Job EXPERT Peter Wood on The Worst Job Market in 10 Years!! How to Build Online, Upskill & Find work

Hello and welcome to Personable, a podcast focused on speaking to the world's best, enabling you to become the best that you can be. My name is Harvey Bracken-Smith, and today I'm joined for the second time by Peter Wood. Peter has been on Personable before, and since then he's gone on to achieve even more big and great things. Peter is the founder and CEO of The Graduate Guide. Peter, thank you so much for joining me on Personable again. You are officially the 101st episode, so you're— you represent a new era of Personable. I wanted to get started by asking you, how has the idea of The Graduate Guide evolved since we last spoke?

Well, yeah, thanks for having me on again. It's gutting that I'm not part of the 100, but no, we'll take it. And yeah, good to be back on. You've been smashing it yourself since, you know, the volume you've been getting these out is impressive. And yeah, I think actually the way The Graduate Guide has evolved is from— I imagine when we were calling, it was, you know, I was in a very intense period of putting content out and, you know, building my my brand and my voice and I guess giving myself the right and ability to try and take on what I believe to be a graduate career crisis. And man, I think we've, since that time, we've probably explored every viable route possible to, you know, having any kind of influence. I mean, I think what that means in practice is that inevitably you end up being in the recruitment sphere because it's you're trying to get people in new jobs. And so we started out by just taking the talent from the community we built through our events and through the podcast and placing them in the founders that I was interviewing. But we saw that only solved, you know, a very small amount of the problem because really amazing people would get into the company, they wouldn't pass probation, or they wouldn't have as much impact as they wanted, or people just wouldn't be able to get into the jobs at all, even if they felt like they'd done everything right, going to the right university, you know, doing all the right experience. So there was a lot of mismatch going on there. And then we started to look like, what does upskilling look like? How does closing this skills gap actually look? And I think that took us on this whole journey of actually raising investment and, yeah, seeing if we could do it via a community and getting entrepreneurially minded people doing it by bootcamps, stuff like that, but realizing that basically the problem and the gap is it gets bigger and bigger the more you rabbit hole into it. And so right now we're in this very exciting position where we've actually been acquired by a bigger group called the Apprentify Group, which—

Congratulations.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, it essentially gives us the engine and just the— yeah, it makes it actual, like, somewhat viable dream to close this skills gap because they've built an industry-leading training and development engine with marketing, sales, leadership, data, AI across the whole span of what is important for an early talent to break into the world, whether that's commercial or government-funded training. We can add that to the hires that we're putting into these fast-growing businesses. Yeah, it's, uh, well, we're launching it very soon and, uh, I'm yet to see how the market reacts, but I'm very hopeful. And if I can't do it with this, I can't do anything.

So what was— so I remember speaking to you initially, and I mean, I think we just connected like speaking on LinkedIn, both having like a general curiosity about, you know, successful people and wanting to learn from them. You had a podcast as well, and so did I. Um, and I think we connected in, you know, 2023 when I started at Duke. Uh, and you kind of had this vision that you're going all in on and wanting to solve the career crisis. How How does it kind of look like in wanting to help everyone? Because I feel like with any business, there's an extent to which, you know, most people would say focus on a niche and expand out from there. So how have you found and why have you wanted to help everyone versus just focusing on a select few?

Yeah, I mean, truthfully, the reality is that we can't, like, you know, and that's something that this youthful naivety— a lot of great successful people, they often start with that youthful naivety and they refine it. And they try and keep hold of all the optimistic sides of, you know, being able to have influence on mass and ultimately have been net positive for as much as society. But the reality is, you know, you can't have any influence if you don't do— you don't, yeah, fulfill the function. I think, you know, don't try and grow wheat in a desert kind of thing. Yeah, you've got to go to fertile land, and that is what we've done. You know, the scale-up market is probably one of the most shining stars in what is quite a glib, you know, not very hopeful job market. There's huge amounts of investment in Europe now, it's a whole new momentum, and with that there's a whole new way to shape how that labor market matures. And I think it can be a lot more meritocratic, and you know, whilst you— we have this very like almost archaic filtration system of universities and, you know, the— I wouldn't say the problem in itself is the elitist nature of where top companies are poaching from, but it's more like they're not taking people for what they can now do. They're taking it for the badge that they now have, which I think is where I'm looking to have some influence in the way that we assess talent. If they've been to a great university, they've done all these incredible work experiences, then they should be able to show up in person and prove themselves on a day. But that's, that should be the marker. And yeah, I mean, honestly, that, that's, that's the people we can help. Can you turn up in person and show you're a culture fit? Yeah, prove your skills, give confidence, because that's what's valued in a workplace. And then we'll work backwards from there. We'll see how we can help improve the confidence of people who are to come.

I think it's been a very hard sort of broader dynamic, particularly in the UK. I mean, I remember when we first spoke and you had, you know, there was this problem and that being the labor market, you know, in the UK, but also, you know, the wider world looking at that. And I would argue, as I think you would as well, that it's almost got worse since then. And I think what makes it so hard to deal with and so hard to navigate is on the one hand, the stock markets like the S&P, for example, has performed unbelievably well in the last 2 years, 5 years, you know, even 10 years. So asset prices, you know, look at companies like Nvidia, startups backed that have the name AI in them, they're getting these unbelievably ridiculous valuations. But at the same time, companies aren't hiring the same amount of graduates as they would before. AI is kind of wiping out that junior level. And so there was an extent before in which, you know, even look at my parents' generation, you might not have had the school or the university, but you could go in, work your way out, work your way up, prove yourself, whereas that's a lot harder. I would actually argue, and I think something you've done really well, and I think I've done it well, and I think there's a few others that have done it as well through social media, is you have to differentiate yourself because companies these days don't just want people that have, you know, the same schools, the same resumes. And even if you don't have those schools, that's even more of a reason that you've got to be different. So in terms of having that, that main problem, you've done something you've done very well, which you talked about a little bit before, was this idea of generating community. And you've done collaborations with some of the biggest businesses on the planet. How did you go from having a podcast like mine to actually reaching out to big firms and instead of saying, hey, let me do a little, little project for you, we're going to collaborate and we're going to create an event together and this is going to help new recruits? How did you make that transition from a podcast to a community-based organization.

Yeah, well, it is interesting with, you know, the concept of differentiating yourself. I mean, you rightly said that you have differentiated yourself, what you've done. I would say, like, it's not because you've got hundreds of thousands of views and followers, but it's because you realize, you know, you're in your second year of university, you've been to these top universities, you're performing well, whatever, but You know, once you, once you like move even slightly away from everyone else, you're in the top 0.01%. And once you're there, like, I mean, how many people can speak from your own very unique lens on the topics and where you're coming from? And I think that's where these companies are attracted to you. And in my case, it wasn't really a case of reaching out and pushing things. In fact, like, I think bigger companies, it's actually hard to do it that way around, um, because even if you get it, they never really take you seriously, especially when talking about financials. And, you know, it's almost like, yeah, they would maybe fit you in. That's why, like, I mean, for me, with whether it was NatWest, you know, for through their entrepreneurship, or in the future helping them, all the NatWest businesses that have been through the accelerator, hiring them higher. That's Google Cloud helping with entrepreneurship events, LinkedIn getting a top voice badge on there. Like, this is all very much like a domino effect of, yes, in the beginning some companies, some brands have to give it like acknowledge your credibility, but once you've, once you've done that, like coupled with the fact that you're, yeah, you're speaking through a topic, on a topic, through a lens no one else can. It's just about consistency and momentum from there.

