I Stayed in the world's first fitness & wellness hotel - BTS Weekend in Dubai

Right, I'm 2 weeks overdue a haircut. But yeah, we're back in Dubai now. It's rather hot, but I think that's quite good for my weight loss and next endurance challenge, which I haven't announced yet. Yeah, getting back on the pod, doing Founder Ads as well. Double whammy. I kind of tried to set up a— well, we did try and set up— well, we did set up a fucking podcast studio/studio on the top floor of the house, because the house is basically too big, to be honest. But then you realize that even when you spend quite a lot of money on it, it doesn't come out as good as a proper studio. I also just want to get out the house, so now we're just booking these Podster studios. And there's loads of these companies in Dubai, I think way more than London, to be honest. It must become a way bigger trend where you can just get a sick studio of 2 hours for like 200 quid, and they basically like pre-edit it, you know, in terms of syncing audio and getting the angles right, and the lighting's perfect, and the cameras are like 15 grand cinematic cameras. It's just better, to be honest, than doing it in the house. So do film some stuff in the house. I've just not been consistent enough with content, and it's kind of a double whammy because, well, in this studio stuff, it's founder ads because I get loads of briefs from our creative strategist anyway because a lot of them to be fair. So I'll do loads of them for like the first hour, but then it's also just general social content we're going to do. And I might do some bits for the Midnight Pod, which I'm bringing back soon with guests. More to come on that. So we're trialing out a few different locations— well, only one location today, but a few different locations probably over the next month. And then I might just start doing them in packages, to be honest. Then the other thing we're doing, not today, but there's loads of sick locations in Airbnbs. What we're doing, that's what we do in the UK, but there's actually way more in Dubai, especially because of all the everything that's been going on. Um, there's less people here, so you can get ridiculous deals on hotels and Airbnbs, which could actually be a triple whammy for like a staycation, which we're doing tomorrow, which might be a separate bit of content. Um, sick shooting locations, you can get permission to shoot in a lot of these places, particularly Airbnbs. And then also I could just do a pod and stay there. So yeah, that's a mega hack because that's kind of what we did in the Nebworth gaff previously. I'm actually not in the wrong lane, but I'm going to pull over soon. Okay, my arm hurts. So anyway, we're in traffic driving there now, about 15 minutes away. You have to drive basically everywhere in Dubai, but it's never that far. To be fair, we have come at peak rush hour time, but Waze is usually very accurate and it's saying I should be on time. So yeah, we've got a 2-hour shoot. There's actually a big agenda. Shoots are pretty tiring if you do them properly, to be honest. But I don't even know what's going on back home. Hey, girls from Atlanta, call me sano. Girls from Australia, what can I tell y'all? You know I love you so much. I am off to Kite Beach for a 10K run, which is definitely, um, bullish given when it's probably going to be 36 degrees, and I generally run in an air-con room, although it is good for training. So I won't be going for speed, I'll just be going for it being like a relative sufferfest. I will be holding my water bottle probably the whole way. Um, but yeah, there's actually a shitload of people I know from London, or I used to know in London, or I just know that used to live in London, that have since moved to Dubai. Even people I didn't realize moved to Dubai. I'm off to run on with Jack Zambiquido's— I don't know the fuck to say his second name. Used to run LS Personal Shopper, had him on the pod back in, I think it was 2022, early 2022. Now runs DLOUIS with his girlfriend/fiancée, I believe, which is a big fashion jewelry brand. I obviously used to have a jewelry business, gives me flashbacks to that. But, um, yeah, that'd be good. I haven't seen him in a while. There's also a shitload of other founders I know, I have a real bad habit of— fuck is that? I have a bad habit of, um, A, having fucking skinny arms right now. I look shit in a vest. I'm very long. I'm more of a t-shirt guy, but it's boring. I have a very bad habit of like just not getting out and meeting people I know or new people I do know. I just get so locked in and then it's like, oh, I don't feel like I have that many mates here, but I have probably as many if not more mates here, people I know in Dubai than I did in London, to be honest. Um, the irony is I've come back here after nearly 3 months away, and then just as I've come back, the weather's the best it's been all year in London and the UK. But it's just typical, like May bank holiday weekend. So I do get a bit of FOMO for that sometimes, but then you have to factor in, okay, that's for like 5 days, then it goes back to being gray, right? Or in summer is nice, but it's not all the time. Whereas obviously here it could be January 3rd and