes, we. We do compare and we are in competition. And men who say that they're not, I actually respect. And they say, no, no, we're very happy with what we have. And that's great. That's absolutely fantastic. But I know that's kind of like not me, but it is the adventure of trying to achieve what I want to achieve rather than sometimes achieving that. You know, this kind of goes for, you know, but we're going to get onto it. Cars. But I love restoring the cars. And sometimes the process is. I hate the processing. It's taken so long, it's costing more money and. But you're building something. In my head, you're achieving something and then I get the car.

Yeah.

And there's a bit of an anti climax behind it.

Isn't that like the astronauts, you know, you've gone to space and then you come back and you're like, you've been building up for years for this big event and you come back, you're like, what the fuck do I do now?

Yeah, I think there is that element to it and I really do. A lot of people I've spoken to and I know businessmen who have lost their ass. They have made millions and then they've lost it. And I've asked them why and they said, but then we made it back again and we made more and then we lost it again on something, on another venture. And then he built it again. They said, because that building is what we enjoy. And I think it's, you know, sort of that there's that mindset which is quite. It's a strange thing to have, but I don't think anyone should be embarrassed by saying, you know, I think we're under such scrutiny to what we say now. We think we should be saying one thing, that it's. And we're so scrutinized by social media, by other people and judged that it's not wrong to say I want to achieve this. It's not wrong to say that this is what I want to achieve. And I'm, you know, and I respect people who do say that it might not be right for me, it might not be right. What I say is not right for other people, but it's not wrong. And I think this is where we have to. The world is a peculiar place at the moment, but this element of everyone judging each other instantly, instantly is something we really, really have to stop. You know, it's like people have to understand. Someone says something and it's different to what you perceive as being right. You might not be right either. So have a chat, you know, see if you can understand from each other where each other are coming from. Don't shout at each other. Don't start being aggressive to each other. Have a chat. You know, it's even down to that point. And that's the element to it. And being with Ambassador Wholeman Academy going back to that is people are talking less, you know, they're communicating less. Just getting very angry with each other, it seems. Which is. Which is solving nothing at the end of the day.

I think a great, A great example of that. I mean, we're recording this a week before it goes out, but I've never seen. I wrote on the whole Man Academy letter that this is probably two or three weeks ago. I said, look, with the upcoming election, you. You're going to see people divide on whether they vote red or blue. And I said, the point is, it doesn't really matter, but, you know, if that's one of your friends, don't act like a dick over it. And. And I've had, you know, one or two friends I've seen have lost their shit completely because they found out, you know, one of their friends votes for the other side and I'm like, calm down a bit. You know, it's all a. It's all a pantomime. Well, you mentioned about cars. Where did your love of cars come from? Because I know when. Yeah, I think when you were still having the Jaguar XK120 restored when we first met at the Geese and Hawks event. So where did that come from? Was it because your dad or just your interest?

No, it didn't come from anywhere. My family, none of them are car enthusiasts whatsoever. Hence probably why I WhatsApp you a lot and talk about cars. But I don't know how to talk.

I should give you my dad's number. He'd WhatsApp me even more than me about cars.

Happy to. Yeah. I always sort of say. I've always said that fashion pays for the passion, and the passion is cars. It's something that is naturally instilled into me. It's not instilled. It was just there from a little boy. I was. I didn't really have a mountain bike or bike. I had my, you know, my pedal go kart with the important little handbrake to do handbrake turns them. That's where I'd spend my time. And I always have a car magazine and I would play, you know, play with cars. My dad is not interested. I always say if I turned up to my dad's house in a yellow Lamborghini and he saw me pull up and would say hello, wouldn't comment on the car.

Yeah.

If next day that car was swapped for a 1985 Vauxhall Nova and I left, he would not know that I had left in that car. He would not know Any difference? He'd be like. You wouldn't say, are you in a different.

Yeah, it was a different colour.

Yeah, yeah. Not have a clue. It's not important to him, cars. That's. That's one thing. He appreciates a good car, but he could drive anything, it wouldn't matter. Which is a nice lesson to, you know, it's just something to him that doesn't, you know, actually, he appreciates it and he appreciates some more now the historic values of his classic cars. And he saw, you know, I made a bit of money on them then. He's more interested as a businessman. I was gonna say great model. Yeah. And started talking about businesses and garages and everything else that's. That's more interesting to him.

