It has been a long time since I've done this.
Many, many years ago, when I first
started the Diary of a CEO, the central
idea of the show was to read my diary
every week. I believe that it might be
interesting to get to see inside the
very personal diary of someone that was
running a business with hundreds of team
members at 25 years old while contending
with all of life's problems,
relationships, mental health challenges,
mistakes, family problems, and more. So
late on a Sunday night once in a while,
I would plug in a microphone in my old
apartment and I would read through my
diary entries. The diary of a CEO took
on a life of its own. I went from
reading my diary to interviewing other
people about their diaries to speaking
to experts about all of the problems
that I found in my diary. But every
single week, someone will come up to me
and tell me that they found value in
those early episodes. And they'll ask me
if I would ever share my diary again.
I've thought about it for years and
years. And this weekend, I finally
decided to give it a go. So, what you're
listening to today is my diary. the
notes I've taken in the last few weeks.
The original Diary of a CEO. I'm Steven
Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO.
I hope nobody's listening, but if you
[Music]
Here's the first thing that I've written
in my diary this week. Pedals over podiums.
podiums.
I was driving through the streets of Los
Angeles a few weeks ago with a really
good friend of mine. It was late
afternoon and the sun was hanging low in
the sky, painting everything in shades
of amber and gold. As we navigated
through the eb and flow of Los Angeles
traffic, the distant hum of the city
filled the car. A blend of honking
horns, muffled conversations, and the
faint melody of a street performer
playing somewhere in the distance. We
were on our way to a football match on
the other side of town. My friend in the
passenger seat was the founder of a huge
fashion business that's absolutely
skyrocketed over the last couple of
years. It's one of those brands that's
become so popular that I know so many of
you listening right now are probably
wearing. His designs have walked
runways, graced magazine covers, and
become staples in wardrobes all around
the world. But as we set off, I couldn't
help but notice an unusual, almost
palpable tension inside the car.
Normally, our drives are filled with
laughter and lively debates. But this
time, there was a heavy silence
punctuated only by the engine and the
occasional sound of cars speeding past.
You know that feeling when you can just
sense something weighing heavily on
someone's mind? He stared out the
passenger window, watching as palm trees
and billboards flew by. Finally, he
turned to me. His voice, usually so
confident and assertive, was tinged with
vulnerability as he broke the silence.
Do you ever worry that what you're doing
will stop growing, will decline, or will fail?"
fail?"
he asked softly.
The question hung in the air between us
as my brain scrambled to read between
the lines. By this question, I assumed
that the business he had poured his life
into might have started to stagnate.
Perhaps the uncertainty this had created
was looming like a shadow over his
achievements, casting doubt in his mind.
Before I could respond, he shifted the conversation.
conversation.
I was talking to our mutual friend John
the other day. You know, the one with
the podcast.
I nodded, knowing exactly whom he meant.
Even he's a little bit concerned his
podcast growth has been flat, and he's
questioning everything. My friend
continued. As he spoke, my mind flashed
back to a conversation I had years ago
with Sir David Brazford. Coincidentally,
Sir David had been on my mind because
I'd spoken to him the day before, and we
were actually on our way to meet him at
a preseason Manchester United game in LA
at that exact moment. For those of you
who might not be familiar, Sir David
Braillesford is the mastermind behind
British cycling's transformation from
mediocrity to global dominance. He was
now leading performance at Manchester
United under the new Inos ownership.
Many years ago, when Sir David took over
as performance director of British
Cycling, they hadn't won an Olympic gold
medal in nearly a century. Under his
leadership, they didn't just win, they
dominated, securing multiple gold medals
and tour to France victories. But what
struck me most when I first met Sir
David wasn't his impressive list of
victories. It was his intense focus on
mindset and psychology, which I'm now
convinced is what made those victories
possible. I remember sitting across from
him on my kitchen table as he cradled
his mug in his hands, the steam rising
and curling in the air. You know, he
began staring his coffee thoughtfully,
the spoon making a soft clanging noise
against the ceramic. When our cyclist
became fixated on the podium, on the
medals, the glory, their performance
suffers. He paused, taking a slow sip.
It's a subtle shift, but it's profound.
The podium exists in the future, a place
beyond our immediate control. The more
they obsess over standing on that
podium, winning that medal, the less
attention may pay to the one thing that
actually matters, the present moment,
the rotation of the pedals beneath them.
He leaned in closer. his gaze steady and
earnest, his voice carrying the weight
of hard-earned wisdom. So, we changed
our approach. We told them to forget
about the podium. Instead, focus
entirely on the pedals, each rotation,
each breath, each muscle contraction.
This is where success is truly forged.
At the time, his words resonated with me
so deeply. The simplicity of focusing on
the immediate, the tangible, the now. It
was a lesson that transcends cycling,
one that can be applied to any endeavor
pursued by any of us in any of our
lives. Back in the car, as my friend
continued to explain his fears and
uncertainties, the echo of Sir David's
insight seemed more relevant than ever.
So, I turned to my friend, offering a
small smile of reassurance, and I said,
"Don't worry about the podium. Focus on
the pedals." I went on to explain what
Sir David had taught me and how by
falling into outcome overthinking, he
would be distracting himself from what
he needed to do to turn his business
around. I told him that when we allow
our minds to drift too far ahead, we
risk disconnecting from the present,
which is where our power, inspiration,
and creativity lies. Studies on
mindfulness, a practice rooted in
staying present, show that those who
focus on the now rather than an
uncertain future, experience less
anxiety, greater focus, and improved
performance across a variety of
different tasks. And a neuroscientist on
my podcast has shown me that studies
prove when we become preoccupied with
potential outcomes like whether we'll
win a race or if our company is going to
die, the brain's default mode network
DMN becomes highly active. This network
which is involved in self-reerential
thinking which is basically thinking
about yourself too much can lead to
overthinking and heightened stress which
puts you off performing at your best.