I think I ask, and I'll come back to that firm point, but I think I asked that question, I appreciate the compliment to myself, but more so from the point of how others can go about differentiating themselves. Because I think that not everyone wants to post on social media, but whether it be, you know, you get really good at an instrument or whether you run a marathon or do something different, I think people underappreciate how just doing one thing that makes them unique will put them so much more on top of the crowd. Because everyone's trying to get a good school, university, good grade, but how many people are actually doing something different? And I think that's something in this labor market, just by being slightly different can get you to the top of the pile.

Yeah, no, well said. And truthfully, like, the reason I took it down that, that direction is because that's, you know, I can only speak for what I've done in that sense, but that was based off where I like a general idea of where I wanted to go, which I think is the missing part in all of this is that, you know, let's say you want to go into one of the traditionally glamorous industries like, you know, the consulting, the banking, the law, like they are all getting incredibly competitive in their own right. And so you're going to have to stand out in your own way there and they might not appreciate, in fact, they almost definitely don't care about how many followers you have on LinkedIn, or, you know, the community events you put on. Like, but for me, that's what I was interested in. For them, I think, you know, in this market, it's really about being able to objection handle. And, you know, if someone says, I don't think you can do that, like, how, how many times have you done that thing before, or done something around that, that gives you the confidence to go there's absolutely no way that you can't tell me that I could at least give myself the best opportunity within your company of hitting the ground running and providing value as quickly as possible. Because that's where companies are pulling back at the moment, is going like, well, there's so many people applying to us, or we're so, um, there's so few jobs that we actually even need to hire for that if you're not providing value instantaneously, we'll just go someone starting more experienced. And so they can do that. So the graduate has to, they have to be a lot harder on themselves and not be reliant on grad schemes and try and upskill themselves or look for ways they can upskill themselves beforehand.

I saw an interview with Jeff Bezos a few days ago, and I found it, he made a very interesting point, which was, if you look at the older generations, you know, people that are now, you know, 70, 80 years old, in the point in time where they were at with the rate of innovation, things would change at, you know, a year. So say that's like the base case is a year. Whereas now in 2025 with, you know, NFTs and cryptocurrency and now AI and some new AI development, the rate at which a year was, you know, 50, 60 years ago is now 11 days is what Jeff Bezos was saying. And so we're at a point where people have to add so much value so quickly with such a high rate of change that you almost have to guess and predict what you would need to learn now for the future. And I think that's a struggle for most people because before you could get a job and work your way up through an organization and these skills would sort of be given to you, whereas now the people at the top don't even know what skills you'll need in a year or so. You know, like even content creators and social media people 5, 6 years ago, they'd get paid a salary, you know, in the US of maybe $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 a year, whereas now you see many startups offering $250,000, $300,000 a year and calling it user-generated content because these are actually driving the marketing for the brands. You know, people like, you know, writing, writing ChatGPT, uh, requests. Who would have thought of that? So I think it's about trying to predict ahead. So on that point, you know, you've been acquired, you've got more, more money, more— a bigger backing of someone else, and you've still got this vision. What does that vision look like now when you've got the monetary backing, when you've got name backing? And also, how are you going to use that to enable people throughout the UK to upskill themselves?

Yeah, so I'm very grateful for the bootstrapping period because it makes you do things and behave in a way that you just never would with venture capital or investment. I mean, I think everyone should get a taste of it because, you know, the results, especially in terms of a marketer, is an amazing thing. Like, you know, We never spent anything on marketing, and yet we're able to get thousands and thousands of people applying to our events. And that's really, you know, it's almost how it should be, you know, that organic nature of wanting to consume something or wanting to attend something. So in that sense, not much changes in terms of what we're going to be, you know, with the Graduate Guide still existing as a community, but it really is what it what it's set out to be and nothing more. It's going to be a guide for graduates. It's going to be a place where, you know, whether you are entrepreneurially minded and you want to build your own thing, or you are interested in startups, or you are interested right now, you're like, I'm definitely going to go into banking, but you saw one speaker that there is an event of, or you saw one free upskilling course that the government is funding, that we're offering. You can come into this place, you know, at whatever point you are in the university and get mixed up in this, you know, very diverse place with very different offerings and end up in the right place. And whether that is with one of the companies we're working with in our new brand Caliber or not, the point is, is giving people that. Yeah. Offering malleability in real time in their career while they're at university, not just having to be reliant on what your society is putting on, but instead every day being able to dip your toe into whatever or wherever your curiosity takes you. And so that's very much how I'm approaching the candidate side. Like, I feel like there's a whole new freedom in the nature of the partnerships we can do, you know, the backing, the funding, like It really is all for the candidate or the student. And then looking at Caliber, I mean, the big, the big part is, is it's going to be education of, of companies of what we really are offering. It is a gamble, like with anything, but essentially apprenticeships as a word, people quite easily glaze over. And I think this is almost like historical cultural, and, you know, like, it's, uh, the, you know, it's the, the lacemaker apprentice. It's, you know, the guys, uh, you know, helping their, their son, uh, you know, get a bit of experience at the mill or whatever like that. That's kind of like where people think apprenticeships originated from. But how they've been positioned by the government in recent years, while there's huge, huge amounts of investment into it, especially in technical and AI-led skills, is upskilling for your team that is paid for by the government. And if it's done by an amazing provider, like a lot of companies don't get positioned that way and they don't make the most of it. And they don't, you know, a lot of companies see, they live and die by their talent. And if their talent isn't, you know, starting, if they aren't starting to look at succession planning, you know, what happens when that manager goes on or that leadership person steps down and your early talent isn't rising through. These scale-ups, let's take Deliveroo, as they mature, how are they going to continue to be this company that is growing and being innovative? Or yes, they need to bring in high-caliber early talent and they need to be able to assess them and they need to be able to do that with speed, but they also need to be able to continuously develop them, assess them, and train them. To make sure that, yeah, the company is growing with all the best bits of how corporates work in terms of structure and, you know, the integrity and the safety of the business and how it's built, but not losing the startup experimental nature. And so, yeah, whether it's commercially or through government funding, our USP is not— is going to be more than just recruitment. It's going to be about the whole people function and how we can help the leadership make the most of the talent that they're bringing in.

