From Alexander McQueen to Jensen's Gin — Operational Transformation Across Industries | Ep. 41 Mark McCullum

From Alexander McQueen to Jensen's Gin: Mark McCullum on Cross-Industry Transformation and Strategic Excellence

What do fashion, television, law, and hospitality have in common? According to Mark McCullum, they all require the same fundamental principles of character, discipline, and strategic thinking to achieve sustainable success.

Mark McCullum is a Senior Advisor at the Take It Easy Group, bringing over 15 years of experience supporting high-profile individuals and creative companies through periods of growth, change, and transformation. His career journey reads like a masterclass in adaptability and strategic thinking, spanning industries most people never connect.

Mark began as Private Assistant to the legendary Alexander McQueen CBE, gaining invaluable insights into creative vision and operational excellence. He later worked in fashion and television with Gok Wan MBE, expanding his understanding of media and branding. His career then took him to Vardags, the UK's leading divorce law firm, where he served as Director of Operations, before becoming COO at Jensen's Gin, where he led the company's post-pandemic rebuild.

In this episode of The Standard Podcast™, Mark shares:

• The biggest lies about transformation and what actually drives sustainable change
• What working with iconic figures like Alexander McQueen and Gok Wan taught him about excellence
• How to help high-profile individuals navigate transformation while maintaining authenticity
• The character piece that most transformation efforts miss and why it matters
• Practical insights from leading crisis recovery and post-pandemic rebuilding

Whether you're a leader navigating change, an entrepreneur building your brand, or a creative professional managing growth, Mark's cross-industry insights provide a blueprint for sustainable transformation.

This isn't motivation. This is a movement.

Connect with Mark: LinkedIn: Mark McCullum

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good morning, team. Welcome to the Standard Podcast where we raise the bar, rebuild the culture, and call out the lies or misconceptions that nobody else will. This isn't motivation, this is a movement. I'm Thomas Rowe, Joan Bound, my host, Aaron Charles, and today we're sitting down with Mark McCullum, a senior advisor at the Take It Easy Group, specializing in operational transformation and strategic brand development across sports, entertainment, and creator industries industries. With over 15 years of experience in business and lifestyle management, Mark has supported high-profile individuals and creative companies through periods of growth, change, and transformation. His career journey is fascinating. He began as a private assistant to Alexander McQueen, CBE, worked in fashion and television with Gok Wan. I gotta hear more about that, MBE, and served as director of operations at Vardogs, the UK's leading divorce law firm, and was COO at Jensen's Gen, where he led the company's post-pandemic rebuild. Mark's career spans fashion, television, law, and hospitality, all shaped by genuine curiosity about people, how they work, and how they realize an opportunity. He understands that behind every successful transformation, whether it's a brand, a business, or an individual, there are fundamental principles of character, discipline, and strategic thinking. We're diving into the truth behind what it really takes to build identity, discipline, and legacy in sports and in life. Let's get into it. Mark, thanks so much for joining us. Aaron and I really appreciate it. We're looking forward to this episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Thank you for having me. I uh haven't been on the usual career, haven't I?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

No doubt, no doubt. I'm excited to dig into it. So let's start here. You're a senior advisor specializing in operational transformation and strategic brand development across sports, entertainment, and creator industries. What does raising the standard mean to you in work that you're doing with high profile individuals and creative companies?

SPEAKER_03 2:16

That's a good question. I think for us understanding what your standards are, and then whether it's goals or your values or your aspirations, that really enables you to find what your standard is, and then how you have either got to elevate yourself to reach your own standards, and then I think understanding what best looks like, and then raising your standards in order to try and aspire to reach that level of what best in class is, and that can be across as an individual or as a team or as a business.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Nice. And what would you say is the biggest lie or misconception that you feel the culture of business has told people about transformation growth and what it really takes to build sustainable success or brand?

