The Untold Podcast
UNTOLD Podcast is where business, family, and life collide—raw, unfiltered, and brutally honest. No fluff, no fake success stories—just real conversations about the highs, the struggles, and everything in between.
The Untold Podcast
Episode 2 | Business vs. Life: Balancing Success Without Losing What Matters | UNTOLD Podcast
🚨 Episode 2 | Running a Business Without Letting Life Slip Away 🚨
You started your business to create a better life—but now you’re working more hours than ever, and family time is slipping away. Sound familiar?
In Episode 2 of the UNTOLD Podcast, we dive into the real challenges of balancing business and life—the things no one tells you when you start out.
🔹 The moment you realise you can’t do it all is when your business truly grows
🔹 Why structuring your day properly is the key to reclaiming time with family
🔹 Different business models = different time management challenges
🔹 Outsourcing: when to let go so you can focus on what really matters
🔹 The “Time, Money, Success” triangle – how to make it work for you
🔹 Why building a business you actually enjoy is crucial
💭 Are you running your business, or is your business running you?
🔥 Episode 2 drops soon on YouTube & all major audio platforms.
📲 Follow us on Instagram: @UNTOLDPodcast.official
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & more
#UNTOLDPodcast #BusinessVsLife #Entrepreneurship #WorkLifeBalance #PodcastLaunch #TimeManagement #LifeUnfiltered #RealTalk
I don't think people realise how limited time actually is, unless you give yourself extra time.
Speaker 2:It's the battle that I'm having in my head daily.
Speaker 3:What works for one business owner doesn't necessarily work for the next.
Speaker 2:We are all in this game because we want to make our lives and lives of our families better.
Speaker 1:It's quite a heavy subject to be fair, isn't it?
Speaker 3:The moment that you realise you can't do it all is the day that you start going further. The Untold Podcast is proudly sponsored by Aura Surfaces specialists in luxury surfaces for extraordinary spaces. Like creating dream homes, building a dream life takes work. That's why we had to get behind this podcast. Real stories, real challenges and real success. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Untold Podcast, everybody. I'm Des, this is Ash, hello. And this is Chris Evening Chris, what's?
Speaker 1:your help. That's two of us.
Speaker 3:Now we're going again keep it, keep it, it's fine, let's go this week. I have been mostly. It's hard not to slip into that no one watched our show, never mind.
Speaker 2:This week we are going to be talking about time management, especially when it comes to your purpose of why you're in business, why you're making money. We it comes to your purpose of why you're in business, why you're making money. We are all in this game because we want to make our lives and the lives of our families better. Right, and the people that surround us. And the people that surround us, you're right, sorry when I say family why don't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, dead right, but what do we do? When we throw so much time at this thing, so much time at our purpose, we are in jeopardy of actually losing the family that we're doing it for in the first place now, that sounds heavy, didn't it? So I'm going to try and take the piss out of you a fair bit, just to light quite a heavy subject to be fair, isn't it?
Speaker 1:it is, isn't it but?
Speaker 3:it's. It's a subject that needs to be discussed. Definitely, definitely, it is definitely needs to be discussed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was the guy that started with 200 pound because we were skin, me and wife, and we were fed up with doing all the things and I wasn't seeing my kids as much as I wanted to see them. I've got two that live at home with me. I've got another two that I see half the time from my first wife, and the whole purpose of it is that I didn't want to do the 9 to 5 anymore. I didn't want to be a slave to someone else and I wanted to be in charge of my own time. And at the time of starting it I had it in my head that I would do the school run, then I'd go for lunch with the missus. I'll do something. I was somewhere between 11 and 3 and that would be enough to run my business. And then how's that going for you?
Speaker 3:how's that going for you at the moment?
Speaker 2:it's exactly right. I'm already at a point now where I'm on the school run and my kids say to me as I'm driving, dad, can you just switch the phone off while we're doing the driving yeah, not illegally or listen to them on silent yeah, yeah, but how? How have you guys found it?
Speaker 3:um, I was sort of. I was lucky. I took over the family business, which was a retail business, worked in it for a long time and I remember my old man says to me about 150 fucking times are you sure you want to do this? You're going to have sleepless nights, you're gonna have this, are you sure? Are you sure, are you sure? And every single time I was like, yeah, fucking damn right, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure. And for a couple years three, four years it went really really well. And then COVID hit and then the cost of living hit and it was like pfft, but that was in the retail space. So in the retail space you've got a retail premises. It's got to be open for reasons that go along in history. You've got set open in time. You've got to be there. You've got to be open for that, otherwise you look unprofessional. That's got to be tough in your ear as well, surely? Yeah, it's tough when you're ill. It's tough when staff are ill. It's tough when you want. I couldn't have done this.