There's a somewhat— I liked all the different parts that you mentioned there, and I'm going to break them down one by one. The first one being what you finish with, and that's being the early talent. I think that's something that companies forget, is sure, you might be able to save on costs for the lowest salaried people in the business by getting rid of all the junior talent and using AI, but what happens to your associate VP, director, etc., when, you know, you haven't got anyone there? You're going to just try and recruit people from other firms, and even so, they haven't been brought up in the way that suits your culture, suits suits the way that you do things. And so there's a very important thing that it might actually be worth paying a premium, that being the expense it costs to hire a junior worker versus paying for AI, because that you need someone to go high up the ranks. Maybe you need to hire less people, but you still need junior people in the business. I actually saw, uh, something interesting from Jensen Hong, who's the CEO of NVIDIA, and he was saying that AI is now used by everyone in NVIDIA. and I think he spends $2 billion a year on AI, but they've also saved, uh, $2 billion in AI through the same thing. But it goes to show that, you know, if they're not also focusing on people, you don't hear people talking about people and junior employees anymore. In 5, 10 years' time, that's gonna have a major negative impact. I also liked what you said with regard to apprenticeships. So I think JP Morgan is actually, um, a very good figurehead. You know, Jamie Dimon was recently at their Bournemouth campus over the past week. And he's committed to over £300 million in developing their business. And I think something like, please check this yourself if you're listening, between £30 and £40 million investing in young talent throughout the UK. And apprenticeships, you know, when you're hearing it from a brand like JPMorgan, you know, obviously, you know, high finance, some of the best people, if they're also focusing on apprenticeships in the UK, it goes to show just how key and how important apprenticeships are. Separate point that you made was your focus on curiosity. I actually think curiosity is some— a lot of things— well, something that a lot of people lose as they go from childhood to adolescence and becoming an adult. You know, when you're young, you're looking at Disney films, and you know, you're— you have all these dreams of what life could be. But then there's almost a switch when people get to university and leave it, where you go from having all these clubs, having all these activities, to suddenly like, I have to get a job and that's all I am. I think what differentiates the good from the great is the good, you know, pursue their jobs and pursue their work, but the great pursue other things, or even they pursue other things that add on to their work. I think it's having that spark for life and that willingness to keep trying new things that makes you great. It's even like with your business, right? You had this idea for The Graduate Guide, you start a podcast, then you transition to more community-based things, and then you get acquired, and who knows what you do next. But if you didn't have that curiosity to constantly adapt, you wouldn't know what happened.

So yeah, um, Well, I think, you know, but my new media piece is actually kind of on this concept of what's understanding ambition. And I think curiosity, ambition, high agency, entrepreneurial, like these words are losing their meaning or their spark, you know, the redundancy of almost like the saturation of how much it's used out of context and people learning it for themselves. Is a problem. And I think, you know, for example, curiosity— this is like, it's a problem that people aren't living with it more, and it stems from the lack of boredom, you know. It stems from the inability to be bored and, you know, and then daydream, you know. Daydreaming is one of the most underrated things, and it's— I think everyone loves to do it but never like crosses that threshold because of the immediate serotonin hit they can get from opening their phone. I think that's where it's like being— trying to be very, very conscientious of your ambition and what you need to do to get there. And, and that isn't always just about like, you know, throwing yourself at the wall continually, but it's also not always about, you know, just sitting back and relaxing and letting, letting it happen. And so there's a fine line in there where you get to blend the creative curiosity and the hard work and delayed gratification, um, in order to, you know, reach your ambitions.

I think I would argue that broccoli— boredom is the broccoli of life. You know, I like broccoli, a lot of people don't like broccoli, but you have to get your greens in in order to progress. And I, I never really understood the importance of boredom. This is going to sound a little weird, but I do a lot of my thinking in the shower. Like, I'll just like go in the shower and then I kind of just like daze out. Like, I'll have a cold shower and then I have a hot shower and I'll just kind of like spend my time thinking because that's one of the only times I've done my phone on me getting constant emails, text messages, WhatsApps, Instagram, Snapchat, news, you know, incessant, just everything hitting you at once. And it's, it's also, you know, when you go for a walk or go to the gym or whatever it is, you need those times of just not getting new information and actually processing the information you already have in order to progress. I would argue that, you know, in the next 10 years as AI gets continually more developed and we have access to even more trillions of data points of information, it's not going to be new information that enables you to differentiate yourself. It's your ability to differentiate and to pick out what is the key and important piece of information and what is noise. And I think being an interpreter of that, because an AI model can't actually stop, you know, all of this information, there is an extent to which, you know, ChatGPT can be trained and stuff, but it doesn't have that critical thinking element that we as humans have. So I think that's a key point that we can have moving forward.

And not even that, you know, not just, uh, interpretation, like even consumption as a concept versus like enabling creativity. I don't know if you've seen the recent Sora advert and launch, but you know, it was refreshing to see, you know, OpenAI actually like pushing forward marketing in a way that it's like unleash your creativity in the brain and the places you can rabbit hole and the way you produce things rather than just like consume the end result, you know, fall in love with the process a bit more with it. And I think, you know, that is— it's important that we start setting that narrative sooner because, you know, again, if we're not careful, that's where the skills gap will be, is people knowing how to create a shortcut without understanding the process. So it's about inputs and outputs, like, that's where the skills gap is going to start getting very scary.

It's hard because a lot of things that we'd have to do in our lives, you know, trying to stay fit, exercise, get a job, you know, transport, whatever it is, all of these things are quote-unquote problems. Like, it takes effort to actually go and lift up a weight in the gym or to do a piece of work or to go into a library and find some specific, specific piece of information. But it's the actual work itself which trains you to become the person you are, you know, like you could put a Neuralink in your head right now and it could tell you pretty much anything and you'd probably be 5 times smarter, but it would completely, I believe, you know, don't quote me on this, entertainment purposes only, don't sue me. I believe that it would completely erode away what it means to be human, what it takes to think, what it takes to even have a breath away from, you know, a second away from all of this incessant information. And so I actually think ironically that the more we have AI, increased digitalization, increased autonomous robots and technology, that's actually going to be even more reason to connect with nature, to become more human, to step away from technology.

Well, they think it's crazy that like simultaneously to this all happening, we're pedestaling social media voices that previously had, you know, like previously would have been your politician, you know, speaking on your BBC News, and that would be like the, the oracle of how we, you know, we as a nation choose to consume things, or, you know, it would be very like prescriptive. And now it's like people are the voice and the influence of, you know, crazy, crazy important decisions for years to come. It's going to be in the hands of, you know, the most influential voices online. And I think like, I think people aren't really thinking enough about how important it is we pick those people correctly. Like in this time. I mean, maybe they don't even know, like, you know, you take someone like Steven Borat, for example, like obviously he's given himself this huge platform and voice and, you know, I think generally most people would, whether you love him or you don't quite get on with him, you'd appreciate that he has good intentions and his curiosity to hear from as many different people, right? And he's not closed off to just like his political party or whatever it used to be. But I think, you know, we, we do need to just— I don't know, people would have to start thinking about what they want to consume more intentionally because I think that's going to dictate where you and your small bubble or your influence can go.