But conversely when we anchor our
attention in the present moment regions
of the brain associated with focus and
task execution such as the prefrontal
cortex become more engaged which
enhances our ability to perform at our
best. Sir David's approach teaches us a
fundamental truth. Ironically, when we
focus too much on the outcome, we end up
sabotaging the very actions needed to
achieve it. We become distracted or
paralyzed by the weight of our
expectations. But by narrowing our focus
to the here and now, by mastering each
stroke, each moment, we align our
actions with our intentions, setting the
stage for success. My friend's greatest
risk in that car that day wasn't his
numbers stagnating. It was him being
distracted by the numbers and losing
touch with his customers. If he just
focused on the art, the value, his
creativity, the very things that had
gotten him there, the numbers, the
podium would take care of itself. So
whether you're an athlete pedaling
towards the finish line, or an
entrepreneur navigating the turbulent
waters of business, an artist crafting
your next masterpiece, or simply someone
striving to find balance in life's
complexities, remember, focus on the
pedals, not the podium. Success isn't a
destination. It's a journey comprised of
countless moments where we choose to be
fully present. The podium, the
accolades, the achievements, the
milestones are merely the byproduct of
our commitment to mastering each moment,
each rotation of the pedals. I always
tell people, you wouldn't plant a seed
and then dig it up every few minutes to
see if it had grown. So, why do you keep
questioning yourself, your hard work,
and your decisions? Have patience. Keep
watering your seeds. Funnily enough,
this week I stumbled across a video that
reinforced the idea of thinking of
pedals over podiums. It's a video of
Johnny Eyes, the head designer from
Apple, who worked alongside Steve Jobs,
Apple's visionary founder, at a time
when Apple were in real trouble at the
very beginning. Steve Jobs had been
fired from Apple. The company had
struggled and he'd been rehired as the
CEO. In the clip, Johnny Ives talks
about how a dying company like Apple
saved themselves not by trying to save
themselves or thinking about the outcome
or problem they were in, but by focusing
on the pedals, the thing they could
control. Our job isn't to make money for
Apple. Our job is to try and make the
very best products that we can. Now, we
trust if they are good and we trust if
we're competent and we do our jobs um in
trying to describe them and if we're
competent in making them, they will be
attractive and bold. They will be bought
in volume and that we will eventually
make money. I'm aware that that can
sound like an easy thing to say given
our vantage point right now, but that's
actually what we said in 98
when when the company was struggling.
You see, we didn't say that the goal was
turnaround because if we had said the
goal back in the late '9s was to turn
the company around, that that's that's
all about money. When Steve came back,
that's that's how he articulated what
the goals of the company needed to be.
And this wasn't some subtle u this
wasn't an exercise in sort of clever wordsmithing.
wordsmithing.
This was describing
um profoundly different attitudes and
approaches to what the problem was at hand.
hand.
And just to add another layer to this,
Sir David and Steve Jobs didn't just
adopt this mindset when they were trying
to turn a bad team or company around.
They also thought like this when things
were going very well. In fact, when
things are really good or really bad, it
seems people have a greater temptation
to start obsessing over the wrong
things. I found a letter that Steve Jobs
sent to his team in 2010 on the day when
Apple became the most valuable company
in the world overtaking Microsoft for
the first time. And here is what Steve
Jobs told his team. May 26th, 2010, 5:59
p.m. Team, as most of you already know,
at the close of today's stock market,
Apple's market cap surpassed Microsoft's
market cap. As I once said in a company
email sent a long time ago, stocks go up
and stocks go down and things may be
different tomorrow. But I thought it was
worth a moment of reflection today. And
so it is again. Walt Disney used to say
to his team, "We are only as good as our
next picture." Well, we are only as good
as our next amazing new product. Back to
work. Steve,
when I read this letter for the first
time, I had a huge sigh of relief
because just like you, I get anxious
about the future. I can fall into worry
about outcomes and I can waste energy
thinking too much about the podium. In
fact, it's in areas of my life that I'm
most successful that I seem to worry the
most. And this doesn't just apply to
business. It applies to life itself.
I've observed that people that focus on
what they want, the podium, instead of
what they have to offer, the pedals,
rarely get what they want. But the
people that focus on what they have to
offer, the pedals, usually get what they
want, the podium. I.e. the people that
end up on the podium are the ones that
were most focused on the pedals. And the
people that never focus on the pedals
never end up on the podium. In the good
times and the bad, when the numbers are
up and the numbers are down, focus on
the pedals, not the podium. And if you
do, in time, the podium will take care
of itself.
The second thing I've written in my
diary this week is quite a personal one.
I've just written, "You and your partner
are both probably wrong." And this point
is really about love and relationships.
For several nights in a row, I'd arrived
home to my apartment in the east of
London at 11 p.m. Then I collapsed onto
the soft 12t sofa in my living room, its
cushions enveloping me like a tired hug.
And there I lay, savoring the sweet,
sweet sound of doing absolutely nothing.
The ticking of the clock in the corner
of the room, the only reminder that time
is passing. This is a grueling part of
the year for me professionally. Whenever
my long-standing assistant turns to me
with that familiar look of concern and
warns me about the months ahead, I know
I'm screwed. My calendar right now is
hilarious. In the next 3 months, it has
me flying to every corner of the world.
From the bustling streets of Bangkok and
Thailand to the sprawling cityscape of
Los Angeles to the desert horizons of
Kuwait. Sometimes for three major events
in the same day, the constant echo of
airports, the roar of jet engines, the
rustle of boarding passes for the next
few months. This is the soundtrack to my
life. My company, Flight, has just
launched Flight Studio, our new media
company, which has in turn launched a
series of new shows. We've also launched
Flight Books, our new book publishing
company, signing almost 10 authors so
far. My fund, Flight Fund, has some
8,000 applications to sort through. My
podcast schedule is crammed. My speaking
and event schedule is overflowing. We're
building a new software company called
Flightcast based in San Francisco, which
has meant constant meetings with
Spotify, YouTube, Apple, and more. We've
just taken a new 25,000t headquarters in
central London called Flight HQ, which
we're halfway through building. My
talent recruitment company, Chapter 2,
is occupying a lot of my thoughts. I'm
juggling a total of 40 companies that
I've either invested in via flight fund
or founded, including a company I
co-founded a few years ago called Third
Webb, which has now raised roughly $30
million and was recently valued at $160
million and is based in San Francisco
with a team of 50. The list goes on. Boohoo.
