The honest truth about the last 12 months
In this candid, vlog‑style video Matthew Kelly (the founder of a nutraceutical e‑commerce brand) walks viewers through a whirlwind twelve‑month period. He begins with a product tasting session, comparing new chocolate and RTD formulations, then updates on his recent chest infection, antibiotics, and the resulting fitness detraining. Matthew details his travel itinerary— from a Sunday stroll in the UK countryside to a trip to Barcelona for Vitafoods, followed by the London Coffee Festival, a planned shoot, and an upcoming all‑expenses‑paid Vegas trip. He reflects on the intense networking, supplier parties, and the role of AI tools in capturing event insights. The narrative shifts to deeper business reflections: how his role has evolved from hands‑on D2C work to focusing on product and brand, the hiring of a new head of growth, and the challenges of being a solo founder. He openly discusses personal struggles— burnout, self‑worth issues, PTSD from past financial loss, and the pressure of feeling behind peers— while also expressing determination to learn from past mistakes, share valuable lessons (sometimes behind a paywall), and ultimately scale the company. The video ends with plans for upcoming content creation, a shoot in an Airbnb, and a resolve to "win" despite the mental and operational hurdles.
Chapters
This is new chocolate. That one's currant chocolate. Oh, okay, fine, fine. Currant. You remember to say your drugs. She'll be really pleased with you. She'll be so proud. Yeah. She just don't want to get ill. Actually. Yeah, I love that. Yes, I'll give it to her. I think it was our RTDs in, because we were going to go to a retailer meeting, bring some other comparisons with, like, I think David was actually— I never drink our chocolate. It is quite nice, isn't it? I mean, slightly different, but I thought— See, I only drink chocolate and I have it with oat milk. So depending on how long we vlog this business is and you want to get that deep into it, that's when it gets exciting. Our team in America spend a lot of time in Peru and doing that kind of thing. So some really not very welcome— AI Matt into the field. AI Matt! Oh yeah, put his arm around you.
That works.
I can tell you a lot cheaper. On the development we're doing here with the rich— yeah, which one's which? Which one's hazelnut? Yes, it should both be hazelnut. So, oh, okay, the one on the left is the current and the one on the right is— pretty sure I just swapped them. I'm confusing myself now. See if you can tell the difference. The first one you put down was the current product? Yeah. I'm not sure which one I've got in which hand now. The slightly sweeter one is the original. Okay, fine. Yeah, definitely the caramel comes through a little bit. I really like that. Wait, sorry, which one was like the more potent one? You said there was a difference. It tells the stories of exactly what it wants to be, um, for both the Ringlets and the Astro Dust, which—
Sunday evening stroll for once back in the UK countryside, which to be fair I do miss when I'm in Dubai. It's probably the only thing I consistently miss. The chest infection has largely cleared up. I'm finished on my antibiotics that lasted like 10 days. Definitely was fucking my stomach up, just making me feel even more brain foggy because antibiotics can do that because of your gut and all that shit. Still got the final bits of like phlegm and shit coming out of my fucking lungs, but generally feel fine now. Sadly, I've not trained properly in what feels like 2 months at this point, with a bunch of stuff going on, but I haven't trained at all in about 2 weeks. Um, it's my watch is saying I've detrained on the Garmin, which is not a nice thing to see, but makes sense. So trying to gradually reintroduce. I ran this morning a little bit. In the gym, to be fair. And then I was gonna go for a run tonight, but didn't happen. I was out for a Sunday lunch, had a glass of wine for the first time in a long time, actually. And then I was at the cinema eating fucking popcorn. So I've been a gluttonous little pig today, to be fair. Um, did do some work this morning. On a few things. May attempt to do a little bit tomorrow. And there's bank holidays tomorrow, but I'm not a bank, so don't really think about it. It's just obviously the team and so on are off, so I'm actually flying to Barcelona tomorrow at 4 PM for Vitafoods, which is a sick event. Last year I went for the first time, it's also in Barcelona. Don't feel like I got enough out of it last year. Didn't have a plan, but to be honest, it's still useful, but a bit more specific about who I want to meet there this year and so on.
