In this week's episode Jeff Melnyk is joined by former iTech Media COO, Alan Cairns. Together they dig into what is happening in the world of tech, what the impact of mass layoffs could look like and what it takes for leaders to create a purposeful + culture driven organization.

Learn more about Within People and the work we do here.

Hey everyone.

Welcome back to re-Imagining Work From Within.

I'm Jeff Melnyk based in San Francisco.

I've been wanting Alan Cairns on the show for quite some time and managed

to convince him over a margarita.

That now was the time, given the current state of play in tech and his passion for

purpose led businesses, I wanted to get his personal perspective on what a culture

first tech sector actually looks like.

Alan is a brilliant leader that I've had the pleasure of working with

for several years in two different businesses, Mo and iTech Media.

Through his career journey, he's successfully transitioned from

chief people officer to c o O, bringing the best bits of the former

and learning a lot along the way.

He brings positivity, vulnerability, fun and energy to everything he does.

He has worked for and with some of the UK's most celebrated entrepreneurs

and advised founders on commercial growth, bringing into play his

knowledge, experience, and playbook to help solve scaling challenges.

. It's so great to have him on the show today.

Welcome Allen.

How have you been since the new year?

Amazing actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had really good Christmas, new Year, lots of time with family, lots of time

with friends, parties at different people's houses and everything,

and that was super, super fun.

Yeah.

It's been bit been a joy really having a bit of time to actually engage

with everyone and get some, some good kind of outdoor time as well.

That's been.

And does it feel like you've stepped into a new year

already?

Definitely.

Yes.

Chinese or otherwise?

Yes.

Yes, I absolutely

have.

What does the year of Rabbit of the Rabbit bring for you, Alan?

Well, , who knows what the year of the rabbit will bring, but A

purposeful business, I'm pretty sure.

Hmm.

I hope so.

Yes.

So we've known each other for quite some time.

We worked together when you were at Moo and then you went on to some

other ventures and found us again when you moved to iTech, but you've had

quite an interesting career moving through the world of HR and then

into a COO role and through ventures.

Tell us a little bit about the Allen story.

How's your career been?

As a young child to today, but give us, give us a little bit of flavor of what's,

what's been the, the sort of narrative arc of your career journey, Ellen.

Absolutely.

So the best way to describe this is I've, I've always worked for

businesses with a true purpose.

So back in 2007, I joined Money Supermarket and Money Supermarket.

Its purpose was to help people to save.

, and that's absolutely what we did as a business.

It's a company that I have been with the longest, so I was

there for eight years in total.

And really helped to shape the business from a startup that

had just iPod into a successful footsy that was in a people role.

I then moved on to there, and this is when Jeff and I met when I went to

work for Moo Again in a people role.

Absolutely loved it.

Very creative business.

Really nice vibe.

and we did some great work around purpose, around culture, around values,

and really helped to kind of shape the business around those central tenants.

Absolutely love that.

And both

of those, both of those roles, I mean, money Supermarket was

interesting I guess at the time because that was sort of before the whole

Purpose Site Geist was going on and Money Supermarket, very big brand in the uk.

And, and so kind of ahead of the curve and then the.

Moo, I mean, at Moo you had great design for everyone as a purpose,

kind of already embedded there.

When, when we met, didn't we, that was part of, of what the founder

wanted to see in the business.

It was something that was really important to him.

So, so you've, you've kind of chosen brands that were at the cutting

edge of that sort of culture and purpose nexus, weren't you?

Absolutely.

I, and I think that was very deliberate for me.

I've always said, I want to be able to describe a business either by its product

or its service so that my children, and we could go into a whole different

conversation there straight away.

All nine of them,

all nine of them , but so that my children or my parents or my

friends could immediately understand what it was that the business did.

probably why I've never worked in crypto.

Right.

more on that in episode two, . But, but feeling so, so, so when you went

to Money Supermarket and Moon, we'll, and we'll continue on your journey in a,

in a second, but when you went to those companies, you were seeking them out.

So you were thinking, I need a business that is, That is purpose driven.

Were you looking for a business that was also sort of culture focused as well?