SPEAKER_03 3:13

So if it's an individual, and and I know you have a lot of kind of student athletes and parents of student athletes who kind of look at this. I I think when you talk about culture, we can't hide away from the difference between online culture and real life culture, and then other things that straddle the two. And I think online culture potentially sells the line that you you don't necessarily need to create connection in real life. And I think really true brands create real connection and real relationships and develop that that in a meaningful way. And all of that can feed into an online persona, an online brand, an online life. But for me, I think that you need to make that not your primary goal. And I sit here talking to you, not in real life, on on the screen, and I definitely spend too much time on the screen just because of the nature of my role being remote from here in London and and working over in the States. But there's absolute joy in creating meaningful real relationships in person. There's absolute value in building across the world as well, where you can't necessarily meet just like we have never met in real real life either. Right. But if more possible, building real connections, and it can be and that can translate into your own life as well. And I think that will give you a stronger understanding of how to work with people, how to relate with people, how to understand the culture of somebody. And I'm not just talking about if they're from a different country, but how you kind of understand the culture of a person, and you know, and that's about their value systems, their interests, and finding commonality and understanding difference as well. And then that can really enable you to translate how you understand about working with people, how do you build relationships? You can translate that into something like this, where you're communicating online or communicating over a video call because you're understanding the nuances of communication and maybe understanding the things that you can't possibly understand though over a digital format, but at least that gives you you can you can identify some of those gaps and go, I don't really know that about that person or about that organization. And I'll either try and fill in the gaps or ask and probe the questions to fill in those gaps to understand a bit more. And I just really value it in in-person relationships as a foundation to understand people, and and I think you kind of mentioned about that when uh in my intro, which is very kind of you. And it really is the kind of fulfillment everything, how I how I interact with my daughter, how I interact with my wife, how I interact with my friends, my family, can completely translate into your to your working life and understanding a company culture or an individual's way of working, because you're understanding how relationships are built and how trust is is shown and how trust is held back, and all of those things, because some of the things that when we work with businesses and individuals, you're only enabled to work as efficiently as well as possible when they let you in. But they've got to you've got to give them reasons to trust you when they open those doors for you, when they open those folders in that in that in that hard drive or that cloud drive that enables you to know more about that company and more about the important documents which drive who they are on those systems, when they've given you that trust and you've earned it and gained it, then you're able to work much more effectively with somebody.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

No question. And we touched on it earlier in the introduction. Your career journey is very unique, something we haven't experienced, which we're we were excited about, from private assistant to Alexander McQueen to working with Gok Wan, to director of operations at Bardogs, at Tisio and Jensen's Gin. Tell us a little bit about your experience, who these people are, who these organizations are, and how did that device experience across fashion, television, and law shape your understanding of what drives real transformation.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