I've never, I've never actually heard of that before, and I appreciate you saying that because I've only ever thought of the influences that we have in the world as having a direct impact on myself and the people around me. So for example, I've got an 11-year-old sister and I wouldn't want her to go about consuming, you know, really dangerous political content or, you know, really graphic content or whatever it may be. You know, I'd want there to be some form of age restriction. I remember even when, you know, Donald Trump was getting in power, she was telling me like all of the news of the day, and like, that's cool, but I don't think a 9, 10-year-old girl needs to know everything that's going on in the world. And so I have only ever thought about it from a perspective of what are we consuming, how does it impact our brains, but actually I like your perspective to that. The politicians that previously had a voice through more, you know, central-based media, you know, whether the BBC or Sky News or ITV or whatever it is, like state-backed media or these big media enterprises, when actually it's the individuals, influencers, who are now going to have the influence. But I never thought about the, the third layer, which is we are choosing these influencers that gain impact. Every like, every share, every comment, every piece of consumption. The amount of— sorry, excuse my language— bullshit which I see on people's Instagram feeds, which are funny, sure, but you're promoting the wrong people because it goes from a transitional point to what's funny today of influence. You know, even like, you know, take someone like Jake Paul, right? Another, I'd say, way more controversial figure than someone like Stephen Bartlett, and he probably promotes controversy to gain views, but he started off, you know, fucking around doing crazy stuff online, but at the same time he has a VC fund. He's seen as one of the biggest and most successful entertainers of all time. He's one of the highest earning boxers of all time. And so they go from this point of sort of a joke to someone that actually gains credibility. So I think we have to be increasingly serious about what we consume, as you said, not just because of how it impacts our lives, but actually how it goes back and impacts the real world.

Yeah, yeah, crazy stuff.

So now that we've talked a bit about, you know, the impact of social media on the real world, I've noticed that you've made, despite wanting to help everyone with the Graduate Guide, you've made more of a transition from kind of helping everyone in terms of like on everything. So you're helping everyone with the graduates, but you're now focusing more on founders, VC, you know, startups within the UK. I saw one of your recent LinkedIn posts was message me if you want to connect with any of these people, any of these VC firms. Could you talk a little bit about how this whole— you're also a venture scout, I know, I was messaging you about that the other day. Could you talk a little bit about how you got more involved in this sort of VC space, you know, how you interact with VCs, how you build this network, and how you plan on engaging with entrepreneurs and VCs moving forward?

Yeah, well, I think like the— it's funny with this world because like in, in the negative way of accessing it is that it's a very small, close-knit world. And then the positive about accessing it is that it's a small, close-knit world. So if you can get like one or two of theirs attention, be that through outbound or inbound, people take notice very quickly. I've seen it with— I live with a guy called Luke Knight and his co-founder Rowan Chambers. In the last— basically like 2 months ago, they decided they wanted to create the TVPN of Europe and launch the European Tech Network. Within a month with very minimal pre-existing network, raised a huge amount of investment from top angels like in the world and VCs, sponsorship to be on their show. And, and like, it was crazy to just see how— I mean, I haven't done it on any kind of scale like theirs or any kind of intensity or speed, but once you give them something exciting to latch on to It's that they are the kind of people that are very bullish and just like, you know, they'll give you that opportunity and they'll let you run with it. And, you know, even if that's not— I mean, I actually think, you know, I wouldn't take VC money for the Graduate Guide, for example, because it would be the death of it. It requires a much more cultivated, expert-led approach, and VCs aren't really infamous for that. They might claim they have ecosystem, and they'll give you huge amounts of money, but they'll also give you huge growth targets. And if you're not performing, you know, sorry, but that's the game. So I think, you know, how do you get into the world? I think you have to be conscious of why you want to get into it, from what position. Using VC investment doesn't necessarily mean you're in the ecosystem or world. It just means you've been given a rocket ship and you're going to see how quickly, whether you can hold on to it. For me, you know, I've taken a lot, you know, step by step sort of migrated into this world. You know, you mentioned being a Venture Scout, like eWAR has grown sort of with me since I've been in there. Like they're now sort of rejecting people that are getting into YC. You know, I got through my email the other day and it's like they're, they really are finding and developing the best talent in Europe and to, to be part of that brand and that journey has been incredible to watch. And then, you know, there's obviously loads of other VCs that I've interviewed or done collaborative events with. But yeah, I mean, like, of course it's full of impressive people and it's glitzy and it's glamorous. It's the new investment banking almost of the olden days. But at the same time, I think my general experience is that they've all been pretty normal people. That are just like, you know, they are all the doers, you know. They are all those kids at school that were able to sort of still be cool but go to, you know, music practice, you know, rehearse for the play, and then play in the first team football game because they were just doing— like, they were just doing all the time. But they, you know, like, in a cool way. Like, I was always in awe of those people. I don't think that was myself at school. This is— the world just collects those people. And so there's an element of like, you know, focusing on what you can do now instead of just trying to wedge yourself in there and, you know, get to speak to someone at the end of a conference or whatever and ask them some questions. Like, start just exuding the qualities on a day-to-day, not just like a tick box CV level. And I think, you know, you can, you can always get in there. Like, it is possible.

I'm gonna bring a few different ideas across. One of my first podcasts with a guy called Nick Wheeler, founded the shirt company called Charles Tyrwhitt, and a really big piece of advice that I took away from him and have since focused on my podcast. And, you know, even with my recent growth and consistency, you know, that's not really my major goal. My major goal is just to keep doing this for as long as possible, to connect with as many great people as possible, democratize the knowledge of the world's best, right? It's not really, uh, I get to a point and it just stops. I keep going. I would argue that when I first started the podcast, there was a want to get to, you know, 1,000 subscribers and, you know, gain money and gain following and etc. But it's actually by doing the opposite of that that I have gained following and gained money, etc. Like, I've started to gain money and gain following at the point in time when I don't really care about it, um, to an extent, in terms of, you know, I've got an internship at Goldman Sachs next summer. Like, I've got my own sort of career coming up. This is more of a side, side thing. And the piece of advice that he gave me was the thing that he used when he was building Charles Tyrwhitt was not like a VC, like exactly what you said, the rocket ship. It was if you simply outlast your competitors, then you win. You know, I wrote a small LinkedIn post the other day. I was like, if you never quit, you never lose, like you're going to win. And it's simply that people will only do a thing for a certain period of time. And it's even like with ourselves, right? You know, I would not argue that I'm top 0.00001%. If you put me on some metric, right? You know, am I the best quant trader? Am I the best speaker? Probably not. I mean, I hope I am, but probably not. But simply how many people in the world are actually trying to trade, trying to start a podcast, posting on social media? Probably not, not 1%. So simply by just outlasting and doing the thing, you are in that category. And the next thing that I wanted to argue was— not argue, but say— was that point of influence in that small circle. Like even meeting yourself, for example. We got that just simply by posting on LinkedIn. And then there's another friend of mine called James Frost, who I think you also know. And then there's even the, the two founders, your roommates. I messaged them separately on LinkedIn. I had no idea that they knew you. And I'm hoping at some point that they come on my podcast. So it's just interesting.

That can be arranged.