it'd be gorgeous weather. Like, I think the appeal of Dubai is definitely stronger in winter because you have that contrast to other places, um, whereas now— or like just Europe in general— whereas now like London, UK, Europe is good weather, um, especially places like Spain, obviously, you know, like May, June, July, August is It's fucking beautiful. So really, I don't know if I'm gonna go away for summer or not. I just travel too much to pass that 2.5 months. I just wanna lock in on routine and work and filming content and focus on stuff. I think I get very much grass is greener syndrome, like a lot of people, but as a result of that, I ended up in the UK for like 7 weeks when really I could've been there for a week. Just wasn't smart. And that was after having been in the Maldives and then Bali for a while. So the travel was just chaotic. My gym routine got ruined, which is why I'm out of shape. My diet got ruined, just literally living out of a suitcase. And yeah, like, it's not bad, like, it's fun to travel around and stuff, but it was just too much and I was in too many different places. And it brought out the absolute worst of my chaotic brain. So yeah, plan is to just lock in here for a while. I might go away in August, but it's just expensive mentally and emotionally and financially, but mainly like just fucking expensive on the routine. I have been bumping new Drake. I'm really committed to these albums because there's 3 of them, but like I've not really found any apart from Janus, STFU, not so sure how I feel about it. Yeah, I'm still learning the skill of not working on the weekends. I'm not gonna— I'm never gonna not work on the weekends weekends, but like working less, whereas my default used to be Saturday is a full work day. I think that does help you get ahead in certain areas, but I also think it doesn't because it was probably allowing me to be less productive and effective in my like Monday to Friday. I think realistic routine for me now is Monday to Friday is obviously full work, Saturday is probably half work. I like working on stuff that is honestly more enjoyable, stuff that I don't need to deal with people or whatever because everyone else is offline. Sunday I try and have off, but then I'm always working in some way, right? If I'm like reading or fucking plotting some project with Claude or whatever, I think ultimately, like, if you, if you enjoy what you want to do and you want to build stuff, then you're never going to have a full day off. But it's more just like a day not at my desk, right? I could be at a beach club reading and working on some idea. That's still like productive work, it's just not the same as that executional grunt work, right? So yeah, that is a change in how I'm approaching things. It's bank holiday in the UK. I always find there's a shitload of bank holidays. I just think the UK work culture is quite soft. I have to be careful what I say before I get cancelled. But like, if you compare that to the US, right, the US, they have less holidays, they don't have bank holidays, they have less equivalents. I think people have like a 1-week notice period in their jobs, whereas the UK, like, a month minimum is typical. We've done 3 months in the past. Which doesn't work when you have the wrong team member, but that's a different story. But at the same time, right, like, I'd rather have a team that were high output when they're there and had all their time off and enjoyed that. And I think as a founder, you're never gonna quite relate to that because, A, you've never had someone else paying you and just had time off because it's always been you eat what you kill mindset. And then secondly, even when the business is developed, I think that natural paranoia doesn't go away. And also that just want wanting to build, whereas the, I guess, non-founder mindset, generally speaking, is like, yeah, people want to do a good job. Obviously you can be a really great team member or employee, um, but when you don't legally have to be working there contractually, you're not going to work there, right? So like, you know, weekends very much off, bank holidays very much off, and rightly so. I'm just different, right? Obviously some team members, and probably the ones I enjoy working the most with, are like those kind of entrepreneurial but not founder team members. They have that founder mindset, but they just don't want to be a founder because they'd rather be part of something that either already exists or they helped build from day one. And some of— we've still got some of our early team members that are like that, and they do act like founders in the sense that I'll chat to them on the weekend about stuff It's not like after 6 PM they're gone. And they're my favorite type of people in a way because they're people that love what they do. It's not like— to some people that's toxic, right? By being online late or whatever. But to— I think like my favorite type of team member, but also just people in life, is like people that are passionate, high energy, and love doing what they do. So therefore they want to do a good job and they want to go above and beyond. And working with those type of people is great. Working with people that are