Speaker 2:And you're front-facing. There's members of the public.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I could time, but I couldn't have stepped away and done this. So now, with a new business, I've built it because of that experience I was. I do not want that anymore. So I've come away from that with a clear vision of right. I want to have time now. Obviously sometimes it's very time consuming, but I don't mind getting into work at five in the morning and work until eight nine at night if it needs to be done. And it's kind of it's balancing that up, isn't it? It's balancing that up.
Speaker 1:How about you? Well, I've kind of gone from one extreme to the other. Um, I got my missus like 15 years ago and the minute I got with her I basically decided that I was going to work, I get money, I wanted to have a big house, I wanted to have a nice car and wanted to provide for her, because my, my boys that don't live with me, that with my, with my missus, they don't obviously live with me, so I didn't spend so much time with them. Um, I used to work, get up at half six in the morning, go to work, worked on one job till about three o'clock and then I'd go to another one till about 11 o'clock at night so I was earning decent money.
Speaker 1:You know it was good I was early 30s, late 20s earning good money, but it was killing me, fucking killing me, and it pretty much nearly did. I had a stroke and then decided out, I come out of the hospital, right, I'm not doing it anymore, I'm going to give up, I'm going to just go part time. I'm going to do like four days a week. I'm just going to do like half the days that I used to do. Join a golf club. I was playing golf every weekend, loving life, and then we had a kid.
Speaker 1:Well, you don't do that when you've had a kid, do you? You've got baby now and mrs goes off work and I have to go out and earn the coin. Um got back to the business, got the business going again as well as it should have been, and then started tiktok. And then it's the time has disappeared. I don't have any time anymore. I've been looking forward to this discussion to to be quite honest, because I don't think people realise how limited time actually is unless you give yourself extra time, and that sounds weird.
Speaker 1:How can you give yourself extra time? You have to organise your day so much into structure, which is what I say all the time on our Zoom calls that we do with our community. If you don't structure your days, you won't have a clue what you're doing from one minute to the next and your family will take a massive hit, which is exactly what happened with my family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're at a point now where me and Claire we sit down every Sunday and we know how to live. We know how to live Seven o'clock. We sit down every Sunday with a calendar out and we say, right, what's the next week? Looking at, and we do the school runs on there for all four of them. We do like even what, what time we're going to prep food for the next day and all that crap. And we've got blocks of time that would take des work or claire work, and in those that's when we write the tasks. If you finish your tasks early, you finish early. You don't do tomorrow's tasks today because that's your day done and that's how you earn your time back. You know, but it took us fucking years to figure that out it's brutal.
Speaker 1:I feel sorry for my missus because she doesn't get any time with me at all. You know I say I structure our days, but my time is with my son. She's in the kitchen cooking dinner or something, or she's tidying the house while she's having a rest from little man because she's had him all day, or he's been at nursery. She's picked him up. She sits on the sofa. At half seven at night. I'm already in the studio getting ready to do a live for four hours, three hours, you know well this is really important, right?
Speaker 2:because you do tiktok shop and a lot of people have got this idea of what tiktok shop is and it's fucking ridiculous. Talk us through your day and the graft you put in every day right.
Speaker 1:so I've just joined the 5am club yesterday. Yes, it's bloody brilliant. By the way, my name's Lewis, sir, my name's.
Speaker 2:Lewis. Sir, yeah, it is so I literally got up yesterday morning.
Speaker 1:Well, we're used today, for example, because obviously now it's the present, isn't it? We don't talk about the past. Up so you're. You're sneaking, skulking around the house, thinking about everybody else, as usual, uh, going to the studio on the laptop, sending some emails, doing a bit of paperwork, making a tiktok video, and then I'm back indoors, put my clothes on because I have to wear my hoodie out in the garage because it's freezing cold. Um, jump in the van, drive to site, do eight, nine hours on site, get home again the minute I walk through the door, cruise my little boys. Daddy, I've missed you. Daddy, I've missed you. Come play, come play, come play.