So working in in faction was not a career path that I necessarily uh thought it was going to be. I wanted to draw on a school and had aspirations to be an actor in the theatre. And I got an opportunity that was presented to me without me trying to create one. And actually, that's happened a lot over my career. I've been very fortunate. Well, I think you make your own luck. Where I was I was kind of literally thrust in front of Alexander McQueen, and after about half an hour, I asked if I wanted to be uh his assistant, and I just I said to him at the time, we're just gonna kind of breakfast this with I don't know anything about batching, and I don't know anything about being a PA, but I do know how to work really hard, and he said that's good enough for me. So I ended up working with him, and unfortunately, it wasn't for very uh too long a time because he passed away when I was working for, which was a difficult time, but it absolutely opened up this whole world for me, and he had this transformational journey as an artist and a creator and a fashion designer, uh completely changed the landscape, particularly in British fashion, but really across the world about what art and fashion could conflate to be, and his kind of dynamism and creative many, many will say, and that's he bogus that his creative genius produced things that nobody could think about before, and he you know he took his inspiration from everything around him, and his transformation you know took the form of of working in in different fashion houses, the best ones you know in the world that you can think of think of in Paris and Milan, his amendment fashion house in London. Even though it was a short journey, I saw this interrogation of the world around him to understand and to understand how he could translate that into his work. So that was really, really interesting. And just I just kind of had this moment in time to be able to support him to kind of continue on that journey and had some amazing experiences with him. The Gucci group who owned part of McQueen at the time were very good for me when I uh when when unfortunately passed away, and I ended up going over to LA for a while and working again for a quite short period in a talent agency, and that really opened up this world of understanding how brands um use well-known public figures to elevate their own products and um and in doing in really kind of creative ways, and you know, working with photographers who you know doing every front cover of Vogue to um some of the biggest you know design um pieces, which are essentially adverts, but they're like pieces of art. So that was really interesting because I had this there was this creative narrative always going through, even though it was just kind of product product led. So I really enjoyed my time there, and uh, as we kind of mentioned before this started, I kind of feel like I still have some time to uh go back to LA and do some more amazing things. Unfortunately, some of the clients that I'm now working with at the Take It Easy group are based over in LA, so I'm just trying to find an excuse to go over there soon. I yeah uh I then came back and started working with Gokwan, who's a TV presenter, what they say, fashion guru. Um, and you know, some of your American US based audience won't necessarily have heard of him. He's quite UK centric, although he has a big presence over in over in Australia and around Europe where some of his TV shows have done very, very well. And we did do one project over in the space. Um but yeah, you've got a few more popular kind of fashion show hosts, I think, although this was quite some time ago, back 2011 to 2015. And I really cut my teeth understanding how business driven by a personality and the face of a brand was executed with him. He was incredibly successful, multi-million dollar deals across the world, and working with Westfield and Target and making TV shows, cookbooks, he and now even DJs. He's one of these guys who puts his hand to something and just nails it every time. He does something called Patent Tell here in the UK, which is a Christmas finitar show, and he's done one every year for about 15 years now. Incredibly popular. They do eight shows a week over the Christmas period of about two months, and uh every shadow sells out. It's just unbelievable, you know, thousands of people seeing the shows every day. And he, I suppose his portfolio of interests is kind of reflective of my career. It's just hit so many, you know, designing glasses ranges for the biggest glasses provider, working with creating his own beauty products, as I said, kind of did cookbooks because his his father and mother owned a Chinese restaurant up in a place called Leicester in the middle of England, and also did cooking shows. So he just kind of had his hand in so many pies, and just seeing how he curated his time to elevate his own brand, but also understanding the bottlenecks as well that you have when you are the face of your brand. And I'm seeing that with with um some of the people we work with, some of our clients, where they're really trying to find a side vertical or an additional project where they can do like push into some of their interests and their passions, but not necessarily be the face of them. Because it's really difficult to be omnipresent in in all of the different endeavors, especially if you have one very clear kind of profession that you're maybe maybe best known for, whether it's sport or entertainment. You know, these people are often often very entrepreneurial and um they want to do other things. How do you carve out enough time to realise those things? And that's one of the things is we do is to create the the kind of processes and operations and support to make those things happen and work out how they want to, or if they want to be the face, and how they can create that opportunity and carve out the opportunity to make it meaningful and and really hit the goals that they lay down at the beginning of a project. So what else did I learn from from that in terms of kind of brand is is understanding it can be really multifaceted, incredibly multifaceted your endeavors. You you absolutely never need to stick to your the main interest that maybe you you your folks well known for. Because like myself, I had a