And to be quite honest, there's—
fuck, flies in my mouth— both of our suppliers, both of our main suppliers are hosting little party things in the evening, so it's good that my antibiotics are done because I will be getting slightly sent at both of those events. Which was very good last year. Barcelona is a great city, so I might stay there for a few nights longer. It's 3 nights initially. Me and 2 members of the team are going, but I might just stay there a few nights longer myself, to be honest. And then I'm back in London for London Coffee Festival for the launch of a big product we're doing on a big branded stand. And then I'll be back— I thought— and then I'll be back in Dubai. So I've actually been away, including Maldives and everything, it would be like 2 months away from consistent routine in Dubai. It's not been ideal, but it's just the way it worked this time around. But yeah, to be honest, the older I've got, the more I just want a fucking routine. It's a steep hill and Yeah, not the most productive, especially these days when I'm in a different place every week, as I have been recently. Obviously I'm not in full hustle for Faze anymore in the sense that we obviously have a team, but I still want to get my own shit done, which hasn't been ideal for that. So yeah, it's a beautiful walk, this, to be fair. I often think it would be lovely to have country gaff in the UK for when I'm back here. It's just fucking nice, isn't it? Countryside in the spring and summer evenings. I feel like that's the one thing the UK is unbeaten for, quite frankly. I'm in Surrey right now, which is nice, but always biased to North Yorkshire where I'm from. But they look similar, so yeah, I really can't complain. I probably should have gone for a run this evening, to be quite honest. Instead, I'm doing a fat man's post-illness walk just to get the steps in, get back up to the 15,000 steps a day, which was previously my target. Also, on an evening like this, reminds me of when I used to have a silly supercar. I think there's nothing, almost nothing more enjoyable in life that's legal, or borderline legal depending how fast you're driving, than a supercar in a spring evening, or a sunny spring or summer even, in the UK on the right country roads. So might be something I have to consider the next few months. I think it's less magic in Dubai, to be honest, but it would still be fun. So I'm going to finish this walk, catch you in a bit.
Right, we are back in Barcelona, one of my favorite cities on Earth. I used to live there. I say live, it was like 3 months. Can't speak a word of Spanish still. That's a pretty nice view. The old Olympic Park over there, that building which I've forgotten the name of, and that hill that I used to run up all the time. I just feel like Barcelona is the best. It's everything that's amazing about Europe. Just like very historical and shit. Nice weather, lots going on. Came to Vitefoods last year. If anyone doesn't know, it's like the— I'm gonna get it wrong, but it's probably one of the world's biggest nutraceutical events. So basically food and supplements and drinks— what's going on here? Food, supplements, food, beverage, supplements, all that sort of stuff, like my industry obviously. Um, last year was basically a massive social event for me, something planet, to be honest. So there's a lot of interesting stuff It's very easy to get shiny object syndrome and start like fucking deciding I'm gonna start, I don't know, some longevity peptide brand or something, which I'll probably end up doing today as well. But there's loads of suppliers, existing suppliers, suppliers I speak to, ingredient suppliers, packaging, whatever, from all over the world, like Europe, UK, America, China, etc. And just loads of founders here as well. And there's always like social events in the evening which I'm going to, which tend to turn into rather heavy fucking benders, because I'm pretty sure one of our suppliers is a— well, he likes a drink, put it that way. So that's always quite good. Yeah, here for 3 nights. Event starts in like half an hour, so I'll set off in a second. Probably won't film a huge amount when I'm there. I was thinking I probably should have brought a videographer. It'd be quite cool just to go around to every stand and see what's going on, document the whole thing. I haven't done that, but would be pretty cool for the— haven't come before. Would recommend coming if you're in this space or you're interested in this space. I used to be pretty skeptical about, you know, there's like sometimes too many fucking networking events and expos. You just need to do the work, whatever. But I think with physical products, I found I got into the habit of just spending far too much time on my computer when actually it's a fucking product business, right? Like, obviously, um, and as is most— as are most e-com brands, but especially in this category, like trying stuff, seeing stuff, physically touching stuff meeting new suppliers, etc., I think is very fucking useful. Um, and this is really the one main event every year, having been once before, that I actually think is very fucking good. I got a shitload of stuff out last year, probably didn't use most of it enough, but it