Boohoo.
I know what you're thinking, Steve, you
chose all of this chaos. Don't you dare
ask for sympathy. Don't you dare
complain about it. I accept all of that.
This whirlwind is self-inflicted.
And I'm still trying to figure out why
me, as someone who says that I care
about peace, has seemingly done
everything to eradicate the possibility
of it.
I'm so [ __ ] confusing. I think we all
are. What we state and what we do and
the forces that pull us, pull us, drag
us, and drive us are impossibly hard to
understand. But when my life gets more
chaotic like this, I become a different
person at home. From Monday to Friday,
I'm distant, a little empty, desperate
for nothing. Silence, solitude.
Sometimes just to lay horizontally on
this massive beige couch and do
absolutely nothing.
But there's a problem. I've been with my
partner for almost 6 years now. We have
a great relationship. She is the love of
my life, my future wife if I decide to
get married, and the mother of my future
kids. But the most frequently recurring
issue in our relationship is this mutual
frustration from me that she doesn't
understand my world and therefore she's
not giving me the expected amount of
empathy, grace, patience, or space. and
conversely from her that I don't
understand her world, more specifically
her needs for quality time, presence,
love, and attention. And on that day,
just like the night before and the night
before that, as I lay there like a dead
body at 11:30 p.m. doing absolutely
nothing, I heard the soft shuffle of her
footsteps on our stone floor as she
approached me. She started speaking to
me about a variety of different issues,
concerns, and topics that were on her
mind. Her voice was gentle but tinged
with the weight of unspoken feelings. It
was late at night, the shadows long, and
the world asleep. My dopamine was
completely depleted from my brain. My
cortisol levels at an all-time high from
having to perform all day. Perform as a
CEO, a founder, a speaker, a podcaster,
a manager, an author, an investor. The
mental exhaustion pressed on me like a
physical weight. I looked up at her and
I said, "I can't do this right now. I've
had a really long day. I'm tired.
I'd said the same thing the night before
and the night before and the night
before. I'm going to be honest with you
because I think it's important. After
all, this podcast is called The Diary of
a CEO. We had a disagreement that night.
Our voices remained calm, but the
tension was a quiet storm brewing
between us. I went to a separate part of
the apartment and I closed the door
behind me. The feeling I had in that
moment is one I've pretty much had my
whole life in relationships as a highly
ambitious workaholic entrepreneur.
I felt misunderstood.
I felt like I wasn't being given the
empathy, space, and grace that I
deserved. And I felt unappreciated
and I was wrong. But that's how I felt.
What I've come to realize is that if
you're an entrepreneur, if you're a CEO,
if you're a manager in a highintensity
company, or if you're a team member in a
high-intensity team, or if you're just
someone who's striving to change your
life in a radical way by pursuing a goal
that's consuming you, your romantic
partner will likely never truly
understand your work. They will never
truly understand your stress, your
worries, and your constant overthinking.
The most you can hope for is that they
understand that they do not understand.
There is at least some empathy and
accepted ignorance in them accepting the
fact that they don't understand. But you
also have to avoid the temptation of
gaslighting your partner. Something I've
certainly been tempted to do time and
time again. You need to have empathy for
their inability to understand. So often
in not just this relationship, but in
previous romantic relationships, I've
fallen into the trap of thinking that my
partner was inconsiderate or selfish or
thoughtless because they didn't truly
understand how unbelievably taxing,
all-consuming, and sometimes stressful
my job is. Accordingly, when I get home
from work after a difficult day or when
I was consumed by a business challenge,
I would be surprised by their apparent
lack of understanding, space, and
empathy. Even though I hadn't really
bothered to explain it to them, I'd kept
it to myself. I was expecting her to
read my mind. And the truth is the truth
I didn't have the sufficient amount of
energy or cognitive reserve to realize
is that even in those moments at all
moments my partner has needs too. No
matter how busy or successful or
stressed I am at home everyone's needs
need to be met. And besides why on earth
would they truly truly understand it is
not their email inbox. It is not their
deadline. It's not their tough decision.
It's not their chosen responsibility. I
chose this responsibility. I chose this
mission. They are a passenger in the car
of my dream. It is not their dream. I
set the satnav. I should be grateful
that they've chosen to come along for
the ride. Being misunderstood at home is
one of the prices you pay for the growth
that you chase. But here's the twist
that it took me years to learn. Although
it doesn't feel like it, it is a hidden
gift that your partner doesn't fully
understand. If they did, home wouldn't
offer a retreat from work. It would be
an extension of it. I appreciate the
fact that I can walk through the door on
a hard, unpleasant, grueling day into a
home brimming with smiles, happiness,
and free from professional pain. So, if
this is you, if the shoe fits, keep
going. Protect your relationship. Have
mutual empathy.
The third thing that I've written in my
diary this week, get to acceptance as
fast as you can. I got home that night
at 11:00 p.m. I threw my keys down and I
walked across my apartment. I pulled
open the balcony door to let some of the
cool, humid thunderstorm air in. And as
I sat down on a kitchen stool, my phone
started to vibrate repeatedly. I pulled
out my phone and the caller ID said
George, one of my best friends. I
answered and before I even spoke, I just
knew it was bad news. One of those
moments where the silence seems to say
more than words. When he did speak, his
voice was heavy, each word weighed down
by despair. He shared some really sad
news. His company, which he had spent
the last decade building,
the company he'd become known for,
had collapsed. The countless hours, the
sleepless nights, the dreams he had, all
gone. After 10 years of hard work, he'd
lost it all, and his team had lost their
jobs. He was effectively bankrupt. The
business had failed. I spoke to him for
the next hour on the phone. And after I
turned off the lights and headed up to
my bedroom, as I was walking up the stairs,
stairs,
I assumed it was George texting me to
say good night and maybe thank you for
the conversation. But to my surprise, as
I looked down at the notification, it
was a completely different best friend,
and I don't have that many best friends.
The message read, "Can you speak?"