But they are big business now, aren't they, the cars and the, you know, appreciating value, if you've got the right one.

Yeah.

Obviously we're, as you knew when you lived one village away from me up to a while ago. But having, you know, George Bamford up the road with his collection of cars and you see that the value of them is, as you know, is eye watering. Which always makes me wonder whether. Would you be scared to. I know these things have got to be used. I know you're at Goodwood the other week driving with all the different Jaguars, which looked great, but did a little bit of. You think, I'll just take it a little bit easier because I'm in this beautiful, highly crafted machine.

Sadly, yes. And I say sadly because I'm getting older and I think I'm getting less kamikaze. Where before that wouldn't have worried me and I would have. But yes, in my head, you know, weighed up the options of finishing my XK120. It was a damp track at Goodwood. I hadn't really driven the car in anger on a track. Yes. It all came all weighed into my head and, I mean, we were doing about 108 down the back straight in that car to once, which isn't. And then fully on the brakes. And of course, the other guys in the I paces and the Formula E cars, there's a different level, but there's a lot of technology and, you know, stability control going in that. In the classics, it's mad machine, you.

Know, there's a Gandhi's foot and that's it.

Yeah. And a big steering wheel with no power steering and no traction and no anything. There's just a lot of twitchy bum times when things start to go loose a little bit. So yes, there was element to it. Yeah, you're right. Classic cars, I mean, the sad thing is you've kind of seen because they are such an asset that people who aren't interested in cars have bought cars and people don't get to see them anymore. They're in a gamut, nothing. I sold my 190SL, my Mercedes, I fully restored. That was when I first ever restoration. I sold that just before lockdown and because I wasn't driving it, you know, again. So then I realized I loved the projects but I didn't have time to then really drive the cars.

Yeah.

So I had to change that. So I sold the 190 to a guy who was gonna love it and look after it and his family were gonna enjoy it much more than I actually was. It should, it should be enjoyed. I believe my classic car should be enjoyed by everyone. That's why I restore them. And then the xk, it's been on demonstrations and it's been at Hampton Court and it's Double Jaguar Classics for everyone to see. I don't have that personally. That's up at Jaguar. So people to go and see it. We raced around Goodwood and I've changed that platform for everyone to enjoy that car rather more than just it being sat there as a beautiful asset somewhere. And I'm just finishing another project at the moment which.

Is that a Porsche?

The Porsche 356. Yeah. Which is finished actually, but we're shooting it. It's being prepped for its first sort of outing and shoot. Was supposed to be this week actually, but now that's obviously been delayed. So it's second week in December.

What about. Because I know I saw pictures of the Porsche and it's. It's lovely. And that's probably. If my dad was allowed to ask you some questions about that, he'd have been like, what's the XK120 like to drive? And then the Porsche. But what was your first car? First ever car.

My first car was a 10 year old at the time. 1988 Ford Fiesta 1.1 Ghia with aftermarket electric windows. Baller. My Pride and Joy. 1.14 gears, 4 presets in the radio station. Didn't care. My first foray into driving and loved that car. Yeah, it was a pool car in one of my dad's companies that was just sat there and wasn't really being driven, was being driven by the guys, you know, at the bottom. And I. And that's what me and my sister had that at the time, you know, I sort of said, you know, is there any chance of getting anything better? And he said, you know, the stats of you having your first accident is quite high. I don't want you driving anything particularly very fast that, you know, and that's gonna kill you. That you could. Yeah, if you have a crash at 30 miles an hour, it's a lot better than having a crash at 70 miles an hour kind of thing in a very fast car. Ironically, I then did get my. I got a Peugeot 106 exercise, so I didn't crash that or have any accidents in it whatsoever. In the Fiesta. I then got the more powerful car and crashed it within about the first two months.

It sounds like a familiar story.

Unfortunately, my father was. My father was right, which is annoying, but he was right. And it taught me you learn the hard way, and that's being a part of. Part of life. And part of business is learning. You know, I've always said, you know, not everything has gone right. Not everything in business has gone right. But you learn so much more from mistakes.

Totally.

