We Recover Loudly – Personal Recovery and Mental Health Stories

S3 Episode 05 Kieron 'The Boy' Bailey : Recovering Loudly … Failure, Grief, and Discovering Your Purpose

• Shell Righini • Season 3 • Episode 5

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In this honest and powerful episode of We Recover Loudly, host Shell sits down with Kieron Bailey : a hospitality industry veteran, leadership coach, and creative disruptor!  They explore his raw and relatable journey through recovery from grief, and professional collapse.

Kieron shares openly about growing up in a chaotic, and busy council estate home surrounded by siblings.  He talks about his early passion for hospitality, with an early start in the world of pubs and restaurants, and how years of emotional suppression, career overdrive, and personal loss led to a turning point. From being the life of the party to losing his sense of purpose, his story is filled with brutal honesty, dark humour, and as to be expected from Kieron, lots of wisdom.

Together, Shell and Kieron unpack what it really means to recover from systems, roles, and identities that no longer serve us. They discuss the emotional toll of hustle culture, the importance of boundaries in leadership, and how redefining success means getting uncomfortable, taking responsibility, and learning to live with uncertainty.

Now focused on building psychologically safe workplaces and disrupting toxic leadership norms, Kieron brings deep insight into what it takes to rebuild — not perfectly, but authentically.

If you've ever felt burned out, stuck in a role that doesn’t fit, or like you’re holding it together on the outside while falling apart inside then this conversation is for you.

CONNECT WITH KIERON : 

Instagram - @theboybaileyspeaks

https://www.linkedin.com/in/theboybaileyspeaks/

For more information on We Recover Loudly and to reach out for speaking engagements or support email hello@werecoverloudly.com

@werecoverloudly
www.werecoverloudly.com


Shell: Hello and welcome to this new episode of We Recover Loudly. Today I'm joined by the remarkable Kieran Bailey, a hospitality leader with over three decades of experience turning restaurant floors into leadership laboratories and staff rooms into hubs of human potential, from washing dishes to founding multiple companies.

Shell: Kieran has mastered every role in the industry. Uh, he's transformed workplaces into well-oiled machines with high standards and really leans into training that deeper empathy that is so important in hospitality. And he has a relentless passion for service, for excellence, and rather, he's designing training programs that look at retail and reshape hospitality brands or creating like these cultural interventions, um, like he did with Expo 1 0 1 and the Awesome Service a couple of years ago.

Shell: Uh, Kean really is at the forefront of redefining what leadership looks like in this industry. Kean, I'm so excited to have you here today. How are you? I, 

Kireon: I, I love that introduction. You know, I'm gonna record that. I'm gonna make that my voicemail. Uh, that's my voicemail message. Everybody can listen to it.

Kireon: I don't like people leaving voicemail. So that would be the, like you listen to this. If you've listened to this, got all the way through it, I'll listen to your message. I 

will listen to your voicemail. The 

Kireon: last person who called me remarkable was my mum. You know what I mean? You're in good company. There.

There you go. My wife 

Kireon: described me that way every now and again, but it's not in the same way. Um, but I'm taking that, that's lovely. What a lovely introduction. 

Shell: Bit like, uh, remarkable ki 

Kireon: Yeah, so much like that, like a proper raise of the eyebrow. So, okay. Again, is it, um, so yeah, that was fabulous. Thank you.

Kireon: I appreciate that. You're very 

Shell: welcome. But it's all very, very true. You know, it's all, it's, it's, it's very, very much. Um, it's why we first connected, um, over two years ago. And I was actually just thinking as I was talking, the day I met you was the week that the first episode of this podcast came out. So it will literally be just coming up to two years ago, which is rather beautiful as well.

Kireon: That's a fabulous thing and well done. You making it to two years. You know, I lose count of how many people start podcasts and uh, and then just fall by the wayside quickly because either they think that they've not got enough to say or they don't like the admin that goes with it. Um, so fair play to you.

Kireon: Well done. That's impressive. 

Shell: Yeah, I think it's something like, I should know this because it's on part of my marketing pack, but it's a certain percentage Do this for a living, 

Kireon: don't you? That's right. 

Shell: Yeah. Right. It's a certain percentage. Don't make it a past five podcast, but it is something like 70%. It's crazy, like five episodes.

Shell: Um, 

Kireon: could you imagine running out of things to say after five episodes, I'll be like, okay, I'll see you in about a thousand bait. 

Shell: You and I have had a conversation before we pressed record, and I've had seven different ideas for podcast series in that 10 minutes 

Kireon: of the world.

Shell: The reason, I mean, other than having a lovely chat, the one of the real reasons I was really excited to get you on the podcast for this particular season, um, where we're talking about recovery, um, from all kinds of things, you know, addiction was the first two seasons, but really what that showed me is that there's a, such a breadth of human experience when it comes to what we can recover from and what recovery really means.

Shell: You know, that regaining of self or that re re coming home to self or even a reimagining of who we thought we were and in particular, um, what I was, what we are going to talk about is kind of career setbacks. And that's something that I've mm-hmm. Really struggled with personally and shared about multiple times on this platform.

Shell: Um, and oh God, I think if anything, I'm probably still going through it, especially, and, and I don't think we talk about the space between the setback and the comeback. Enough. Yep. And the grief and the turmoil. So it is gonna be a light podcast episode, is what I'm saying. 

Kireon: Yeah. I mean that's, we're, we're gonna dig into, into grief as a starting point.

Kireon: I mean, that's always a light conversation, but I think, so that idea of kind of branding that and recognizing that as grief for something that you've lost, I think that's something that people really struggle with because there's like, so when you said, do you wanna come on this? I was like, well, what am I really recovering from?

Kireon: I mean, I love your podcast and I love the idea that I've told you many times before that tagline, we recover loudly. So well just don't die, die don't, don't die silently. Just the, the first time you said that to me, I was like, shit, this girl is a woman I just spend time with because I love that. Um, but then I was thinking about it after kind of you'd sort of said, let's do this.

Kireon: And I was like, well actually, yeah, I've spoken to in the last kind of eight months, I reckon I've spoken to 10, 15 people who are struggling with this exact thing and they're struggling quietly and no one's really paying attention.

Kireon: So yeah, we do it loudly so others don't do it silently. And I'm, I'm into this to be fair, so thank you for the invite and, uh, well, let's pull some scabs. 

Shell: I know. Well, and, and, and again, that's the thing, you know, it's, there's so much, there's such a breadth of human experience that we're supposed to keep kind of behind closed doors.

Shell: And yet, you know, when we do that, that's what leads them to mental health. That's what then leads us to numbing behaviors, whether it's drinking, shopping, whatever it might be, and. You know, I think that it took me quite a while to realize that grief is what I was going through over the last, um, three and a half years since getting fibromyalgia, since losing my jog, jog, jog.

Shell: I've never jogged since losing my job. What are we, um, and, and mostly, um, losing my full identity because I tied my identity to work and to output. And, um, I mean, identity is something that you, um, you mentioned in your little pre podcast form. I never knew you were a twin. 

Kireon: Indeed. Yeah. Identical. Oh, good lord.

Kireon: No, he, he, he won't listen to this, so it's fine. He's like a hairy little chimp has been since we were like 14 or something. It's insane. Like, he, he's skinny. There's nothing on him. He is like. That wide, uh, always has been. He had a beard, like by the time he was nine 17 or something, 

Kireon: he'd lost 

Kireon: his, he'd lost his hair, his hairline and receded to here by the time he was 19, looked like, uh, you know, that's hard.

Kireon: Kind of sideshow, bob vibe with the No crusty the clown. That's what it was. Crusty with the hair at the back line, at the big hair. He's got really fuzzy, like, anyway, he looks nothing like me as the answer. Um, but it's kind of, it's one of those defining parts about who you are. Mm-hmm. Because you walk into a room and it's like, oh, here's Sean and Kieran.

Kireon: And it's like, hang on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What about Kieran and Sean? You know what I mean? Like, why is Sean coming first? Tell you what? 'cause Sean was out 10 minutes quicker than me. You know, I was a little bit more lackadaisical in my approach. 

Shell: Skin aswell, he can just swivel in. 

Kireon: He's just slid out. I mean, he was number five as well.

Kireon: So, like I said to my mum at one point, surely it must've been like shelling peas by that point. Um, she, she hurt me. She, she literally slapped me at that moment and said, no, it was nothing like that. 72 hours in labor ki and it hurt a lot. 

Shell: Yeah. And then it was like, and I'll have another one now. And he's the big one.

Shell: Well, 

Kireon: she didn't even know, my mom didn't know until she was eight months pregnant that she was having twins. No, think about this. 1974 scans weren't great. And, uh, ironically, like, I dunno how they didn't know, 'cause she was four foot 11. Who was 

Shell: fighting behind who, 

Kireon: so I, I was very small, you know, I was a, I was a very ill child for a long, large, early point, so I was hiding behind him.

Kireon: Lady couldn't see until about eight months in and then he went, oh, hang on. There's two of the little buggers in there, and my mum was like 4, 4 11 tall, and I've seen a photo of her. She was about 4, 4 11 wide. So why they didn't know she was having twins, I don't know, to be honest with you. But yeah, it was a, it was, it's, it's a mad thing and it's kind of, when you grow up as a twin, it, it's a really defining part of who you are.

Kireon: Um, and there's comfort to it. Don't get me wrong. There's real comfort to kind of always having somebody there, you know, and kind of, we fought a lot and we, we didn't always get on, is the honest answer. Um, but you know, at 17 when we left home, I wouldn't have been able to leave home at 17 if I didn't have my twin brother there with me to have my back and I'd have his, to be fair.

Kireon: So we were just bold and brave and we're like, well, he's, I, he's got me, I've got him. Yeah. What's the worst that could happen to be fair? 

Shell: I've always wanted a twin. I think a lot of people have always wanted a twin for that exact relationship. It's that, that fearness. There's a lot. There's a lot that goes 

Kireon: with it, mate.

Kireon: He literally stabbed me five times, like stabbed me with a pen knife. Why? Why did mum bias pen knives? 

Shell: Why? I was gonna say, where is this podcast going? It's become a true crime, A place. Oh my God, my dream has come true. I've always wanted to do a true crime. 

Kireon: There's no, sadly, there's no investigating to be done.

Kireon: You know what I mean? He stabbed me many times because she bought his long lines for Christmas and thought that was a good idea. 

Shell: That's how true crime start. There isn't an investigation until the podcast host. Right? Okay. 

Kireon: You're in there. 

Shell: We, we'll take this soft line listeners, but to expect to see podcast 

Kireon: podcast's be an offshoot podcast line.

Shell: My God. Right. Shout. That's the we've 

Kireon: come to so far. 

Shell: I was gonna say stop hyper focusing on, on planning the theme tune. Um, oh my God. Um, did your brother also go into hospitality? Um, working in hospitality is, I don't think I'm unique in saying this. It is a, a density, a a body snapshot experience. If you're gonna work in hospitality, it becomes you.