passion that I didn't end up following, and but you end up doing something else which is amazing, but doesn't mean those things can fall away or have to. Or people who are very family-centric might want to create opportunities for people in their family or wider network that they also have interests in and help elevate them and kind of come up with the rising tides. So there's so many ways that people want to make a difference, and it could also be in kind of philanthropic ways. So when I was working with God, we worked with loads of different charities where he was an ambassador for some really big charities in the UK, and sometimes we'd do kind of campaign work or in-person work to go into visit children in in hospital who are particular conditions, or creating competitions for families who to come and meet him and take them out for afternoon tea at a five-star hotel for families who've really made a difference in their community, or hosting a big festival to celebrate a certain type of endeavor that the charity's doing. There are so many ways to that that he was able to give back, and we're seeing that with our clients too who really want to give back. And also, what's really interesting, which I didn't particularly expect, is so many student athletes who we're speaking with and and work with, they really want to give back now. Uh at such a young age, and it's so admirable to see that endeavor that even though they have they haven't necessarily made it yet, and they're not pros, regardless of that, and and and they're not even necessarily incredibly high profile within the kind of collegiate system, they're already really, really willing to explore all different ways of giving back to the communities that have helped them get to the place that they are, which I absolutely love. That and then I'm I went traveling with my wife after four and a half years working with God, and we went traveling around the world, backpacking and had the best time ever, and um so so good, and just learned so much about the world. And I suppose something really relevant to these this type of conversation is I understand I'm starting to really understand the value of the opportunity of education. And here in the UK and over in the US, education is kind of like God given right, you know, you just get education. Right. But actually, there's so many countries around the world where that that is not a guarantee because of the the the the kind of infrastructures within a country and how developed that they are, and you could see it translates into business. And there was this example where I was we were in a a hostel in Cambodia, and speaking with the owner of this hostel, he was a Scottish guy, so we started chatting, and he said, and we were talking about all different things. Said, What's your experience of being here? You've lived here for a while now, what are the things? And he said, The way they do business is strange. And I said, Well, what do you mean? And he said, Well, one time I needed to go out and buy 10 beds, and there's a there's a road, this main road, when all of the shops on on this road sell furniture and but mostly beds. So I went to speak to, you know, he's a white Scottish guy, so it kind of stands out a little bit. He goes to speak to one of the owners, and you could see some of the other owners kind of coming nearby, listening to what they're saying. And he said, Okay, I'm looking for 10 beds, this is the type of bed I want. What's the best price you can give me? And let's say he said, a hundred bucks. And then he knew that these other people were listening. And so he went to the next one and thought, I should get a really good deal here. And he went to the next one, and other people was again listening, and he went, right, so these are my criteria. I think you were listening to what I said before. So what's your best deal? And he went, 110 bucks. And he was like, You just heard a thought to get it for a hundred bucks. And they were like, didn't really give a clear answer. And then he went to the next one, and again, did not give him a competitive, competitive point. And he said, Why why would they do that? And he said, So you have to understand what happened is what's happened in this country. The Khimmar Rouge can. Forgive me, I'm probably gonna butcher a bit of history here, but kind of headlines were the Khima Rouge canning, they decimated the population, people were killing their neighbors, and basically wiped out a generation of people, and that created a real void in skills, in knowledge, transference, and and education. And it's also a very very poor country, so the education system isn't very strong. And and I was just like that's that's absolutely crazy that that the consequences of those things are that people don't know how to negotiate or don't know how to interact in in Business because they don't have anyone to look up to and they don't have educational structures in place to actually realize these things. So it was just like one of those anecdotes that you hear, and it just really crystallizes a thing for you and kind of gives you this understanding of how important education and transference of knowledge is. And there's one reason why here in London I live in I live next to a school which is for children who are either at risk or have been excluded from mainstream education. So it's an incredible place, and they they have a very nurturing environment to try and basically create the possibility to have a successful adulthood for some of these kids who haven't been given a good hand and haven't been given a given opportunity. So I've ended up being what we call a trustee or a governor at the school. It's been super interesting to kind of have look work strategically with the school to try and implement systems and educational frameworks to try and give those guys some success. So that's that's my time traveling, had a really good time, went all over the world. I spent a lot of time in America already, but I did dip my toe into LA again just to go and see some of the places that I went when I was there. Went to one my favourite place, which is Malibu Seafood Chat, which has the best line ever, which is a little tag outside their restaurant that says um uh we're not open for breakfast because we're out capturing