went into the knowledge bank. I kept it all documented. And obviously these days as well, I find it's very easy to come to these things and come away with just too many leaflets, brochures, but with like Granola AI on my phone, I'll just go around, basically do a verbal summary of something and it'll note it for me. And then at the end of the day, I come back all enclawed, linked up to anything I'd previously planned, like an agenda, because I've got a brief one. And then, you know, just makes it easier to just enjoy the social aspects and the meeting people stuff rather than be there the whole time with a strict agenda, taking notes, all this shit. AI has definitely made that a lot easier, and that's the way my brain works at least. So yeah, gonna go down to the event. It's in the same place that the HIROX Barcelona was a year ago. So I mean, it's always there. But yeah, I'm not in HIROX shape right now. I just trained for the first time about 2 weeks this morning, having finally come off antibiotics and still feeling a bit ropey. Probably sound a bit blocked up still, but yeah, good to be here. 2, technically 3 days, but probably 2 days of actual event, and then the final day we'll leave. But yeah, I'll keep you in the loop. Right, Biker Foods Day 1, Barcelona. We're in a pretty swanky hotel. Didn't sleep at all. Attempted to go to the gym this morning. These lifts are slow as fuck. Gonna get some eggs and coffee in and head down shortly. Okay, so Day 2, Biker Foods. Um, haven't filmed anything for the entire trip. Did have a very heavy supplier evening last night. One of my suppliers always hosts a massive party and we went out and I was out to like 5 AM and I feel fucking horrible because I'm old now and I'm not used to that. It's actually not worth it. It's fun at the time but we went far too hard. So I slept for like 4 hours and I've been on my feet all day. I've done like 12,000 steps, which actually isn't that many, but just walking around this expo, I'm literally sitting on the floor because there's no seats and I feel fucked. There's another event tonight with my other fly, which I will go to, but I won't drink. And then tomorrow is technically the third day of the expo, but I'm just going to probably not come and just go and work. And actually, these expos are good, you meet loads of people, whatever, loads of ideas, blah blah blah. But the end of the day, it's like if you don't do anything with it— and most of it you can't do much with because you can't work with fucking 50 suppliers that you meet— if you don't do anything with it, it's kind of pointless. So yeah, they're good, but I think you could get away with not coming, to be honest, as more like a social event and an excuse to go and see stuff. There is value in that for sure, but, um, yeah, I think after 2 days, especially when I'm on a massive bender, it's not ideal. Um, but yeah, it's essentially a remote working day with different sort of work. Met a lot of people, some people that I've known online, some people that watch the pod. Which is always interesting and funny to me that people watch my shit, but it's obviously quite a niche audience here. Um, and yeah, cuz I got up so late, I didn't get up to like half 10, so I went to bed at 5. I hate getting up late, but obviously I've still only not even 5 hours sleep. My Garmin said I got no sleep, it was that bad.
Yeah, I need my sleep, it just fucks me.
I feel like cognitively impaired. Coffee's not helping, um, we're gonna leave soon and then out to this other event. So final day then, right? Final day of Vitafoods. Probably a pointless day. We had another relatively large evening last night, which is not on brand for me given I don't drink any, but I was at the top floor of the W with our— one of our suppliers, our previous— lots of brands there, lots of people I know, familiar faces, etc. Um, yeah, it's probably the point of this event where it's better just to sit down, actually do some work rather than meeting more and more potential options. But I do want to go see some Chinese suppliers and just trying to make sure I see everything before we leave. Probably another few hours here. I've decided I'm going to stay in Barcelona till Sunday or Monday morning rather than today, which is the initial plan. But I do need to book somewhere. Routine's been all off this week. Been very social, drank too much, haven't trained in the gym apart from once, which was very mediocre the other morning. Yeah, it's just too much stuff here. It's not great for my fucking ADHD tendencies. I wanted to start a new brand every 5 seconds. So yeah, we're gonna finish up, go see some Chinese suppliers. Haven't filmed much of the past few days, to be fair. I probably look like a fucking state as well. But yeah, all in all, good event, good to see people, and now needs to just fucking actually do something with some of the new stuff we found. So And to be honest, we're a simple business. We know what we're doing anyway. It's more just seeing if there's new stuff we can put in. You can just do most of this on Claude these days in terms of finding stuff, but obviously good to come down. And yeah, this place is fucking massive. I might do a little walk around tour, but I didn't