Like you're in a people role, obviously that'd be important to you,

but were the things that you were seeing at Money Supermarket or Moo

that were good indicators that this was a business that I knew culture

was going to be a driver here.

Yeah, it was a really important, I suppose, central tenant of

what I was looking for in a business.

I may not have used those terms to describe it at the time, but

what I was looking for was either something that was broken that needed

fixing, so almost like a turnaround.

Yeah.

Or something that already had a great culture and that you

could actually build on top of.

And the money supermarket, it certainly wasn't broken, but the business had

just iPod and it still felt like a startup and it needed to grow up

rapidly to professionalize because it was suddenly a plc and suddenly you had

shareholders and analysts looking at it.

So that was about going through that journey.

I think the, the people team was something like three people when I

joined and about 30 people when I left.

So you can understand the kind of the growth journey that that went.

. Jeff Melnyk: Yeah.

Yeah.

And Moo also scaled really fast quickly the time through the

time you were there as well.

Hey, that was not a different kind of trajectory in terms of not wanting to

be a public business in the same way, but really grew and expanded quickly.

What those challenges is that, is that your bread and butter?

Is that the joy?

Yeah, I think so.

I, I, I get a real buzz out of that.

I think that it's, it's, you know, obviously with

limitless budgets, it's easy to.

But doing that without a limitless budget and being able to do that

carefully and very deliberately, that to me is the most important part of it.

And having a founder that you can kind of work shoulder to shoulder with and you

can steer and navigate your way through, they're the most important parts for me.

What did you notice about the founders of Money Supermarket in Moo?

Was there something about those founders that you also noticed as being integral?

Yeah, so in in Money Supermarket I was

recruited by Simon Nixon, who was the founder of the business.

Went on to be chair and then just as a shareholder in the business.

So we then hired in a C E O and in Simon, I noticed someone that was

genuinely passionate about what he was doing, that he'd started this business.

After leaving school, he'd started a business where he literally

knocked on people's doors to sell mortgage products and so on.

And from that, he'd learned a lot.

And it was all customer feedback.

It was people saying, I want this, I don't want that.

And then he realized that he could actually set that up

online and suddenly the business transformed as a result of that.

Hmm.

So what I saw in Simon was someone who was absolutely driven, like one of the

most driven people I've ever worked with.

Very, very passionate about what he wanted to do, but didn't have all of the.

So what I found was a nice kind of, Almost like two cogs fitting together.

You know, here's some things that I'm good at, you are not, and vice versa.

And the, and the two of us fit together very, very well.

Yeah.

Great talk.

Talking about Richard, I learned an awful lot from Richard.

He's a creative genius and you've worked with him as well.

You, you, you know this Jeff, and watching him apply a level of detail

I've never seen in my life before to.

Now the way a business card would be shaped to a font, to a cup,

to a notebook, little things like that, that attention to detail.

Yeah.

Kind of transcribed into Make It Values was absolutely incredible

and a real learning point.

But I would say the parallels between the two would be that Driven Nature combined

with a passion for what they were doing.

Each one did something completely different, but they were

absolutely passionate about.

Yeah.

The deep sort of passion within their soul, a purposefulness within them of this

is, this is what I'm trying to do here.

It's, it's interesting where that, the what and the why come together

so closely with founders, right?

Like, I know why I want this, and I know why the world wants this.

I know the vision of where I'm gonna go, but I can tell

you like the beveled edge of.

The card that we're about to invent needs to be a quarter of a quarter

of a quarter of an inch smaller in order for it to be successful.

I think that's, there's something about that semi neurosis in a

founder that's kind of important.

Otherwise, things get lost, don't they?

Yeah, they do.

I, I think that's a, I think that's a really, really good

point that that level of detail.

I mean, you heard that Steve Jobs is probably one of the best

examples of that, all about the.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And yet we're told, of course, founders must be visionary.

They have to always be big picture, and yet that's not necessarily the truth.

They also love to get in the weeds.

Okay, back in the weeds with you though.

So after Moo, where did we go?

. Alan Cairns: So after Moo, I thought,

I wanted to challenge myself.