Listen, it's so unbelievably rare that
anyone would ask me to speak. So when
they ask to, unfortunately, it's always
some form of crisis or bad news. I am
seen as the busy friend, the one with no
time, the one people don't typically
want to bother. But I've tried hard to
change that ever since my conversation
with Simon Synynic where he said
something that is so unbelievably true.
You know, when you find darkness, you
you whatever however you want to define
your darkness, you know, you feel alone.
You feel like nobody can help you. You
feel like you have no agency. You feel
like a lack of control. And the first
thing that a lot of us should do is
reach out to a friend and say, "I'm
struggling or I need help or I'm lonely
or I'm depressed or I'm sad." Whatever
your whatever the feeling is.
There's no
greater honor.
There's no greater honor than being able
to serve a friend in need.
And on this stormy Tuesday night, it
seemed like I was experiencing the honor
that Simon Senk described all at once. I
stopped mid spiral staircase, slumped
into a dark corner halfway up, and
She's broken up with me.
Brian is one of my best friends in the
world. And he had been in a relationship
for the best part of a decade. He'd
built a life with this person. He had
grand plans to have kids with her,
settle down with her, buy a house with
her, and spend the rest of his life with
her. In my conversations with both of
these friends, I found myself giving
them support and advice. And as the
words rolled off my lips, the advice
that I was giving them ended up being
the exact advice I needed to hear myself
because I too was facing a series of
difficult professional challenges in my
businesses. Challenges that were keeping
me trapped in a cycle of overthinking.
the unrehearsed late night advice I gave
to both of my friends that I also
desperately needed to hear myself. Get
to acceptance as fast as you can.
I said this because in moments of bad
news or heartbreak or rejection, much of
what I think is actually happening is
we're mourning the loss of a future or
an identity that we created in our own
minds that we had begun to live in but
that never really existed. In the case
of my friend going through heartbreak,
it was abundantly clear to me that the
source of much of his pain was actually
his inability to accept that the
imagined idyllic future he had created
with this person had been lost. I'll
never forget when Mo Gordat said to me,
"So happiness is very predictable."
Okay? If you look back at any point in
your life where you ever felt happy,
there is one commonality across all of
those moments that can actually do be
documented in a mathematical equation.
And so happiness in that sense becomes
equal to or greater than. So it's really
mathematics that your perception of the
events of your life minus your
expectations of how life should be. And
from that I always deduced that we are
unhappy when our expectations of how our
life is supposed to be going go unmet.
And in this scenario both my friends and
I had unmet expectations of how we
thought our life was supposed to be
going. It's become abundantly clear to
me that the vast amount of pain I
experience in business or life or love
and everything in between is actually
just my own resistance to situations
that I find myself in. Usually when my
expectations go unmet, often situations
I frankly couldn't have foreseen or
controlled. Sometimes even situations
that I'm completely unresponsible for.
Bad news arrives and then we fight
against it in our own mind. And in doing
so, we create our own suffering. We get
fired from work. We get cut off in
traffic by a bad driver. We get a bad
diagnosis. We get dumped by a romantic
interest. Someone writes something
horrible about us online. The pain is
the hours, the days, the weeks, the
months, the years of us refusing to
accept the situation we find ourselves
in, trying to reverse an injustice,
trying to correct the past, trying to
rewind time. Acceptance of reality,
especially of circumstances that cannot
be changed now, is the best medicine
I've repeatedly swallowed to have less
bad days and less suffering. In a brain
study led by a scientist called Hedi
Cobbar in 2010, brain scans revealed
that when people were asked to approach
their emotional responses with
acceptance rather than reacting
instinctively, something remarkable
happens. They saw a notable reduction in
the activity of the amygdala, often
referred to as the brain's emotional
alarm system. The amydala plays a
central role in processing fear and
other strong emotions. So, this drop in
activity suggests that acceptance can
actually calm emotional reactivity,
which is often why we suffer so
strongly. You know, I don't know if what
I'm about to say is a consequence of
aging, but in this season of my life,
what I value more than most things is peace.
peace.
Something that I think deep down we all
want. But when you look at how we live
our lives with noise, stress, and chaos,
clearly something that few of us have
designed our lives to create. Peace
isn't necessarily a word that I highly
prioritized at 25 years old. But I think
by being in the public eye a lot more
now, and just by getting older, it's
made peace more of an important priority
to me. And peace to me really is defined
as that sort of state of calmness and
tranquility that's free from conflict,
that's free from stress. Being in the
public eye in many ways has been the
most intense crash course and acceptance
I could ever have imagined. Going from
complete anonymity to having an
unimaginable number of people listening
to this podcast each month and then
joining a hit BBC 1 TV show Dragon Sten
during the same period forced me to
confront a reality I wasn't prepared
for. the constant flood of opinions,
judgment, and misinformation about you.
Being in the public eye brings with it
an interesting new reality. At any given
moment, if I wanted to, I could dive
into an endless abyss of negativity. I
could find thousands of comments or
articles about myself that are true or
untrue, but are hurtful either way. And
I've had to learn to accept that this is
part of the territory. As one of my dear
friends said to me, "This is now an
occupational hazard of your life." And
this is especially true in today's world
where even reputable sources will
sometimes run with halftruths. What I've
had to come to terms with is that I
can't control what people say or think.
I have to accept that there will always
be noise. I have to accept that trying
to chase every falsehood, every
criticism, or every hurtful comment is
not only impossible, it's selfdestructive.
selfdestructive.
Trying to control these things will hurt
you more than these things. Being in the
public eye has taught me that true
acceptance is about letting go of the
need for control. And it's in that
acceptance where I found the peace to
keep doing what I love without being
consumed, without anger, and without
anxiety. The anxiety and worry and
overthinking that I couldn't seem to get
hold of when I was first catapulted into
the public eye. Do you ever fantasize
about running away?
I do.
If peace is what I'm after, surely I
should escape to a secluded beach on an
island somewhere. I could buy my own
island, build a little home right there
on the water. I imagine I'd fly my
friends out and would spend days in the
sun working out, making music, writing,
nothing but time and freedom and peace.
When I get drawn off into these
fantasies of a perfect apparent peace,
I'm reminded that it would mean giving
up on so many of the things that I
absolutely love doing. the things that
fill me up and challenge me. The things
that make my life so painful and worth
living. I think humans really need five
core things outside of the basics.