really film the past few days, so yeah, we'll crack on. All right, fucking hell, this is literally like the 10th place I've been in terms of staying like the last 2 months. Someone commented, said I should be like super grateful for that, and it's a fair perspective to be fair, but it's more just the chaos of having a business sometimes requires me to be in London and then not timing things properly. So I've actually been in the UK like, I don't know, about 4 and a half weeks now, which is fucking long. I'm in an Airbnb beside Battersea Power Station now. I like this area, it's pretty sick to be fair. Fucking well expensive for the smallest thing. Anyway, we've got a 3-day shoot coming up tomorrow, which is a very big one for a very special product launch shoot. I haven't actually done these like proper shoots for a while with Brad and Jordan, the OG guys that made the first Space Kids movies. It's quite nostalgic to me because it's almost 4 years exactly since we filmed that, or a little over 4 years, 4 years in a week or something. And then there's London Coffee Festival, which is our first like proper branded stand thing. Later, let's fucking do— oh yeah, later in the week. So I've got a shoot and then that festival thing. It's actually quite an interesting week for once. I say for once, but like I definitely spend less time— I'm trying to spend less time just on my fucking screen. Um, I'm focused on different parts of business now as well. Um, yeah, honestly trying to like retrain my creativity muscle. Weirdly, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I just got so, I guess, burnt out to some degree because of many reasons and wasn't taking care of my health that much and had a few issues. Feeling a lot better now, to be fair. Back on training. I'm still a fat fuck, but I went for a long run today and I felt incredible. So anyways, that's beside the point, but I do think that stuff helps with creativity and bringing out the best in me in work in general, which hasn't been the case for probably quite a while, to be honest. Um, yeah, I'm keen to get back into like being in one place, cuz that hasn't been the case for a very long time now. Well, 4 weeks— actually, like 8 weeks if you count like leaving Dubai because of all that shit, then Maldives, and then Bali, and then back here. I'm Um, yeah, it's funny, as you get older, you just— traveling isn't that appealing. And I've also completely forgotten I'm going to Vegas in 5 weeks' time for this fucking— it's one of these things I don't have to go to, but it's like, I'm not going to say no to an all-expenses-paid trip to Vegas from, from ShipBob, our 3PL supplier. Who, by the way, ShipBob, you should fucking sponsor the pod because everyone always messages me asking who we use. So if you want to message me about that, we can do that. Um, but yeah, I'm going to Vegas for that in like 5 weeks' time. Then after that, I'm not going to travel all summer, probably just lock in and make content and train and get in shape back in Dubai, which is definitely the plan. That's what I need to do. Practically, I don't need to be in London for anything, to be honest, apart from, well, for most things. Even the things I think I need to be here for could be done anywhere, to be honest. It is quite expensive, just time and money and everything, having to fucking be in the UK and then floating around. I was in Barcelona last week for Vital Foods, which is probably in this video. That was fun, but sometimes you just gotta fucking like lock in and do the work. But at the same time, obviously have a team and so on. So I'm trying to figure out basically where to spend my time most effectively. At HighLevel, it's product and brand and growth. Also, it's like the 3 most important things, but product and brand primarily. Um, in a bit of a weird spot where like in theory I don't have to do anything because I executionally and operationally stuff is done right. There's nothing that purely relies on me and wouldn't get done at all without me. But obviously I'm still leading stuff, especially now in product and brand more specifically, slightly less on D2C growth stuff because we've got a new head of growth in who's leading that, um, which is good. I obviously still look at that stuff every day, but I do think as, as you try and get better and more experienced and team and business grows, whatever, I do think your role should change. I was very obsessively just on like D2C stuff. And actually the irony was the products and brand stuff, specifically product, was all part of the same thing. Like, what are we selling is more important than just how are we selling it and the fucking creatives are running right. It's obvious stuff, but the past 2 years, maybe I'll make a separate video going through this because I've learned so many fucking painful lessons about myself, the team, product, business, market, channels, everything, particularly in the last year. I would say the last— the business feels like a tale of two halves. It's like the first year and a half, two years, where it was basically me and a bunch of freelancers before we had venture investors, which has pros and cons, quite frankly. And then there's been two years since that. And