Speaker 1:So some days I don't even have time to go to the toilet. When I get home, you know, I've got to hold it in. I've been holding it in all day. And then you go into the lounge and start racing cars around the room and then literally take him up for his bath. Obviously, sam makes me dinner.
Speaker 1:Always eat dinner together, sit on the sofa for 10 minutes, then it's bath time for little man. I take him upstairs, put him in the bath, get him ready for bed. Seven o'clock she comes up with his milk. I'm in the bath, just do your bottle and we'll read your book. And he sits there with his mum for half an hour and I go downstairs and that is why one hour of the evening where I've got to make TikTok videos, and that is it. And then eight o'clock comes. I'm out in the studio at five to eight, I'm pressing play on the button, on the start button, and three hours later I've rolled back indoors at 11 o'clock, quarter past 11, absolutely shattered, can't go to sleep straight away because you've got, because you're buzzing lights and cameras and action in front of you, and then by about half 12 o'clock and then you're getting up to the alarm again.
Speaker 2:So you're living on five hours kip at the moment.
Speaker 1:Pretty much yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:How many nights, how many hours a week do you spend doing lives on TikTok?
Speaker 1:Including weekends, I would say so last week I'd done Tuesday three hours, Thursday three hours, Sunday I did six and a half hours, and Saturday I'd done about four hours, I think, so it's nearly, it's a full day of your week, oh easy, yeah, I'd say probably two, pretty much two days total.
Speaker 2:It's a good thing you're taking all those supplements, because you should be looking like shit.
Speaker 1:You're doing all right. You're doing all right. Works the treat? Yeah, Link at the bottom of the video yeah.
Speaker 3:And what about you, des? What's your day? Look like at the moment? Now, I know that you've got your fingers in a few pies at the moment, yeah, and I would say from our conversations, you're spreading yourself very thin, yeah, and probably having to put in a hell of a lot of work. Do you sometimes feel like a busy fool?
Speaker 2:yes consistently yeah, it's the battle that I'm having in my head daily. Yes, consistently, it's the battle that I'm having in my head daily. I've never heard that saying. I like that yeah, busy idiot.
Speaker 1:I just thought that's what people called me, so I started.
Speaker 2:I started at five o'clock and that's my one hour. Five till six is me just sitting there watching last night's TV with a cup of coffee. I'm not going to lie to you, boys, it's usually the wrestling. I love the WWE wrestling, I love it. So I usually watch last night's wrestling. Then around six o'clock I turn the computer on, feed the dog and I'm starting looking at how our TikTok agency performed overnight. I like rewarding the people that are working hard for us, so I go through and I find out who posted the most yesterday.
Speaker 2:I go through and I find out who posted the most yesterday, who earned the most money, because it's not about how much money you earn, it's about how hard you're working. So I do the reward and recognition bit. Then Claire and the kids are up at that point and we're in the school routine, nursery, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then we're into it from about nine o'clock. If I've got time, I want to go to the gym. But even when I'm at the gym, because I'm working my business with my phone, I'm on the phone, solidly, solidly.
Speaker 2:I try and put TalkSport on and I don't actually listen to any of it because there's usually voice notes or text messages that I'm sending at the same sort of time between sets and pulling funny faces at myself. So once I'm out of there, I'm kind of just in the thick of it and the school run usually starts around two o'clock. Again, similar sort of thing. Once we do dinner, bath and bed, I'm back on it around seven o'clock. Sometimes there's a Zoom call at lunchtime but there's usually meetings and at the moment I'm running a TikTok agency with a TikTok community with Chris. We are in the growth mode on the TikTok agency, so it's all balls to the wall on that. I've got my own podcast as well as trying to launch this podcast and everything that comes with it, and then also my social media on top of that. Now you sent me a chat GPT prompt the other day Be brutal with yourself, you're a billionaire. Where am I going wrong? It said exactly that. Basically, you're a mug. This. Start outsourcing your prick.
Speaker 3:Get your time back and that's, that's obviously, and I think that's what's allowed me. So it's a lot like you guys said. Jesus christ, how do you have time to do all this stuff? Because I've learned over the years that you can't do it all on your own. I used to wear every single hat in the business whether you were making the tea, cleaning the toilets, doing the deliveries own. I used to wear every single hat in the business, whether you were making the tea, cleaning the toilets, doing the deliveries, and I used to have, like this real, my missus calls me a control freak. She's like you have to be in control of everything and I sort of stepped back.