Connection, food, water, and air. I
think the first thing we need is to feel
challenged. I remember having Daniel
Pink, the motivation scientist, on my
podcast in the early days of the Diary
of a CEO. And I remember him telling me
that in a study of video gamers,
scientists found that an optimal balance
between the game players skill level and
the game's level of difficulty keeps
game players deeply engaged. This is the
reason why video games have levels and
increasing difficulty. You don't
actually want to play your life on easy
mode. And conversely, you don't want the
frustration from a life that is too
difficult. You have to maintain your own
equilibrium of challenge. In the
studies, when you reach your challenge
equilibrium, players enter a state of
flow where they are fully absorbed in
the game. All of this applies for my
life and all of it applies for yours.
You and me both need increasing
challenge. If you're listening to this
right now and you're one of the people
considering quitting your job, for many
of you, this will be the reason. You
feel like you're playing the same game
on the same level every single day.
Secondly, I think we need a feeling of
autonomy. The feeling that you have
freedom and control. Thirdly, you need a
feeling of progress or forward motion.
Studies show this to be true. And I
think fourthly, that forward motion
needs to be towards a subjectively
meaningful goal. And lastly, you need to
be working towards it with a supportive
group of people that you like. My life
continues to teach me that these five
core components are hardwired into our
DNA. They are evolutionary survival
mechanisms deep inside all of us to
ensure that our species continue to
build to drive forward to conquer
important goals to lean into challenging
tasks and to do it with our tribe. If
your ancestors didn't have this in their
DNA, they wouldn't have created the
magical devices you're streaming my
voice on right now, the skyscrapers we
live and work in, and the airplanes we
fly on. They passed this desire to you.
You're born to create, to build, to accomplish
accomplish together.
together.
So, with this in mind, I end up
concluding that I am living my life in
the way that I should be. And even if I
did run away, I would end up searching
for meaning by creating something. And
if my creations were successful and
appreciated, I would end up back in the
same situation I'm in now. Peace isn't
absence of hard times. It's your
capacity to accept hard times while
remaining in the long-term pursuit of
your most important goals. And that's
where I arrive back at the need for
acceptance. Life is going to suck
sometimes, more so than you or me would
like. But that is frankly the price you
have to pay for the love, dreams, and
happiness you chase. To imagine such a
world without the bad news, the
heartbreak, the pain is to imagine a
world without love, reward, and meaning.
So whenever bad news arrives, your job
isn't to think your way through it, to
blame, attack, or criticize. It's simply
to get to acceptance as fast as you can.
And I'm not saying it will be fast. And
I'm not saying it will be easy. I'm not
saying we can just decide to accept
something and move on. Because the
reality is acceptance comes in waves.
One day you'll feel like you've made
peace and progress with the situation
and the next day the hurt, the
frustration, the doubt, the why me
sneaks right back in. Mel Robbins who
came on the D ofio told me that one of
the most freeing simple habits she's
adopted is to say the words out loud let
them every single time she feels herself
being aggravated let down or annoyed by
someone or something which is pretty
much every single day for the average person.
person.
The let them theory is based on a simple truth.
truth.
The fastest way
to take control of your life is to stop
controlling everyone around you.
You have no idea how much time and
energy and attention
you are wasting
trying to control other people. You have
no idea how much energy you are burning through
through
thinking about, worrying about,
obsessing about what other people are
doing, what they're not doing, what
they're feeling, all of which you have
zero control over.
When she said this to me, I got to be
honest, I think I thought it was
nonsense. How can two simple words be so
powerful? But then I tried it with a few
minor alterations. When I find myself
annoyed at an external situation and I
feel tension in my body, the first thing
I do is to take a deep breath in
[Music]
My girlfriend is a breath work
practitioner and she tells me every
single week that a long slow deep exhale
activates the parasympathetic nervous
system which helps to calm the body by
reducing heart rate and lowering your
stress levels. And after I've done that,
then I say either in my head or out
loud, I wish them well. I don't know
why, but this simple exercise has proven
to be an instant circuit breaker for me.
Anytime I find myself falling into a bit
of a spiral, it's really a decision to
let go, to refuse to allow a person or
situation to consume more of your finite
energy, to be empathetic towards them
and whatever they might be going
through, which is important, and to jump
straight to acceptance so that you can
get back on with your life. I wish them well.
well.
Acceptance is as much about letting go
as it is about holding on. It's about
letting go of the need to control a
situation that you can't. And it's about
holding on to the belief that even in
your darkest moments, there's often a
hidden gift that is seemingly impossible
to see. My life over the last couple of
years has taught me that worry doesn't
take away tomorrow's troubles. It takes
away today's peace. You cannot stop the
waves. Frankly, you wouldn't want a life
without tides, but you can learn to
surf. So, get to acceptance as fast as
you can.
The next note I've written in my diary
is one that I think so many of you will
relate to. I've written, I need to spend
more time in the clouds.
Last weekend, I went fishing for the
first time in my life and it taught me
something that has completely changed my
life. It was a Sunday afternoon and I
found myself in a little boat bobbing
gently in the middle of a huge lake in
Oxfordshire. The sky was full of rolling
gray clouds and as is typical of British
weather, the rain was pelting against my
green waterproof overalls.