I wanted to do something that I'd never done before.

So an industry I'd never worked.

And also could I make it somewhere super small?

So I joined two companies.

In parallel, I joined a startup systematic hedge fund with 12 people in it.

Again, with a very, very smart founder and I also joined Octopus Ventures, who a

vc, which helped about, there's now 200.

At the time there was probably a hundred businesses that they

invested in all different startups at different stages from a two person

to maybe a two 300 person business.

And in Octopus it was about helping founders to scale their businesses.

And in the hedge fund, it was about scaling the hedge fund

in a completely different way.

Because I was trying to bring in the best PhD systematic

mathematicians in the world.

I learned things like PhD maths humor, which is a.

It's a particular nuanced humor, believe me,

exceptional.

You can roll that out at, at dinner parties today.

I'm, that's, that's a gift that keeps on giving it.

Okay.

And, and so, so the notion there's still like, how do we scale through various

different means then leading you into where you've been recently at iTech?

Indeed.

So iTech, I had a reach out from Harley, who's the founder of iTech.

I'd only been in the other two roles for, well, it was less than a year.

Mm-hmm.

, and in my head I was, well, I'm going to be in these two

companies for the next five.

But Harley sold me on a really strong vision of what

the company was going to be.

I met a few other people in the business and I thought, this potentially is

going to be life changing for me.

And it was a great opportunity to take all of the people learnings that

I had from different businesses, and I've been in some operational roles

before, but to combine those into a COO role and joining a business

at the time that had 50, 60 people.

and, and I mean, that seems, looking back, it

seems very logical, doesn't it?

You've been through these rapidly scaling businesses in

a, in a people and culture role.

You understand culture.

iTech has a desire to be a culture driven business.

It's the perfect match, isn't it, to then go into that COO role.

Was that daunting to you though, to, to go to go into the coup

? Alan Cairns: To go into

I'm, I'm a big believer that you should kind of feel the fear and do it anyway.

Okay.

So with without a question of a doubt.

Yeah, because it was something I'd not done before.

You know, I'd not ran a large engineering team in my life.

I'd not run a finance team before.

But things like that are great opportunities to challenge

yourself and to kind of stretch what you are actually capable of.

Yeah.

And did you, so there was that stretch to, to be able to see, okay,

I, I'm gonna need to take these teams at scale now as well as we start to grow.

What did you draw on from, was there experience or qualities of your leadership

that you felt that you were gonna need to draw on to sort of step into that role?

Or was it just, okay, I'm just gonna jump into the deep end

here and see how we get going.

, Alan Cairns: there was definitely

But the, the things that I pulled on firstly were people centricity, having

worked in lots of people roles, whom, whomever you are leading accountable for.

You know, the, the example I often use is UX and design.

You know, I'm not going to be a better UX or designer than a head of UX and

design, but what I can do is help them to become a better leader and

help to stretch and challenge them in terms of how they're building their

team, types of people are bringing into the team and things like that.

So, without a doubt, there was definitely some jumping in there, but

there was some borrowing from other things that I'd done in the past.

Yeah, for sure.

And I think it's interesting to think about what does it take to

scale a business that is purposeful or a business that is culture first.

And I think I'd really love us to sort of noodle around that

today cuz you've, you've had so many great experiences and seen.

All of the things that work and don't work.

And, and, and it's interesting thinking about that with the lens of tech overlaid

because cuz you've been through the tech mill, you've, you've seen it, you've seen

it from many different sides, Alan, you understand tech and right now tech is

going through a bit of a moment, isn't it?

It's having, its, it's next comeuppance.

, what, if any, reflections before we dive into the culture bit on just this, the

current tech context, what is going on?

Well, if you, if you know, please, please do tell

me . If, if you look at kind of fang companies in particular and tech

layoffs, layman's opinion on this is a prioritization of profit over people.

And the sad indictment is that investors are also kind of supporting that.

So the share price of most of those companies has risen even though,

or as they've described layoffs.

Yeah.

The reality is though, I think when you do something like that, ultimately

you are damaging your brand in some.

, your share price might grow, but your E V P, your recruiting brand,

what's it like to work as a company?