yeah, I think the first two years and the second two years— it's been fucking four years now— just mental. We should be further ahead, quite frankly, but There we go. They're very different 2 years, especially the last year. Obviously businesses get bigger and change and so on, but I think in terms of my enjoyment, there's been pros and cons to both sides, but I'm obviously learning a lot along the way regardless. Yeah, honestly, I haven't really been feeling the best about anything the past few months, which is probably fucking evident if anyone watches my videos. I think part of that is legitimate health issues broadly, physically and mentally, and they go hand in hand, right? But then the other thing is probably just a slightly longer story around not really feeling aligned with like my role and how the business has been set up in certain ways. And maybe or maybe not, I'll make a more honest video about a lot of that because often I do feel like the most, the most valuable stuff I mean, definitely, objectively, the most valuable stuff I could share on here is the stuff I don't really feel comfortable talking about, which I've said before. I think I do quite a good job of being more honest than 99% of people, but I do sometimes feel like there's a line in terms of respect to, you know, the people in the business, people, shareholders in the business, and so on. I don't want to, like, air too much of my dirty laundry on the internet, even though that would be the interesting thing for other founders and often what people do want to hear. I don't mean all bad things. I just mean, like, if I'm honest, I feel like I've made a fuckload of mistakes. I'm sure every founder has, but I— whether it's just I feel this way or it's a fact or both, but I feel like I've made more mistakes than most. I share some of the highlights on YouTube, then people that watch it don't make those mistakes, and I didn't really have that knowledge to follow to the same degree. I'm not saying I fucking— I'm the guiding light of e-com or anything, but Yeah, I think I've made a lot of mistakes. I look back and think, fuck, so obvious. Feels like other people don't make those mistakes, and maybe they just don't put on YouTube so I don't see it. Um, but yeah, maybe I'll make— I always feel like I say maybe about my most valuable content that I kind of want to share but almost don't because I feel like it needs to go behind either a paywall because it's fucking cost me a lot mentally and financially and whatever to learn it, but also I just doubt if I'm helping myself by sharing my biggest learnings with potential or current competitors, right? Bigger or smaller or whatever. So that is the friction with YouTube sometimes. But yeah, it's been a tricky— I've been in a tricky spot, if I'm honest, the past 6 months primarily. I think that's been made hard by the fact I'm a solo founder. You know, maybe I'll go on someone else's podcast the next few weeks. I'm going to be going on 2 next week. And I'll speak about some of this. I'm not sure, we'll see. My point is, if I could go back 2 years, I would do a lot of things very differently. And that's probably split into 2 halves of like the product and brand stuff, which is probably like more natural and whatever, it just comes with experience. And then there's kind of the structure and operational style, if I'm honest. Which I think has also affected the product and brand stuff, ironically. Not always to the bear. There's obviously pros and cons. I'm just talking about the negatives because that's what I reflect on, which is more natural. But there have been plenty of positives. But if I'm honest, I do feel like the business should be fucking further ahead. I don't just feel like that, it should be factually. Um, I think the reason it isn't right now, and it will be because I'm going to fix it is because of a lot of the things that, if I'm honest, I probably knew in my gut a year ago, but for a combination of reasons I didn't act on them. Maybe at the time I didn't feel the same way to quite this extent, but yeah, I just think a lot of things got overcomplicated more than they needed to be. Um, yeah, maybe I'll talk about this on a separate video, but the point is, fuck me, I've learned a lot, but I just sometimes feel like those learnings haven't fully reflected financially in terms of growth and my personal situation enough yet, because I haven't— it's all very well loading— loading— learning stuff, but you have to fucking execute and make changes and grow to the next level off the back of those learnings for it really to pay off, right, is my point, which is fucking true with anything. But I'm in that kind of awkward in-between where have done all right, done quite well. Generally everyone licks my ass and says the business is amazing. My response is almost always, ah no, trust me, it's not been that amazing, at least in my mind, and just factually in certain areas, quite frankly, for like the past 6 months at least. Um, yeah, it's funny how people come up to me at Bite2Feed, oh my God, your brand's so amazing. Like, it's good to have that perspective, like I always appreciate that, it's very kind, but I don't feel like that internally at all, quite