Navjot Sawhney, Founder @ The Washing Machine Project

Nav, welcome to the podcast. If you could just start off by telling us a little bit about your career so far and the project you're working on called The Washing Machine Project.

Sure, yeah, thank you so much for the invitation, having me on. I'm always really inspired by young and up-and-coming undergraduates and graduates doing really cool things. Nav means new in Punjabi, and I guess to begin with, I started life as a very curious child. I would be taken to air shows with my father, who was an aerospace engineer at the time. I would then come home, go into the shed, take out the toolbox, and kind of just break everything in sight with the tools I had at my disposal. And yeah, I was just interested to see how things worked. So that was a really natural transition into engineering, which is all about how things work and problem solving and fixing things and making things even better than they already are. But what overlaid that was my father died when I was very young and I was brought up by my mum who single-handedly raised me with my two sisters. So I knew from a very young age how important women were in the household. And so, you know, those two themes were always constantly running throughout my life and, you know, I studied aerospace engineering at university here in London at Queen Mary. And the fun fact is I actually failed my first year. Oh wow. Which was because I really surrounded myself with people that I think distracted me. And I was a lot— there's a lot of blame on me for that as well. I managed to kind of refocus myself, recenter myself, and, you know, graduate one of the top of the class at the end of my degree. I joined one of the world's best graduate programs, a global technology leader that makes innovative products for people, um, that being Dyson. Dyson, exactly. Um, and, uh, I was there for almost 3 years. And, um, I'm really interested to get into the details of how I got to the position at Dyson because I think that's a whole— yeah, other topic. But yeah, I mean I realized that, you know, every bit of good engineering that I was doing was making a vacuum cleaner for a rich person. I was fed up of that, you know, and I wanted to help people with my engineering, my engineering to have real-life impact. And I wanted to work on long-lasting solutions for people who don't have very much. So I decided to quit my job and go work in South India for free on a volunteer basis to make clean and efficient cookstoves. And, you know, coming from a South Asian family, and maybe some of your listeners are from the South Asian background, you know, quitting your well-paid job to go work for free anywhere in the world is not a very good look. Yeah, it wasn't I wasn't in a very happy household. My mum wasn't happy at all. But yeah, I went to India for a year and a half and I had this amazing experience and I'm sure we'll get into that later.

Yeah, and then you started The Washing Machine Project. Can you just tell us exactly what that is and why you started it? Because I'm interested when this idea of, you know, you joined Dyson, which is a very good company, and you were using your engineering skills there But when did you come to the realisation? Was it at university or was it only there that you wanted to do something? Was it like a burning thing inside you that always existed or was it initiated by working for a corporate company?

Yeah, I think I didn't know I needed to do that at the time. So I guess to your question about what is the Washing Machine Project to start off with, When I was in India, I saw problems all over the place. You know, there wasn't running water continuously. It would only be switched on for 15 minutes a day at 6 AM or 6 PM, and I would never have water. I would always have to beg, borrow, and steal around me. And people would run around trying to collect every bucket, pot, pan, and bottle to fill up water for that day. So water anxiety was real. If you didn't have a generator, then, you know, there would be frequent blackouts, sometimes days on end. And then, you know, 40-degree heat, that means no fans, no air conditioning. And, you know, if you wanted to see, there's no lighting at night. So really difficult. Situations for some people who didn't have the resources around me. And when I was in this village, you know, on a Monday we'd have an idea, Tuesday we would prototype this idea, Wednesday we would put the prototype in the field, and by Thursday we'd already get feedback as to how rubbish our cook stove really was. So, you know, by Friday we'd go back and come up with a new idea. So that kind of iterative learning was really important. What it taught me was to be really close to your end consumer. But the real eye-opening experience was the friendship that I had with my next-door neighbor, a lady called Divya, who was a kind of 30-something stay-at-home mom whose everyday life was a struggle. She used to spend hours and hours a day on unpaid labor. Whether it was foraging for wood, standing in line for water, or handwashing her family's clothes. She spoke perfect English. My Tamil was absolutely rubbish. And yeah, we just became best friends. And she'd complain all the time about the effort it takes to do this unpaid labor. She wanted to work but just didn't have the time. And so I asked her, I said, "Divya, why don't you have an electric washing machine? Why can't you just buy one?" I'll buy you one. She's like, we don't have enough water and, you know, we don't have a generator. So the electric machine you'll buy me is only going to work so often. And so that's when I promised her a manual washing machine. And that's where the penny dropped for me. And that's when I knew that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. It was just that promise to Divya. So, yeah, it was a combination of that frustration of wanting to do more outside of Dyson and then also meeting David to do— there's so much more that I could give to society rather than just vacuum cleaners. No disrespect to anyone making vacuum cleaners.