My girlfriend and I were enjoying a
station weekend at a place called
Estelle Manor. The manor offered a menu
of various activities and purely because
we'd been so engrossed in a reality TV
show on Netflix recently called Outlast,
where 20 people have to survive and hunt
and live in nature for as long as they
can to win a million dollars. I thought
it would be a great idea to pick the
fishing activity because if she and I
ever needed to fend for ourselves in the
wilderness, knowing how to catch our own
food might come in handy. So, there we
were on this little tiny paddle boat on
this very big lake, casting our lines
out and unsurprisingly
This had been the first time in a long
time that I had sat and done absolutely
nothing. The first time in a long time
that I had allowed myself to become
totally bored. And as I sat there bored
out of my mind, dropping into this
meditative state. So many of the answers
that I'd been searching for in my life,
in my work, and in my business seemed to
emerge out of seemingly nowhere. The
sheer volume of epiphanies I had while
sat bored on that lake led me to an even
bigger overarching epiphany which I
needed to share with you today because
for some of you this might inspire you
to reorganize your life in a way that
helps you to become the creative force
you need to be to reach your goals in
the very very strange times we're living
in. To understand what I'm about to say,
you need to understand three separate
underlying principles that came to me
that day on the lake. Principle number
one, clouds and trenches. I've been
thinking a lot about this idea of clouds
and trenches, the balance between two
modes of work and how critical it is to
spend the right amount of time in each
mode. The trenches are where the hard
focused work happens. The business
meetings, the podcast recordings, the
investment decisions, the flights, the
speeches, the company building, the
interviewing people to join my
businesses, the Zoom calls, all the
action. This is the trenches. You and I
both know them well. The clouds, on the
other hand, are where you step away from
the grind. Not the kind of stepping away
where you go and get paralytic drunk in
IA or distract yourself by playing video
games, but truly disconnecting,
thinking, walking, running, maybe
reading, listening, doing nothing, fishing,
fishing,
dreaming. It's the space where
creativity and innovation are born,
where your intuition can be heard. Most
of my best ideas have come from time
spent in the clouds. They haven't come
from boardrooms and brainstorms. They've
come while I was rolling through the
hills on barley on a moped alone at
night, running on a treadmill in
Cambodia, or sat on this small boat
praying, waiting for a fish to tug my line.
line.
Principle number two that came to me on
the lake that day is this idea of your
unique value point. One of the most
fundamentally but poorly appreciated
principles of life is that no matter who
you are, a creative, an entrepreneur, a
manager, or even a healthcare
professional, you will be paid,
recognized, and rewarded for your
ability to do something valuable that
most other people aren't doing. Take
this podcast for example. There are
millions and millions and millions of
podcasts out there. But the reason you
choose to listen to mine is because
there's something that we do
differently, something you value that is
hard to find elsewhere. That valuable
point of difference is ultimately why
we're rewarded. In this case, by your
attention. The greater the difference
you offer, the harder it is to find. And
the more that it is valued, the more
valuable you and your work becomes.
Therefore, the more you'll be paid and
the richer you'll be. In business, we
call it a USP, a unique selling point.
But for me, it's more about the unique
value you bring. It's not just about
being able to sell something. It's about
delivering real hard to find value. This
idea of having a strong UVP, unique
value point, was brought into focus for
me this week as I watched with my jaw on
the floor as Elon Musk's SpaceX launched
a 50story rocket, the biggest to ever
launch, weighing some 200 tons, into the
air. and then caught it midair with two
metal chopsticks. Unfathomable.
Unfathomable.
SpaceX's value is so rare and so large
that it's made SpaceX nearly a trillion
dollar company. The second principle of
UVP is something that most people
building a career or company don't fully
understand. Almost 10 years ago, when I
was thinking about this concept of
unique selling points for an article I
was writing for the Huffington Post, I
asked the owner of my local corner shop
in Manchester, UK, why he thinks
customers choose his shop. He gave me
this long list of reasons that included
things like great customer service,
clean shopping aisles, and lots of
different types of milk. But in reality,
as a customer of his, I choose that shop
because it's the closest.
proximity and therefore convenience is
their only real unique value point. And
if a new corner shop opened closer,
unfortunately, Dennis, you'd lose me as
a customer forever. Hold on to these two
ideas of the clouds and trenches and
your UVP as I introduce the final point.
Principle three is the accelerating pace
of change. The world is changing at a
pace faster than any time in human
history. Futurist Ray Kurszswwell
famously said, "We won't experience a
100 years of progress in the 21st
century. We'll experience the equivalent
of 20,000 years of progress. The rate of
change is accelerating so fast that the
solutions to today's problems will be
outdated faster than ever before. If
you're 40 years old today, by the age of
60, you'll experience a year's change at
today's rate in just 3 months. If you're
11 years old today, by the age of 60,
you'll experience a year's worth of
today's change in just 11 days. In
simple terms, the correct answers to the
business, professional, marketing, or
personal questions that you care so much
about will change at lightning pace and
therefore so will your unique value
point. Technology, markets, and the
world will move on faster than you can
blink. This phenomenon is often referred
to as acceleration of business cycles or
creative destruction. The easiest way to
see this playing out is to study the
rate at which great companies rise and
fall in the modern economy. By looking
at this data, you can essentially see
how long a UVP, a unique value point,
lasts in modern times. There was a 2008
study done by a company called Inner
Sight that showed that companies are
rising and falling them faster than ever
before. In 1965, the average company
stayed on the S&P 500 list, a list that
ranks the biggest 500 companies in the
world for 33 years.
By 2018, that number had shrunk to 17
years. And by 2027, it's projected to
drop further. They predict the company
will only be on that list for around a
decade. At this rate, by the time I'm
50, companies will only be on the S&P
500 list for a few years, maybe even a
few months before they're disrupted and
fall off that list. However, even these
forecasts presume that AI isn't going to
further turbocharge disruption, which I
certainly think it already is. I think
by the time I'm 50, some companies,
especially technology companies, will
last just months on the S&P 500 list
before they're disrupted and full. And
over the last few decades, we're seeing
the rise of new companies and the fall
of companies accelerate. In comes Apple.
Out goes Kodak and Blackberry and Nokia.
In comes Netflix. Out goes Blockbuster.
In comes Chat GPT. Out goes Google. Maybe
Maybe
this isn't how things used to work.
Companies used to stay big and powerful
for multiple decades or even centuries
because their unique value point was so
strong. But in a changing world, in a
technological one, in an AI one,
everything changes. So as creatives, as
entrepreneurs, as professionals, how do
we keep up? And that is where principle
number one comes in. That's where the
clouds come in. You have to spend more
time in the clouds and less time in the
trenches. This is what the lake
whispered to me that day. more time
dreaming, more time disconnected from
the trenches, more time alone with
ourselves to stay inspired, create new
ideas, to disrupt ourselves, to
innovate, to tune in. When we're in the
trenches, we are standing so close to
the painting that we can't see the
picture. Stepping away gives our mind
the space to wander, to connect old dots
in new ways, and to find new valuable
points of difference to explore and
experiment with. All of these principles
have made me conclude that one of the
most valuable but unobvious things I can
do for my companies is to do nothing
more often. One of the best things I
could do for my relationship, which is
also something that I am building, is to
do nothing so I can think about the
relationship. I need more time in the
clouds thinking, dreaming, letting my
mind wander because that's where true
creativity, value, and connection is
born. Over the last year, I've taken no
time off. I've worked non-stop in the
proverbial trenches. But I've had this
haunting feeling that because of this,
I'm missing something. Something that's
quietly whispering to be discovered.