That's the thing that it can damage.

So I think that it's a prioritization of short term versus long term.

Yeah.

And I think thinking about what happened during the pandemic, when

there was the hiring frenzy across all of those businesses, I think

Google hired, in the thousands over the last two years, the, just.

This month they laid off 15,000.

I mean, they made 46 billion in profit in 2021.

These numbers don't make sense to me.

So I see the, I see the impetus of, oh, maybe we've overhired, oh,

now we need to make some cutbacks.

We're still incredibly profitable.

Oh, yes, we want our share price to be better, but surely now we have damaged.

You know, any chance of someone looking at us favorably is, is that

going through their minds right now?

If you were, if you were c e o in those businesses, would you

be going excuse me, hold on.

Maybe we need to, we need to weigh out the cost benefit analysis of this?

A hun.

A hundred percent.

I mean, you spend a moment on LinkedIn at the moment and okay.

It was Google's turn this week and all you'll see is lots of

different people leaving Google.

Eloquently describing having a great time in Google, but the suddenness of it.

Yeah.

And then when you read the subtext, what you often hear is, I'm now looking for

a completely different type of business.

It's not, I've left Google and now I'm going to work for Facebook or Twitter.

Yeah, it's, I want to work for a different type of business because

they've realized that they might have committed 5, 10, 15 years to a

company, and then suddenly they're out.

and that changes the kind of dynamic between employer employee about what,

what to expect in that relationship.

Yeah.

So it's, it's an opportunity for many of those people to think, I'm going to

work for a business that walks the talk that is about purpose, that is value

centric, that is driven in that way.

And so, Do we think that that the, that Fang or big tech, big tech have,

would you say they have been purposeful?

Are they, had they been culture first and something happened over the, the

last, the mega disruption with the pandemic and onwards, or, or was that

all a little bit of a smoke screen?

That's a deep, that's a deep question.

I've, I've many friends who were in Google all the way through from the 2000.

and certainly the Google they described at that stage was very purposeful,

was very focused on what we want to do for users more than anything else.

And as companies scale, and if you look at the size of a company like Google,

but the same for Facebook and Amazon and everyone else is, as you get to

a to a size like that, it's really hard to make that the central part of

what you do, especially when you have investors, when you've got shareholders

who are looking for a return on that.

So I think it, it makes it much harder.

What I read.

So not really my opinion, but what I've read.

A lot of those people have said the company's changing as a consequence that,

you know, we're, we're prioritizing and focusing on different things, you know,

Microsoft buying or investing in G P T, for instance, that things like that

are having an impact and you have to be able to respond to that in some way.

Well, and take us back to Money Supermarket, cuz that

was a similar kind of trajectory for you in that sense, wasn't it?

Like we're scaling fast, we're going public priorities are shifting.

We have shareholders now we have to really be cautious and, and work to a different

agenda or, or was that not the discussion around the boardroom table at the.

To, to be candid, the discussion around the boardroom table

was in the, in the first year or so.

It was, how do we.

Increase the share price, not because we've got big institutional shareholders,

but actually a lot of shareholders in money supermarket were local pensioners

that had put, you know, an amount of money that they might have needed

in the future into the business.

And going into recession, that share price within the first

year was something like 33 p.

Yeah.

And it floated at one pound 17.

So you can see straight away that there's an imperative

there of what do we do about.

What we did is we put a framework in place.

We read, we all read the same book, which was Dream with a Deadline.

So it's a kind of a pillar based model with a vision, and we used that as the

framework of how to set up the business and actually how to describe the purpose.

and that sounds quite purposeful as well, thinking about

shareholders in that context.

Like we need to protect the value.

Mm-hmm.

of the people that have invested in us, rather than the narrative you

get in the media today, which is, oh, shareholders are here to pillage and

people don't matter inside the business.

Yeah.

And, and don't forget that a lot of shareholders were actually employee.

Hmm.

So this is about doing the best thing for all of those people as well.

And I mean the, without spoiling the story over that eight year period,

we grew the share price about 11 x.

And it was, when I left, it was more than double what it

was at the time of the float.