Yeah, I read that you identified a solution from a salad spinner.

Yeah.

Which is very interesting how you sort of, you know, have used your background in engineering to deliver good. And for young students listening, how can people start thinking about that while at university? How they can actually, you know, alongside building a career, use what they're doing for good?

Yeah, I mean, so yeah, the story is that we came— I came home back to London with this promise. I gathered a few friends of mine around my mum's kitchen table. There was a salad spinner in the corner of the kitchen and we kind of said, you know, what if we could operate the washing machine similar to how a salad spinner operates? And yeah, that's how the inspiration came out of that salad spinner design. And yeah, it's— my advice to anyone who's starting out in a career is like really trying to understand what you want to do and how you want to make impact around the world. And there's so many problems around us and it's very kind of sometimes quite burdening to figure out what you want to do first. But, you know, there's a long career ahead of you. You have opportunity. You can always change. And I think it's a really golden opportunity for you to learn and absorb as much information as possible. And my suggestion whenever I have talks like this is, you know, you don't have to fly to the ends of the earth to make impacts. You probably walked across a homeless person today who probably needs your support. Instead of a ride-hailing app in London or a dating app in the UK, why don't you create an app for someone trying to flee this Sudanese conflict right now, or someone, a family to access legal support fleeing Ukraine? Transferable skills. You don't need to go to the ends of the earth to do it, and it can happen now. So there's problems all around us.

Yeah. In your journey in entrepreneurship, I'm really interested in the difference of entrepreneurship that is fueled by a desire to make money and grow in the corporate world versus one that is fueled by good intentions and seeing a tangible impact that it's having. Do you think that's a more powerful thing for people when you're starting off? Because I think a lot of people get disincentivised from continuing on entrepreneurial journeys because they're not getting that immediate reward or that immediate payout. But for you, you're seeing day in, day out, your product doing good. How is that different fuel for entrepreneurship, like, inputs you?

Yeah, I think if you just look at all the successful case studies around the world, these aren't people that are obsessed with money. These are people that are obsessed with the problem. And that was one of the pieces of advice that I got very early on into my entrepreneurial journey is that, you know, you should fall in love with the problem because the solution will always change. You know, the problem will keep you up at night and the problem is what will fuel you. And that problem will never go, but the solution might change. As you can see with some of the most successful business people around the world, you know, the solution has changed significantly since they've started. So yeah, it's been an interesting ride. I'm really excited to see how it unfolds. And I'm so privileged that I get to lead a team who are amazing engineers. Marketeers, partnership specialists that, you know, want to do good and create impact. And ultimately, we are here to serve the people that struggle with this problem. And I'm so privileged that I get to wake up every day with this spring in my step, knowing that, you know, we could impact millions of people around the world with the solutions that we're creating.

Yeah.

And obviously the motivation is there. It's obviously a very very incredible one. But it does massively help when you get a shout-out like you did on, I saw on Russell Howard Hour. I'm just curious how, you know, you were doing it already before all that without the publicity that maybe you have now. What does the day look like for you now that it's blown up and you're getting recognition from the Prime Minister, you're going on BBC News, obviously you're getting a lot of reward from it now and it's helping you to achieve your own definition of success. Yeah, how did that all change your experience when you got shouted out?

Yeah, I think it really like bigs up your ego, but I have a really good family around me that keeps me really humble. So, you know, we have a new, new I have a nephew and my sister just had a baby in the last 18 months. And, you know, the topic of the conversation isn't the Prime Minister shouting out the washing machine project, it's whether Kian has said a new word or not, you know. So it's a really humbling and grounding feeling when, you know, you have people around you that have been there before any of this recognition and just want to treat you like the person that you are. And these recognitions are great, they're amazing, and they enable us to develop and deploy even more machines. And long may that continue. And, you know, with all of this stuff, it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Yeah, I saw you've got written down that you try to excel in new technical challenges by applying engineering, humanitarianism, communication and people skills. What does that actually look like in practice? What does that actually mean? If you apply all those different things, what's the product of it?