Yeah. And they're not. They're hard to take on the chin sometimes, but actually, you're better off for it. And you come back if you can get up off it and keep on continuing. And everyone sort of talk about my. You talk about successes, as I always do. But I've invested in businesses, and there's been. They've done mediocre or we've shut them down. They failed for certain elements, and that's because of certain people that have been brought in to run the company or the way that's been structured or. And that's how you've learned, you know, people, not everything has gone right, believe me. And not everything went right in the beginning of modeling, you know, if I said to people. I think people presume that I went inside. I started modeling on a Monday and Tuesday. I was shooting Dolce and Gabbana.

Yeah.

Actually, what happened is I started shooting in. When I was 21. I started in the industry in 21. Wasn't, you know, until five years later, or nearly five and a half years later, I shot Dolce Nirvana Light Blue. I had five years of doing okay. And in that time, we restructured so many times. And there were times I wanted to quit, but it wasn't until. So Thandi Anderson, who is the owner of Select Model Agency, run with. And she took me aside and said, what. What do you want to achieve here? You know, because I was being a little bit petulant and I said, I don't want to go. I know that's great minded, but it's not. I want to achieve something here. I want to leave a legacy, I want to leave something. And that may sound really big headed, but I decide that's when she was like, okay. And at the time she said, right, so all these jobs and I was, I was earning decent money, very, very, very good money doing boring commercial catalog work which pays very well. She said, you have to not do any of that anymore because that's, you know, you're perceived as a catalog commercial model. If you want to perceive this, you have to start again. And for so long I literally was not earning anything. And if I told people what we were actually making from that, they would say, you're absolutely mad. But in my mindset I wasn't losing anything because I was never going to continue on that route. So yeah, and I had a lot to, you know, I didn't have anything to lose at the end of the day. And that's something I've learned in life as well. And it's a chances I would have taken when I was younger because I didn't have anything, I didn't have anything to lose. Now I have a lot more to lose and I have a family and there's more responsibilities. So I cannot say to people, go and take that chance, go. And you know, it's easier said than done. Yeah, but going back what we were saying before, sometimes the achievement is that it's the, you know, setting the goalpost and containing that achievement is so much more satisfying sometimes than actually what you get in the end of it. I think that's something I've learned anyway.

As you said there, it's a bit like sometimes people are recommended. Oh, you know, if you don't like your job or something, then just, you know, tell them to shove it and quit and go and follow your passion. And I'm like, sometimes you forget that, you know, following your passion is already well, but unless, you know, if you've got kids to feed and mortgages and etc. Etc. You know, meditating doesn't pay the mortgage. Therefore you need to have a be a man with a plan. Which is a bit like as you said often having, you know, taking time to say be like you said with the lady from select, you say, what do you actually want? Because most people don't know. They say, well, let me come back to you on that. So it's always, we always try and put thought provoking content out for the whole Man Academy. And a lot of it is based around what do you actually want in life? Like, who are you as a man? Because a lot of people go, well, I'm a dad. You go, no. Okay, but what else? And often people. Not many of us have the full answer on that one.

And also there's a point of view of if you're you, for example, when you say work in the city and you're up at half past five in the morning and knowing the city boys, you were probably having to go out late at night and then having a few hours sleep and continue with that.

Yeah.