Speaker 1:See, I've got the girls doing your missus has got the same voice as mine, is she?
Speaker 2:I don't think I want to come to this barbecue.
Speaker 3:Sorry, mate Sorry, and I step back and I was like, okay, hold on Right. Marketing is very, very important in business. Very, very. It's the most important thing I feel, especially in this day and age.
Speaker 2:I've got into this on an 80% market in 20% work mentality.
Speaker 3:Whereas. So I've got now I've got there's more people doing marketing in my company than there is doing sales yeah because if the marketing's not there, then the sales aren't going to be there.
Speaker 3:that's the way I look at it. So I've got this beautiful team of people around me who I can say, right, I want to do this, we've got to do this, I've got to get, we've got to get this episode edited, ready to go scheduled. So we haven't got to panic, and that's kind of by outsourcing certain things. It's like I said to you guys the other day we all bring something to this table. Do you know what I mean? We all bring something, and there would be absolutely no point if all three of us were trying to do the same fucking job, if we were all trying to do exactly the same thing. There's no point.
Speaker 2:I mean we do all, all have the same hair, the same beard and of the same age, and white.
Speaker 1:And left handed, and left handed and left handed.
Speaker 3:And left handed.
Speaker 2:But apart from that we're really different.
Speaker 3:We're really different, Really really different. But yeah, so it's. I don't know, it's having this time and it's building, but you learn, you learn. You can't do it all, and I reckon the moment that you realize you can't do it all is the day that you start going further. Yeah, Imagine if imagine if, for example, you had someone editing all your content yeah, following you around with a camera, and just how much easier would your life be.
Speaker 2:Unbelievably, and the sad thing is is that I did have that. I had an editor and I had a social media manager who was doing my posts for me, but my engagement, for whatever reason, dropped.
Speaker 2:Whether that's an IP thing, I don't know, or whether that's just all of a sudden, it's not my voice, it's not my fingerprint on it and I kind of fell out of love with content creation because it turns out I quite like editing and I quite like posting and I quite like being in control of that, but that's my fucking downfall. Yeah. And when I put the thing into chat, gpt saying right, how do I get the money that I want to get to to have the freedom to spend more time with my family but at the same point not burn myself out?
Speaker 2:It said, the same thing that I've had three separate business coaches tell me which is you need to do a high-ticket course that you can leverage and move out. And that's when it comes a real struggle for me, because I don't want to do a high-ticket course, because I'm the man of the people.
Speaker 2:I don't want to do that, and I think that's a challenge that I need to get over. Yeah, I like the fact that I help people start a business, and you can't do that by throwing three grand at it. When I'm saying look, I started for 200, it feels like a fucking hypocrite oh no you.
Speaker 3:50 quid is 50 quid. Mate quitid start a bakery?
Speaker 2:start a bakery with 50 quid. Best of luck to my mate. Best of luck. Do you want 50 quid on my book, the book? You're a mug mate, anyway, never mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it does come down to that now, with this TikTok agency, we found a way where we can help people for free, and we should be able to make an awful lot of money by doing that, but it's going to take a fucking lot of graft, yeah, and I've just got to hope that my family are patient enough to wait while we do it I'm sure they will, though, and it's nothing's easy, and this is the thing, isn't it, with this whole balancing family business.
Speaker 3:Now, there is a lot to be said for being paid six figures working for someone else. There is a lot to be said about that. Paid holidays, paid sick day, you can. You can turn up at nine o'clock and leave at five, whatever your hours are. Pension.
Speaker 2:And if you don't fancy it, the money's still going to be there at the end of the month. If you just did the bare minimum.
Speaker 3:Exactly. But If you don't fancy it, the money's still going to be there at the end of the month. If you just did the bare minimum, exactly. But whereas you don't necessarily get the freedom, whereas I have the freedom to film this podcast, I have the freedom now to pick my kids up from school, because when I'm here, I'm doing enough to be able to buy that time back for myself.
Speaker 1:That's it, I'll run. The issue my problem has always been is is the fear of success. I've always had a fear of success. I've done everything on my own. I've always been scared to take people on because I don't want to get big. I don't want things to fail. So I haven't. Although I've had a business for like 15 years now and we work on really high end houses, a young, a wise young man told me a few months ago that I don't have a business because a business doesn't run if you're not, if you're not there, which obviously my business won't because I'm I'm the sole person that is doing all of the high end work.