So we, we did do the right thing by shareholders.

And did, do you think culture was a contributing

factor to that growth at 11 times?

100%.

What we, what we realized in the business is, although, you know, the

city would be interested in revenue and ebitda, most employees, and

certainly most customers weren't.

What they were interested in is how much money could we save.

So actually we, we produced and calculated with all of the data

that we had a savings calculator of how much money we'd save the uk.

And over that period it was something ridiculous, like 2 billion pounds.

Yeah.

And that became a metric that drove the company because it wasn't about

the profitability of the company.

It was how, how are we living against our purpose if our purpose

is help people to save money?

Help every household to make the most of their money.

Then how can you have a metric based around that?

So it was almost like a purposeful metric.

Yeah.

It's the, so in, in our formula, it's problem, impact, and

role makes up our purpose.

It's, that was the impact, wasn't it?

So we can actually truly measure the impact.

Of this business through our purpose and understanding the nuance of that.

That sounds totally motivating.

And not only just a great story for your E V P or for consumers, but actually kind

of a get outta bed, rallying cry, rather than just, Hey, we made more money today.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

And that it did make a big difference to employees, to shareholders,

to people that we were hiring.

We started to have people joining the company that had worked in NGOs

that worked for the Samaritans, and the reason is because they wanted

to help people, so they just found a different way to help people.

So a lot of our community also asks a lot about scaling up and are

we gonna lose our culture when we scale?

And there's always that desire to, to grow and to scale.

It feels like that's kind of built into the tech psyche as well, isn't it?

We need to scale up also.

We probably need to exit it sometime.

That's a different conversation.

But what.

What advice do you have on the the right way to use culture to scale?

Because I think there's a little bit of a, I kind as a, as a leader, I maybe

kind of believe that culture is gonna take us forward towards a vision of

growth that we see, but also a little bit of, you know, we just gotta.

Get shit done and make sure we hit our OKRs.

So there's that paradox, right, of that putting people first and just performing.

And I see those two things are lovingly linked together quite often, but

what, what do you, what advice do you have, Alan in terms of the right

way to use culture to drive growth?

So I think firstly you have to be serious about it.

You know, it doesn't happen by accident.

You don't just have a good culture because you're not doing anything about it.

It's, it's like working out, you know, you have to keep, keep, keep it up.

And the first thing I would say is scaling.

A purpose-driven culture is about doing it carefully, and it's

about doing it deliberately.

So you have a plan, this is what we want to do, this is why we're going to do

it, and you can explain that to people.

First of all, I think a another, another big learning for me is about

never lowering your hiring standards.

So if you are a purpose driven business, then.

How closely is an individual that you are trying to hire aligned with that purpose?

Can do they believe in, short, do they accord with the values of the business and

ultimately, do they buy into the vision?

So they're, they're not just joining for day one, they're joining

for a long period, hopefully.

Yeah.

So thinking about it like that, then sometimes you'll have people that will

be, well, oh, it, it's a great culture.

I'll join the business.

But you need more than just that.

You need people that are really bought into the purpose as well,

so that they're true believers.

and that they have some, some

sort of passion or magic inside them to deliver on that, that purpose.

Right.

That's they've, they want to bring their, their magic to the, to the business and,

and apply it because do you, when you've been recruiting through, especially

through iTech, cause I know you were very keen that we hired correctly mm-hmm.

at iTech based on our values.

. Did you feel that asking people about purpose was more important

than finding the values fit?

Or how did you navigate that?

Just from a pure practitioner point of view,

it's a, it's a delicate balancing act because you're looking for,

you're looking for skills, you know, can you do the role you're also looking for?

Do you want to join any business or do you want to join this business?

So that's when it comes down to the very specifics of, this is our purpose.

We've articulated that to you.

Is that something that you can buy into?

Yeah.

And what, what we sometimes found is there were some people that would kind of nod

and say, absolutely, yes, absolutely yes.

And six months later would say, well, I don't really buy into the purpose.

Okay.

So I think the learning is really kind of honing in on that.