Shell: Did your brother also move into that industry? 

Kireon: Um, temporarily, briefly. Um, so the, I, when I was about 21, I guess, um, I was given a pub, um, uh, and the first one I ran, I did it for like five months. I got punched in the face every day for three months. Uh, it was a rough place. Your brother 

Shell: again? 

Kireon: No, he was nowhere near that one.

Kireon: To be fair. I was just ran. That was just customers who just, uh, they weren't nice people. Um, so I got punched a lot, uh, pretty much solidly every day for three months. Uh, it was, I, I'd got to the point where I'd just buy shirts from Tesco, um, and then just throw them away at the end of the day because they were covered in blood.

Kireon: Uh, it was an emotional place. Um, but the second pub, after six months of doing that and turning it around and fixing it and making it better, my area manager said, uh, Kieran, uh. Kind of bored of watching you get punched in the face, dude. I was like, I'll be honest with you, fella, I'm pretty bored of it too.

Kireon: And he went, do you wanna change? Do you wanna go to a different pub? And I was like, I would, yes. And he was like, how, what do you know about the old angel? And I was like, I love the old angel. It was a pub I drunk in when I was like 16. It is like, everything that was wrong with the world was happening in this pub.

Kireon: It was amazing. And I was like, yeah, man. I was like, yeah, man, I'll take it. I will take it. And uh, I recruited a whole load of my friends to come and work with me and, uh, brilliant. And my wife. Brilliant, brilliant 

Shell: strategy. 

Kireon: It was genius, if I'm honest with you. You know, it was the best idea I've ever had. Um, whole load of friends and my twin brother came to work for me and, uh, for about six months.

Kireon: It was amazing. We killed it. We, this place was just popping. It was the best, it was the place to be. It's kind of like left of center culturally. So musically, like we had our own jukebox. Uh, and it, uh, I was sent to somebody the other day. Our customers used to bring their own CDs in to put into the jukebox, and then they'd pay to listen to that music on the jukebox.

Yes. That's amazing. '

Kireon: cause in that moment, the kan knew he had a future in him as an entrepreneur. That's amazing. You CDs pay to listen to them and buy more beer. Thank you. Amazing. But six months he lasted by being called, but then he kind of, my brother's in eight. My brother's not the, the hardest working fellow in the world.

Kireon: It doesn't have that in him. To be fair, um, when he is focused on something that he loves, then yes. But when it's just something that he does, then it's just, it only lasts for so long. Mm. And uh, it got to the point where he had to leave the business. Um. Was a, uh, it was an awkward conversation, so don't employ your twin.

Kireon: An idea. Terrible 

idea. 

Kireon: Uh, but no, he's like, that was his only sort of dalliance with hospitality. Just doesn't like people that much to be very, he's just, he's not into it. Um, he was an amazing singer though. The reason why he came is because it basically enabled him to like sing in his band and travel and tour and stuff.

Kireon: And the, the, the place I had also had a venue above it. So I put him on stage a lot, bought recording studios. He'd record, he could record an album, um, for a month with just, uh. Just un un unimpeded by anything else. You know, they were being offered deals by labels who just wanted to give him like 10 days in the studio.

Kireon: And I love my brother, but he's not a 10 days in the studio kind of fell. He's just not that productive. So like, you need a month to record a good record. So I, I think came up and I just bought recording studio for my dude and just, uh, and just locked it down basically. Uh, he's, he's, he's one of my favorite people, to be fair.

Kireon: Um, he's not one of my favorite people at the moment. We don't talk at the moment. Uh, it's one of them. Uh, we have phases where that happens. Um, but uh, it'll swing back. It always does. 

Shell: It will. And while I don't want this podcast necessarily to get sidelined by talking about siblings, I do just wanna pick up on that because I have been experiencing with my younger sister a completely new, um, era of our relationship.

Shell: And again, these are things I don't think that we talk about enough. So growing up, we have four years between us. Um, okay. So when we were younger, it doesn't matter as much, but obviously I left the university kind of, she was left with her formative teenage years at home alone. 

Yeah, 

Shell: because my dad was working at the time.

Shell: Um, that was kind of the height of his career, so he was away a lot. Um, and therefore it was just my sister and my mum left at home when she's like 14, 15, 16. So I, she, without me knowing, but she definitely had a lot of, um, abandonment because of that, you know, and feeling like I just kind of left her, which.

Shell: Carries a residual resentment. Um, my sister and I are very different people. Um, therefore, and somebody said this phrase, um, I can't remember where it was, but it kind of just blew me. All siblings have different parents. 

Kireon: Yeah. 

Shell: And I was like, oh, 

Kireon: whole different relationship, different expectations, whole 

Shell: different thing because the parents as well are completely different people.

Shell: Four years. I mean, when we, when I was born, we were in South Africa, we moved to this country, you know, so there was all of the, kind of the trauma of coming away from a family. My mom didn't really, you know, English was a second language. She speaks English better than any of us do. But, you know, like coming to London and being in the eighties from South Africa.

Shell: Yeah. But I was fucking weird, you know? It wasn't cool and kooky. There was no little, uh, Savannah, you know, in Liverpool Street. Let's be fair, 

Kireon: in the eighties, spit an image was on the telling on Friday night saying, you'll never meet a nice South African. Lots of people believe that. You know, that's kind of, that gets into both heads.

Shell: That's true. That's so true. So, so that was the kind, and my dad, and we moved to this country. 'cause my dad, like the, the business that they'd had, the, the guy, the partner was a con artist. So we'd come to this country to live with this great aunt, you know, to try and get a job, all of this stuff. So that was my experience.

Shell: Whereas when my sister was born, my dad had a job with Garner merchant. Then we had a lovely house in Kent. You know, there was. Establishment. Yeah. And I was always quite, um, we're not, yeah, quite resentful of the relationship she had and, and I think as well, I don't know if it is, I was gonna say maybe it's girls, but I don't think it is.

Shell: I think it's just siblings. There can be this real fractiousness and this real kind of pushing and it's just such an interesting dynamic, isn't it, siblings? And 

Kireon: it, it can be carnage. I mean, I am the youngest of six, so there's loads of us. 

Shell: Gosh. Yeah. Um, and 

Kireon: that, that, that feeling that you are describing there where you kind of, as the older one you are, you have that sense of resentment that she's got this easier.

Kireon: What sort of easier life? My two oldest brothers, literally like one, one of them, let's be fair, one of them now dead. Um. Don't be sad. Not a great loss to the world. Thought he was psychic, believed he could see dead people, couldn't see dead people. He was a great calm man. Uh, but then the next brother, he literally, he has no interest in actually having any communication or relationship with any of us because he thinks our lives were so much easier and better than anything he had.

Kireon: And it's like, dude, it was still tough. It was just tough in a different way. 

Yeah. Yeah. And 

Kireon: that's kind of, that's it. With siblings, we all have it. We all have difficulties. We just have difficulties in different ways. Yeah. Like so your sister became, you go off to university, she fundamentally becomes a single child then.

Kireon: So to go to become a single child, like in those really formative years. 

Shell: Yeah. 

Kireon: That's difficult. And I think about my sister at, like, when I was 14, my sister was huge in my life. At 14, like all of my musical tastes were informed by my sister. Like when I became a a, a, I'm like 14, wandering around a little town called Newark, dressed up looking like Robert Smith from The Cure.

Kireon: That's because my sister, as I got, got me into that and he's going, these people are cool. You should love this. I'm like all of my musical tastes. And then kind of musical tastes become kind of, uh, Phil philosophical ideas. Yeah. And then become political ideas and then become how do I live, what do I believe in it All fans from that love of music to be for, and mine came from my sister.

Kireon: And I will, like, I saw the cure. Five years ago when they toured for the first time in ages, I sold them in Cardiff. And it's the first time I'd ever seen them in my life. And I'm like 48 or something at this point. It's ridiculous. And, and I was standing watching them and I was in floods of tears watching the cure.

Kireon: And I was like, why the, why am I crying? And then I was kind of thinking about, I was thinking about the connection with my sister and the way the influence she's had on my life. And I love my sister. We don't talk on the telephone because we're not allowed to, because we both are very sensitive to tones of voice with each other.

Kireon: So we text or we speak in person. You gotta have rules. Boundaries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she is like, I'm standing in this, this arena in card if in floods of tears, looking at the music, listening to Robert Smith, thinking about my sister, and just thinking she just made such an impact on my life. Freaking love her.

Kireon: Absolutely love her. She's amazing. 

Shell: Oh. I love that. And that's, and again, well now I kind of feel guilty 'cause I left at 18 and therefore her musical tastes, she likes five and she like, oh, backtick boys. And now I feel even more responsible. So I probably need to call her immediately afterwards. I mean, the 

Kireon: conversation about accountability to be had here, I'll be honest with you.

Shell: Um, but you're right, it is, it's so, it's really, and, and what she fell into was being the good girl and, um, and, and studying and being the best at everything. And again, and that came with its own pressures because as she. Explains now that we're we're grownups, you know, that it actually wasn't easy for her.

Shell: And I thought being clever was easy and she was like, well, no, I had to bust my ass. And then there was an expectation I was clever and all of that. Anyway, the long-winded point is since coming into recovery and becoming less about self and self trauma and doing the work and therapy and having the ability to now see outside my own victim hood, 'cause you know, there is, there's a line between, and this is kind of leans into what we're gonna talk about, um, with the whole career thing.

Shell: I think there's a line between shit things happening to us and it being. You know, like real, and, and then wearing the identity of shit, things have happened to me. This is my identity. And that's where I very much crossed over into, because if you don't do the work when shit things have happened to you, it does become your identity, you know?

Shell: Well then you just become 

Kireon: shit. Everything about says shit. Things happen because I'm shit. That's it. Exactly. And 

Shell: that's, that's all you hear. And therefore, now that I can have a adult relationship with my sister and that we can have a healed relationship, I'm getting to know her for the first time as an adult and she's the person I speak to on more than like my phone.

Shell: We message each other also with WhatsApp more so than anyone in the whole world. And the last, especially the last two years or the last year, we've both been going through a lot of stuff and the first person that we've both called has been each other. Now, if you had told me five years ago and you told her five years ago, that would be the, we'd both be like.

Kireon: Not a challenge. Last 

Shell: person. Yeah, last fucking person. Yeah. 

Kireon: If I'm in prison and I need somebody to come and knock me, get me out. Maybe. Maybe I, I call them. But only if I can deal with the judgments and uh, and them looking at me. Yeah, I dig that. 

Shell: Yeah. And I think again, that's, that beauty should do 

Kireon: that, don't they?

Kireon: They kind of, they sway there. There was a spell when my sister and I, we, again, we didn't talk for about a year and a half because we had a blazing row on a telephone call about something to do with my mom. And, and I was being a dick. Undoubtedly. I was being a dick. She is a dick sometimes. And we just did that and then we didn't talk for about a year and a half.