frankly. Um, also just because objectively, yeah, we should be further ahead. There's been plenty of good things, but I haven't done a good enough job in the past year, quite frankly. And there's a longer, probably fucking 2-hour-long video behind that that maybe I'll make at some point in the next few weeks exposing myself. But, um, yeah, I always said I'd document the honest stuff. Which often feels like to my detriment or to the favor of others that maybe then go and fucking compete with me or whatever, which there are multiple examples. But that's fine. That's the market. But that is where I'm often conflicted with this stuff in general. But then I just think, fuck, every time I've not made a video documenting stuff, especially probably when it was harder or more you know, wanted to look back on it in the future when I've got past it, I kind of regretted it. So yeah, anyway, I don't know where I'm going. It's like 10 PM on a Sunday night. I've just been planning my week. Not that complicated, but you know, just key things I need to get done. Partly Claude, partly Slack, partly emails, partly planning for like weekly calls I do on Mondays and all this shit. Planning for a shoot tomorrow, which which would be cool, doing that in a very big Airbnb, and I'm going to stay in that for 3 nights as well, so that's one perk when I'm here. I don't live here anymore, so I don't have my own place, so if we're going to be in a big Airbnb, I'll obviously sleep there. A few podcast bits coming back with me on other podcasts and the other way around in the next month. And yeah, that's about it. I mean, without going into too many details of all the things I've just alluded to. I'd say this is one of those periods, probably like fucking every period for me, probably more than ever, that I just think it's that awkward in-between on a lot of things. Made a lot of mistakes. I'm feeling the mental pressure of the result of a lot of them now more than I probably ever have, if I'm honest, especially because I'm not in year 1 anymore, we're in year 4. Which just fucking blows my mind. And I'm a very pensive person. Someone commented zen on my YouTube. I actually had like heard that word before, but I didn't really know what it meant, so I like went on Google to find pensive. But yeah, I'm very much that, a deep thinker. A thing that fucking gets me recently, without going into too much of a rabbit hole, which I always do, just like the passage of time. I like make— it's like this beautiful sadness almost, um, I'm just so eerily aware of my immortality more these days than I used to be. Probably partly because I've seen my parents get older. I mean, we're all getting older all the time, but I think people at my sort of age can relate to that. You see your parents getting older and it feels more tangible than it used to, and you think, fuck, well, they're not gonna be around forever. And hopefully they're around for another 20, 25 years. Would be nice. But, you know, they're not gonna be around forever, then I think, well, fuck, I'm not gonna be around forever either, and I'm not 22 anymore, and I often wish I was, and I know that's like, I don't wanna be like the guy that lives in the past, but I feel the pressure of the ticking clock massively, partly 'cause I haven't fully accepted at all the mistakes I made in my earlier 20s, where, you know, I had some success and I fucking lost a lot of it, and I feel like that put me back many years. While it did teach me a lot, you know, did hurt me financially at the time, and I've bounced back from that to a decent level-ish, but nowhere near where I want to be, right? Like, financially and just achievement-wise. And I probably did think I'd be further ahead by now, if I'm completely honest. Well, there's no probably about it, I fucking did. And that weighs heavily on me a lot. And my other toxic kind of belief or feeling is like, I always used to say, "Ah, fuck, I'm not done like by my early 30s," which for me is only a few years away now. Then I don't know, like run out of time or whatever. Because I don't know where that comes from, because everyone that I know that— I don't know, if you like relatively young people, like people that are younger than 40, they've had like multi-eight-figure exits and fully like cashed out, and they all say it's great, but they're like, you would— what the fuck you gonna do, you know? So But I still want that freedom because I still definitely have a lot of, honestly, like fucking PTSD and like financial trauma from my old business like 5 years ago. That sounds ridiculous, but I don't come from money. I never had a safety net. I built my own safety net and I lost all of it. And that was very painful. I've built up, you know, to a certain level again and I'm fine. But I'm still carrying a lot of like PTSD and like, fuck, it could all go wrong feeling. And then when stuff's not going perfectly for a while, I then get in that panicked headspace of like, fuck. Anyway, I'm going down a rabbit hole, but I just have such an urge to succeed to a great degree, and often by a younger age than I am, and I thought I'd be further ahead by now. And I know that's toxic and whatever, but that's just the way I'm wired. I think a lot of