Yeah, I think empathy is really important. I've been learning that a lot. You know, it's really interesting how people work and how people come together towards one mission. People from all shapes and backgrounds and There's this school of thought, it's not a culture fit, it's a culture add. And I think that's very much the case. You know, we're united by one mission to alleviate the burden of backbreaking work. So I try and be as kind of empathetic as possible. So, you know, recently I learned not to ask 'How you are?' but like, 'What did you have for breakfast this morning?' Because 'How you are?' is an easy answer. 'Okay, thanks. Okay, bye.' You know, like, you move on very quickly. But, you know, really trying to get to the core of people is really important, especially in busy schedules. So that's something that I've recently tried to adopt with my communication skills and I think if anyone is an engineer and listening, you know, they're not really inherently good communicators. So I love people, I love communicating with people, so I studied engineering, so I love to bring those two things together because I think, you know, you do have the power to help or hinder the the planet and people in it. And it's your job as an engineer to figure out what you want to do in your life. And I, when I first graduated, didn't know the effects of my engineering, and that wasn't presented to me. Like, I didn't know that the graduate scheme that I was applying to for that defense company would ultimately lead me to develop a missile that would be used on civilians in another country. And that's something that I know now, and I wish people applying for graduate schemes now know that, you know, what's the real impact of your work that you're doing.

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Yeah, let's dive into your relationship with engineering then. You said at the start that from a very young age you've always been interested in engineering, and then you go to university, Queen Mary's, and You said in your first year, would you say, you know, you not actually doing well in that first year, was that down to like losing passion in engineering or would you attribute it more to, you know, having the wrong guidance within that year? And how did you actually, you said that you managed to get on back on track and graduate top of the year, how did you actually do that? Because for many students, you know, people go to university with a passion and it can, for many different reasons, it can fade and it can really be detrimental to your sense of self and your academic achievements. So yeah, any advice on setting yourself back on the right track?

Yeah, I was talking to someone about this just the other week. When I was 18, I took out the maximum loan possible, the maintenance loan. I don't know how much it is now, but you know, it's a few grand. And as an 18-year-old, I had no money and then had, you know, a few grand to spend, and in one lump sum, I just, I just spent it on stupid things, you know, and not, not on what I needed to spend it on, for example. So, you know, I often skipped lectures and, you know, just wasn't focused enough in that first year. So it wasn't a lack of passion, it was just a lack of focus, I think. And yeah, just frivolous, frivolous spending. And I paid off my student loan a few years back and I was like, oh my God, it must have felt good.

It felt good. But I'm like, why did I take this? Like, what did I spend it on? Yeah, it was such a waste, but it was a good learning curve for me and I think what transpires is surrounding myself with good people who want the best for you, you know, that, that, that love you, care for you, and hold you accountable. So if you're gonna do that piece of work, or you're gonna go to that lecture, or send— attend that cinema seminar, you'll be there and they'll be waiting for you. And I think that's so important. And, you know, I recall You know, this is exam season right now. We're in April and I can only imagine some of the students studying in the libraries right now. And we used to do that. I used to be prolific at studying in the library for 12 hours a day. I would hold people's desks for them because the security used to kick us out after too much time in the library. And, you know, it was a team spirit, and I think that's what helped me get through, and I'm so forever grateful for the people that I had around me, because without those people, I wouldn't be here today, and I wouldn't have graduated.

Yeah, creating that sense of accountability where there is none compared to your school days or your parents telling you what to do, like, I think that's obviously a very important thing for students.

Yeah.

Now, I mean, you were part of big teams, I imagine, at Dyson and Land Rover, where there was that accountability and there were targets to meet and goals to aspire to, but you're kind of— when you went into entrepreneurship full-time again with the washing machine project, that accountability then goes again, has to be put back on yourself, and you attributed a lot of your success to your team around you that you have now. How did you go around building that new team again, you know, not just your mates at university holding you to account and building that team spirit, building that actual team spirit in a project that you're doing?