Kireon: But things come back if you're open to it. And I think you have to trust the fact that we'll all find our way back to each other. Yeah. Where if we're supposed to. And, and I, and I think for most of us, we are supposed to find our way back. To be fair. 

Shell: Definitely. But I do think it needs a little bit of work and I think that that's, yeah, it doesn't do 

Kireon: that free.

Shell: Yeah. And I think that's, again, that's the piece that maybe sometimes people are missing. And I would've missed out on the relationship I have with her now had I not been willing to admit my wrongs and to recognize my patterns and to be willing to be. Different, you know, and to let go of resentments, especially ones that weren't actually real.

Shell: Yeah. And stuff like that. So, and, and again, so this is us, this is all about being a grownup, um, basically, which again, we talked a little bit about before. We're trying before, before we started recording. So, I mean, you've worked in the industry, so you had your pubs, you survived being beaten up, you survived firing your brother.

Shell: Um, he didn't stab you. Um, not that time. You then, I know you worked for some really cool brands. Then from, from the pub time, you then kind of, was that the next stage? Yeah, I mean, 

Kireon: leaving the pubs was weird because I, I, the freedom that I had in that business was obscene. Like, if I woke up in the morning and thought I'm gonna change the color of that wall, it was done by lunchtime, uh, music menu, everything.

Kireon: It was all just it. The weird thing you talk about not making your success, your identity. That pub was my identity. Mm-hmm. Um, everything about it screamed this by here. You know, it, that was it. You know, it was driven by that. And I'd love to say that kind of, I, I, I, I mastered that and kind of got better at it.

Kireon: I didn't, I was a raging egomaniac at this point. I was just insane. Um, but had a, had a tough time leaving that place. It got bought out by a different company, yada. Went through an employment tribunal. I sued them for gross, uh, constructive dismissal. That was a hard year to be honest with you. Took an, took an age and I dunno what, you know, but if constructive dismissal cases don't win, as a rule of thumb, about 5% of them make it to a tribunal.

Kireon: And then about 1% of that five actually are successful. So to get through and be successful, I was like, okay, well this is good. This is kind of a, a vindication. Um, but I left that place having had the freedom. Then I was like, well, the world's moving into this mad branded world, and I'm not sure that I'm built for that.

Kireon: I mean, I'm a freethinking radical at the best of times. And I thought, you know, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go try it out in a safe space. So I went to work for Costa, uh, I thought, how hard can that be, if I'm honest with you, you know, it's fundamentally kind of, it's an easy life. You know, it's kind of you, you have to systems and processes.

Kireon: You make it work. And if I hate it, how much damage can it do to my career in the long term? Actually, I worked out pretty quickly there that working within a brand, all it was about was finding a way of making that brand work for you and the things about that brand that really made you smile and then lean into those things and push in and make your corner of that particular branded world the best it could possibly be.

Kireon: So I did a year with those guys and I was like, right, okay, cool. You've given me what I need. Uh, this is boring. No, because the job was so easy and it was just like I, I, by the time I'd left, I was running three sites for them in NGA and I was like. A board. Kieran is a very lazy Kieran shell, I'll be honest with you.

Kireon: If, if I'm not hyperfocused and, and driven and challenged, I turn out and I turn out badly. So I was like, time for me to go, moment of accountability, I'm gonna move on. So I joined the Hard Rock after that and, uh, the Hard Rock. Oh, what a joy. What a joy. It was insane. It was the corporate version of what I did in the Angel, basically.

Kireon: Yeah. Loud music. 

What a great description. 

Kireon: Music was it. And I was like, I was like, how hard can this be? You know what I mean? It is amazing. And like they send you off to America and you go and do some indoctrination. They call it induction. It's an indoctrination. Um, after we did a, I think I did about a week or 10 days in Orlando.

Kireon: Wow. And it was like a huge, there was about 300 of us in this room, basically. It was huge. And, and I was sharing a hotel, suite, suite with this guy from Phoenix, I think he was. And uh, towards the end of the week he was like, uh, he came back and he was like, man, I'm gonna get a tattoo. And I was like, cool man, what you gonna do now?

Kireon: I'm getting a brand, getting a brand on my arm. And I was like, okay. And he was like, you coming? I was like, I mean, I'll keep you company brother, but yeah. Okay. I went, no, no, you're gonna get one. I was like, son, I'm European. You know what I mean? I'm not, I'm not there. You know, I was like, I dig this for you.

Kireon: I love your in here to this level. I'm not, you know what I mean? It's not going on my skin, you know, we're not there. But he came back and he had a tattoo. He was there. I, 

Shell: I would love to know what he's doing now. 

Kireon: Well, I mean, I'm 99.9% sure he is not working for Hard Rock. 

Shell: Okay. I would just love it if he's just got like a collection of different brands that he's gone 

Kireon: to.

Kireon: He is like, he's like a racing one Formula One driver, just one. Without getting paid loads of money for it. He was a psycho, if I'm honest with you. That's just the one guy big, big on his arm. I was like, mate, just maybe somewhere a bit more subtle out the way. 

Shell: I absolutely love it. I love the characters of our industry.

Shell: He, he probably went far. 

Kireon: Yeah. Well, I mean, he went, um, I think he went, but what a dude though, like the belief of to be that sold into a brand and to be that kind of bought in, first of all. Mm. What amazing training that was. You know, my, one of my old, old mates now, Jim Knight, uh, he is, he was the, uh, the head of l and d for Hard Rock, and he was the one who facilitated these sessions.

Kireon: And I remember looking at him thinking, this guy, this guy rocks a room. You know, he knows how to, yeah. He used music really effectively within the, throughout the program. He just nailed it. To be fair, he's very American though. I mean, I love Jim, but he's proper American. Like, he's like, Hey, 

Shell: hyped, hyped.

Shell: Everything's hyped. 

Kireon: Call your jets, man. You know what I mean? Just call your jet. 

Shell: We're from England. 

Kireon: No, let's just take a beat. Have a cup of tea and be okay. Have a, 

Shell: we'll have a chat. 

Kireon: That's where we need to be. But he's not there. Jim's like 100% hyped and to be fair, he's killing it. 'cause like he's getting paid as a keynote speaker, like 25, 50 k to go and deliver keynote.

Kireon: I'm like, maybe I should be just as hyped as Jim. You know what I mean? Yeah. Maybe that's the answer. I mean, you are 

Shell: pretty, we will talk about a little bit more about your public speaking I'm sure, but like you are very much, you do fill a room in that respect. So I think you have got a little, a little gym inside you.

Shell: Um, but I didn't tell him 

Kireon: that it be right on board that I was as, even 

Shell: as I said it, I regret that you felt 

Kireon: a bit sick, didn't you? 

Shell: Um, but I'll say about American hospitality. I was in New Orleans last year for tales of a Cocktail and it was the first time I've been in the US for, um, for years actually.

Shell: Um, and. I just, I do, I just love their hospitality. And it was the first time that I felt that I'd been served in forever, like forever. And, and so I know that people like to, especially as Brits, roll our eyes at that kind of Americanism, and they're like, Hey, how do you do? What do you like? But, oh, I'm there.

Shell: I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. I, I know you don't really care about my day, but in this minute you do. And do you know what no one fucking else has asked. So Janet, I'll tell you, 

Kireon: some of the closest people into my life haven't showed as much interest in my day as you have done so far today, mocha. So I'm the fuck relationship with my 

Shell: sister.

Shell: Nothing compared to this Janet. 

Kireon: I bumped into, uh, Barty Barty from Bloom's Yard yesterday. And, uh, she's just come back from New York. She was on a coffee tour of New York and I was like, what, what, what are you gonna steal? Uh, and she was just like, the people man, the people are just so in it. She was like, coffee's great.

Kireon: It is what it is. I was like, you went on a coffee tour. I assumed that there was something you're gonna, she was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was like, but the people, the energy was just like hyped. And that's the difference here. Some people say it's down to the tipping culture that they have to do that, yada, yada.

Kireon: I don't know if it is. I just think they care. I just think they're in it. 

Yeah, 

Kireon: that's kind of it, to be fair. And that's a beautiful thing. And we have some people like that in this country. There are some people who are looking to do that. There's a guy, one of my local spots called the Bagel Project, uh, it's brand spanking.

Kireon: He is open about four weeks now. And uh, there's a guy in there called Sam who's just, he nails it like this. Kid's, like he's just spent the last three years studying to be an architect. He's taken a year out, so he's working in hospitality. And I was like, man, this is like. I was like, I don't know how good you are at architecture, but you should really think about fucking that off and doing this for a living.

Kireon: I was like, and I will be able to help you. 'cause you build a 

Shell: bagel like no fucking one else. 

Kireon: Just the, it's the, it's the, it's the hospitality that comes in that moment. Like he just, he gets it, he nails it and like he connects with you straight away. And it's just one of my, one of my irks in hospitality right now is I sit in a coffee shop and nobody ever says, would you like another one?

Kireon: And I'm an easy upsell 'cause I'm there for an hour, maybe two hours. We're in it like we are there. I think if you've got a laptop out, get out there and upsell. Nobody does it anymore because they're either got qr QR codes or they just can't be asked. I dunno which one it is, but Sam Sam's killing it.

Kireon: Like I'm sitting there and Sam wonders by really casually, Hey, Kiron, you doing all right? Do you want another broom, mate? You know what I mean? I was like, man. Yes, of course. Natural, natural service. Oh God. 

Shell: Yeah. It's so true. Like, and like I've been doing when I've been doing training with, um, different, um, restaurants and that over the last couple of years in particular, and, and sales.

Shell: And when I worked for HM you know, the, the, uh, mystery dining company, uh, the feedback forms that we would get and the, the. Feedback we'd get from these huge operators at HDM work with is that their teams aren't selling and that there just isn't this sales culture. And, and I just don't understand it because for me it's not about selling, it's about the experience.

Shell: You know? It is about that full. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm not at home. My low, my sausage dog can't make tea. We've tried. 

Kireon: It's real why I'm walking. That's because he's perfect in every other way. 

Shell: I know. Honestly, we are trying to figure it out. His little arms are like, eh, um, maybe something that involves a boop.

Shell: We're thinking like a whoop. Um, I literally could teach Max use a 

Kireon: tassimo. 

Shell: I literally last night was Googling how to make my dog learn to make tea 

Kireon: fair. I mean, it's readable. That tea is perfect in every other way. Yeah. If you could make a brew be like, boom, you're in it now, mate. I know 

Shell: I'd be right, but like that's why I walk.

Shell: There's not even 50 meters down the hill to a bougie cafe and have the exact same drink I could be having for free. I have it down the cafe. Mm-hmm. Because I want to have that full rounded experience. I want to feel like somebody cares. And actually, I wa what you were saying about the tipping culture, it just flagged in me again, just before we started recording, we were talking about freelancing and the money that you earn as a freelancer and how it hits harder.