It's interesting how you get all these people, right? Like, you just by doing the thing, you simply outlast everyone else. And I want to link that—

you know what, sir, just, just quickly on that, you know, listen to you talk with— I think the enthusiasm for what you're saying is the key there, right? Because I mean, there are things that you like— the LinkedIn caption, what did you say? It was, you know, if you don't quit, you can't lose. Like, people have probably seen that, like, you know, on an Instagram quote, and they've kind of gone, yeah, that means nothing to me, and they've dismissed it, and they've probably even, like, you know, bottled it, thrown it away for life because they're like, oh, means nothing to me right now. But I think it's that it's never been more important to be obsessive over why there is wisdom in these, like, quotes.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, what's the, uh, why, why did somebody with influence say that and people loved it in the beginning before it became that thing that you've heard so many times and you— it's cringe and whatever? Like, how can you make it have meaning to yourself? And, you know, now you're saying it without enthusiasm because you're living it. Like, you're living the proof of it. And, you know, this is where people— again, it's about sphere of influence, bring it back to that. It's like your, your consumption of it more. And like, you know, the best thing about podcasts, I've always said, is being able to ask people that you sufficiently respect questions that you need to know the answer at a time that you need to hear it most. You know, it's the— it's that, you know, feedback loop. It's like, as you grow, it's like, how can you shorten that feedback loop.

I really like how you're breaking everything down. I think, you know, that feedback loop and spheres of influence point alongside the, the influencers are going to be the leaders of tomorrow are two things that I really like. Going back to your, to your roommates, um, you know, starting the European Technology Network, I saw they went to the House of Lords the other day, and there's kind of this broader scope. I think some other people, obviously there's Harry Stebbings, who is probably one of the biggest people in the space, you know, he's got a $600 million fund. I saw you were interviewing his brother July earlier this year through A Walk Through the Park. I was listening to some of that, um, before this alongside— there's another guy, I think he's called like Seb Johnson, but I might be getting that wrong, and he started Scaling Europe.

Yeah, look at that, look at that.

I'm getting everyone that you, uh, you've been on. What do you think like needs to happen for Europe to succeed in the VC landscape, right? I'm seeing all these people pop up. I think Harry Stebbings was the first sort of titan to break through. We're seeing, you know, your roommates with the European Technology Network. What needs to happen? What's going to happen? And what will this look like in 10 years' time when this becomes more of a thing versus, you know, the sprouts of something?

Yeah, well, I'm going to preface this by saying that, you know, I don't know, I'm by no means any expert on this. And there's people that will be able to give you far more practical answers to how this can all happen. But I think, like, you know, the voice that I want to have in this, and, you know, with this new media piece, Understanding Ambition, you know, part of it is wanting to attune my online reputation to being able to have a say. Like, previously I was very entrenched in the world of graduates because I was a lost, confused history student when I started, and, you know, my voice kind of— it rose before the other things did. So, you know, I've I wasn't a successful business person and I wasn't knowledgeable about these things and I wasn't in this world. And so you do become quite entrenched in it. And I think for me, when I was weighing up like, you know, Seb, they're going very much on the, how can we build hype around the numerical side of it? You know, the numbers there, how can we start rivaling the US and removing friction and trusting founders and giving them the keys a bit more? For me, I think it's, it's more about like, I want to extrapolate the entrepreneurial ambition and help ambition work for them, as I call it, the man on the clap, mom and boss, your average Joe. How can you help people relearn their relationship with ambition so that we can, you know, widen our net, you know, increase the surface area?

Can I just jump in there? Because I feel like something you spoke about last podcast and now is helping everyone. Why do you feel so motivated to help the average Joe? Like, just to like add on to that point, like you're meeting the best VCs, the best founders on the planet. You have the opportunity to probably make a ton of money with all these people, but yet you still have this higher purpose and higher calling to help everyone. Why is that?

That's a good question. You know what, you know what it is, Harvey? It's because I know for a fact that there'll be people that would have looked at me in a different period of my life have said that I'm an unambitious person. I would have been typecast as that, and that was, you know, it wasn't because the ambition didn't exist. In fact, it was— I think it's, you know, it's innate within, within us, but it was either, you know, through escapist measures it was, it was led astray, uh, or it was bottled up, or it was cloned to fit in societally. And I think, you know, for me, like, I I still feel in a lot of ways like if you are going to use the term imposter syndrome, it's the, it's the fact that I'm, there's so little separating me from those prior selves. You know, I think I spoke a lot more about my, my previous lives in the first podcast we did and, and my, my childhood and everything like that. And I think, you know, it is wild how people can lose that individual quality of themselves and their individuals. And then, and I think I really am optimistic about how many people are untapped resource. And I think it's beyond that, on a more macro scale, it's important that we don't just focus on the trailblazers and that we, you know, there's people speaking for the ones that are teetering in between, uh, you know. And I think, yeah, there's a lot of good that can come from bringing as many people into this ecosystem as possible.

By, by the nature of statistics, no matter if even if you bring up the bottom 50, 70, 80, 90%, there will still be someone in number 1 and someone in number 100. How do you balance personal ambition with helping everyone?

Ah, uh, myself.

Yeah, because you, you feel very strongly you want to help people, but you've still got your own career path. You've left university in the last 2 to 3 years. You're building your own business, The Graduate Guide, you know, it's just been acquired. You've got 25,000 followers on LinkedIn, 26,000 followers on LinkedIn, and you're LinkedIn Top Voice. Like, your own career, like, if I was to bet on you, you're going to do very well. So how do you balance the personal ambition, the growth, the potential, the opportunities that you have with helping the masses?

But I mean, it kind of is that, right? It's the, you know, I feel like the momentum has been set. Like, you know, there's an inevitability about I feel an inevitability about my career. And so, you know, if I have that already at my disposal, you know, it's what room do I have access for? And I think, you know, you can't become too overly consumed with trying to help everyone. And that's why I said with our business, it's not what we're doing. It's not pragmatic. It's not conducive for success, you know, for, you know, a business that's actually producing a product, right? But as a voice, I think the voices can be far more malleable in that sense, and they can transcend a bit more. So, you know, like, I'm not trying to— I don't intend to, you know, add anything to my repertoire that I'm not actually able to deliver in practice. But, you know, that is almost the ambition itself. Like, how can you raise the ambition from the line that you're already you know, riding. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you can call it that. I don't really know what it is, to be honest, like, but it's— yeah, it's, it's— it all just comes down to back to my, my own personal feeling about myself. I just don't feel particularly special. I just feel like I have been doing more unadulteratedly, more vicarity through my own lens for longer than most. And I don't think there's huge amounts in that other than like, you know, maybe a bit financial support and stability to give me that time, which I would also like to support. The bottom percentiles, like, that's one way of putting it, but you know, the ones that haven't quite found their way to crack into the top 10%, like, I think, yeah, that's the balancing act. And, you know, I'm willing to get that wrong because wrong doesn't look so bad.