Now, I may be being presumptuous, but I probably am get that you're a much nicer person now than you were at that time. As in if you were going home to your family. In that mindset, like I have been in certain elements, you're not the greatest person with your family. You're short, you're with them, you're a little bit angry with yourself, you're not enjoying life. Now there's all the elements of, yes, you have to take that other side of it as well. Of, yes, I'm not going to make as much money. Yes, hopefully we will achieve where I want to be, but actually I'm going to be around my children and I'm actually in such a better mindset that, you know, you're better, you know, for your, you're better around your family and friends than you were holding on to something that you're just not enjoying now. There's always elements. I don't enjoy elements of my, you know, elements of my job. And they have to be done. Unfortunately, that's just life. You know, there's certain times. Right. But if you have other things on the go and you want to, and you know, you've got other things to look forward to, then, you know, you have to be always. There's always a little boredom in life and that's, you know, talking about changing. Like the other day and someone jokingly said to me in an interview yesterday, and they said, where are you? Where do you want to, you know, be in five years? And I never tell people really where I want to be. But, you know, something I realized recently is I haven't had so much time to drive and be with, you know, in the cars and with lockdown, we were supposed to do the melee and do all these different things. And then I realized actually how happy I am in the car community with other car nuts, other car enthusiasts and being around cars and building something, building cars and something that I've always been very aware is that the modeling side and what we achieve, you know, say for light blue, people always say, oh, you had light blue. Now, I never really take. Take anything from light blue because it wasn't my campaign. I would say it wasn't my campaign. I was a guy that was fortunate enough to be in that campaign and had the right face, and I just cast for it. But that was down to the brilliance of Dolce and Gabbana and Mario Testino. Now we have done other stuff, and I built my brands with M and S, and I feel very proud that we had a very successful sort of loungewear, and there's other things that we've achieved because I felt I built something. I created something where I felt modeling was very empty, where you were just going from shoot to shoot. And, yes, you were seeing campaigns, but what was I building? I'd love to build something. And that's where I suppose with the classic cars, you felt like you've kept something on the road for hopefully the next 60 years for other people to enjoy. And people get so much pleasure out of it. And then I kind of realized the other day that I just want to build cars. I just want to know that that ticks the boxes. Yeah. I never normally say where I want to be in life, but I suppose I. In my head, I thought, this is where I'm happiest. And Steph said to me, she was like, you didn't sleep last night? I said, no, because I'm so excited about going off the Goodwoods like a little kid, where some of those. I'm like, okay, what have I got on today? Or where am I today? What am I doing? Where? I was really excited about that. Now, of course, with any job, anything you do, there's always going to be something that the excitement is taken away when you get to do that monotony of something all the time. That's just life. But, yeah, I kind of realized that, yes, I have to change to incorporate more of this. And I've already put some feelers out to where I want, you know, what we want to do. And I know other people from the other guys who are thinking around the same mindset thought, well, it'd be great if we could build cars for people. Yeah. And that passion has then turned into something that, yes, hopefully might pay a little bit, a few of the bills, but, you know, could I turn this into something that instead of it being a passion that I could get all the guys that I talk to now about cars, who I know are experts because I'm certainly not an expert in building cars. Could we put something together where we, we are achieving that and we are working together. Doesn't that sound nice? So it may happen, it may not. But just the thought of it, the excitement of starting to talk billion, you know, planting a few seeds to see if we can make something happen, you know, is the exciting side again.

So that is where you can see your physiology changes when you talk. You know, for all of us, if you're, I would say with the whole man academy, it's. I work long hours doing it, but I don't consider it particularly work because writing E letters, doing podcasts, speaking to interesting people and et cetera is what keeps me getting up early and staying up late to do this stuff. So I always think that's priceless. If you can, to be honest, if you can bring the magical things, if you can make money and it's not always about money, but if you can make it more sustainable by having something you love doing and you want to talk about all the time and it can bring a profit and pay the bills or at least wash its face, then you're like jackpot.

Yes. Yeah, that's where you want to be. It's, it may not happen then for 10 years or five years, but again it's a bit something that's something that's a goal that you have. But yeah, I mean going back to mental health, I mentioned to you last week talking to the head teachers at schools, you know, we deal with, you know, pretty, you know, most of the time grown, you know, grown men and adults and those cause with mentoring and talking and getting people to talk and everything else. But actually speaking to the head teacher at the school I sponsor, you know, she was saying that they are now seeing year six, which I believe is 10 year olds that were, that were being affected with social media, like being on social media so much and gaming and they were very much going within themselves and not talking and then during lockdown, not being around their peers and they came into school as completely different people and going, you know, we, as I said, you're talking to adults but this now needs to be, I'm going back to the core. You know, I wish the core of one of the problems wasn't a 10 year old boy. But you know, when a head teacher says it's for some reason, we don't quite know yet why that is being affected so much. But social media has something to do with it clearly because they Aren't everyone is now. So, you know, relied on or relying on social media and their phones and everything else. So, you know, that's something we can talk about for Homeland Academy as well. But that's the scary side of where we are at the moment. And I've just done something with. Which hopefully would have been released before this goes out. We've worked on. I publicly said about this about kids being on phones and being so liable on phones and parents not quite knowing what their children are looking at on phones, what they're, you know, sort of being exposed to.