Shell: Um, when someone unfairly like a current landlord takes that from you. 

Mm-hmm. 

Shell: I'll put the notes, I'll put, I'll put the show notes about this dispute that, that how it hurts more because I feel like I've worked for that every penny of that. Yeah. And I wonder maybe that's a little bit as well with the whole tipping thing.

Shell: It's not, it's not just about, 'cause I'm working for my tip and therefore it's insincere, but like, I'm working for that money. Like, I feel it, there's a different sense of pride. Yeah. Like, I invoiced a client last week and there was, there's pride because I'm like, I earned that. Here is my invoice. I've added 

Kireon: value.

Kireon: I have added value with that time. That's it in a different way. Maybe that's it. Yeah. Maybe that is it. 

Shell: And uh, and, and we 

Kireon: get people to buy into that because actually I, and I'm with you, like sell, we're not selling anything to anybody. There's a guy called Lee, uh, Lee Sheldon, who talks about kind of up telling rather than upselling.

Kireon: Like, that's kind of it. And I'm, I'm on board with that. Leaves from multi-unit managers. Lovely boy. Um, everything that you sell is an addition to that person's experience, so it's designed to make it better. Simple. No. Walking around. Yeah. And Sam just strolling by asking me how I'm doing, what I'm working on right now.

Kireon: And so I'm finishing up with, do you want another brew? He's adding value to my experience. 'cause he's taken a pressure off me. He's taken responsibility away from me to get my big lazy ass up to go to the counter and go in order. 'cause I'll be honest, this place is a busy little spot and they've not mag, they've still not mastered their queing system yet for a new spot.

Kireon: But it stresses me out being anywhere near it. I can't get involved. So he's taken a lot of pressure off me and he's taken that responsibility. And I genuinely think from a service experience, we are here to take responsibility for that per those, those guests, those customers who walk through the door, they give us responsibility for the 30 minutes or the hour, the three hours, however long they're with us.

Kireon: They've given us that responsibility. What are we gonna do with it? Are we gonna assume it? Are we gonna treasure, are we gonna do something special with it or are we just gonna just be like, eh, 

Shell: yeah, 

Kireon: we'll do just enough. Just enough. Well, and 

Shell: and that's exactly again, why I go down the hill instead of sit here in my overly priced flat, um, then sit here in my flat.

Shell: Um. Because I don't wanna, well, or more importantly, because I normally 'cause I need to focus, um, and I focus better when I'm not at home. Because when I'm at home, I'm like, oh, I should probably fold that laundry, or I need to do X and Y and Z. But also to alleviate, the reason that I focus better there is because I can alleviate everything else.

Shell: I don't need to think about what am I gonna do? What am I eating? Am I okay? Am I, am I warm enough? Am I comfy enough? And it's, it's like you say, it's just such a, it's such an interesting, missed opportunity. But I think you're right. It's probably a, a, a misalignment with what the purpose of selling is versus what really the purpose of selling is.

Shell: And it's the adding a value to an experience versus the adding of value to the till. That happens to have happen as 

Kireon: well. That's just a bonus ball, isn't it, to be fair. But I'm doing some coaching with a, a GM from a local coffee shop. Um, and he's a lovely lad. He's kind of, he, he, sometimes he needs to do, he said to me, what do you think we need to focus on?

Kireon: I was like, you need to stop focusing on being kind or being nice. I was like, at the moment you're being nice to everybody and you're being kind to nobody. So you need to sort that shit out because you're gonna lose your people. That's it. Like niceness is avoiding conflict is avoiding challenge. He's letting things happen.

Kireon: So he's got homeless people coming in and using his bathroom. Uh, they rock in, they use it, they stay in there for half an hour, they cause carnage. Mm. Like I remember seeing one, it was literally like a scene at a train spot and it was devastating that what this person had done in this bathroom. And that's nice to the, to the homeless person because yes, they deserve some dignity in mental attitudes of facility, but it's not kind to his guests, to his paying guests.

Kireon: It's not kind to his team who are now gonna have to go and clean that up. So master the art being. Being kind, ever being nice because niceness is, I'm just avoiding the challenge and I'm avoiding a difficult conversation. 

Mm-hmm. 

Kireon: He could have a conversation with that person and say, look, I'm really happy for you to use my bathrooms.

Kireon: I'm really comfortable to that because you need to, you, you need it. So I'm happy for you to do it. However, I need you to respect it and I need you to respect my customers and I need you to respect my team. And if you can't do that, then I'm not gonna be able to let you use my bathrooms. Yeah. And it's just a simple conversation.

Kireon: Radical candor in flow takes no effort other than just a bit of discomfort. But straight away that person feels that actually they, first of all, they've been seen and, and you've taken a bit of time and energy to respect them and say, look, I could start, I could just tell you just not to come in and I'm, and I'll buy you done.

Kireon: Or I could just have this conversation with you, give you the option to be a little bit kinder to the people who are other, who are around you and to my team. And you get to keep on using facilities. And maybe every now and again, I'll buy you a brew as well. 'cause I, I'm a nice dude and that's kind of it.

Kireon: So 

yeah, 

Kireon: thinking about kind of how you manage those relationships and those conversations. You can see his team are frustrated. I sit in his coffee shop and I watch his team have got the ump, they're annoyed and, and I'm like, dude, you're, you're losing them. You are losing them. That's kind of it. So, yeah, 

Shell: because he's putting a value on that relationship over his team, which is exactly, completely not what he's intending on doing.

Kireon: Not at all. 'cause he's a lovely dude 

Shell: that you can see why, um, discomfort that word. We're gonna rip the bandaid off because discomfort is something that, you know, I felt for the last three and a half, four years still do. And, and there's fear discomfort. So I mean, you, um, did all these awesome things and, um.

Shell: You o started the company Ello from scratch, or how did it all come in into play? 

Kireon: A AO existed. Alo, sorry. 

Shell: I always called it Ello. It's, 

Kireon: I know, it's just, it's a terrible name. If I'm honest 

Shell: with you. You could name 

Kireon: a terrible name. It would not have been called that. If I had started from scratch, I'd tell you that it would've been, we're a freaking mental community.

Kireon: Come and get involved. That would've been the name of the damn thing. Um, keep it simple. Tell people what you do. No, we went fancy. He went Latin. Um, founded by a guy called James Lemon. He's a lovely dude. Really kind of did it during lockdown, did his thing, built it up. James and I got to know each other a little bit.

Kireon: We, I think he spoke on a stage I was hosting at HRC and we finished the session and he sat down, we were chatting away, we were talking about leadership development and all that kind of stuff. And he was like, okay, this is interesting. Uh, and he said, oh, can we have a call? Can we have a call on Friday? Uh, just to a quick zoom call.

Kireon: Just wanna catch up and talk about some opportunities. Like, yeah, cool. I'm in the business of saying yes to most things. That's kind of my choice. Um, so I was like, yep, cool. So Chris and I kind of jumped on a Zoom call with him and uh, and he said, we did the pleasantries. He's like, oh, your background's really attractive, Kieran.

Kireon: Look how striking your background is. It's like, yep, okay. That's the first five minutes of most calls. That's kind of way it works. Um, and then he just leaned in the wooing 

Shell: stage. That is the wooing. Exactly. 

Kireon: Just kinda making Kieran feel special. Like he's kind of got stunning taste. He's artworks lovely, yada, yada, yada.

Kireon: And then you wanna buy my business? And, uh, anybody who's spent quality time with Chris Flatter and I both, you know, full well, that neither of us has stuck for words on a regular basis. And, uh, we sat quiet for a couple minutes just looking at each other and we went, okay, why are you selling this? Like, he's literally just got this government grant for like 2 million qui and we were like, why do you want this to go?

Kireon: And he was just like, I'm just, I can't do it. I'm not in the right place to get it done. So you've got some great relationships, great connections. You was like, all you two do is connect. So do you want it? And we, so we took it on board. We went and had a crack at it. And uh, and it was, we did amazing things for a lot of people.

Kireon: Um, we did some amazing, amazing celebrations. We did an award ceremony for the industry, which was a party of a party. Um, it 

Shell: was great. That award ceremony, it was 

Kireon: de bch. Just had fun man. 

Shell: It was so fun, 

Kireon: Chris, Chris and I hosting that Just, we, just literally doing, doing what you love to do with your best mates is just like, how complicated is this?

Kireon: It was just funny. So I'm stomping around an hilty, stomping around his little boldy head. Just like we're so different as well. Like he likes order and he likes to know what's coming, but still he brings carnage and chaos with it. It's a weird combination. I'm like, anarchy in the uk. I'm here for it and we'll let it roll.

Kireon: And I've just, I believe I know full well that nine 99% of the time. I'll make it work. That's kind of it. I just have faith. I believe in it. I know it sometimes it's gonna cock up, but it was what it was. But the party was amazing. And we did, we did call events. We, we had people having mentor relationships.

Kireon: We had people who, we had older people being mentored by, uh, younger people. We had peer to peer mentor and we had all of it, to be fair, it was all so helpful and it was all going really well. And the grant was really helping. The grant was basically designed to help people set up a business and then move forward with it.

Kireon: Uh, but they withdrew the funding for the grant about eight months early. Um, on, on a whim what it felt like. Everyone was with it, called it into an office in South and said, uh, it's been lovely getting to know you. Uh, we'd met them like twice before this point. Uh, it's been lovely getting to know you, but we are gonna withdraw the grant funding in and we're gonna reallocate it somewhere else.

Kireon: And we were like, okay. That feels, um, hasty, feels a little hasty. And they were like, yeah, well we, we do have the right to do it. You'll see in the, in your contract that it is a possibility. And basically the reallocated, the funding somebody had been working with for about 15 years, uh, who needed the money fundamentally.

Kireon: So it was what it was. But that was the moment when we should have made good, big decisions. Mm-hmm. But there was four of us in partnership. Uh, and we all got on 99% of the time. But Chris and I were aligned on most things. Ian and Nick were aligned on most things. And occasionally you'd end up kind of stuck on a, on a, kind of, with an impasse when it came to making decisions because we were aligned.

Kireon: They were, and often, and there was these moments when you couldn't kind of draw the other one across. Um, we was, one of the lessons I learned from that.

Kireon: Train, uh, one of the lessons I, can you hear that train or is it just in my, no, you can't hear it, so I'm gonna ignore it moving forward. Perfect. Um, yeah. One of the lessons I've learned that kind of, if I set up a business with anybody else in the future, then I'm gonna put in strict governance that says if we are stuck in a decision making process and you're at an impasse, then one person has the vote that takes it over the line and gets the decision made.

Kireon: Because we didn't do that and the business struggled because of that. To be fair. And it's hard, man. We had, we had 14 people working for us. We had an office in Southern. Yeah, there was some of it was ego, if I'm really honest with you. The office in Southern, we didn't need that, if I'm really honest with you.