This is what we're looking for and being really, really specific about

what the company does, why it does what it does, what problem we're

solving, and how this particular role can actually help solve that problem.

And what's your advice for other COOs or crs or chief people

and culture officers out there who are dealing with founders who also,

or founders or CEOs who, who might say that culture is important, putting

culture first, but actually when the rubber hits the road, are there's some

indicators that maybe people aren't.

at the core of their thinking at the moment, what's, what advice do you have

so much to share here?

. I mean, the fir, the first thing to think about is it is cheaper to retain

someone than it is to hire them.

So if you're just focusing on profitability, you're just focusing

on performance, but you are not thinking about culture as well.

And ultimately those people are not going to stay.

Because they'll join another company that also says, yes, we're focused on

this and we'll pay you a little bit more.

Instead, the retention hook comes from people that are absolutely bought into

the purpose, the vision, the values.

So where you have a founder or a C E O that's, you know, that is in

a different company that's kind of not bought into that, the selling

point has to be in the long run.

This is actually going to cost you more.

because you'll be hiring more people that you'll then lose, that you'll then

have to replace and retrain and reboard.

And then you lose those as well.

So ultimately this is a, it's a retention play more than anything else.

If you build a great culture, people will, one, you build something great,

people want to come to it, but two, they'll want to stay with us as well

because they're passionate about it.

I wish we could do a ghost of, past, present, future

with founders and take them into their future self sometimes.

Hey, and go Now.

Feel the pain that you may not have felt in your, in your present self, but also

when, when we, when we work with a lot of.

Late stage founder, I mean founders who are about to exit or have retire.

That what always comes up is legacy, right?

I want to have to look back now and, and see that I've grown

something that I'm really proud of.

And then the people light switch or the community light switch or the E s

G light switch tends to turn on Alan, it feels like that's always been.

In your essence, right?

Yes.

You've always been, like you said, I wanna be able to

explain to my nine children, and their children's children that I

did that Pape did something good.

Do you think tech can putting your ghost of Christmas future hat

on, looking into your future self?

Is tech turning around?

Do you believe tech can be a force for good?

Absolutely.

I think it, I, I'm an optimist, so in my heart, I believe, you know, anyone

can change, anyone can get better.

I think the, the, the simplest way to look at this is at this moment in time,

purpose driven businesses will do better.

They'll be the people that will be hiring and people who want to join.

Maybe people have worked for FANG companies before that are looking now for

something completely different, and that is the the kind of the rallying cry for

why you should join that type of business.

Anyone can become a purpose-driven business.

You just have to focus on.

Why you are doing what you're doing.

Focus on what's the problem you are trying to solve in the

marketplace, and why did you decide to solve that particular problem?

And it might be a product you're making better than anyone else.

You know, business cards being the example with Moo.

I want to make something that's so beautiful.

Everyone will want to use that and they'll want to use that to connect

with people then that that's brilliant.

It might also be a product, but you've got a product that solves the problem

because you've seen an underrepresented group or you've seen some people that

couldn't use this particular product.

Finding that solution and saying, this is why we do what we do, is a great idea.

And then as you said before, let, then let's measure that impact

like we did with Money Supermarket.

Let's show that we've been doing that.

It's a great, it's a great way for any founder to feel their legacy

into the future is like, I'm gonna actually see the impact that I've

made and for everyone there to feel that they're making that contribution.

Are your kids Jen?

Mostly Gen Z, Gen zed for UK and Canadian listeners Alan

are you, do you have, you don't have any millennials do you?

You're not that old.

No millennial

Are your Gen Z children also talking about this?

Definitely.

Yes.

Yeah.

They're thinking about, you know, B Corps.

They're thinking about what social good a particular business does.

They're thinking about how it looks after its people.

All of those drivers are so important when you're going into.

your first role.

Yeah.

And as they are the consumers of the future as well.

Maybe it's time that we listen to them too.

Why not?

This has been wonderful.

Thank you, Alan thank you as always at this part of the show.

We have some rapid fire questions.

It's just for you to tap into your intuition as I fire out these seven or

eight questions to you feeling ready?

I'm ready.

I am ready.

Okay.

Okay, here we go.