Speaker 3:You are the business, as the boys are working for me doing, doing the donkey stuff.
Speaker 1:Sorry, boys, but you know, like that's kind of where it's helped me better with my relationship with my family, because I've always been the person that's had to do all of the work. So that's why I'm always at work, which I think like listening to you boys. It sounds not easier, but it sounds like you've have more of a free time because you've allowed other people in, like you've got the guys upstairs and they're helping you and they give you that freedom of time, whereas I just I just don't have it myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell you the one thing that has been my saving grace Number one I brought my wife along for the ride, so she's part of it with me, so she does understand what I'm going through, because she's going through it as well. Only we've kind of got a deal where she does the majority of the childcare, so she doesn't get to have the hours that I get into this. When we tot up my hours, of how long I'm sat at the desk, it's still significantly less than what I used to do in my day job, you know that was a 35-hour job, a week job, which isn't much.
Speaker 2:I probably work doing probably more like 15, 20 hours at my desk, but the work that I'm doing on my phone is pretty much 13, 14-hour days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's when you get your notification from your phone, isn't it Exactly? And your screen time 11 hours and 25 minutes a day, Exactly right?
Speaker 2:Just our chat group can be time-consuming, but me and you are in about three different ones, which is nuts.
Speaker 3:But what I love about all of it is that I fucking love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw a post the other day saying running your own business isn't fun. Everyone makes out it's fun, but it isn't, and I'm thinking you're in the wrong fucking business, mate. I love my business.
Speaker 3:I love what I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not a chore.
Speaker 3:No, when it's a chore I mean, I'm in a group with a couple of of entrepreneurs people doing business, and we had the discussion about this the other day when it's a chore, you need to step back and re-evaluate when it's not working for you anymore. Why is it not working for you anymore? And I think it's really important to be able to not be so deep into it and emotionally attached to a business, because if you're emotionally attached, it's harder to make the decisions that you might need to make that's where I'm in a minute, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, it is totally there at the moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're at a proper crossroads, man yeah yeah, and letting people in, yeah, I think that that's the thing. And listen to people, take people's advice. Yeah, there's a lot of people, there are a lot of people out there that are gonna tell you absolute shite. But what works for one business owner doesn't necessarily work for the next. Exactly. It's like there's people there's millionaires that they get up at four o'clock, they do the gym for two hours, they go to work, they do this, they go for lunch, and then there's other business owners that don't roll out of bed till midday, yeah, and then they work till three in the morning because they're sitting there doing stocks and shares, and that's when it happens. Yeah, so just because it works for some and this is the influence culture we're sort of going off on a tangent for another day, but it's the what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for the next.
Speaker 2:And you could say the same for about. What works for your family might not work for my family.
Speaker 3:And you're right.
Speaker 2:You carve out this pattern, don't you? That makes it work for your family, yeah, but no one tells you that when you get started. Everyone tells you you're going to have financial hashtag financial freedom right Hashtag time freedom.
Speaker 1:There is never a freedom, though, is there? I don't think you ever get to the point. Well, obviously my own personal opinion. But can you ever get to a point where you are totally free of financial burden? I don't think you can, because you become a billionaire, you spend millions of pounds.
Speaker 2:It's all relative yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, like if you're living on a bread line, you go and buy bread and milk for dinner. You know, Exactly right. Just don't think it's a lifestyle that actually exists.
Speaker 2:I think we all strive towards something, but is it actually there once you get there? Yeah, what's nice now is that my kids are believing my vision now. They're now saying to me daddy, when we're rich, can we do that? Yep, you know what I mean. Yeah, you can take the pony to the beach, love, don't worry about it, not in blackpool, that's pony pony a different type of pony jesus being cockney myney, there's its limit.
Speaker 3:My seven year old she goes Daddy, when are you going to get a new job so we can have a big house? I'm like what's wrong with my job now? Well, you can't. You can't just go there and get money, can you? And I'm like, baby, you've got some growing up to do.
Speaker 1:You've got some growing up to do, we do. Alright. Why don't you plant a tree in?