Kireon: It was a lovely 

Shell: office. 

Kireon: It was nice. You know, like you, I remember you, there was a barista. Yeah, there was a barista and she was lovely as well, to be fair. Like, she was always nice to me like she was, but sometimes being nice to other people makes them nice to you. It's a simple rule. But, um, it was a nice place but we didn't really need it to be fair and like, and in that moment we should have just said, done, we're out the contract, uh, and we're gonna go and cowork from brood dog down the road.

Kireon: And uh, that'll be the way it was, but we didn't. So 

it's 

Kireon: really, I've had some spells where I've had some spells in the last year and certainly in the first part where I found it really easy to blame the other three for what went wrong. Really easy. Yeah. Um. Like, Chris obviously was building tech on toast and doing a great job of it, and it's doing amazingly.

Kireon: Um, yeah, Nick has like an addiction to limited companies, so he had like four recruitment companies. I don't know that lad, that's a boy that should be in recovery from limited companies. I'll be honest with you. Just 

Shell: what a funny AA group that would be. 

Kireon: Honestly, it'd be a really interesting one. I'd like, I'd pay to watch that and same value.

Kireon: Uh, and, and Ian was basically, he was, he was in retirement, you know, he, he's a very smart man, but he was fundamentally in retirement mode. So it really easy for me to blame those three. Yeah. And say you all cocked it up. But actually when I, when I do take a step back and, and, and kind of think about what accountability looks like, well, you know, one of us should have been.

Kireon: We didn't actually have a, a sort of CEO who had that final say. One of us should have taken that role. We talked about it, you know, and we, when we talked about it, there was a chuckle, the idea that at any point I might do it. Uh, and I was like, okay, that seems interesting in the moment. But I chuckled along with it and my, my little council state kid in a voice was going, yeah, you are not the one to do this.

Kireon: You are not the one to lead this. Like, he's like, I, I, I had the most respect for Chris as a business leader. I just, he's, he's, he's genuinely, he's a very impressive man. So he's very impressive. Nick's got more companies than I could shake a stick at. Ian's done amazing things, built the caterer. Mm-hmm. So my little council state voice in the background going, all three of those are better equipped to do this than you are.

Kireon: But actually on reflection, none of them were, to be fair because Chris was building tech on Toast, Nick, Nick was busy with his other business and Ian wanted to retire. He was basically, had to be a non-exec. So actually I should have just stepped up and said, fuck that council. Say kid off your pop. And I'm, I should have taken responsibility.

Kireon: So I spent a good few months last year hating the three of them to be fair. You know, and I've, mm, I would've quite happily gone a set fire to some people's homes. Uh, glad I didn't do it 'cause I'd do terribly in prison. Jail. It'd be awful. Too many things to do. But I'd have 

Shell: my true, I would have my True Crime podcast there.

Shell: So, 

Kireon: yeah, I mean, you would, to be fair, I mean, that's right. Good, good for me to be helpful. Um, I'm not gonna go and start and ask them raid, just so you've got true by podcast. Podcast there. So, sorry. I'm not that much of a team player. I know. Let down, absolute let down. So having those moments of just feeling like it's dead easy for me to blame them.

Kireon: Yeah. And, and, and focus on where they went wrong for me. Actually, I went wrong. I should have just stepped up and said, I'm leading this business. Whether you all like it or not, lay out clearly why that was the case was gonna be, and I'm the one who's gonna make the decisions. And if I would've done that.

Kireon: Am I saying it'd still be here? I don't know. Maybe to be fair, you know, kind of, we dunno. Do they possible it would've been here in some way, shape, or form? It probably wouldn't have had 14 people because we just, we just couldn't afford 'em to be fair. Yeah. You know that payroll, I was talking to Karen Turton on through LinkedIn the other week, and until you've had the responsibility of knowing that you've got payroll for a group of people.

Mm. You don't know 

Kireon: pain like the feeling. You, you, you make payroll and then all that happens is your brain switches over to Right next. Payroll's come in. 

Shell: Yeah. 

Kireon: You get like a day of going, whew. Done. Nice. Yeah. Let's have a cup of tea and celebrate day after, right. Next payroll's coming. What are we gonna need to do?

Kireon: Yeah. It's just the, the stress that comes with it is insane. And like, I'm a pretty relaxed dude by nature on the whole, you know, I don't get stressed out by much, but that did. My wife was like, I don't think you are having fun with this. It seems to be ruining your head a little bit. Is this the right place?

Kireon: And I was like, no, no. I believe in it. And I genuinely, I think one of the reasons why I took it so badly is because I 100% believe in what we were doing. Yeah. I. I fricking love my industry. You know, it's like, I've described it in the past as a beautiful obsession, and it is like, it's 30 years my life and I've, I've never done anything.

Kireon: I actually, that's a lie. I did three months when in between Costa and Hard Rock. I, well, I thought I'm gonna try work in an office and, uh, I 

Shell: think we've all done that a bad idea. 

Kireon: Oh my God. I don't, I mean, I dunno how you did it for so long. If I'm honest with you, like I have so much respect because I, I reckon I lasted two months.

Kireon: Uh, and then I was like, right, this is, uh, I remember sitting on a Wednesday afternoon and just going, this is awful. I hate this. Uh, and I remember talking to the office manager and I said, I'm gonna go now. And he went, sorry. He's like, you, you don't feel very well. I was like, no, I'm just gonna go. Just gonna not come back.

Kireon: What do you mean you're gonna go? I was like, I just, if I stay, I'm gonna burn the place down. And he was just like, right. Okay, well you should probably go then. I was like, it's been lovely knowing you. Uh, I'm gonna go back to doing what I love. This is not it. Have a good day. Yeah. Cheery. Bye. 

Shell: But what you built, and it was, I, I dunno if it was the same time as Hospitality Rising came out, but it felt like it was a similar time.

Shell: Yeah, it was around the 

Kireon: same time. And it 

Shell: was, there was just such a beautiful energy because it was also coming outta the pandemic and there was all the energy around, you know, let's take these lessons and, you know, let's build a better industry and, you know, better world. And you ignited, um, such a, well you harnessed such a, a need within our industry to connect old, older, older, old people, uh, to connect.

Shell: I'm an old person. I'm 51. Older, experienced people with the younger generation, especially because we don't have the l and d budgets that we used to or ever had, especially in the independence. You know, when you talked about working for brands, I, I never wanted to work for a brand for the same reasons.

Shell: As you, however, then did work for a brand and there was real benefit, one of them being the training. Was it out of this world Gaucho's training? Still to this day, it's been. Oh, I don't, I don't wanna do the math, but probably about 18 years and yet I could probably still pass all the exams 'cause it's so ingrained that training.

Shell: Training still. Yeah. And it was just phenomenal. And so there was that kind of benefit. And, and that's why I think all of the stuff that you guys are doing while you were working with the bigger companies as well, in particular, it was those people that don't have access to that we're getting the access to somebody who has worked and had all of those experiences.

Shell: And it's, it's so needed. Um, and I think that it was, and it's just, you know, it's, it is, it's just such a shame. But I really. I really relate to that anger. You know, I was talking to, to MaryLee, um, MaryLee Kaling who we recorded the other week, and we were talking about the stages of grief and, you know, recognizing that that was what I was going through and have been going through since losing my job.

Shell: You know, losing that, even that word. Mm-hmm. You know, lost, you know, taken away from me. How dare it. Um, and it was that, that, that anger and that wanting to explode and just, and then that denial about it, you know, as swell. Just that, you know, no, it wasn't me, but maybe if I did this. Yeah. Maybe if it's that and, you know, I mean, it's been what, a year now?

Kireon: Yeah. Yeah. 

Shell: What, what stage of grief do we think you're at now? 

Kireon: I mean, I've moved, moved beyond the rage. Um, I've definitely moved beyond rage. I think I, I'm just an acceptance, I think, to be fair, I think I've, I've done the bit where. For me, going through the most important bit for me was going through and working out what I needed, what I should or could, should have, and could have done differently.

Kireon: Yeah. And what I was responsible for, that was, that's the big one for me. I'm, I'm, I'm huge, huge, always have been on accountability. Um, but there was about six months where I didn't really lean into that in any way, shape or form for sure. Which is, I ironic really. 'cause I was still out doing leadership training, talking about accountability whilst being an absolute freaking faker.

Kireon: Um, just hypocrisy falling from my face is the honest answer. And everyone's going, yeah, that's really, yeah, I'm really in that. It's really resonating here. And you can see that. I'm like, but I'm not living it. I'm not it, you know, just at the moment I'm still blaming all these other people for what went wrong, you know, kind of.

Kireon: But now kind of understanding what I needed to do differently and, you know, like our relationships have changed. You know, I, I mean, I haven't spoken to Nick or Ian in a year. Um. Which is a shame 'cause they're, they're both decent fellas, you know, annoying in their own ways, but they would say very much the same thing about me.

Kireon: Um, I remember I once offered to, I think I offered to hit Nick around the head with a brick dipped in glue and glass. Um, and Nick, Nick was brought up in a really different way to me. Like Nick, Nick was brought up in a really nice environment, and I think it was a bit traumatic to him. And I, I was just joking if I'm honest with you in that moment.

Kireon: But about a week later, he came to me and said, Kean, that, that really upset me when you said that. And I was like, what did I say? And he is like, well, I, generally, I'd forgotten it was gone. And he was like, well, you said it's not descriptive, 

Shell: you know, it's, it really paints a picture. I mean, you've gotta 

Kireon: think about the impact that you're gonna have, you know, the weight of the brick is gonna do some damage, but then it's been dipped in glue and then just covered in really sharp glass that's gonna Oh, yeah.

Kireon: Yeah, that's that. I mean, it's long, 

Shell: it's not, yeah, that's gonna keep on hurting. 

Kireon: I've thought about it. So I haven't seen those guys in like a year. I haven't sp spoken to them. Chris and I like, like I used to talk to Chris more than I talked to my wife at one point for about three years, four years. Like, and we did like amazing things together, but we don't talk much anymore.

Kireon: You know, kind of like one text every maybe six months I guess is the honest answer, which is a shame and like, yeah. And still there's like a, the thing I'm not proud of is like I see, I see kind of success for Tech on Toast and it pops up on my social and I still get a bit of a sharp pain where I'm like, fuck, why is, why is it going well for him?

Kireon: Why is that panning out well for him? And it's not panning out so well for me. But that's the, that's the, the kind of, that's the bit that I need to move forward and I need to get better. And I, I thought about just like muting him for a while mm-hmm. And then thought, that's not gonna help me because I need to move, I need to move past it.

Kireon: To be fair, I, I need to recognize that actually kind of, just because things are good for him doesn't mean things have to be bad for me. That's it. You know? And I'm, do I want things to be bad for him? Of course not. Like I know his family, like, he's like, I know his driver, his driver is his family, so I want things to be good for him.