your lunch, which is just awesome. And um then I came back and I was like, okay, what do I want to do? So I kind of just started looking for jobs, and um I ended up getting an interview to work for the managing director of this um law firm, so basically to serve such alt-high net worth in their kind of divorce proceedings, so really interesting um uh types of uh bias and the complexity of the work and the businesses that they're involved in. And long story short, I ended up rising through the ranks as the company grew and I became the operations duct and opened up seven offices around the country uh in the UK, and um just really understood, really understood what those clients needed, what the lawyers needed, and created these so created these spaces in which both of them could thrive and that the understanding the needs of like the two sides of the business in terms of clients and internal and staff and making sure that the systems and processes which were in my lane were really acute and maneuverable, and but I really people focus on that. So that wasn't just about kind of a health and safety and creating nice environments, but also trying to connect the teams and understanding the importance of connecting teams within a business because it's so easy to be siloed, you're like, you're the account's guys, you just stay there, but when the accounts are processing things from the lawyers and they don't understand how the conversations that are being had and why those outcomes might happen, you're you're not creating the right synergy. And and so we worked kind of strategically with the teams and through all different things like learning development programs for actually kind of bringing teams together and creating knowledge sharing moments that weren't just like super boring and corporate, but just trying to create fun, engaging times. And also, I just like to take people from all different teams out for lunch, and it just gave them a chance to go for a nice lunch, but actually create bonds within the different teams that I can tell you was so successful because it those barriers were just suddenly not there in terms of department, you know, invisible walls. So although we had an open plan office or multiple open plan offices, there was people just kind of kept in their spaces and didn't have those proper interactions. And over time, we kind of broke down those invisible walls by just creating a completely open culture where people could then if they had an issue, it wasn't I'll send an email, I'll get it up and I'll go and ask them, or I'll jump on a call because they're in an office 400 miles away and just have a chat about why that's an issue and how we can overcome it quickly rather than you know, you lose so much nuance in a um in an email. So trying to create a really open culture for people to have proper dialogue with each other. So I really really enjoyed my time now, spent nearly six and a half years, and decided to do something different. And one of the clients of the law firm happened to own a gin distillery. We went out for um dinner one evening, and he ended up asking me if I wanted to run his gin distillery, and so I did that for a couple of years, and it was super interesting experience working with Michelin-style restaurants, five-star hotels, spending time over in Italy, nurturing relationships with these amazing uh like hotels on the on the Amalpha coast, and having some really difficult things like gin tastings on the terraces looking over the GNC. It was a tough life. But lots and lots learned there. As you very quickly mentioned earlier, it was post-COVID team. The teams were, you know, the hospitality industry in the UK got absolutely decimated. So it was building lots of relationships from the ground up after that, developing new product lines, understanding what the industry and and the market in the UK was looking for in gin-related products, and also developing a um more resilient and robust kind of on-site visitor program and experience for people. And again, it's all been kind of people-led, getting the right people in the right roles, giving them the right training, talking about who our clients are, what their needs are, and how can we work with them, and also kind of working with businesses to make sure that they know our story. And actually, that's probably a really important thing all the way through my career, is about how to tell the story of the person you're working for, the business that you're working for. Because people like good stories. Often you go into a meeting, you probably know whether something's going to be a success or not, whether the numbers are right. But it's actually if they buy into who you are and who your story is, and what your story's about and where you've come from or where you're going. Um, and one of the key things I learned is when I was working for Gok is about how to tell his story to clients when I was in the room without them, making sure that was really clear and why they were working with them and the things that we could the value that we can extract from that. And then when I was at the North Burn talking about our story when we're trying to procure a new a new property, or thinking about how clients would engage with us, and then but and and and then really strongly in the gin distillery was like telling the owner's story and how we developed this gin distillery, and it was in the infancy of um gin being made in small in small batch because of a law change in the UK back in 2004 when he opened it. You weren't even allowed to do small batch distilling then, and he had a really interesting story, but I had to make it my own in order to go and talk to people and tell people about it. So and that you know, again relates to um take it easy, Rick. Uh the founder, she has an amazing story of how she um followed rock stars around the world, and then decided that she need she wanted to do help more than one crazy rock star at a time. And her story is really strong, and now I get to tell her story, and obviously I'm gonna have my own as well. You just pull out straps that are relevant at the right time, the right audience, the right sexual client, and tell a story. And here I am. And here you are perfect.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