it comes from baseline genetics, but also past experience and PTSD, quite frankly, from doing really well in my early 20s and losing like 99% of it, and then feeling like a different person after that and not feeling like I've quite redeemed myself yet. I have to, I have to an extent, because I built a bigger business than I did before and so on. But I don't know, I feel like because I'm older now, it should be 10 times bigger, not just, I don't know, twice as big or whatever. And then I end up thinking, fuck, am I like— am I declining? Have I reached my peak? Am I getting less good? Even when I go for a run now, like, I mean, I've gone through a fat phase, but you know, I'm not in the shape I was. And then I feel like it's harder to get in shape. Although at the same time, when I was 24, I was a fat fuck. I wasn't a runner. And then, you know, even at 25, at 26, a year later, I was in fucking insane shape. So you can obviously change change things very quickly, but you have to change them. If you don't change them, they don't change, right? So anyway, I don't know what I'm on about, but I just feel the passage of time. I like genuinely lie awake at night thinking about this shit, which maybe is probably— well, probably isn't normal, but is what I do. Time feels like it's going exponentially quicker as I've got older, and with that comes more and more pressure and the feeling of running out of time to achieve like greatness. Which I do not think I've achieved yet, and I haven't achieved yet. I think I've shown like potential, but then I also look around that, you know, the network I have, which is a massive blessing and a fucking huge curse at the same time. I'm like, I feel like almost all of my close friends are more successful than me financially. Maybe not all of them, but I'd say like at least half of them of like my close friends, and then a lot of other people I know or acquaintances we either have met, and I'm kind of like, how the fuck do I get in these circles if this 25-year-old guy has built a £100 million brand? And there's not many of them, right? But I know a few like legit guys that honestly are like at that level. And I'm inspired by that, but also makes me think, fuck, like, what am I doing? I honestly think I've achieved nothing in life. I genuinely mean that. And that's probably not something I should admit on the internet. And I don't say that from like a humble brag. Point of view. I say that from a— I have a fucking self-worth issue, and I'm aware of that. And it makes you want to— I'm just— self-worth issue, but I just genuinely want to win and do great things. And I feel like I haven't done that yet, or anywhere near as much as I should have done by now. I've got a lot of cool stories to tell, a lot of knowledge and experience. I think far more than my— like I said, my results, I feel like, actually show which means I need to fucking get better and do something with that. But I feel like I give fucking amazing advice, but I still don't feel like I've quite actually done it myself because of a lot of reasons that are probably internal and external and private stuff I shouldn't speak about and blah blah blah. Anyway, I don't want this to be a negative video, it's just an honest, pensive video as well. Um, Maybe it's relatable, maybe it's not. You know, I am grateful I'm self-aware enough to have always backed myself to do things, but I do struggle a lot with the heaviness that comes from just my mind of wanting to win so badly, but then feeling like often I'm getting in my own way because I fucking think so much. And then I think I'm running out of time, and then I question the vehicle I'm in sometimes. Not that it's a bad vehicle, I just mean like I always say, could that be better? I see my mate doing 20 million a month after a year and I'm thinking, fucking hell, like, you know, market, category, timing, like have I made bad decisions? There's always a bigger fish, but I often compare to the 0.1%, not, you know, the 99.9%. Um, anyway, I need to stop waffling. That's like 20 minutes nearly just of this clip. Um, Yeah, I'm gonna go to bed. This is relatively early for me. I'm trying to go to bed earlier and get up earlier to find out the last— I used to go to bed like 1 AM, and the past, the last few hours are just kind of not that productive, to be honest. They're good for creative work. I feel like sort of 7 PM to 10 PM for me is more creative. Beyond that, my brain just shuts down. Well, I've been working all day. I've done like a massive Sunday shift. To be fair, I have done a lot today, so it felt pretty good. But, um, yeah, I'm gonna bring you on on tour. I'm gonna bring you along for the Airbnb shoot tomorrow and the London Coffee Festival later this week. And I'll shut the fuck up waffling now. Maybe it's relatable, maybe it's not. It's just the honest— it's where I'm at. It's just reality. Just gotta win, really. Gotta fix it. Gotta scale. And I will win eventually. It's just harder to believe that when Don't fucking feel like that at the time, but I've been here before. I'll get through it. Is there any choice really in it? Gotta win. So on that note, hope you're all well and good night. We'll catch you in a bit. Subscribe to the pod.