Alan, this is your rapid fire round.

What three words would you use to describe the workplace culture you'd like to lead?

Have to start with transparent, fair, and driven.

What three words would you use to define the future of work?

? Alan Cairns: Ooh.

I could almost use the same three, but I would say purposeful,

fulfilling, and passionate.

which one quality is your superpower or strength and bonus point

if you pick a within eight qualities.

Word

. Alan Cairns: Well, I've worked

I should know these by now.

Love would be my superpower.

Ooh, can I dig into that one a little bit?

Because that's I do see that quality in you very much, and that is one that

not everybody picks out of the cards.

Out of our eight qualities, love is often the one at the end.

Can I ask what, I know we're in the rapid fire, but I'd love to dig in.

What makes you choose that one?

It's, I think it's at the core of what I believe.

I, it, it's just, it's something that's, so, some of it I guess is,

you know, cause I'm a father, but it's just at the core of what I believe.

I, I believe in the good of people.

and I just really honed in on that straight away as

soon as I read the the card.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Okay, back to the rapid fire.

Which one quality is your development area or stretch?

Patience.

Next question,

could we wrap this up please?

Yeah.

What is your most treasured spot outside of work?

So ignoring holidays cuz that's, that's too obvious it would be my

home gym because I just love working out.

Absolutely love that.

And the other is, there's a small forest near where I live that I can walk through

on my commute and I just get such a buzz out of walking amongst trees.

Simple thing.

And you often would walk home all the way from

Camden to your house to get home.

That wasn't just a pandemic thing, that was just Alan traversing the

backwaters of London to get home.

Is that, is walking a medi, is that a meditative thing for you?

Are you working while you're walking or is it just I'm clearing

down my day or powering up my day?

It's a powering, powering up and clearing down.

Mm-hmm.

don't do calls sometimes listen to music, but mostly just kind of absorb nature.

And in my commute it was something like an eight mile walk in total.

Yeah.

So it's a great kind of base exercise to build in as well.

Walking at London Pace as well, which having now

living in California, I realize 14 times too fast to walk in London.

Yeah.

Is there a person or brand you'd like to shine a light on today?

Okay.

I think it would be Joe Wicks, the body coach.

Big, big fan.

That's a purposeful business, gives back to society.

Believes in Lifetime Fitness, genuinely wants to help people,

helped everyone during the pandemic, helps children, walks the talk.

Yeah.

And totally sort of rose to the, the challenge of the pandemic

and helped people, help guide people through that moment.

What's happening with him today?

I haven't really been following his story.

Or is, is he on the sim similar trajectory?

Yeah, I would say so.

It's build, building a great business from what I've seen.

Yes.

Yeah.

Cool.

Okay.

And finally, if you had to pick one song that represented who you

are as a leader, what would it be?

You'll, you'll get the sentiment behind this one.

I'm sure it would be Eminem, a vastly misunderstood person, and.

Oh my God.

And it would be till I collapse.

I'm not familiar with that part of his back catalog.

Okay, so Eminem till I collapse.

Is that, is that a context for you at the moment?

Alan?

What's the sentiment?

I know you'll go and look up the lyrics later, but to, to

save you, this is focused on almost a.

You could, you could be lazy, you could lie in bed, you could do this.

But no, I will continue doing this.

Whether I'm good at it or not.

I'm gonna continue doing this until I collapse.

I'm just, okay.

You know, this is going to be my, kind of my life's work.

Yeah.

And, and get into like get up and get into it.

I get it.

Yeah.

Okay.

That.

I'll put that, pop that on with my, with my Cheerios this morning.

I'm sure I won't, but Yes.

I thought you were gonna say Rocket Man by Elton John.

Just so that I could sing.

But we'll leave that for our next episode.

Yeah, we'll

find someone else to pick that.

I will.

Someone will finally, one.

Someone will say Rocket Man.

Alan, this has been a pleasure as always.

Thank you so much for joining us.

It's really lovely to see you and the year of the rabbit is gonna be good for you.

I feel it in my soul.

So do I.

Thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you.

Boom.

Thanks for listening, everyone.

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