I think, so last year we publicised 6 positions at the Washing Machine Project full-time and we got over 1,000 applications for these 6 positions. And as a small new organization, you know, we only started in 2019, that's pretty good going. I mean, we were really proud that so many people wanted to work for our organization. But what was really important for us is finding the right people that, you know, believed in the mission, would go above and beyond, had the right skills and expertise, but had the right desire to learn And it's that combination with also just being a nice person, empathetic, and really getting the issue that we're trying to solve was, you know, was the kind of key criteria. And, you know, there have been people in the past at the Washing Machine Project who haven't been the right fit, and they've naturally just moved on. And that's been okay too. But try to keep keep in contact and keep in touch with them and see how they're doing. We'll be here for a long time to come, so I'm sure there'll be loads more people coming and going.

Yeah, and on that, what is the future aims of The Washing Machine Project? And also, in achieving that, what does a good successful day look like for you?

Yeah, it's— I need to keep myself in check a bit because I speak to my family about this. I'm like, "Oh, we're not on the news. Why aren't we on the news?" And it feels a bit frustrating sometimes and feels like we've not achieved anything. But we have achieved loads of things. There's so many things in the background, so many meetings, so many bits of development that no one sees, you know. Everyone just sees that news article or that partnership announcement, that distribution. So much hard work goes on in the background. I have had so much fun developing this new product with the engineers that we have and announcing new partnerships. So there's some really cool things happening in the future. Keep a lookout for that.

I saw recently one of them was with your old company, Land Rover.

Yeah, Jaguar.

Tell us a little bit about that and how that's going to influence you going forwards?

Yeah, so I actually quit my job twice. So one of them was with Dyson, going to India to make cookstoves. But when I came back to make these washing machines, I started the washing machine project but couldn't take a salary to begin with.

So I started a side job, so to speak, which is actually my full-time job.

Side job at Land Rover.

It's not bad, is it?

Which I was really grateful for at Jagiellon River.

I was there for 5 and a half years, and it was an incredible company with very nurturing people that really supported what the washing machine project does. But also what I did on the side of that was did a master's. So I went back to university to do a postgrad in humanitarianism at the University of Bath, which is also an incredible experience. And I'd really recommend if you want to kind of specialise in a kind of an area, or if you have a real passion in something, then definitely, definitely try and do a master's if you can. It kind of gives you a bit more, a bit more of an edge, I'd say.

Yeah, what does actually going back to university when, you know, you don't have to, but a lot of people go to university straight out of school because, you know, partly they think that's what they're meant to do and that's the way to get into a career, right? But then you're going back into education with a different goal, a different mission. How did that affect your learnings or improve your learnings?

Yeah, I guess that was a choice, you know, whereas when you're 18, especially if you're from my background, university isn't a choice, like you have to do it.

Whereas I had a job at Dyson, I'd already been there working for a few years. I'd already worked in India, you know, I had a job at Jagiellandra at the time, so it was a choice for me to do this master's, and it was actually really enjoyable. The people I was studying with were from all walks of life, you know, from students to lords in the House of Commons. So yeah, really cool experience that was.

Yeah, and while you were at university for the first time, so it's maybe not something you talk about as much, but I find it interesting as a current student, your whole time at university you were working with WHSmith as a customer service assistant.

Yeah.

In a sales role. Why did you think it was important to be working while at university and why did you do it the whole way through? Like, yeah, it's a very taxing thing to be doing alongside your studies, I imagine.

Yeah, that's such a good question. And you know, I've probably done about 30 podcasts and no one's ever asked me that, so that's a—

That's a really good question. My mum taught me from a very young age that you need to work. I don't know why. I don't know what drove her to do that. Maybe it's because of her, because she's been working since the age of 12. She's now 72 and just retired this month. So, wow, large, large span of years working. And so for me, as soon as I turned 16, she was like, 'Nav, you need to get a part-time job. I don't care where it is, but you need to get one.' And I landed quite literally in Heathrow Airport at WH Smith on a Saturday. 5 AM to 2 PM was my shift. And I loved it. If I could get paid now what I got paid back then, I'd do it in a heartbeat because it was such a great experience meeting people from all walks of life. And the— you could really tell how people react and act when they're really stressed because everyone's stressed when they travel. And that's what really taught me how to communicate with people, especially high-stress situations. So importance of work for my mom, loving the job. And there's really funny instances that sometimes I didn't have a Friday night I'd sleep in by 8, or sometimes I would be awake the whole night. So yeah, WH Smith was a really great experience.

Yeah, and I mean, I don't know if this is related, but you said earlier in the podcast about actually landing that graduate job with Dyson. Yeah. Alongside your WH Smith studies, so work, you did Olympic work for the Olympics, having your own, running your own store essentially at a very young age, it seemed.