Speaker 3:the garden and do the money for that. Yeah, yeah, but it's just quite funny how she's sort of she's five, no, she's not, she's seven. That's bad, she's seven. Edit, edit, edit. And she's like just thinks that maybe that's me being a bad dad. She thinks that I can just go to work and get more money. But that kind of is the thing. She understands that in order for us to have the nice things that we have, daddy has to go to work. We have to go to work. So is that a bad thing? Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3:No, but, there's limits, isn't there? I'm getting a little bit jealous of you two.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to lie. Your kids are understanding, your missus are understanding I'll get home from work and my little boy's free. So he's like Daddy, I've missed you. And then when I go out, I literally have to open the garden door to go into the garage. And he goes, daddy, and he says the brand name I'm not working for, obviously, I'm not going to say it on here and I say, yeah, mate, sorry, but I'll be back in a minute. Back in a minute. Oh, no idea, that's that's what. That's what breaks you. That is, you go into the studio and you're like well, now I've got to try and be positive and make a bloody video, even though my, my heart is broken.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's 10 pieces, and you've got a picture of him up there, haven't you? I have, yeah, but in the only reason he'd do it, isn't it? Yeah, and he's still so little.
Speaker 2:When you do have the time back, you've got all of those years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's people out there that have like they're chasing so much money and they've got all the money in the world and their time is still spent on their businesses and they have people living in to look after their kids. They don't even look after their kids. They don't take their kids to football on a Saturday morning. They don't see their kids. They're still working seven days a week. Someone else gets them up and gets them dressed, irons their clothes for them, takes them to school and for me, like, don't get me wrong, everybody's got their own. They're entitled to do what you want to do. If you want to build empires and you want to do this and that, that's great. But I can never do that. No, I mean either, I might have someone living in to do the cooking, the cleaning, the washing and make the beds for me. That would be fantastic.
Speaker 2:But not the child care, but not the child care. It's like the ai robots, isn't it?
Speaker 3:that they think are going to come. They, this ai robot, can look after your kids for you. No, it bloody, can't I?
Speaker 1:look after my own. I'd love to jump in right now, but there's no way I can even add anything into this conversation right now.
Speaker 2:I've done a post on this before and I loved it.
Speaker 2:It was such a good post and it bombed, fucking bombed, but it doesn't matter. One of my biggest fears is being like Mr Banks from Mary Poppins. One of my biggest fears in the world. They had to get this magical nanny in just to highlight the fact that the dad doesn't spend any time with the kids. He's at the bank, he's working, he's working, he's working. And the kids number one day trip was to go to the bank and invest all of their money in the bank, just so they could see their dad. I get emotional talking about this because it's heartbreaking and everyone thinks it's about mary poppins. It's not. Mr banks quits his job. He sticks two fingers up to the old boys that run the bank and he's kids and he goes off and flies a kite with his kids. That's the story. And now that he's there, present with his kids, mary Poppins flies away. That's the point. Don't fucking be Mr Banks you can see it.
Speaker 1:You can see it in the kids as well, though. My little boy goes to school. He goes to a very decent nursery. He's obviously three. But the only nursery we could get him in was a private school nursery, same price as everywhere else. I'm not trying to say I'm into it, because he's not he's not, he's not going to get the violin.
Speaker 2:He's got money, but he's definitely he's definitely not.
Speaker 1:He's not staying in the school, he's only doing nursery, but you can see it right.
Speaker 1:So my little boy plays up when my missus drops him off at nursery. He's the only kid that plays up at the door. Why is that? Because he's got such a lovely relationship with his mum that he doesn't want to go to nursery. All the other kids bye, they walk off. They haven't got to carry him away Because their parents are running off. They train and they're coming back at eight o'clock at night when they're in sleeping bed. And my missus is there every day when she, when he gets home, she picks him up, takes him home, plays with him and they've got a tight bond relationship and that is why he acts up. But you know, I feel, I feel so sorry for the families that have to, because people do have to work like that yeah, you know they get into these, these routines where they just it becomes life.
Speaker 1:You need to earn this much money because you've got a huge house. Once you get a big house, you get a big mortgage. Once you get a big mortgage, you have to get a big salary. It's hard for families nowadays.
Speaker 1:Certainly, I'm quite a traditionally old character. I like opening doors for people, I like being polite and saying please and thank you and leaving tips at the dinner table, but I also believe in family values where this is going to come across really sexist now, but I still believe that my wife should cook my dinner, because I go to work all day. I provide I'll pay the bills and do everything like that. My wife's at home, but I want to sit down with my wife and my son and eat my dinner and I want, I want to act like my parents did, and then their parents and their parents before that, because that was when society was lovely. Yeah, do you know what I mean? Yeah, but that's gone now. That's why kids are naughty because they don't have two parents. They don't have a mum at home or they don't have a dad at home looking after them.