I, I like this. There's two points within that in terms of, you know, I call it higher purpose. You just, you call it whatever you call it or don't call it. Yeah, but I think that innately you still have— and this was one of the key things that we both agreed upon as being one of the best things in order to get a successful career in 2025— and that is having curiosity and being differentiated. And I think that innately you have it inbuilt in that by wanting to help the masses, something that most people don't want to do, or at least don't spend their time doing, you're both differentiated and curious and unique. And so, you know, you're going after the thing that most people aren't looking at, but you also have the added passion element. You know, the Good to Great thing— another difference is a lot of people just do the role, but it's when you're spending the extra hours thinking about it, doing it, improving, obsessing over it that's when you find that key edge. I actually, I, I can't remember who this was from, but I saw another interesting post earlier today with regard to startups, and they were saying that— I think it was from the All In podcast— and they were basically saying when businesses go about, you know, building their business, the businesses that try and steal from larger competitors aren't going to succeed as well. But actually, when they're going about expanding the whole market, they do very well. And I think that's something that you're trying to do because you're not going after some big recruitment website or thing and saying, all right, you guys, this is a better product. It's actually to say, all right, you guys, you know, you know, bottom percentile, or, you know, that's actually a really horrible way of talking about it. You guys that, you know, want— aren't currently achieving as well but want to, or don't have this— have this thing inside you that needs to be reignited, come and listen, or come and learn from, or come and interact with The Graduate Guide, and will help to— hope to and help to reignite that fire for you to get back on track and to, you know, achieve the goals that you're supposed to do. So I wanted to add that because I think that by pursuing what you want to do, you'll actually help yourself.

Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, like, this part of it is, you know, I think it's really hard to continually play in this very— there's a lot of weight and pressure in playing amongst the people that exist within that top percentile because, you know, like, there's this friction that comes with that. And I think, like, by surrounding yourself with different people and different voices and having that social chameleon ability to liaise with people and bring out, bring out different sides of people whether they exude it or not, like, I think that it gives me, you know, helps feed into my ability to— yeah, like it's a differentiation thing. It's a motivating factor. So yeah, I'd never want to lose it.

You also said something else earlier in the podcast where you list something along the lines of you do podcasts when there's something that you really want to learn from. And I think something that you're an expert at, literally by being a LinkedIn Top Voice, is LinkedIn. I would argue that LinkedIn is at a similar phase as TikTok in 2020. —at the level of virality combined with the level of impact. I mean, I would argue it's even stronger than TikTok because of the impact level. I would love if you could dissect what it takes to create a strong LinkedIn post, because I think many people listening will have an idea for a thing, whether it be, um, a cancer charity run or a new book they're trying to launch, or people they want to connect with, or message that they want to share, but they don't have the correct framework doing so, whether it be their level of writing, use of emojis, use of bold text. I'd love if you could quite literally just dissect what it takes to create a high-performing LinkedIn post for those that are listening. Yeah.

Well, I mean, for starters, I think like you have to detach yourself from the guru nature of content creation and the prescriptive nature of like playbooks and all that kind of stuff. You mentioned sort of bolding text and making it more aesthetic. For me, that purely is just an ability to, you know, like a human instinct of how you consume things. And somewhere that I think potentially the platform is, you know, a little bit like further behind and, you know, compared to like reading books or emails or whatever, like people like to break that up so you can consume it better on there. Why are they not doing it on LinkedIn? Whereas, yeah, I don't know, like for me it's being very intentional with why you're making the post in the beginning and being very intentional about what success would look like from that post. When I'm making one that I am purposely trying to get as many eyes on as possible, I'm decreasing the word count. I'm making it way more, way quicker to get to the actual like value out of the post, whether that's like a call to action of, you know, comment and I'll give you the link to our community or the event or a resource that they previously didn't know but clearly want access to versus like, you know, the thought leadership and the, you know, giving yourself that online reputation and that ability to speak.

And the thought leadership, so they're all making a post that attempts to have more nuance and more depth to it. Uh, it's, it's about broadcasting your ambitions en masse so that when you go into a room in real life, you have that online reputation that precedes you, and it allows you to cut the small talk and get to the juicy stuff way quicker. Like, you know, yes, there's a lot of vanity associated with, you know, the numbers and engagement that you get, but I mean, truthfully, like, that doesn't actually do anything to move your career forward or move anyone else's I think a lot of it happens in the conversations that we're having now or in person. And I think it's probably the underrated thing of creating content online is what it does for you and making your in-person conversations more natural. I think like one of the reasons why I really move away from AI posts and try and write in my authentic, quite clunky at times tone of voice is that I think people just feel that much less intimidated or that much more confident to speak vulnerably in person and actually say what they think. So I think there's no way of— I could give you some very generic growth hacks that you could probably just search into ChatGPT now and it might tell you about the time you can post or the word count or all these kind of things. But when people should be commenting and how quickly you should be replying to them. Of course that side to it, but you know, the important thing to understand is why you're doing it in the first place, because that's what, you know, if you don't have that, you don't outlast the other people and you don't benefit from the— you can't— if you don't quit, you don't lose.

I saw a clip of Simon Squibb. It now sounds like I spend all my time on social media, which isn't true, but I saw a clip of Simon Squibb. I actually think it was his editor on a podcast. I think he's called Cameron— Callum McDonald, I think is his name. And he is basically like scaling like an editing business. I don't know how good he is or isn't, but he was interviewing one of Simon Scribb's, like, his head of TikTok. Um, and he was basically saying that when Simon Scribb does a video, they'll post it the same day they put it out because of that law of intentionality. Like, I think that with social media, and this is something I've tried to focus on more so now, is I think people forget that you're actually speaking to real people. So I think that there's an authentic element that when you have a goal of a post— so for you, that would be you have an event coming up, you want as many people to see it because you want as many people to get value out the event. There is an intentionality behind that because you're genuinely saying, hey, this event is going to be great, we're going to have awesome speakers, this is going to help you. And so you want it to get as many people as possible. You say comment to share out to your network, and that level of intentionality and realism is, I think, what drives those posts for forward. Of course, there are the ultra-clipped, ultra-AI, ultra-edited MrBeast-type content which will do well if you have the right team behind you. But I think there's a human element as well which drives incredible growth. And I've, I've also noticed that myself. I did a, I did a post the other day with regard to, you know, I just fundamentally disagree with most people dropping out of university. I think that unless you have such high conviction, such high backing, such high revenue and growth, you shouldn't drop out of university. Because, you know, university— you know, if you don't go to university, fine, but if you do choose to go to university and invest in that, I think you should finish it. Because I think it is an amazing badge to show what you can do, but it also tells other people you can do that as well. But I think particularly in the US, a lot of people are dropping out. So I made a post basically saying that I disagree with a lot of people dropping out of university. I think there's a lot of value to be gained in it. And at the same time, there was this this big viral launch of this AI startup called Siris. It's been backed by like $3.6 million in funding to Yale undergraduate students who have decided to stay in university. I made this post like a day after that, and I think whether it be the wave but also the mode of people looking for that type of content, I think the post got like 50,000 views or something like that, which is quite a lot. And I had a profound amount of intentionality behind that. It wasn't, oh, I saw this post, let me say about it was I have a genuine belief that I want to share, that you should stay in university. I think it's stupid that so many people drop out, and I want to share that voice. So yeah, I just wanted to share that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, um, no, I think, I mean, it's, it's been, it's been fascinating to watch your journey and the way you're going about it. And, you know, I think you're, um, yeah, you're, you're making, you're making your, your own voice and, and your own, I know, yeah, your own playbook as you go along. And I think Yeah, like it just reinforces the point that there is no one way to do it. There's no one cadence. And I think it's, you've got to adapt it to what you're looking to even get out of in that moment of maybe that week or that month or this position that you are in your career. Like, and remembering that, like, it's, you know, it's all compounding. It's a digital footprint that you're creating. So, you know, it's not, it's not all about reach. Is also, yeah, it's, it's purely like a compounding effect of the amount of times you've said something and your ability to say that you're not bullshitting about your interest in a topic when someone, when it comes about having a conversation with somebody.