very different to that, I find more challenging. And I think the interesting part of running a startup or a scale-up team is I still think the default on team members has to be, this is not a normal company. I think if you build a culture of, we are like 9-to-5, we're quite traditional corporate, it's really soft and relaxed because everything's fuzzy and fluffy and we're a big company that it's guaranteed to succeed. I think that's wrong, I really do. I actually think there's very little you can take from corporate mindset that applies to a startup, to be honest. And I think one of the biggest learnings I've had is adding more structure in a team is absolutely necessary, but do not let that structure become something that is overcomplicated and therefore for firstly slows you down executionally in terms of too many layers, too many opinions, too many decisions versus like, you know, founder or early team lead at the start. And secondly, don't let that structure become something that, like I said, slows you down but also changes the mindset from speed and execution to delays and discussion. So at the end of the day, I think the greatest skill, and I'm still working on this myself by the way, this is by no means me preaching, I think the greatest skill in life is the ability to go from idea to done as quick as possible, or at the very least idea to executing currently. Whereas I think a real problem with just like general fucking, like standard kind of business work mindset is everything, like almost by the time it gets to Wednesday, it's like, look at it next week. So hold on. Fucking idiot, man. There's drivers around here, man. They're fucking retarded. Literally don't look where they're going. Um, so yeah, like, just really add structure into your business because you need to, but you must desperately avoid the— I would just call it the corporate trap, the overprofessionalization trap of putting too many layers into things, everything becoming like— you spend more time fucking planning and making structured documents on Notion like versus just doing the fucking thing. And I've seen that my own business a lot over the past year, and it's been some big learnings. Like, there is value in structure, but not when it's overdone. And I found honestly, like, going on a bit of a ramble here, but it's been on my mind. I feel like over the last year I spent probably as much time, if not at times more, dealing with like planning for things and talking about things with team or others and so on, and like dealing with like HR or politics or whatever that— because of some— what I just said, rather than just doing the thing. So a critical example, instead of spending all my time on product improvements and growth and content, say, which is what I'm trying to do now and what I should have done, I was spending a fair amount of time on like trying to communicate plans for those things to some of the team that were working on them. Through like presentations and Notion documents. That's one part of it. And then the other side, and we had a few team changes and so on, like dealing with the politics of that, the HR side of that, like fuck me, like it just, it really is a waste of time. I don't do that anymore because my role has changed. But like, I don't think anyone should be doing that is my point. I think everyone in a team should be working on like shipping work. And in my business, that's, you know, improving existing products and producing new products, making fucking insane content, whether that's brand or performance or both that overlap, or improving funnels and website basically, or getting retail listings. They're like probably the 4 main things for me. Anything that isn't that, like, even like planning process or coming up with a process to write the process, or like over-engineering Notion documents, or basically doing any admin that isn't just done by Claude. I think is a genuine waste of time, other than like finance stuff, right? I'm speaking in generalizations, but you get the point. I just think it's so, so, so critical not to lose sight of like what you're actually doing, like what you're providing to customers. Like, whereas I honestly, honestly, and it's painful to say this, but it's useful learning, spent like as much time, if not more, like I said, on fucking admin bullshit and politics over the last year as the team grew and like more opinions came in. And yeah, some of it's probably quite raw because I've got some opinions on where that went wrong and what worked and what didn't in the past year, particularly because I think that was the biggest learning year of my fucking life and it's extremely painful like mentally as a result. But anyway, that's like my little thought for the morning. Um, I also honestly would just love to have an office in Dubai. Like, it feels a bit of a shame that like We're only 50% team in London, but like the team in London has kind of developed over time, and I never really wanted to have an office in central London, but it happened as a result of a few things. And I'm like, hmm, feel a bit disconnected from that part of the business, but it's my business, so I should probably change that. So we're gonna be doing more