Speaker 2:You know it's the same Both the parents are forced to work every day. Yeah, it is the same.
Speaker 3:There needs to be defined roles.
Speaker 2:There needs to be defined roles. We the cooking, but we have a very similar situation where the man is the breadwinner first and foremost, and claire, she's a career-driven independent woman, always has been, but naturally fell into the maternal. I'll look after the kids the majority of the time. I mean they were both, they were both breastfed, so straight away they're in that routine, you know. But you need to find roles. It's important.
Speaker 2:It is important, but yeah, I do, I do love it it's the fact that the kids are coming on board with everything. Here's a question for you did covid change any of this? For you? Covid, yeah, did the pandemic give you more time at home and change your?
Speaker 3:perspective. Covid opened my eyes up to what this is like now, what the business currently is now. Yeah, I remember I'm sitting there because we were critical infrastructure, because there were people doing building, they needed materials, they needed stuff. Um, back then we did a lot of posts of instagram and stuff. I remember I was Back then we did a lot of posts on Instagram and stuff. I remember I was pretty smashed at the barbecue. I get a phone call from a customer. I was like how are you doing, mate? You all right? Yeah, yeah, look, we want to do this patio. We've got to get this patio done. The weather's nice. Can you get us some materials? Three phone calls later, 15, 16 grand in the bank and then the week later and I thought, oh, are you open? Can we come and have a look at some stuff? Yeah, of course, mate, come down Another load of money.
Speaker 2:These are good phone calls, aren't they?
Speaker 3:Oh my God, and I'm in the garden every day. I remember I was out there. I was like, well, what are we going to do? How long are we going to be off? For Right, let's build a decking area down the bottom of the garden, put this pool in. I was out at five in the morning digging holes and life of riley, I would go live like five minutes from work. We had a ring doorbell camera there in case lorry's turned up. Five minutes I'm in work. But what it did, especially because I was in the retail space, was it opened my eyes up to you don't necessarily need to be there every single day and you can still make money. And that was kind of what set the wheels in motion for the new business.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That it's built on relationships. It's built on good quality service for people that appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's nice, but COVID was brilliant. We spent, I remember, sitting out there most nights on the patio after having a barbecue. Kids out there.
Speaker 2:It was boiling, wasn't?
Speaker 1:it yeah sunny every day, not a cloud in the sky for a year from march, from march till may.
Speaker 2:Everyone always looks back and goes there was no, it didn't rain once during covid for a year but, when you think when you think back at it now, it was amazing.
Speaker 3:for family yeah, now, some families and relationships it was a completely different story. We had the space, of course. Now, if we were still living in a two-bedroom flat, I think it might have been a completely different story. Yeah, yeah, the fact that we had the garden. My mate had a bouncy castle in storage. We had that in the garden, a climbing frame for the kids.
Speaker 1:Obviously your mate didn't come round because that was against the law. Of course he did. No, no, no, of course he didn't.
Speaker 3:No, they all moved in. But it was amazing Like yeah, now you look back at it, I hadn't even thought about this the amount of nights we used to sit there in the garden as a family on the old Hammock rocking chairs, looking up. And I remember it was when Elon Musk launched Starlink. Yeah, we saw that. And they were dong, dong, dong dong through the sky. It was amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It was amazing. How about you?
Speaker 1:You were on the tools. Yeah well, I'd literally just come out of hospital about six miles before and found out I'd got a broken heart, not because my wife left me, but actually physically. And then COVID hit, hit and I was told that, oh God, you're high risk. Here's this package through the letterbox. If you think you've got COVID, do this test, put it back in this red envelope, the emergency envelope, because you might die. So I sat in the garden for three months. I took three months off, I took a 10 grand loan from the government. I thought, yes, please, thank you very much, and I spent £9,999 on beers.
Speaker 2:That's the next episode. Yeah, oh sorry, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, no, I literally just and it. It was probably one of the nicest three months of my life to be fair. Yeah, Obviously you. You realise, whether you like your missus or not. I can tell you that much for nothing. You know what?
Speaker 2:That was exactly it. I never used to like working from home. I had an office job and I was in the office five days a week. I never liked working from home in my previous marriage. Yeah, I like working from home in my current marriage. Yeah, put into that whatever you will, you know, but exactly that. Our boy was born March 2020 and we were in the ward and there was leaflets all around saying have you been to china or have you been skiing in italy? Remember?