Yeah.

And Vodafone approached me about this and said, we've actually developed a smartwatch for children that is socially connected to only a certain amount of people, and that being your parents and that being the. Your grandparents and the nanny or a couple of, you know, not even friends.

Yeah.

But it's never connected to the Internet, so you're constantly connected to the people that children actually need to be connected to for safety. And of course, it has. It has a step meter on, it has your fitness, and it's in line with Disney. And I love the idea. There's something I would never do. But to me, that was a great solution to a problem where parents say, yes, but we want our kids to have a phone because of safety. Well, now you can have a smartwatch and they can talk to you and they can take pictures and they can send it to you. You're in constant contact with your child. It's even got a tracker on there, so you know where your children are.

Track and trace.

Track and trace. I think Steph's gonna get one for me, to be honest. But it was a good solution to a problem I see. Is already a problem, but it's going to go and get worse. And that's very much where I like. I don't mind problems. I like solutions to problems. And I thought that was. That was great.

Doesn't that come also from being a, you know, a dad? And for both of us, I would say we're young dads, we're not young dads, but we've only become dads in the last kind of year or for me, three years. But, you know, you look at the way technology's change and how kids are connected to everything, and I agree there's always that. That worry for, you want to know. You know, thankfully, ours aren't big enough to be going out on their own yet, but, you know, you want to know where they are, but the dangers of them being able to access Some quite horrific things with a few taps of a keyboard. So, yeah, I think that's another one of those quite useful ideas, as you said. Emerald will probably be telling me that I've got to get one for Christmas as well.

So my element. And again, going back to the core of what is the. With social media, we're talking about you being children, being objectified to certain elements of it. They're seeing stuff, they. They're being bullied, they're talking to each. It's supposed to be, you know, you're connected more than ever. But actually it means just the stories I've heard of, this is a mad one that the child line were telling me that children, now, they start, they. They have their social media profile and then they start another social media profile to troll themselves. And with trolling yourself, you then get sympathy from other people, so you get more engagement.

Wow.

Now that. To me, I was just. I didn't. I didn't even. I didn't even know that was a thing. Too much. I didn't know it was a thing. I didn't even know. I can't quite compute how that works. But obviously to a child and to a younger, to a teenager, that's what they've seen from.

Generates attention from, you know, very famous.

People tweeting and social media and all their fans standing up for them and they try and imitate it. I suppose that might be one element to it. Yeah. The problem is with everything. And we were talking about. You are so judged on what you say now. And there's a lot of brave people on their keyboards. A lot of brave people on there, you know, with comments.

Keyboard warriors.

Keyboard warriors. Now, my element is that as someone in the public eye, all my social sites are verified so that people know that it is my site, it is me, it's officially my profiles. But why do we not make sure that everyone's profile on social media and everyone's digital profile verified?

Yeah.

So that you are the person. Now, I have. We have just had. I've worked with Instagram on this, about 50 fake accounts that pretend to be David Gandhi. Now, we've worked in the last two years again, these deleted. And they are deleted. The next day, there's another one started. And they approach. And these social sites, they approach women, they approach women, they approach young girls, they approach people for money, saying they're for my charities and people give them money, they talk to them. That's probably why my personal feel. I have a little bit of an insight where some people don't actually about what happens, unfortunately. People fall for it.

Yeah.

And it's quite scary. So I'm. There's a little insight into me that there are these very strange, horrible people out there and they pry on the, you know, the vulnerable. Yeah, that wouldn't happen if they were verified because they couldn't start accounts now, everyone commenting on newspapers and other people. Now, if you were verified, you had to actually, you. And, you know, you had to take responsibility for actually what you were saying to people. Imagine a lot of it would stop, you know, a lot of it. It wouldn't all stop, of course, but I think people would be as brave if the, you know, if the police officers could see exactly that person that was being, you know, footballers being racially abused online, which apparently is increasing. How it's increasing, I have no idea. But again, a lot of brave people in there, you know, imagine if they could go to that person and they had that person's profile and address and.

You know, the basic details.

And social media has become so prevalent and so powerful now and we, you could say we're still. Our infancy of actually how we're using it.

Yeah.