creative stuff stuff out here in Dubai. Because honestly, like, I'm not hating on offices, but when I was there, I was in the office, right? I think offices are great, but I think they are— at least with the current setup we have— I think it's a social location, and that's fine. But a social location 5 days a week that people spend an hour commuting to and from each way doesn't strike me as particularly productive. So I think there's like a strange irony and assumption from certain more traditional minds that like, if you're not in the office, you're the one that's not committed or whatever. Yet in the office and going to the office is a, a massive waste of time to get there and back, and b, when you're in the office, it's often— not all the time— it is often just a social event. And there is value in that, by the way. But my view still on this is the optimum setup for me is some small like creative studio product kitchen rather than just an office by itself. Basically is an office but without stuff in it. And the rest of stuff is done remotely in terms of like general team execution. Fuck, I think I've gone the wrong way. And then you do in-person quality time like once a quarter for 3 to 4 days, and that's actual social intentional time with the team. I honestly fully believe that's the most optimal way to run, to run a business like this, and that's not how we're currently running it because there's other opinions. And I've let, you know, I've let a certain setup happen that, okay, whatever, like, it's not a big deal, it works to a degree, but I don't think it's optimum. And I've tried to optimize my own setup to ultimately be better for my health health physically and mentally. That was the key driver of moving away from central London, which a lot of people miss when they hear Dubai. They go, oh, you're trying to dodge taxes. Like, well, no, the quality of life is just objectively better. And for someone that's massively affected by environment, and in particular weather, then that can have a massive compound impact on your ability to feel good and do good work, especially for me when I'm in a more creative role now. So anyway, I'm 7 minutes away, I'm rambling into fuck. I need to down this coffee and then get on this 10K, so I'll catch you in a bit. Right, I'm in a staycation in this fucking wellness hotel gaff. There's such mental deals going on at the minute because of Dubai being basically empty. There's a literal pull-up bar in the room and a projector. Oh fuck. I wasn't using the audio properly. There's a projector on that wall, we can't see it. Mental view, to be fair. This is quite a wide lens, actually a lot closer than that. Full of protein shakes, funnily enough. I don't think they actually have alcohol in here, which is quite interesting for a hotel. They say it's the world's first actual wellness-focused hotel. They had a mental gym that I didn't vlog in, but but I'll show you that later. I just wish these hotels would let me do pink lights. I do miss this city view, given we now live in a house without a view. So this is making me want to move back to an apartment with a view. I mean, that is the most fucking insane view, to be fair. But yeah, it's pretty wavy setup. Trained twice today. The return to the classic physique is on. So I thought coming to a wellness hotel, not drinking, eating clean, and training twice a day while it's bank holiday weekend— I'm not on bank, so I'm not having Monday off, but I've had half today off. And yeah, a little cozy staycation here I thought would be nice. It's funny how I'm already feeling healthier by being back in a routine and not being in the UK living in Airbnbs. New Drake album. This track slaps, to be fair. Just had a haircut for the first time in a week, starting to feel like a relatively new man, which was very much needed. Get shredded, get tanned, get a good haircut again, and the scale will follow suit. Wow, that really is a view. Hey, girls from Italy, girls from Australia, what can I tell y'all? You know I love you so much. Yeah, as she said, gym time. Cute new Alo set. I'm on a rest day today, but I'll just be walking on the treadmill. A wellness hotel breakfast that turned into fleshy café batil, but I held it together by having 6 eggs and 4 chicken sausages instead. And they gave us that, which wasn't really called for, was it? It was very good though. Very little training actually going on. But it's a nice view nonetheless. Right, I've actually committed to finally getting back on an elite fitness movement. I know I've been chatting shit about that for basically the past year, as the girl to my right would say, but, um, I think I've got a 2:45 marathon in me, or sub-2:45. The sub-3 marathon a few years ago just got me in the best shape, but also the best, like, mental shape of my life, to be honest. And that was probably the bigger benefit fit in hindsight. So I'm on an actual running plan for the first time in a while, which I never did before, as well as weights. I might make a video about— well, I will make a video about my actual plan to commit to that publicly. But yeah, I think the last few months of just not feeling good and letting myself go physically and not having so much to