Speaker 2:that yeah, for some reason skiing in italy was a thing and we were in hospital for three days because claire had a blood pressure thing, fear of preeclampsia, and I was allowed to sleep on the floor in the ward and they tried to do the inducing and all that business. About two weeks later I wouldn't have been allowed to be there and I could have gone in and visited my newborn son for about an hour before I had to scarper nuts, I feel like you were going to the moon.
Speaker 1:yeah, all your masks. And here's the irony, for three days I was ill.
Speaker 2:I'm proper ill In the hospital on the ward, coughing temperature, the stuff right. I remember going up to the nurse. If you're a geezer on the maternity ward and you're ill, I can tell you. Now they don't give a shit, they've got bigger fish to fry, right.
Speaker 3:So I've gone up to the nurse. I've gone.
Speaker 2:Look, this isn't about me, I promise you, but could you just quickly take my temperature? She took my temperature she went.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've got a temperature. I'll get you some paracetamol. Just put yourself in the corner over there. No one was thinking, no one was. I was allowed to be there for the birth of my son. You know it's a mistake, but all of a sudden it was my third child and I was allowed to be home for more than two weeks because I was two weeks paternity leave. That's all my job would give me. And then I'm back in and even though my boy would have been two weeks old, I'd still say goodbye to him at eight o'clock. I'm home about six, about an hour before bedtime.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm always. You know babies different routines before bedtime.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm always, you know, babies different routines.
Speaker 2:So Tommy being born was the first time I thought I like being home. Yeah, I want to go back into the fucking office.
Speaker 3:And even though I didn't get started on my own business for another two years.
Speaker 1:I think that snowballed it made me really lazy, really lazy, because I don't like working.
Speaker 2:I love banter, love it, it's the best thing that was ever invented. Who invented banter the banter king? Obviously Judas did.
Speaker 1:He was just having a laugh, I love that side of things, but I hate working on a building site. I've not really liked it since I started it. But I was one of these wrong ones at school that just got booted out and I didn't really do very well, so I felt like I had to go to the tools. I so I felt like I had to go to the tools. I didn't want to go back to work after three months and when I did go back to work, I was going home at lunchtime every day because I couldn't be arsed. Yeah, yeah, I'd just go and sit in the garden, sit in the sun, and then it became sitting in the rain because it started raining, yeah, and then I went back to work.
Speaker 1:No, it didn't rain in. Covid started doing tiktok really like a year and a half ago, where I've actually my brain has now gone. Hang on a minute. Just remember what you're supposed to be doing, what you wanted to do all those years ago. You need to get back into the routine of grafting and and actually achieving things rather than just floating through the last couple of years, which is exactly how I felt, like life was going really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like it so I reckon that in all this, the moral you've got to put in the time in the initial phases. I don't think there's any two ways around it, no, but it's important to structure that time carefully what is it worth to you and make sure that the people around you are supportive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly right. I figured this out early on and I don't know if I must have nicked this from somewhere, because it's far too of an intelligent concept for me to have come up with. But you've got your triangle Time, money, success. You can't have one without the other two. If you want success, money and time have to be money and time. If you want time, money and success, if you want money, time and success, you need them. They're essential. And you have to come to terms with the fact that when you're starting something brand new, you're going to be working your hardest and your longest for the littlest amount of money. So you have to fucking enjoy it. You have to enjoy it. You have to.
Speaker 3:You have to. You listen to all these podcasts, all these successful people that have really made it, and the way that we make money now is a lot different, which is that we can discuss that on another episode. Obviously, you two doing what you do, me do what I do. I've got a bricks and mortar business. You guys are online, online, sale, digital. You can do it all from your phone. So a different world, but still for me it's so different. I had a customer. We're down in Brighton. I had a customer yesterday. I saw your Instagram video. I'm up in Leicester. Can you send me some samples? Yeah, of course I can Send us some samples. Might get a job in Leicester, whereas you couldn't do that before. No, there's so many different ways now of making money, but you've got to enjoy what you do exactly, but I have a passion for it.
Speaker 2:We've somehow managed to carve out a niche where we help people improve their confidence. I mean, what a lovely, lovely thing it does feel good, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:it really does. Oh, that's what this podcast is, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:so on that bombshell boys, let's call this one a day. We'll come back because I think we've got legs on this topic. To be fair, yeah.