Uh, and, uh, call with a guy, um, who's also got a podcast similar to my size earlier today, and we both agreed on the point that the key metric of success for us is not the amount of views, followers, or level of engagement. It's actually the people that we meet both on and off the screen. It's the connections that you create alongside that. And I don't think that's just to say, oh, go start a podcast, you'll meet amazing people. But I think that's when you live a life with intentionality towards a common goal or purpose, you will find other people on that path. And I think there's something so special to be said about that because I, I keep saying this, I said, and I posted the other day and talked about my last 100th episode podcast, my dad says, "Put good things into the world and good things will happen." Because I think when you literally just say, you know, you put your cards on the table, I'm working towards building something great, the right people will come and find you. Absolutely, yeah.

No, it's exciting, to be honest. Like, I couldn't imagine building a career without it. You know, it's such an amazing thing that our generation has. But, you know, it's also, you know, it's also a cause of evil. And, you know, and it's— you have to be so intentional about your consumption and the people around you that you choose to take advice from. So, you know, I think it's good surfacing these topics on your podcast and getting people to think about it. But, you know, people are only going to learn so much from from hearing it beyond the fact that they've got to then go put it into practice and actually talk to other people about it and see which, which views and voices work for them. Because I can't possibly be that for everyone, and nor can you.

I saw another really good piece of advice that I got was only take advice from people that you want to be like. And I think I'm definitely someone that often fails with that, because when I get some amazing opportunity or hear about a thing, I want to ask everyone. Even that being my parents, my siblings, you know, my friends. But if they're not, you know, in that position of having started a business or having worked at a bank or, you know, having worked as a plumber or doctor or lawyer or whatever it is, you can't— you shouldn't ask people that haven't done that thing how to improve on that thing. And I think that's such a key piece of wisdom. So like, for example, for example, with yourself, in your— one of your core goals and key missions to be to democratize the knowledge of people, to help, to help reignite the flame in people to become their best selves in their careers. Someone like us and someone like myself, I would only have an amount of wisdom on that, and maybe there is smart advice I could give on careers, but maybe someone at LinkedIn would be a lot better at being able to look at the actual statistics, or speaking to people at educational charities, for example. That's a very niche point, but the point is to say that I find, I find a lot of value in asking people that done things. And it's not just about the advice you take in, but also the advice that you choose not to listen to, because everything that everyone says informs your opinions, informs who you are and who you become. Yeah, exactly that.

No, nothing to add. Can I—

Peter, I want to ask one more question on the LinkedIn thing. And I know you gave that key point on intentionality, but kind of going to the minute details, I had 3 like sub-questions on that before going on to broader question to close out. Something I've noticed you do is you have like, you're able to like bold text on the platform. You also have like really small writing. Like, how do you do that? How do you go about planning your posts? Like, do you have, I want to do, you know, one big reach post and one more like focus post a week? And do you, is there any focus on using the words you instead of saying I on your posts? Because a lot of people, you know, want things to be be directed at them versus hearing from yourself. So it was just, how do you bold text and do small writing? How do you go about coming up with ideas and planning? And how do you go about using you versus I?

Yeah, so the first one's very easy to answer. It's something you can pay for called OfferUp, and it's great. Beyond just the, the bolding, it gives you a way more comprehensive overview of your analytics. And especially like for myself, you know, that gets brand deals and stuff like that now, like it allows you to, yeah, show your influence beyond just like impressions and engagements, put it into a more like wider map. The creation side of it, you know, my girlfriend didn't appreciate it too much at one point where I was very obsessive over putting it out, putting a post out every single day and coming up with something in the evening. And, you know, and I don't think that was particularly healthy. I mean, I don't regret doing it, but like, it made me have to like look for things so much, like, you know, that I could speak on, or, you know, scrolling through my photo album to see if there's anything that prompted, you know.

I do the same thing. Yeah.

And like, you know, it— there is, there, there is value to doing that. But I think for now, especially in this point that I feel a lot more like I've proven myself, it's more— a lot of it comes from being in the built environment, just genuinely being— it's like people watching, but for everything, right? I find it hard, bar articles that sometimes I listen to or YouTube videos that I watch. I think a lot of it is either from conversations that I'm having or just observations or even feelings. Latching on to your own feelings that you're having throughout a day. If I'm— if I feel very like, uh, if I feel— well, if I feel like very euphoric, like I want to try and channel that into some kind of post or channel that into some kind of action that could give me something to post about, you know. And similarly, like, if I'm feeling quite shitty about myself, like, it's important that I try and share the vulnerability side of it. And so I think it's being very attuned with yourself on a day-to-day basis, and then actually being proactive in how you document it. Finding a creative sparring partner. I do use AI to help me in terms of, for one, making sure it's remotely legible or coherent, but also just to, just, yeah, as a means of documenting it and saying, you know, I'll come back to this later. Like, I'll even say, ChatGPT, I want to make a post about this, remind me about it in 2 days, and, you know, send me that notification. And then I'll transcribe a lot of it audibly, um, or like, you know, I'll, I'll be walking and talking. And so I think that's another great thing. And then the final question was—

remind me, it was using the words you versus I, like making posts so that a viewer can read it or and be like, this refers to me, instead of it just referring Peter Wood.

Yeah, do that. Yeah. I mean, I guess again, it depends. I mean, when you're announcing success about which people are definitely interested in, you are using the I language and you are, I'm so delighted to announce or whatever. And that's a big part of the platform because you've got sharing your wins is important. And it makes people a bit more attached to your journey. But I think like if that exists within a vacuum, it doesn't really do anything. So I guess the whole you part of posting is, is to make people even want to care about your successes, right? Like it's the, you know, giving value so they care about when you've attained something. And so yeah, I don't think there's any secret sauce there, but like, you know, you can't When people forcefully use the word I, more often than not, I think opposed to the you. But I is only when you're looking to broadcast your successes. I don't think there should be any shame in that. Yeah. So again, it's just being wary of it all.

I definitely asked you these questions before on our last podcast, at least the last one, but I'm going to ask them again to see, you know, if your responses have changed. So my third final question is, if I was to ask you or ask someone in 100 years' time, how would you want to be described and what would you want your legacy to be?

He gave, he gave it a go, you know, like he, uh, yeah, didn't rest on his laurels, you know, didn't, wasn't complacent, and ultimately was able to, I think importantly, was I think a lens that I like to think through a lot is that I don't want to sell something that already exists better. I want to create something that is better. So I think I'd like people to think that, yeah, it wasn't just about like competing on a purely like, you know, sales— salesman basis. Like, I like inventors and I like innovators and, you know, I'd like to be acknowledged in that sphere as I go.