That everyone needs to be accountable for what they're saying, what they are saying and what they are doing, because a lot of the time it is illegal. And, you know, there's pretty much speaking to Instagram and working with them and speaking to the police officers. There's not much they can really do half the time because people can just delete their profile. They're completely, you know, they don't exist, basically. I think if you change that, you know, that that's just one thing. And I know how that would go about. But I, I just think, you know, people, if you said to someone, you can walk out on the street now completely disguised as someone else and go and abuse anyone you want. One people would go, well, I'm not going to do that because that guy is going to smack me in the face or that guy.

There's consequences.

There's gonna. That person is going to call the police. But imagine if you could say you could do that, but no one's going to do anything.

Yeah.

And then the next day, and the consequences, you can just delete that and you can go out the next day as a brand new person. Does that sound like madness to anyone else? And you're not accountable for anything. And it reminds me.

You know, with, with like Premier League footballers, that I just don't get it, that people feel it's. It's okay to go and you know, shout abuse at them. And I know it's passion and it's this and it's that, but I would say, you know, if the guy that had that went to his job on Monday, walked into the office and someone was shouting he's a wanker in his face whilst he's trying to work, you'd say, mate, that's unacceptable. So I never get it. Like you say, it's the football side of it. You don't get that at many other sports, but on social media, I mean, I think one of the first things me and you spoke about was, you know, you get a cup, you'll get hundreds and hundreds of positive comments and you'll get three stupid comments. But how have you found it? Because obviously when you put up an Instagram post, you know you're going to get 50,000 likes and, you know, 20,000 comments or something. Do you find yourself reading all the comments? Because I see you, I know you've replied to some of them. What's it like?

I do try, I think if you're going to have a profile, I mean, I've got over, you know, a few sort of million people on Instagram and stuff, and yeah, you do get thousands of comments. And I can't read them all, what we've always done, and I have people that can read them as well, but they never reply to them. They make me aware of anything that's been negative that's been said and I will reply to people and warn people or thank people or anything else. And there's so much, kind of a business point of view. Unfortunately, now it can't not be done because so many brands, so many people are speaking to you through social media. So we are relying on it more and more. As you say, 99% of it is positive. There's, you know, there's a couple percent sometimes that are odd. We virtually have zero tolerance with them. We've learned that you can say to that person, please try and be positive on anything you say. You don't mind if you say, I don't like that picture, Dave. I think you were better in this campaign. That's their opinion. That's not a negative comment. Good. I probably actually agree. If I don't agree, then that's your opinion. Good for you. It's when the ludicrousness of comments start and we put the. This isn't because I'm actually really affected by these comments. It doesn't. Doesn't really affect me that much. However, they affect other people that are Reading them and before you know it, you have then got. And you see it, you know, bubbling sometimes on social where people go and defend me or defend. They think they're defending me. Those then people revert back then more fighting people. So where one comment where people, you know, they say, well, that could affect me. And it didn't really just, you know, you can just delete it actually. People taking offense and then you've got 40 people in an argument with each other. Really didn't want to. Really didn't need to be in an argument. They really didn't need, didn't need to defend me or they were. It's nice that they do. And that's where it starts. So you've got this, what we try and do. Everything on my social is trying to be positive. It's just positive energy. Sounds a little bit hippie wanky, but you know, it's. Let's all be positive on here.

Okay.

I never posted anything that's really negative. I hope that people look at my Instagram and they think it's, you know, it's fun, it's positive. I don't put any personal life on there. That's not me. It's. It is. There's a business element, but it's. Everything on there is a bit tongue in cheek for me really at the end of the day. And I try to always make something, something quite amusing and funny and what you don't want is those suddenly people reading it and going, you looked at account. Actually I've got really angry and continue. So we try and put a stop to that immediately. We, first of all, we're just messaging people to say, listen, can you, you know, please be careful on here because we don't accept it. We honestly, we understand people have a bad day. Yeah, you know, I probably, I don't comment but I thought things or commented on something that was a bit stupid. You should really think about it. But sometimes you actually understand those people. They'll just continue, you know that it never really, really stops. And the only thing you can really do is, is you know, you can, you can just block. Yeah, you block the worst. And then some people that you, you just have to say they can't see everything. They can't see comments, they can only see pictures. And I always feel sorry for those people.