Kireon: So, but that feeling that when I see kind of like in the last probably two months, he's hired three new people and I'm like, well, things going really, really well. You know what I mean? 

Shell: Yeah, I know. 

Kireon: And it shouldn't make me annoyed. Yeah. But it does. So I, I'm kind of getting through it. Um, and I'm, and I'm at that point where I realize that there's no point in me being angry about his happiness and his success.

Kireon: Of course. Why would I be, you know, whether or not like we're still, I. I don't know, maybe we will be friends together in the future. I don't know, to be honest with you. Would I call him a friend now? I don't, I just wouldn't, to be honest with you. Um, which is pretty sad. And that's, there's a grief that comes attached to that because Yeah, like literally if you think, so growing up being called Sean and Kieran, then you kind of move into a different phase and it's Chris and Kieran and there's always a funny, there's always a reason in my head as to why do, why, why is it always Kieran second?

Kireon: Why is it always there? And that, and something 

Shell: alphabetically 

Kireon: maybe, no, I don't know. Doesn't matter for sure. There's something more to it and it maybe it's something that I enable, I think, to be fair, because that kind of second twin. I think, and, and certainly I guess with Chris, there was always, for me, Chris comes from a really nice background, you know, and, and I, and I love that for him, you know, he had a good, good upground, good background, good upbringing, wasn't always easy, but he had a good, a good situation.

Kireon: The imposter syndrome, it comes from growing up in the, kind of, in a dysfunctional situation, you know, mom, younger mom, bringing up six kids by herself in a, in a horrible c estate. Her objective for us at any given point was just, don't be criminals, please. Just, just don't be criminals. At least two of my brothers failed on that.

Kireon: Um, so fair play. Well done lads. Um. The only one who was ever really expected to go to university was my sister. Uh, and I'm not even sure why that was it, to be fair, you know, like she was, she's not academic, but she's, she's very bright, but she's not academic and she, she never really had an interest in going to university, but she was the only one who was ever discussed that, that at some point, if she wants to go, she will go.

Kireon: We will fund it. The others would. We were a bit like. You'll work it out, is the honest answer. So there's, there's always some weird imposter syndrome that like floats around in the back of your head, the little council of state voice that just says, you are scum. You know, you kind of think back to being called SCM at school and think back to people laughing at the things that your mom would be able to afford to feed you.

Kireon: And I think back to the physical violence I had to instill on people for that. Making no jokes about my mom, because I tell you, I, I love my mom. She was amazing. Um, like she was, she was amazing. She was tough. She was a pain in the ass and she could be really deranged every now and again. But she was amazing.

Kireon: And like I had so much love for her. And I, I still sit and think about her and I, you talk about grief, you know, my understanding of grief and really managing grief comes from her death six years ago. And going through that process and the PTSD that kicked in for me, like I'm, I was strolling around for a year with undiagnosed PTSD because her death was just, it was hard.

Kireon: It was a really hard time. And it was weird because she was ill for a long time, but she went into hospital and the space of eight days of going in hospital. Uh, and coming out, she was dead. She died. And, and for seven of those eight days I lived in the hospital. I was like, I'm not going anywhere. She was, she was scared.

Kireon: She was, she was lonely. She had a heart attack at one point while she was there. Uh, and I was like, I live here now. As long as she's here, I, this is where I will exist. So I'd moved into the hospital and they were like, you can't do this. And I was like, you, good luck to you, not me. I just think, best of luck, this, this warm, friendly, smiling demeanor.

Kireon: It can be as unfriendly as you want it to be. If she needs me, I'm gonna be there. So this is where I live now, and if I have to live in that chair for seven days or however long it's gonna take for her before she goes home, get used to me being here. That was it. Uh, but the PTSD that kind of became attached to that, that I just was not conscious of at all, but it was the anger, the rage.

Kireon: I've, I've driven like in the, in the months after my mum died, I remember chasing a man like I was ready to fight. Now it was ready to fight. And, and there's a lot of, there's a physicality about kind of where we grew up and when you want to express yourself, you do it sometimes three fists. And I remember after she died, this guy cut me up on the road and I lost my shit and I lost it.

Kireon: And I chased him for seven miles out of my way. I, I drove for seven miles outta Nottingham and I was waiting for him to stop. And I was gonna go, I was gonna get into it with him. There's another guy in the car park at Waitrose who just wasn't following the rules of the car park in Waitrose. Oh, well that, that 

Shell: is triggering.

Kireon: Honestly. It, I was like, I was rocked and I was, I was ready to go. And the only reason that he and I didn't fight in that moment is his girlfriend was there and she was terrified. And I was like, I just, I just lean, I remember leaning into him saying, if she wasn't here, I would be standing on your face now.

Kireon: Rage, Michelle. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's kind of, that comes from grief and that comes from that trauma and that stress. So I've, I've, I've felt that around my mom. I recognized kind of going through those paths and going through those moments. And then what, what was the work that I had to do to get through that?

Kireon: And this is actually, so that time is probably, when I think about Chris, one of the reasons why I would never in my life cut him off and say he is a terrible person, is because in that moment, he supported me. Mm-hmm. In that moment. We, we literally, two months after mum died, was the very first EXP 1 0 1 event.

Kireon: Uh, and it was huge. We spent a load of money on it. We Nisha on a, on a stage. She wasn't free. We put Fred on the stage. He fucking wasn't free. Um, both lovely people cost me a fortune. But Chris was there, like, and, and, and his, his ability to work and to just get in and, and he's a machine when he works, he's a machine now.

Kireon: I can get distracted, but not him. He is just like, he'll work until midnight, one o'clock in the morning and he'll just keep doing it. And he did that because I was broken in that moment. Yeah. And he just picked the responsibility and. Literally going, like walking out onto the stage for the first time.

Kireon: This is the first event we've done in a drum base nightclub. It was ridiculous. And like I was hosting it and I remember him saying to me, we stayed, we stayed at, uh, the Georgian house, um, the night before. And I remember him saying, he was like, are you sure that you want to do this? Are you sure you're okay to do this?

Kireon: And I was like, I'm good to go. Uh, I'll do it anyway. You absolutely like, 'cause if you need me to do it, if you need me to. And this was not his happy place at all. Like, you'll see him now and he, and he hosts a lot of panels and stuff in this place. He wasn't doing that at all. So for him to sort of be in that moment to say, if you need me to step up and do this, I'll do it.

Kireon: I'll do it. Yeah. 

I'm 

Kireon: like, you know what? I'll never forget him for that. And I'll, and I will always appreciate him. Do I think we'll be friends? Are we friends? I fucking know, to be fair, you know, it is what it is. To be fair, I dunno how I would define it right now, but, um, it's, it's been, it's been a year.

Kireon: It's been a hard, hard year. And yeah, a large portion of it last year ended up in hibernation shell, which was nice. 

Shell: Yeah. Yeah, but I think that, and thank you for sharing that, because that's, you know, that's really, really hard and hard. But I think a lot of people will relate to that. And I think that in a way, in a way, you know, the way that you walked into that meeting and it was like, you know, funding's gone goodbye, you know, it's very, there is an alignment with the same way, you know, your mom's in hospital and then it's like, oh, and that's it.

Shell: You know, it's that it, there's something about these things that happen to us that don't have, not that you are ever gonna kind of get used to it, but there, it's a very different experience I think from working, for example, a company that you can see things aren't quite working and then, you know, versus like just being pulled from underneath you.

Shell: And, you know, again, I think that, um, it's important to talk about it because. If you were to just look at those two situations on paper and say the loss of a, a dear loved one and a job, and you'd go, how you, you can't compare those. How dare you say that that pain is the same as the other pain, and yet I do.

Shell: And then there, and then you get shame. You know, there's so much shame over it. Um, why am I feeling the same way I felt when I look X and Y and because. We lose ourselves. And again, you know, like when you're talking about the whole, you know, council estate and, you know, always having to be Sean and Kieran, Chris and Kieran, you know, it's that self-worth piece that the same for me without having, firstly, if I'd had the self-worth, I probably wouldn't have ended up in the situation of burnout.

Shell: Yeah. Because I would've been able to advocate for myself. I would've had boundaries. All these big words that I've learned now. But that is a such, it's a such a huge thing. And as well at our age, being older, being later in our career to finally for the first time, have to now step out as Karen. And shell, not Shell who works in restaurants.

Kireon: Yep. 

Shell: J just, shell not show Shell 

Kireon: not shell from not shell from h gm, you know, it's kind like Exactly. Just connections that, that give you that protection in the background. A hundred 

Shell: percent. Well, even just saying, at least, at least, 'cause I don't necessarily have an industry right now, you know, am I in hospitality?

Shell: Am I doing podcast? Am I, you know, am I a sock? Mongol? Probably. But again, it's like, have, oh, you're sock by the way. Oh, I've got new ones coming in very soon. But like, it's that piece of that identity and it's like you're being thrown into having to figure it out. Things that I'm sure other people probably would've figured out years ago, but for the first time, we now have to figure out how we can stand.

Shell: You said something very beautiful in your, um, um, pre, um, podcasty for me thing about like, you know, being comfortable to walking into any room and feeling confident, um, that you make sense there where, you know. Why am I in the world without having anything to offer? And you know, it's such a, it's, it's a really challenging thing.

Shell: And you know, I very, I'll stop talking one second. Um, but I've just shared on, on LinkedIn as well quite recently about, for the first time doing a training session and it was the first time, instead of relying on my content and giving value by offering as many facts as I can, I stood there and I went, guys, there's a shit load of facts on these Sprite slides.

Shell: I'm not deleting them 'cause I love them, but I am gonna send them to you. So don't listen, don't worry about 'em, let's have a conversation. And it's been such a light bulb moment to realize that actually my worth isn't around. What I'm bringing in a in a measurable way, you know? Yeah. And I mean, I think, and I think, and I'm assuming that that's kind of where you are now with what you are doing.

Shell: Not that you never had that, but that's gotta be like where the light bulbs are coming on that Kieran can do this as Kieran 

Kireon: like, so LA the other week, um, in the last two weeks, three weeks, I went to NRB up in Manchester, um, and just felt nervous walking through the door. Um, I went to HRC last week and, uh, a multiunit management event the next day.

Kireon: And, and the, that feeling of like, I don't, I'm not still not sure now what I bring to the table. Yeah. You know, and, and I saw the question is what. Who are you when you have nothing to offer, and who are you to the world when you have nothing to offer? And I'm like, yes. I, I literally, I spend a lot of my time trying to help people.

Kireon: It's, it's an instinct, you know, it's an unhealthy instinct most of the time, if I'm honest with you, because it's exhausting. And, and occasionally I kind of over, over, over kind of commit. Um, and I've spent a lot of time, you know, kind of connecting people to each other to solve problems for each other.