Yeah.

How did you leverage those things, even though they're not related to engineering, to actually help you get a job with Dyson?

Yeah, and actually, you know, when I graduated and got the job at Dyson, I did, I worked at W.H. Smith at the same time for a few months, 6 months I think. And I was working 6 days a week. So large parts of my early, early, early years, age 16 to probably, you know, right up until 23, I was working 6 days a week on something or another, you know. And so I, you know, when, when we have to put extra hours in now at the Washing Machine Project, it's easy because, you know, one, you know, this is my passion project that's now become this amazing thing. And two, you know, we've been doing this our whole lives. But yeah, 2012 was when the Olympics came to London and I applied and applied for a team lead role and I managed to work along, next to the Olympic Stadium, got to see some really cool events. But yeah, again, really good people that I met and it was a real camaraderie and a collaborative spirit.

Yeah, and then with the actual story of getting the Dyson role? Like, what was that? How did that process work? I mean, you know, a lot of people would have been on your engineering course at other good universities like yourself, but how did you stand out?

Yeah, and just on that, by the way, um, I was the most average student, uh, there was. Like, um, I didn't have an internship, I didn't do a year in industry, I had really no experience in engineering when I graduated, and I just pounded the job ads and I sent my CV everywhere. I would try and meet up with anyone who was willing to listen to me. I would speak to recruiters.

I would go to Grad Affairs.

I would go to every careers service and every single university in every single society in the country. And I think I applied for 1,000 roles at the time and got a few interviews and got 2 job offers, and one of them was Dyson, and I chose it. But what I didn't know at the time was the company that I was applying to, was that aligned to my beliefs? You know, I was applying to missile companies. And looking at that, looking back at that now, I'm like, that's, that's not me. So why would I have applied? And it's just because they have the fanciest stands in the grad fairs or, you know, they give free pizza away and that's it. You know, there's— and what I would really like for anyone listening to this podcast is really think about what you truly want to do in your life and where you want to make impact. And don't be afraid to say, actually, no, I don't want to apply for this role. I want to apply for this role. And yeah, that would be my advice.

Yeah. And obviously, as a podcast, we're trying to do our own bit in having real conversations with people like yourself and demonstrating the various different ways that you could take your career and just opening your horizons, because I feel like, you know, while you were at university, you said you attended all these different things and only 2 job offers came from it. How would you, you know, reflecting on your experience, how— what would you like to have been improved about your career service and how the people above you and the people that influence you could have taken a more active role or better helped you in securing the right start to your career?

Yeah, I guess I'm learning this right now on this journey of being a founder and CEO, but I really value mentors and people that inspire me that are 5 to 10 years ahead of me that I can speak to on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis with some of my key challenges in different areas of my life, whether it's mental health, relationships, work, money, and ask them to give me advice. And I wish I had really strong mentors when I was picking and choosing what I wanted to do earlier on in my career. I mean, I'm so thankful for my experience at Dyson because it led to making cookstoves and then ultimately led to what I'm doing now. And I wouldn't change that for the world. I'm just saying for anyone out there who's, who's a bit confused about what they want to do, a mentor 5 or 10 years ahead of you that you are inspired by would really help.

And the practical way of doing that is using social media channels like LinkedIn, which are really powerful tools where you could, you know, reach out to anyone really.

And ask them to help you.

In your career, you've had a lot of different moments where, so you're working at one job and doing something else at the same time, be it working at Dyson and then doing volunteering at the same time, or doing your studies and doing the WHSIF stuff at the same time, and then most recently working at Land Rover and then going full-time with The Washing Machine Project. When did you know and how did you know it was time to make that step? Because it's a very daunting thing for a lot of people to make that change.

Yeah, and I guess if you follow the Gary Vaynerchuk hustle, hustle, hustle mentality, they would say quit your job now and just go for broke. But actually, even Gary Vaynerchuk has said, you know, probably that's not the best way forward for everyone. And it's irresponsible to do that if you have responsibilities, you have bills to pay, and, you know, people relying on you.