And I mean sorry in a way of like you're like, what, what kind of pain are they in to be feeling that, you know, their, their only thing is to go on and put silly comments and trolling people and stuff like that. So I, you know, obviously with the whole man academy, thankfully, we very rarely do. But once or twice I've had stupid messages where I'm just like, I'll give them one chance. You know, maybe they, as you said, maybe they've had a bad day or I've misunderstood what they've said. But you know, once, once they've stepped over the mark, you're like, okay, that's, that's it. We don't need, we don't need that in our lives.

There's a logical mindset. And the younger people, I don't really understand it now. You know, I was giving the example of setting up another profile to try to troll your other Prof. I don't really even understand how that works, if I'm totally honest. But there's teenagers. I think we have to look into more of the way they perceive they are using social media and how they interact in it, because it's not almost the same as we do. Another example is that I got a personal message and someone flagged up one of my team flagged up and said, you want to look at this? It's a bit strange. It was an absolutely insult mess. It was just like, you big nosed, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it went on and on and on and on. And I do have a big nose. That's fair, That's a fair comment, you know, but it was, it was. And, but in it he said, you French. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. So I read the whole message, all the insults, and thought, you know what? And I looked and I was, for some reason I was intrigued. I just didn't understand it because it's very rare you get something that bad.

Yeah.

So I looked on his profile and it was a public profile and I looked at it and it was a young lad, I'm probably thinking late or late teens. And I said, why? Just I'm intrigued. Why? And so I messaged him and just said, listen, I'll take everything, but don't call me French. I mean, that's the biggest thing to know in the world. Now I'm not insulting French people. It was a joke too. I was intrigued by this guy and it was any way I could think of interacting with him. And he came back and he said, oh, God, you've responded. Is this you? And I said, yes, it is me. Can I ask what the. Why the message? Yeah. Didn't really respond. And I looked on his profile and I saw he was a Spurs fan. I'm a Spurs fan. So I Said to him, oh, you're a Spurs fan by the way. Like didn't expect this from another spurs fan. That's terrible. He went, oh my God, you spoke Tottenham. I say I spoke Tottenham. We spoke to spurs for half an hour. Everything Mourinho, Potticino, everything. Had a chat about it. And he said, and I said like, listen my friend, just, just average it. What, what was the, what was the message about? I don't know. He said, I, you know, it was. You're one of my, you know, I look up to you so much and I respect you so much. But there was this website where that I follow and they, you know certain we put people on there of kind of people respect but we insult them. We. That's what we do. And I said, you do this for everyone. He said, yeah, we go after everyone. And I was like, okay, wow. I said that's. You said, but like you now talking to me about spurs and you're taking your time to talk to me. I said, yeah, have a think about that of what you're doing. Just, just you know. And then he, then he said, yeah, absolutely. So thanks so much and really good guy.

Yeah.

I was like, okay, that's, that's fine. So I said to him would you like someone who said that if they said that to you, all those different things? No, of course. I said, well, you have to realize everyone's a person. I don't take offense. I'm thick skinned. I've been in the business for 20 years, you know. But it was still odd. Other people aren't. You're going to affect people a lot by. Some people are very insecure.

Yeah.

He said, yeah, good. And it's now and again he messages and I've seen flare up my Q and A. He goes, don't you see the gold by Harry Kane? I did. What a legend. Hope all's well. Good. Guaranteed that I had to have that. I had to understand that because it was. I still don't quite understand it if I'm totally honest. But.

To bother to take the time I think is great to actually, I know you can't do it to everybody just to reach out and actually then realize you're a real person.

Yeah.

And it's not just some text and send it off and doesn't matter. It's like, hey, you know, you could have been offended by it. I mean you're thick skinned and you know you and I are not kids anymore so we just laugh at stuff like that. But you know, you don't know how it can affect other people. It's bonkers.

Yeah, I know lots of adults that would have been affected by it. I mean, don't get me wrong, like this is, this is not something that just affects children. Like there are people in the public either that would have really affected and they would have taken that to heart. And unfortunately we've also seen people take their own lives that have been in the public eye and that has been a lot to do with people and comments and social media harassment and everything else. Again, let's verify a few people and see if they're. If that carries on.