Something that will only reveal itself
if I pull myself up into the clouds. But
I've struggled to give myself permission
to spend time in the clouds. Because
everything feels so busy and urgent and
important in the trenches right now. I
have this strange feeling of guilt that
if I stop, I'll lose everything. I have
a feeling of complacency that's
associated with stepping out of the
trenches and into the clouds. But there
is another voice. I call it wisdom that
is demanding that I do because the
clouds have something important they
need to tell me. I know all of these
analogies sound a bit bonkers, but I
also know that some of you will be able
to relate to the feeling I'm describing.
the feeling that you're missing some
higher inspiration or message because
you've made yourself too busy to hear it
for a second. Allow me to get a little
bit esoteric. We are all in one way or
another confined by the narratives we
construct around our lives. Maybe your
narrative is that people should settle
down at 30. Maybe yours is to avoid
failure. Maybe your narrative is that
technology is bad, that veganism is
good, or that marriage is important, and
that people on the other side of the
political aisle are evil. These
narratives become the bedrock of our
careers, our identities, and our lives,
making them exceptionally hard to
escape, and they are self-reinforcing.
We're often compensated and validated
and applauded for continuing to believe
in them, which reinforces their hold
over us. However, in work, our greatest
opportunities arise when we step back
and recognize the broader narratives
that society is collectively trapped in.
Visionary entrepreneurs excel at
identifying these societal and industry
narratives and understanding how they
limit us. They dare to imagine a better
narrative, a new idea, a new paradigm
that others have yet to believe. These
individuals become legends and world
changers and billionaires. Not because
they are successful at the current
narrative, but because they change it.
Steve Jobs is such a prime example of
someone who was able to see the flaws
and narratives that everyone else
believed. It sounds kind of strange, but
I always think about his bizarre
decision to exclude Adobe Flash from
Apple's iOS device as a prime example of
this. In the late 2000s, Flash was the
standard for delivering rich video
content on the web. The industry was so
deeply entrenched in the prevailing
narrative that Flash was indispensable
for videos and animations and
interactive applications. However, Steve
Jobs saw beyond this prevailing belief.
He recognized that Flash was plagued
with security vulnerabilities, consumed
excessive battery power, and was not
optimized for the touch interfaces that
he wanted the world to adopt with his
iPhone, his iPod, and his iPads. Despite
facing massive criticism from many,
including people in his own team and
including the CEO at the time of Adobe,
who said it was an extraordinary attack,
he held firm in his convictions. This
move not only set Apple apart, but also
rapidly accelerated the entire web
industry's shift towards more modern,
efficient, and open technologies. By
challenging the entrenched narrative,
Jobs redefined computing and the way
that we interact with digital content
forever. But this was the story of Steve
Jobs. Someone that seemed to be able to
see into the future. That knew our
current narratives were so flawed. That
Adobe Flash needed to die. That to
humans, design and typography really
mattered. That digital music was the
future. That we wanted an app store.
That physical keyboards on phones sucked
and took up too much space that could be
used for other things. That our devices
shouldn't have removable batteries. They
needed touch screens, no headphone
jacks, and that everything could be
stored in the cloud. How was he able to
see the future to think so disruptively,
so clearly with such conviction? Well,
it turns out he spent every day in the
clouds. What most people don't know
about Steve Jobs was that he was deeply
influenced by meditation and mindfulness
practices. These practices played a
significant role in shaping his
creativity, his leadership style, and
the innovative products that Apple
became known for. Frequent meditation
helped Jobs to cultivate a heightened
level of focus and mental clarity which
was crucial in his creative process. And
he said it himself. If you just sit and
observe, you will see how restless your
mind is. If you try to calm it, it only
makes it worse. But over time, it does
calm. And when it does, there's room to
hear more subtle things. That's when
your intuition starts to blossom and you
start to see things more clearly. To
Steve, spending time in the clouds
allowed him to hear his intuition. In
one interview, he said, "Intion is a
very powerful thing, more powerful than
intellect, in my opinion. It's had a big
impact on my work." And finally, the
wonderful Walter Isacson, Steve Jobs
biographer, whom I interviewed on this
podcast a few months ago, said, "Steve
Job's way of looking at problems was a
direct result of the meditation
techniques he practiced. It is no
surprise to me that one of the most
visionary entrepreneurs of our lifetime
had a dedicated practice where he spent
time in the clouds with a clear mind,
tuning out of the noise so he could tune
in to his intuition.
Maybe we all should. I wonder what
messages that your intuition has been
trying to tell you but hasn't been able
to because you've been so busy creating
ever more noise. As I sat on the lake
that day, rain pattering on my shoulders
and head. Words that I read many years
ago from guru Ramdas came to mind. The
quieter you become, the more you can
hear. And my life has continued to prove
this to me. Silence, boredom, and space
aren't empty. They are full of answers.
And I need to spend more time in the
clouds listening to silence and all that
it has to say. Get out of the trenches
The last point in my diary this week is
a point that I never thought I would um
I never imagined that I'd be sharing
with the world. I literally just got
goosebumps when I when I started
it was 10:49 p.m. on Wednesday the 16th
of October. I was sitting at my computer
at my kitchen table in my high-rise
apartment. The familiar late night hum
of the city was my only acquaintance,
and the lights beneath me like a galaxy
of tiny stars. My French bulldog, Pablo,
lay at my feet, snoring softly. A
comforting, familiar sound in the
stillness of the night. The rhythmic
tapping of my keyboard was the only
My phone lit up beside me. There was a
message from Georgie, the CEO of my
media company. Her text read, "Have you
seen the news?" My heart skipped a beat.