And my advice to anyone that's working on their own thing or wants to have an idea is do it, but have something in the background that is going to sustain you and work on it to the point where you just can't work on both things at the same time. It's physically impossible. And that's what happened with me. You know, I was working 80 hours a week, just 40 hours at JLR, 40 hours at the Washing Machine Project. And it was just like I was being put into impossible situations all the time where, you know, I would have to attend a really important work, uh, Jaguar Land Rover call, but the BBC wanted to interview me. Or I'd have to— I'd be invited on a BBC Radio show, and I'd have to choose between going to a lunch call with Jaguar Land Rover.

And it was like I imagine you were getting burnt out and you probably weren't being the best at either one.

Yeah, I was letting everyone down and I was miserable.

And, and, but that was a slow, gradual uptake. And I knew that the timing was financially right as well because, you know, at the time I had a few employees and, you know, the runway was looking okay. And I just spoke to my family. They knew that I was just burnt out. And yeah, it's been about a year now since that, and I'm so happy that we're here and so lucky, so privileged that I get to do this every single day.

Yeah, I'm interested from a personal experience that while doing my studies, I mean, I know everybody has to apply for jobs and do interviews and has a lot of things have to do outside of their studies, which, you know, is, is difficult. Uh, and for me, I'm doing this podcast and building my startup, and when I finish my exams, which I will soon, and when you quit your job and started full-time with the washing machine project, you now have all the time in the world to designate to that. How do you make sure you're efficient as possible when that switch happens? And how do you adapt as quickly as possible?

Yeah, for me it was the fear. The fear that I have to pay salaries and the fear that I have to make payroll for 6 of the 7 other people that have literally given up everything to work with you, you know. For me, that's a real leveler to make sure that I am at least trying to be the best I can be for the washing machine project, um, you know, and, and trying to remain focused. So there's going to be so many opportunities that push you and pull you away from your path, and you need to stay laser focused with what you're doing. Now, that doesn't mean that with startups comes headwinds and you have to be agile and you need to change with them. I'm not saying that, but the core of what you do has to remain the same. And you know what? You have to ask yourself every single day, am I doing the right thing for the organization?

And the way that this was told to me was if you're flying from Heathrow to New York, 5 degrees off the flight path, you'll end up in like Canada or the Antarctic.

But you constantly have to look back and correct yourself.

So it's not, you know, it's not an easy thing, but reflection is really important too.

Yeah, you talk about traveling a lot as part of your job now, and a lot of it back to where where your roots are. And how is working within your family heritage and on something that means a lot to your family, how has that influenced your motivations? Because I mean, I think for a lot of people that isn't apparent and they don't even know how they would do that, especially when you're based in the UK. But how rewarding has it been? How influential has it been on your work?

Yeah, so I mean, traveled a lot last year, 27 countries. Wow. And this is going to be a really exciting year ahead.

Really lucky that I get to speak to people and work with people that we are trying to help and support and learn from these people, which is really important.

I'm really conscious and aware that, you know, we're developing solutions in the UK for people around the world, and that's sometimes really problematic. So we spend a lot of time in the field trying to understand user behavior and feed that back into our design. And it's a very proud thing to do that. You know, I come from a culture where, you know, we give back. There's this phenomenon called Seva which is selfless service. And I've always believed that you are measured with how much you give to the world, not how much you take, take from it. And I think that's, that's what drives me every single day.

Yeah. And this probably isn't a question that many people would ask, but I'm genuinely curious, given that you're in the space of charitable work and giving back. What is your thoughts on charity as a whole and big corporations? Because obviously you can't question that all of them have the right intentions and they're doing the right things, but you've obviously taken this desire to give back into your own hands and started a company and you know exactly what you're doing is having this effect.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're living in a really interesting time right now. There's an imminent global climate crisis. You know, there's a polarized, polarized world. There are conflicts popping off in different parts of the world. And, you know, it seems very doom and gloom, but you have to just look about 100 years ago and see how bad the world was then. You know, women didn't have the right to vote. That there was slavery still around, you know, so much, so much worse we were back then than we are now. So I think that's really important to have perspective. But there's still so much that we could— we can work on together to make the world a better place. Now, when I, when I see the, these, these issues that, that, that come up, you know, this— the polarized nature of politics and communication. Social media is a really good example where the algorithm pushes people on you that are more like you, and I think that's really problematic because you need to be with and talking to people that oppose your opinion to then come up with some sort of mutual agreement, and I think that's what's really missing right now. So yeah, I really try and surround myself with not just people that agree with you but challenge your way of thinking as well.