Kireon: But I've certainly, in the last couple of weeks, just remember walking into those two events and just thinking, what am I doing here? Mm-hmm. What's, why, why am I here? What am I adding to this? Because I feel like I should add something to it. I can't. I mm-hmm. There's this feeling of like, I can't just be there.

Kireon: I can't just be present. I have to contribute and knowing, like, like normally, like I'll walk into an event and I'm, I know I'm gonna talk on three or three or four of the stages, host panels, d keynote y, yada y, really comfortably. That's just easy for me if I wanna assume. 'cause that's joy. That makes me happy being there without a purpose.

Kireon: Was deeply uncomfortable and like, and I've, I've been, I've been playing with spoken word poetry recently, uh, which sounds the artiest load of bollocks that you'll ever heard in your life. 

Shell: I love a bit of spoken word, 

Kireon: honestly, like, can you remember 

Shell: how I, what's it? I married an ax murderer. 

Kireon: Love that. And he just, 

Shell: that spoken.

Shell: Yeah. 

Kireon: Love it. We 

Shell: won't, we won't tangent, but fucking love it. Yeah, 

Kireon: no, I would, I would like a tangent on that. I, I recently saw the, uh, the, uh, the, the, the clip of, um, Mike as the Scottish dad watching the telly with football and the, the kid, his son, and he just keeps screaming at him. He'd heed. He's got, he's got like, he like an orange on a cocktail stick.

Kireon: He's, he's so big. It's got its own planetary system, orbits in it. It's a great film. Anybody not watched? So Marital murder has gotta check it out. It's an old film, but it's a, it's a great film. I'll literally, 

Shell: I'll put it in the show notes. It is a must watch, but yeah, spoken word is, I think is a very, very underrated and powerful.

Shell: I saw some at The Lost Village as well last year at the festival and I was blown away. It's, uh, it's really cool. So I love that you're doing that. But yeah, 

Kireon: it's, it's helped. It's helped a lot, like writing it, um mm-hmm. Writing it and putting it down on paper helps and then just kind of verbalizing it and speaking into a camera and then sharing it out into the world.

Kireon: A is terrifying because, well. I've been a gobs shy over the years. So you express yourself to different people in certain ways, and you open yourself up to being called a dick Ed. Uh, and a couple of people have called me a dick Ed in the la in the kind of couple of months since I've started posting it.

Kireon: And somebody used to work for me, said, why are you posting this shit? Why do you think anybody cares? Like, I fired this lauch back in the day, uch, I had fired him for stealing from the, from his team. Um, but he messaged me and he was like, why are you, why are you sharing this crap? No one cares about your feelings.

Kireon: No one cares about your idea. I was like, have a good day, brother. You know what I mean? It's just like, 

Shell: release with love. 

Kireon: You just move along. You know what I mean? And Mel Robbins just let them kicks in my head and I'm like, just let you do you. It'll be what it is. But it's been, it's been incredibly helpful.

Kireon: Um, and some people like it, you know? And, and I guess for me. One of the ways in which I've been able to help myself in the last kind of eight months is helping other people. Yes. Because there is a lot of people going through crappy times. So being able to be there for other people, being able to kind of weirdly kind of like, so all of the stuff that I know about walking into an event with confidence and walking into a space and being, knowing that you've got room there and there's room there for you.

Kireon: All of the stuff I know about kind of the strategies that attach to that. Knowing them is one thing. Applying them to yourself is different. Mm-hmm. But being able to kind of help other people and share those strategies and those kind of ideas is really, really cool because you can see the impact of it.

Kireon: And that for me has been, it, it is been a massive part of me moving forward to be fair. And, and again, my wife was like, are you sure that you wanna be taking this stuff on because you are not anywhere near a hundred percent you like, and there's, nobody knows my wife more better than me. We've been together 31 years, like.

Kireon: My wife is the catalyst of everything that is good in me. That's it. Aw. She is that. Um, so she knows when I'm struggling. She knows when I'm kind of, when I'm kind of, uh, introverting and going quiet and just kind of mm-hmm. Switching away from the world and she can see it and she's like, this is not good for you.

Kireon: Like, you are not healthy when you go to your little office pod and close the doors and just hide. Mm-hmm. That's not good for you. So she's really kind of like, I'm. One International Women's Day recently, and I have a real question around International Women's Day. I just think until we start doing shit better, let's stop celebrating the women we've got in our business.

Kireon: Just pay them more. Like my wife's paid seven point a half percent less than her male 

got, 

Kireon: and she wipes the floor. She's amazing. She was in Parliament yesterday making mps feel bad about themselves because they don't do enough for, for apprentice programs like this. Woman's Re remarkable, but she's paid less because she's a woman.

Kireon: Wow. So stop fucking around with like these ridiculous posts about we give them flowers and we do, and we celebrate. Now just give 'em, give 'em what they do, give 'em their space. Hold the fucking space. Be an advocate. Stop talking about allyship and start talking about advocacy and do that. You know, I'm really lucky, like my mom, my sister, my wife, three utterly incredible women, all in their own ways.

Kireon: All of them have been a nightmare for me at some point in life without doubt. But all of them are integral to me being the man that I am today. They've all done. They've all been a part of me being me. Mm-hmm. So I genuinely just being able to recognize that is just. It's really, I was, I was talking, I'm gonna sound really Tory now.

Kireon: I was having a massage last Friday and uh, and I was talking to masseuse, and the masseuse happens to do hot pod yoga where my wife goes and she leads the class and she was like, so we were talking and we were chatting away and I was talking about Karen. Uh, and, and I'm not conscious that when I talk about Karen, that I'm quite effusive.

Kireon: Um, I, I know that obviously she's the love of my life and I knew that within 20 seconds of meeting her, um, but I'm not conscious of how effusive I get about her. Um, but like I had the massage on Friday afternoon. She went off to hot pod yoga. Later that evening. She came back and she was like, I think my masseuse, you are masseuse.

Kireon: And my hot pod yoga teacher loves you a bit. I was like. I was like, I'm naturally very charming. I'll be honest with you. I'll add 

her to the list. Yep. 

Kireon: Just put her on that one, you know? And I was like, what are you talking about? She was like, she just like, she was blown away about kind of how, about how freely you spoke and how, how openly you speak about a, your feelings about your feelings about other people.

Kireon: And I'm just, that for me is like, it's really important now. I think as people, we, we are not great at kind of talking about what's good and what's bad. And when we're feeling those things, we kind of think we've gotta hold it inside. And, and, and otherwise it's a weakness. And as men certainly, like, we're, we're awful at it.

Kireon: Awful at it. Yeah. I mean, literally just this cap. I love you, dude. Let it rip. The idea that I'm gonna rock around with I love you, dude. On my cap. Some people look at, I saw somebody looking at me yesterday and they were like, okay. I'm like, I just think I, I think we've gotta tell people, like, be generous in your dealings with people.

Kireon: Mm. It's very rarely, I'm gonna quote Bonaparte, but don't. Napoleon Bonaparte said, as leaders, we're dealers in hope. And I think he's right. Uh, and my addition to that is if we're dealings in hope, then we should be generous in our dealings. And I think every time you get the chance to say something nice, give somebody a compliment.

Kireon: Give them the fricking compliment. Last week, strolling through them. Uh, so NRB, there was a lady up there, she was talking. She was, she was talking, she was from Boots. I think bp, BP not the most interesting thing in the world, if I'm honest with you. She's talking about their, their shop. Um, but the way she delivered it was amazing.

Kireon: And her style was on point, like she was a bigger lady. And you could see she was a little bit uncomfortable, but she looked amazing. Like she dressed perfectly. And, and I remember thinking, you are rocking that. And I was sitting in the restaurant, in the coffee shop kind of a few minutes, few hours later, and she wondered past.

Kireon: And I said, two things. Your presentation was on point. Love that. And she went, nice. I was like, and this, you're killing it. And she was like, what was that? Sorry. I was like, your outfit. You are fucking, you are killing it. And she was like, oh. So nice. And I just think we're not great at telling people when that, when, when, when we think that's amazing and let's compliment things that people actually try compliment things that people can focus on.

Kireon: Compliment things that people are in control of, not just you are really pretty and you've got lovely eyes. Well, yeah, fuck, that's just genetics compliment me on something that I've done compliment me on something that I've controlled, a decision that I've made. Mm-hmm. That then when I get that compliment, I think, okay, I did that.

Kireon: I'm responsible for that. And all of a sudden people start to feel good. Yeah. And I, I just, I'm Dish, I, I believe in dishing out left, right, and center. So the couple in the street in London, couple of months ago, they're like their style genuinely. They were like an older couple, I reckon they were maybe sixties or so, but they dressed as if they were going out together, like they made sense together independently.

Kireon: They rocked it, but as a pair. Incredible. Oh, I love 

Shell: that synergy. 

Kireon: Genuinely I like, and I walked past 'em and I was like, they look amazing. They're like, I kind of checked it and as I was walking past, I got 10 feet away and I was like, no, no, I've gotta tell 'em. So I turned around and like kind of storming back towards 'em and they were just a bit like, why is that weirdo coming back at us a hundred miles an hour?

Kireon: I was like, gotta tell you, you two are freaking killing it. This vibe, this aesthetic. On point. And I said, the way you two compliment each other is just like, oh. And they were just like, thank you. And they were northern as well. To be fair, they clearly weren't from London, so they were, they were a little bit nervous, but by the time I'd done and like I'm, I believe in dropping bombs like that and then just being gone.

Kireon: I'm not waiting for them to say something nice to me. I'm like, boom, kindness. I'm out. And I left. And I remember like walking, looking at their faces and we were both like, that was really nice. We've all got the power to do. Oh, I love that. 

Shell: Kindness bombing. I mean, look, you know, when you said, you know, who are you when you have nothing to offer?

Shell: And that was something that, you know, that's just, it's when you are in those darkest stages of the whole, you know, things that have happened to you in the last year, me the last three years, and that starts to repetitively play. Who are you when you have nothing to offer? 'cause you feel you have nothing to offer because it's the work, you know, that identity's gone.

Shell: But actually that's exactly it. You know, like kindness bombing, you know, there's always something that you have got, everybody has got something to offer. There is nobody in this world that should ever feel that they haven't and, and actually like it, it may not quite feel it yet, and you might need a bit more distance from it, but I, I know that you'll look back and be like, this was hard, but it's been the making of.

Shell: Where I am now and there is, you know, like for me, I'm like, there are some things I would still change the people I hurt potentially, but would I change if someone could come down and say, magic wand three. Well take away the three years. The company that fired you that you know, that you and I were at a talk out where they were, you're still there.

Shell: They're killing it by the way. They're they are in real life. They're opening their one in Birmingham in a few weeks time. And you know, I'm still friends with Rupert who was on the podcast. Yeah. But you are still with them. You're with that company. It's everything, you know, would you want that life versus this one and, oh, it's, it's, yeah, like I could, I wouldn't say it's an immediate no, but it's definitely edging towards it.