I think I've also asked you this question, but I more so want to relate it back to the point you said earlier, to which you said your path is already in motion. You know, if we were to look at your following today, we can kind of predict out where it will go if you simply do the same things. We could also apply that same thing to your personal relationships, to what your roommates are going to go on to achieve with big things, with, with the Graduate Guides being acquired and everything else you do in that regard. If I was to say, in 10 years' time, what would you want your life to look like? What do you want to be doing? Are there any particular milestones that you would wanted to achieve?

Yeah, I think, you know, I'm a bit of an old soul by nature, so I like— I've always liked the idea of getting older, you know, spending more time with people that you actually like, you know, having more disposable income, and yeah, and putting up with less shit basically. And so, and I think I've got there through living different periods of my life very intensely and acknowledging when I think they've run their course, you know, be that like degeneracy at university. Like, I had a lot of fun with that for a while, but I didn't feel like I could live in that for too much longer, which I think a lot of people let, you know, pile into their sort of work life, your life post-university, quite a lot. And for me, I think it's become, you know, things like health and all that, you know, all that jazz has become a lot more important. So yeah, I mean, I think like I want to find— I do want to find— like, I actually think the word comfort is is good. I want that comfortability in my personal life, so that's a big goal. And I think I just, I want to have things in motion, but there's nothing quite like the feeling of starting things from scratch. You know, this documentary that I'll be making, Understanding Ambition, you know, I've spent the last week meeting up with brains and people that I've built relationships over the years, and I think just starting things from scratch is again is such a— I don't know, yeah, it's such an addictive feeling. So I hope that I always am doing that as well. I lied.

I said I had one last question and someone's told me this before. They were like, Harvey, I don't like listening to your podcast and you say you've got 3 questions left and then you ask 20 questions. And I'm like, all right, you just kind of have to stick with it. But I like this question because I think there's a— I'm going to relate this back to myself again. I think there is— I think one of the best things that you can find out from someone is something that you didn't know before. And that sounds very stupid, but let me break that down. So it's like, if I was to ask you, what are your ambitions? And you simply said, you know, you want to be a doctor, so therefore, you know, you've got to go to medical school, you'll be a doctor, and then you do children's brain surgery, whatever. I could probably find that on your LinkedIn or ask your family member and find that out, right? There's no new knowledge there. But if you said that you want to go to medical school, become a and help kids with brain cancer because you, you know, you lost a friend when you were younger, or because you want to set up a charity helping people, or so that you have enough money to go and help people find jobs that didn't before. That's all new knowledge. And so I think that then enriches my own life. It helps me to learn new things and, you know, can go on to other things. So that's why, just to big up this question so much, that's why I wanted to ask this question. And that question is, what is a question that I haven't asked you on this podcast or that people in your day-to-day life don't often ask you enough that you wish they would ask?

I don't know. I mean, I don't know if it's an individual question. I think it's a series of questions that I think like is— I mean, I do a fair bit of therapy and I do it from quite a privileged perspective of curiosity rather than like, you know, from crisis management. And so I think I just like when questions enable you to meander. Into your brain a bit more. And I've always found it fascinating when you, when you say things that you've never actually said out loud before. And so, you know, I think there's some kind of flow state you get into when talking that I don't like reciting too much. You know, I think people that recite means that you haven't asked a probing enough question or a timely enough question. And so I think, yeah, like, you know, hopefully I can just engage in more conversations where I'm prompted to delve a bit deeper. Um, and maybe that's— it's not a great answer, but it is— it's truthful.

What is something that you want to delve deeper on?

I mean, ambition. Genuinely, like, I think it's a word that's said so much, and looking for ambitious individuals. I want to try and understand ambition more. Like, I want that to be a magnum opus of what I put into the world, like, helping people understand that better.

Have you finished the documentary yet? I've not even—

we're hiring a videographer at the moment, so if anyone's listening and they're a very talented videographer and editor, please let me know. Yeah, it's going to be a difficult hire to make. Yeah, worth waiting for.

Okay, so Peter, again, this is actually, I promise, my penultimate question. This is a question that I like to ask people when they were in finance for my recruiting, and I would ask people, what was this role like in theory? Like, what did you think of this role before you started it? And now what's it like in actuality. So I'm going to ask you the theory part. So before you've started this documentary, when you come back on this podcast a couple months' time, maybe half a year or a year's time, and you've filmed this documentary and it's got millions of views, what theoretically, in your mind, from your own beliefs and stuff, do you think makes an ambitious person? And we'll compare it in a year's time or whenever you come on next.

I think, I mean, a working definition that I like for ambition is, uh, mediated urgency. And, you know, people can decide whatever they want, what that means to them. But I think, you know, urgency is another way of saying, you know, high agency, right? And I think, you know, to mediate something is, you know, it's almost to hold two truths at the same time. And like, you know, it— I think it's a state of being proactive and not— but not burying yourself into one outcome or one idea of what success will look like. So it's kind of the agility that comes with wanting to make stuff happen and being able to, like, recompense that with, you know, your own personal health or state of well-being. That's how you make ambition work for you, and the product is an ambitious person.

And my final question, promise it's my final question, what is one thing that you would want a listener to take away from this episode?

I think that, you know, it— well, I think there's been a long conversation here, and somebody, they did tune in because they wanted— they've seen what I've produced, or they've, you know, they were curious about the conversation that we might have. I just want people to know that I'm nothing special, and I'm really up for talking. About anything. And that, yeah, I just want people to know that you can, you can reach me, that there's something that we could do together and that it just relies on curiosity. That's probably been the thread through our whole conversation is that like, if you approach someone with curiosity or you approach an activity with curiosity, then the outcome is sure to be more stimulating and have better value and impact and maybe make you more money.

When James Frost came on this podcast, he said, "Harvey, your podcast is like a VC because you go and find extraordinary people that will go on to achieve great things." And I've always said that I interview two types of people. I interview those that are in the midst of doing great things but yet haven't yet been recognized for it. And then obviously the billionaires, the CEOs, the world-famous founders have already done it. And I would argue that for both you and for James, you were both— when I first spoke to you, you were both like, you know, had high potential, but now you've both done extraordinary things and are going to do even more. I think the rate at which you gave, you know, incredible points throughout this podcast was simply unbelievable. I know that one of my metrics for have I done a good podcast is would I be happy having done that podcast even if no one listened, and I definitely feel that this is one of those podcasts. I mean, your knowledge about wanting to pursue your goal of giving back above all else, even when the easier option and what everyone else would do would be simply to go towards money, to go towards venture capital, to go towards founders. But you actually, even though you might do that, uh, moving forward, you still have an inner desire to give back, to reignite the fire of those that need it to be relit. I think it's simply incredible. I loved that your, your focus on LinkedIn, for example, on something that can be broken down to these little layers was not these sort of like Band-Aid, you know, solutions, but actually a goal to live a life of intentionality and to use LinkedIn as your mechanism to do so. I mean, I could go on simply for hours about all the things that I've learned, and you could see all the neural pathways, you know, firing off my brain towards the end with my 50,000 last questions. But I feel, uh, I feel honored to have had you on today. I feel like I've learned a lot, and I'm excited to see, uh, what you continue to create moving forward.

Thank you so much, man. I appreciate it.

It was great.