See if they're so brave. Well, look, I know I've kept you for a long time already, but one last question before I let you go is what's your thoughts on Mourinho and the job he's doing at Spurs? I'll say this first. I'll say this first. My father in law is a lifelong spurs fan. He's been going to spurs since he was a pretty small kid and it used to go every week until it got stopped for a while. But he was like, you know what? Not many of the supporters particularly wanted him to go there and he's like, part of him is if, if Mourinho wins it's kind of painful because we. He said I didn't really want him there but obviously if he wins it'll be nice. So I'm always interested to know for spurs fans, what's it, what's it like?

I mean, when I say I'm a podium, I'm definitely more a rugby, cricket person. I follow football. I still haven't been to the new stadium spurs, so it's not a huge passion of mine. You know what I think spurs need to get out that way of. We've always had player managers that we really like and we're really fond of sort of Harry Redknapp and Poticino. I'm not saying they're the nicest guys in the world, but they suited spurs and they suited the way they're playing but they never really won anything with them. Mourinho, whether you like him or not, is a winner. And you know, what else do you really, to my point of view, what are you partaking in sport for if you're not good, if you're not trying to actually win something, especially professional sport. Exactly. So yes. Are we going to be, you know, I suppose but we are playing, you know, a game of football style of football. We beat Manchester United, what is it, 4:1 a few weeks ago. So we're not scoring goals, but it is going to be with Mourinho, the one Nils and stuff like that, which is spurs and spurs are a side that we were letting three, but we'll score four. You're never really going to win anything with that. And Mourinho, I have to say I think I lost a little bit of respect to him over the last few years. I think he became. He was saying some strange things. He seems to be picking on players publicly. I didn't respect that and I think he's reigned that in a little bit. I mean he would be a great person to talk to on the whole man academy to see he's on my list from Manchester United to this and see how, you know, his mindset works. But actually I think I've seen a different side and to Mourinho and I quite like what I see at the moment. And yeah, you know, we're joint second or joint first or second in the league at the moment, so we'll see how that continues. But yes, it does. You know, even he's come out and said to Tottenham players, you're too nice. Yeah, you're too nice. You're nice guys.

Um, nice guys don't win anything.

No, there's nothing wrong with being nice. There is really, really nothing wrong. But I. But I hate being called nice as well. I don't think I'm hopefully first I would say you're a kind guy. I'm always a nice guy. I realize that. And I think you have to realize that nice guys are always. But my English dictionary said never use nice as a descriptive word ever for anything. It's such a. That's a beige word. And I think, yeah, the mentality to have to be a winner instilled into Tottenham. I think Mourinho is probably that guy. Even though it's not going to be the style of football that some might like. Spurs are looking for one of the programs. It's a very strange season of course as well. So again, if spurs are going to do something with this season where it's, you know, where you haven't got the Liverpools and met well. Liverpool are doing really well. But you know, Liverpool, Manchester have already run away with it. They're already eight points ahead, 10 points ahead. You know, there's, it's. There's been some oddities. So this could be the season that spurs, you know, are sort of. Finally I say that. I mean, I'm used to being a Spurs supporter it's never going to happen.

Yeah, we won't. We won't put any money on them just yet. Well, I'll finish by saying we've done well because we've talked about football, we've talked about business, we've talked about cars, we've talked about the modeling side of it, entrepreneurship, charities, etc, etc. And believe it or not, after this, I've got to go and feed the chickens. So living. Living a life of a rock star, living the dream.

I've got to go off to Waitrose and do some shopping. I mean, living the superstar lifestyle as usual.

It's all happening. Well, I'll firstly say thank you for joining us, especially as this goes out on international Wednesday, so it's perfectly timed and also for being our ambassador because hopefully we can do some great things in the future.

Thank you for asking me. You and Robin for asking me. It's an honor and a privilege, sir. And I hope people have a smile and a laugh with our mumblings for the last couple.

We always say if we can, every interaction with the whole man Academy should leave guys feeling that it was fun and upbeat, if that makes sense. So hopefully about our comedy duo here, we've. We've managed it.

Exactly. Same time next week?

Same time. Hold on. On that bombshell, I will let you go off to Waitrose and we will catch you soon.

All right, thanks. All right, thanks, David.

Cheer.