Shell: And I'm starting to live in far more acceptance. And with acceptance. I then think the next stages, which might not be an official one, is that gratitude and you start to be grateful for the shit that you went through because of the life it then gives. And I think that very much, you know, the same with what happened with you, um, and with the company.

Shell: It might not quite be there yet, but there will be so much now that your life will be because of it. That wouldn't have necessarily happened. And therefore there has to be a bit of gratitude towards it eventually. 

Kireon: Yeah. Uh, and there is, now there is a bit, you know, I, I think there'll be more, but I, I guess for me, the gratitude, the real gratitude comes from being comfortable to open up and talk to people about kind of how you're feeling and what you're feeling.

Kireon: Because some of the, some of the best relationships that you have and will have moving forward come from those moments of opening up and saying, this has been shit. This has not been great, and I've not had a good time. You know, there is, uh, I've got a good friend who I. Was going through something kind of similar but not the same.

Kireon: Uh, and we would meet basically every other week, uh, in London and drink tea at the ARD Hotel, feel fancy and just talk about stuff. And that person now, like they're gonna be a friend for life, I think, to be honest with you. That's kind of it, to be honest with you. And yeah, you dunno what's gonna change.

Kireon: You dunno. I might pick up a move at some point. I'm gonna go and live in the highlands of Scotland, uh, with five acres and a gun to it. It's just a plan. Um, possibly a moat. I'd love the idea of a moat. A moat that would then keep my goats in because I want goats. Goats and llamas is a vibe. 

Moat. 

Kireon: Yeah. Um, so kind of opening up to people and, and having those kind of conversations creates the next relationships that kind of, that come along.

Kireon: And then, well, it's not a bad, it can't be a bad thing. It can't be exactly, because something good's coming from it and good things have come from, from the last year. You know, I, I've struggled to see them for a while, but. It's come, you know, the, the folks at Imperial Hotels London, lovely people like, so with Imperial, Imperial were an AT customer.

Kireon: They paid for a leadership program, uh, but they paid upfront. Uh, atol went into insolvency three weeks later. Um, so their money just disappeared. Um, job done not great. Um, but they were lovely people, uh, and they put good money into this. And I was like, well, I'm just gonna deliver that program for you.

Kireon: I'll just spend the next four or five months just delivering that cost me. It literally cost me to, to go and do that. It cost me 200 quarter a week to go and do that. I'm spending money to do work. Didn't, didn't make any money. They'd already paid for it, spending money to do it, but because it was the right thing to do.

Kireon: The upside is as you kind of get to know them better and better, and you build a relationship and you understand the kind of where they're at and the culture of their business, and you're able to connect them with other people who are helpful to them, and. All of a sudden, you know what felt like a ridiculous thing to do.

Kireon: And somebody did say to me, that's absurd. Why you're doing that. That's gonna cost you money to do that. They were, they were the only reason why I went into town for six months because I had to go and do that training and going and having to do that training and knowing that I had to, if I'm gonna go and do it, I can't phone it in, you know?

Kireon: Yeah. There's no kind of going in and giving half a job, so I can't rock up. And just for them to be like, oh yeah, he seems cool. No, I need them to walk away and go, my God, that was a lot. That was like, that was high energy. That was high intensity. He's held us to account, uh, somebody described it as Ted taught me group therapy and I was like, I'm having that.

Kireon: I am having that. That's going on a t-shirt at some point. That's what it's got to be. That's what I had to deliver. But because they were cool people and they were really leaning into it, I got a lot from doing that. So yeah, it cost me money, but it's, it's actually invaluable. What the energy. I walked away from it.

Kireon: Yeah. 'cause if I hadn't have done that for them. Then the hibernation would've been 100%. Well, 

Shell: that's it. That would've been healing. That whole process would've been exceptionally part of that healing. And, and again, you know, it's like we stay in, in recovery. Um, and I will ask you my last question in just two seconds.

Shell: We turn pain into purpose. Mm-hmm. And, you know, that's very much what we recover loudly is all about, you know, and therefore, my last question, um, as always is, you know, so what has recovery or what does recovery mean to you? 

Kireon: I think it's clarity. I think it's a bit more clarity. Um, and I'm not there yet. I don't have total clarity about what comes next.

Kireon: I, I've got some ideas, but I know full well that being able to contribute and being able to help and, and support. People and industry is still something that's important to me, so I'm gonna do that. Um, I've made some big, bold choices. You know, I'm going to Nashville in May to the Unreasonable Hospitality, uh, summit, um, world team is fucking mental.

Kireon: It's cost me, oh, 

Shell: that's gonna be incredible. But I'm very excited. 

Kireon: Um, I mean, the only challenge might be is that ICE have started stopping people at, uh, immigration and checking their phones to see if they say bad things about, uh, Donald Trump. Um, mental fuck sake. Genuinely, it's happening a lot. That's 

Shell: insane.

Kireon: 15 people in the last three weeks have been stopped. Europeans have been stopped and sent to the camps in El Salvador. In a way, I'm thinking if they do stop me and send me to the camp in El Salvador, it's probably only gonna be for three or four weeks. And then they'll be bored and send me home. But I'll have a story to tell on the back of it.

Shell: I mean, you all make an impact on that camp. 

Kireon: I reckon I could change the game. I'm honest with you. I think I could change the game. So 50 50, Ian, I'm gonna go to Nashville and have an amazing time. I'm gonna listen to Wil. Good. Uh, I'm gonna persuade him of an idea I've got and we're going, we're gonna do some good stuff.

Kireon: Uh, one of my friends has already kind of, she, she worked with him and she was like, I will make sure you get to have a meeting with him one-on-one. Um, and, and you can present him. You're right. I was like, thank you. You're very sweet. So 50 50, I'm gonna do that and have an amazing time. I've already sold a course.

Kireon: I was sitting with some folks at NRB and I said, just tell 'em I'm going to Nashville. And they were like, that's very cool. I was like, I'm gonna come back. You're gonna buy the program from me to, uh, deliver it to your people. He was like, done. So two brands have already bought it. Uh, which in itself is a different sense as well, because I've never been a closer when it comes to kind of sales.

Kireon: Mm-hmm. I, so Chris and I had this wonderful thing. We were hunters and gatherers. I was a hunter. I would draw people in. I would make them kind of think, this is cool. These people are nice, these people are talented. And they'd be like, he's very lovely. We like him. I wouldn't wanna do business with him. And then Chris had, Chris had a great knack of clothes in that and getting the deal done.

Kireon: I'm, I've never been exceptional at doing that. So now I need to change that behavior. Yeah. And I need to be able to adjust that and adapt it. So just, I'm sitting in that, in this room, NIB and that's, there's a part of me that's kind of talking about going and doing this, and I know that. And the reason I'm gonna go to Nashville is to go and learn and to be able to come back and deliver a course.

Kireon: I'll be the only person in the uk no doubt, who's been stupid enough to go all the way to Nashville, uh, and go and do this. So I'm gonna be accredited in this way. So, but I know that, and it's part of my thinking, but there's still a discomfort about kind of saying, and when I come back, I'm gonna sell you a program.

Kireon: But I, in that moment, I was like, and let's be clear dudes. Uh, I'm gonna be selling this program and you're gonna tell me when and where I'm gonna come and do it. And they were just like, yeah. Absolutely love that. And that's three brands who are all like, yeah, you tell us when it's done and we are here to, we are here for it.

Kireon: So changing that behavior and recognizing where you've, where, what part you played in previous relationships and partnerships, and then what do you need to change within you to, for now fulfill that? 'cause it's hard. Everybody I talk to in our world, all of the freelancers I talk to are like, selling and, and closing horrible is just horrible.

Kireon: It's brutal. 

Shell: I hate it. I, I, every, I would do everything for free, but if it wasn't for the uncomfortableness of then going, and, you know, and like, how much is that an hour? And you're like, well, it's this. And then immediately I'll go, but for you, I'll do it for, and then it's like, shut the fuck up. Stop talking.

Shell: Yeah. Literally every single time you're just like. Stop. Um, but that ties into worth, self-worth. And again, that's another journey, a big journey, um, that I'm on, that you are gonna be on when we step out from the security of the identity of, well, I'm Shell, the restaurant person. Therefore, I have worth into just being Shell and just being Kieran and recognizing that we are worth.

Shell: Exactly what we're asking for, you know, um, Kieran, I could keep talking to you for another 78 years and, um, and I know I will because we are friends and we will therefore continue this. Um, however, um, I imagine at this stage we probably only got three listeners left. One will be your wife and one will be my mother.

Shell: So we should probably no chance 

Kireon: on Earth. My wife's listening to this guarantee, guaranteed. That woman listens to me a lot. She's like, she's like, oh, I'm not signing up, I'm not signing up for like this. Come on. She's like, just gimme the cliff notes. What did you talk about? 

Shell: I'll, I'll, I'll pop it through AI and I'll let go.

Shell: I, I said nice 

Kireon: things about you and about my sister and my mum, you know what I mean? I said, you're all changed the game in my life. The Tiger Cat. Is fucking right. Um, so yeah. But no, 

Shell: honestly, thank you so, so, so much. Um, I, I, I'd wanted to ask you and I toyed with it 'cause I was like, you know, it is difficult to say to somebody, I want you to come on a podcast and talk about one of the worst things that has happened to you in recent years.

Shell: Please. Um, how you're feeling. Um, especially when it is something that is still quite fresh. Um, so I really, really, really appreciate it. And I think that, um, like I say, I think that there'll be a moment in years to come that it will look back and it will just be like, I get it now and it'll make so much sense.

Shell: Um, I mean, I've 

Kireon: gotta tell you, you've navigated this conversation beautifully. If I, if I were, if I'm sitting in your shoes having done the job that you've just done, I'd be really, really proud because you made it really easy for me to have this conversation. Um, and that's. For a lot of people that would be difficult to be fair.

Kireon: Um, so you killed it is a simple answer. Well, thank you. I appreciate you asking me and kind of as the kids would say for holding space for me. You know what I mean? I appreciate that. 

Shell: Hey, hope it wasn't too triggering another kid's one. 

Kireon: It's not. I'm, I'm not driving down the road chasing a man for seven miles, so we'll be okay.

Kireon: That's a trigger. Oh my God. 

Shell: There we go. Well, and on that note, Kieran, let's move on from the 

Kireon: violence. 

Shell: Thank you so much for being here and uh, I look forward to, yeah, to continuing. I'll put all of your, um, contact details and stuff in the notes, um, so that people can see, follow you and see what goes on in Nashville.

Shell: And uh, yeah, just keep on being you. I 

Kireon: thank you. Don't go changing. Oh, it's difficult. I'm 51 now, mate. I am what I am. 

Shell: Awesome. Thank you. 

Kireon: Dang.