train for really threw me off, to be honest, in all areas. So today is actually a rest day, but I'm just doing half an hour on the treadmill, and I have actually got a plan I'm following now. So I reckon realistically, to get in PB marathon shape, which for me would want to be probably sub— well, sub-2:50, but I reckon sub-2:45 would be a loftier, better goal to go for. It's probably a 6-month job from here, potentially more. But yeah, training with this view, it's pretty nice. Well, not that view. She's just my PA. But this view, pretty fucking savage, to be fair. I do miss that when I don't have— you know, I don't live in a flat anymore with a view. I live in a house, which is obviously nice, but for me, I just miss that, especially at nighttime, that inspiring view style. So yeah, training with This makes me want to go live in a flat again, to be honest, which I may well do when we move out in a few months. But anyway, got a full day here, so very light session, then probably go sunbathe. I need that, um, sauna. Then we got— probably do some work this afternoon. Then we have a biohacking treatment, which which I'll also document. And yeah, more to come. Catch you later. You vlogging as well? Fuck me. Post-workout £13 protein shake in this absurdly cool hotel. I'm off to get a trim now. By the way, this is a staycation. We live down the road. I've got a mega session to do today, legs and some intervals, and then I'll be going sauna, ice bath, and then probably sunbathe for a bit. And then I'm gonna go work in the co-working area of this place for like a few hours, then get back to the house later. Right, so I'm doing this mental recovery thing. Pretty sick room. Didn't bring my mic. It's like an infrared/plasma something full body like detox thing that goes over your head as well. She says it's very good for skin, muscle recovery, recovery, sleep. I don't know if it's the sort of thing you are best to use daily, but I've never done anything like this, so Oh, fuck me. That has been a delicious recovery afternoon, um, here in the Sairah Hotel. Not sponsored, of course. This is a fucking sick building. I've got a few mates that live in this building. I didn't actually realize it's the same building. It's got the most insane views from like every single room. I had this mental biohacking treatment. To be honest, it basically just like felt like a fucking dry sauna with my whole body, but had like red lights white stuff and some plasma thing going on my full body and face. Then I was in the recovery suite sipping tea with a beautiful view, and now I'm in a very cold ice bath straight into this. I do miss having this set up in like where the actual building I live in, because it's so fucking ideal. Someone is just the best thing ever for like meditating, getting ideas. I used to like drop a voice note into my phone pre-Claude and found in sauna when I was in the sauna. Um, do we have a sauna? I don't know. I saw one at the Gap, got an ice bath at the Gap, but it's, you know, external chiller one. I was looking to get a proper one, but, um, yeah, this setup is so sick. I need this in my house, a proper steam sauna. I mean, it's nothing special, but with the ice bath right outside with a view, the sickest view of Dubai, and then it's next to the gym, which is like, well, you know, 20-second walk away from bunch of these treatment rooms. So I would absolutely live in this building, then you get access to all this. I live in a nice house, but rather live in a flat with all the amenities, to be honest. As I said, but anyway, very much back on my health kick recently. As I said, I really let myself go and it was showing up like physically, not just visually, but physically in terms of being sick from what I was eating, my routine, not training, etc. I've always prioritized— well, I've always put great value on like wellness and training and diet and routine. I just really got out of that the last 2 months. Um, yeah, I paid the price for it. It was probably a useful lesson. You don't think clearly, you don't work as well, you don't sleep as well. Like, obviously, but nothing comes before health at the end of the day, and mine was just getting bad physically and mentally as a result of compounding things. And then it shows up in business and everything else. And also just visually was looking fucking shit. I feel like I literally look different in the past week since I've come back to Dubai, had a haircut, started running again, started eating clean again, and got some sun. And that's after one week. Um, yeah, it can make a dramatic difference even just getting rid of water retention, to be honest. So yeah, I do love a good sauna. Not as strong in these as I used to be. The problem with the one in the gym we go to is it's, um, just not as great of a setup. Like, they have an ice bath which you have to walk through the gym to then access the sauna, so they're not beside each other. But yeah, I generally do like 2 rounds of— well, that was a fucking cold one, it was like 4 degrees, 6 degrees— like 1 minute, then probably 15 minutes in here, do it twice. Um, normally do 2 minutes if it's a bit warmer. But anyway, fucking lovely hotel, lovely setup. It's very much my vibe.