Before I could reach out to pick up my
phone, another notification appeared.
This time, it was from my personal
assistant. "Oh my god," it read. I
froze, my fingers hovering above the
keys. A wave of apprehension washed over
me. "What could possibly be so urgent at
this hour?" My mind raced through a
dozen scenarios. None of them were good.
I opened a new browser tab and typed in
bbc.com, expecting to see some sort of
breaking news headline. Nothing.
Confused, I navigated to Twitter. The
homepage felt like it took a lifetime to
load. And there it was, the headline
that made my stomach drop.
Liam Payne, dead at 31.
I stared at the screen, my mind unable
to process the words I just read.
It was surreal, impossible.
impossible.
I reread the headline several times,
hoping I'd misread it. I checked the
account that posted it. Verified, reputable.
reputable.
I clicked off the tweet in disbelief and
searched his name, not looking for
confirmation that this was true, but
hoping for confirmation that it was a
hoax. But the avalanche of posts that I
saw told me that it was all too real.
Even as I speak these words into the
microphone now, I have this wave of
On June the 1st, 2021, Liam was a guest
on my podcast. We had a raw, open, and
honest conversation about life, his
struggles with fame, and his mental
health. After the cameras had stopped
rolling, we stayed chatting for a long
time. We exchanged numbers and later
that night, he texts me expressing that
he was still on a high from the
conversation and sharing some of his new
music, which we had discussed after the recording.
recording.
I was just about to join Dragon's Den
and step one step further into the
public eye, something he knew more about
than anyone. We were both basically the
same age, interested in many of the same
things, and so over the next 3 years, we
became good friends. Between 2021 and
2024, I spent time at his house on
multiple occasions, learning about his
world, his dogs, his love of art, his
admiration for his son, Bear, his
manager, his dreams, his new music, and
his struggles. We did boxing lessons
together when he visited me during
Dragon's Den recordings. We went to the
gym together in London when we were both
in town. We invested in a company
together, had many dinners, nights out,
trained for Soccer football matches
together, and had a big England Euros
party together in Manchester.
He felt like a younger brother to me.
Um, I loved him because he was so kind.
He was so pure-hearted. He was so funny.
And he was so hopeful that he could
overcome all of the challenges that he
was struggling with.
Liam's death breaks my heart. I can feel
my eyes filling with tears as I say
these words. And
what he needed most from the world was
love and kindness. in grace.
When people need this most, they often
get the exact opposite
because their behavior is strange. Their
behavior is atypical. It is hard to understand.
Robbie Williams, the legendary artist
who rose to stardom at an early age and
struggled through some of the same
addictions that Liam spoke about
publicly, called me after Liam's passing
and offered some words of wisdom, some
words of comfort and understanding.
He also said publicly, "We don't know
what's going on in people's lives, the
pain they're going through, what makes
them behave in the way that they behave.
Before we reach judgment, a bit of slack
needs to be given." Before you type
anything on the internet, please have a
think. Do I really need to publish this?
Because what you're doing is you're
publishing your thoughts for everybody
to read. And even if you don't think
that celebrities and their families
exist, they [ __ ] do. Skin and bone
are immensely sensitive. As individuals,
we have the power to change ourselves.
We can be kinder. We can be more
empathetic. We can at least try to be
more compassionate towards ourselves,
our family, our friends, strangers in
life, and strangers on the internet.
Even famous strangers need your compassion.
compassion. [Music]
One of the things I've I've come to
learn by doing the DEIO and interviewing
so many people is that people's pain and
their sadness and their trauma rarely
looks like pain, sadness, and trauma. It
looks like anger. It looks like hate.
Sometimes it looks like laughter.
Sometimes it looks like addiction. And
addiction isn't for bad or crazy people.
Addiction isn't a bad choice that they
make. Addiction is a symptom of pain and
trauma. And we're all searching for ways
to feel less pain. For some of us, the
pain and trauma is so unbearable, so
inescapable that the ways we choose to
not feel it become destructive in and of
themselves. But it isn't a choice to
self-destruct. It's the opposite. It's a
lastditch attempt to survive. And we
never heal from pain we refuse to
acknowledge or try to escape. We can't
pornography our pain away. We can't
drink our pain away. We can't smoke our
pain away. We can't drug our pain away
because these escape mechanisms will
just become our new pain. We have to
Losing Liam has shattered a comfortable
illusion that I lived under. But in the
fragments of that illusion, I found a
sharper, more vibrant appreciation for
every single moment, every connection,
The last text messages Liam shared with
me were photos of art that he'd created, these incredible, powerful pencil
these incredible, powerful pencil sketches.
sketches. And as I sat there in the early hours of
And as I sat there in the early hours of the morning scrolling through years of
the morning scrolling through years of messages, the artwork, the unreleased
messages, the artwork, the unreleased music, the loving encouragement he gave
music, the loving encouragement he gave me whenever I faced a challenge in my
me whenever I faced a challenge in my life, the love letters he wrote to his
life, the love letters he wrote to his partner that he shared with me,
partner that he shared with me, all of it served as the most horrible
all of it served as the most horrible reminder of the talent of the person, of
reminder of the talent of the person, of the son, the friend, the father, the
the son, the friend, the father, the boyfriend that the world has lost.
And in that moment, I felt so overwhelmed by the urge to text
so overwhelmed by the urge to text Julian.
Julian. Even though I knew that you were gone,
I hoped you would read it. I hoped you would reply.
I hoped you would reply. So, I typed the words out anyway.
So, I typed the words out anyway. I love you.
I'm so sorry that I didn't do more. One more phone call checking in for no
One more phone call checking in for no reason at all. One more conversation
reason at all. One more conversation about how talented you are and how the
about how talented you are and how the world needs your gifts. One more
world needs your gifts. One more message, one more laugh, one more hug.
message, one more laugh, one more hug. I knew you needed help.
I knew you needed help. [Music]
[Music] I didn't know how to help.
I didn't know how to help. [Music]
[Music] I'm so sorry that I didn't
I'm so sorry that I didn't do more.