Yeah, a question we'd like to ask all our guests that come on here, and it'll be particularly interesting for you given that, you know, you started on this journey out of university with this big corporate job, and for a lot of people that would be like the pinnacle of success, working for Dyson or Land Rover, but now you're doing what you're doing. How has your idea of success transitioned from your thoughts on it when you first graduated from university and your thoughts on it now?

Yeah, so just to build on your question about my views on charity, because of these kind of unfolding themes that are going on, you know, the climate crisis, polarized nature of the world, conflict, etc. There's a massive push for these Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. You probably have seen them. And everyone, every corporate, every charity, every academic institution is striving to be net zero, to reach some of these Sustainable Development Goals. And now This has created such a massive space to try and give back through charitable means. The Washing Machine Project is a social enterprise, which means there's a for-profit element to it. We also have a charitable foundation associated, so we leverage both because profit isn't a dirty word. And, you know, you meet any of these refugees in any camp around the world, they don't want sympathy. They want empathy and they want opportunity. They want equitable solutions and they don't mind paying for it if they can afford it. If you're making the right solution. I think that's really important. Sustainable interventions. Now, this space has created really innovative collaborations and we're a fruit of that, you know, We have flagship partners like the RS Group have chosen the Washing Machine Project Foundation as their global charity partner to strive towards their sustainable development goals and to create impact. So I think there's a lot of good that can come out of it, but there's also, you know, some instances where that's been exploited. That's one thing. And then the second thing is, you know, COVID has really taught us that we're all mortal and everyone has realized that in one way, shape, or form they want to give back. So you saw a rise in charitable giving during COVID people wanting to help more. And I think that's been really cool to see because it's a reminder that, you know, we're all here for a very finite period of time. And, you know, why not give back as much as you can? Going forwards.

Yeah, and that's amazing. And I'm curious how, with that knowledge that you have now and these insights on your actual idea of success, what does, you know, if you could look in 10 years and be like, oh, okay, this is, if I've achieved this, I'm successful, what would it be?

Yeah, I'll tell you a story. You know, on my first few weeks, months at Dyson, I would, you know, on teams you have this org chart and I'd like count how many steps am I away from a CEO at Dyson. And I was, I think it was like 6 steps, there's 6 people above me. And I used to be obsessed with like trying to maneuver myself and get the next promotion and try and, like, I want it— my version of success would be to just stay at Dyson for the rest of my life. And I'm so glad that I had the realization that I did when I did to try something new. Otherwise, I'd still be there. And I know friends that are in different organizations around the world that are so frustrated at what they're doing. And are just stuck. And that's where you see people just quit their job and go traveling. It's not midlife crisis, it's because they've been feeling like this for their whole lives. Um, so my advice looking back to myself would be to find something that you're passionate about, because, because that's the thing that's going to be easy to work on, um, for the rest of your life, you know, not not something that you have to do. And my version of success is legacy, you know, leaving the world better than you found it, as the Scouts say.

Yeah, and in this new season of The Graduate God, we have so many amazing people with such amazing advice to give. And we want to, by the end of the season, have built this really profound piece of advice by asking each person at the end to give a piece of advice to suggest to the next guest.

Yeah.

And on the last episode, we had Sam Corby, founder of Allsamm, and as an entrepreneur and just anyone in their career, his main piece of advice was to enjoy the ride. So I want to hear your thoughts on that and then Also, if you could propose a new piece of advice for the next guest to build on.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's really clear that I'm really enjoying the ride that I'm on. And, you know, just this week has been really great. And it's not going to be like this all the time. There's been some really tough moments, some moments where, you know, I can't sleep because there's so many problems.

Left, right, and center.

And yeah, that's a really good reminder. Thank you to your previous guest. I guess my piece of advice to your next guest is to fall in love with the problem because the solution will always change, you know, and that will keep you focused and grounded, you know. Yeah, I hope that helps.

Yeah, and I really want to thank you for coming on today. It's been It's been amazing. It's been a bit of a different episode to the ones we've done before where obviously everybody has a career, but, and everybody wants to do good, but you've gone and taken this into your own hands and I think what you're doing is incredible really. And for me, I'm very conscious of how important water is just for the world in every way, be it drinking or or washing clothes, like making sure everybody has equal availability, that could solve a whole range of problems. So I'm really excited to see what you guys can do in the future. So cheers.

Thank you very much.