We're gonna move into identities, identity and legacy. You've shared quite a bit there, and that was pretty impressive. Aaron, go ahead and take it away. Get into identity and legacy.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Thank you. Yeah, your story is so unique and interwoven, but I love you your thread of like it's about the story that you're telling. So, what like kind of based on that question? What's one truth you wish every leader, entrepreneur, or creative professional understood about transformation and building sustainable success that most are not hearing today? No, no, no. Just what's kind of the one truth that you would you think everyone should know about how to build sustain sustainable success that maybe they're not hearing today?

SPEAKER_03 32:16

I guess understanding your own story is so you can tell it with your own truth, uh, because you're building on your own foundation. But then if you can interrogate why you need to transform, what what is the what is the reason, what is the objective in transforming something? Is it to transform from nothing to something? Is it to transform from something that doesn't quite sit right or doesn't quite operate effectively? Understanding the bits that don't make that work efficiently or or rim true, and and then building your story into that in a way that's translatable into the arena in which you're trying to make that happen.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

I think that's so important. Yeah, like who it kind of is that foundation of who you are, what's your story. And then to your point, how do you use that to interweave into what you're building or doing? And I think that that's so important. So, with that, I mean, you like I said, I your background is just unbelievable. What do you think separates individuals and organizations from the ones that are truly successful to the ones that are not? What's kind of the common thread there?

SPEAKER_03 33:48

I I think you have to have a really clear kind of set of pillars that create the foundation of either who you are as a person or who you are as an organization. And as much as is possible with anything in life, try and live live through those. Because it shouldn't be about fabrication, it should just be about nuance. So I've been working with some student athletes recently, and we've begun writing like what's your benefit of pitch for if you've got the chance to be in a room with somebody that you really cared about, or the CEO of a brand that you loved. And then you might say something, oh, I'm creative. It's like, okay, there's loads of people who say they're creative, and we need to dig down and find the nuance within what I what that is, what makes you really unique. And and and that's also what you would do as a business is kind of go, okay, are those values in intrinsically woven into our mission and the way that we operate as a company? And if so, let's understand the nuances of where we sit within the landscape in which we operate. And then we can move forward really succinctly, really efficiently, and everyone's on board with those things. And you have to have a buy-in as well. You've got to buy into yourself. If you're saying they're your mission, that's your mission, they're your values, you've got to really buy into that, or you've got to really fake it really well.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Let's let's hope we're not in the face, because that's pretty hard to sell, and it's obviously not sustainable. So, you know.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

I I have like very quickly, I have a story. When I was auditioning for drama school, I I got to the last round of a really prestigious school, and I was 18 years old, and the I met the principal of the school, and he said, Oh, so you've um you've played this character in uh Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare play. Tell me about your character journey, tell me about the formulation. How did you how did you approach that? And I just waffled on with something because I was dating, I just read the script and I said the words and tried to feel feel them and uh and make the right movement on the stage, but I wasn't at a stage in my understanding of what it was to be an actor to be able to really give a good answer. So what I should have said was, you know what? I I just worked with the words, but instead I went on and I didn't get this this place, and I know that I was good enough to get in there, but I just didn't, I just as I liked actually, and I never ever did that again. I just was like, you have to be as honest as you as you possibly can in every situation, and then people people can see it, people can see what you're saying is real or not, and and you can have real confidence to say everything that you said, you know. I've just told you about my kind of background and and those type of things, and I believe in that because that's what's real, that really happened, and I can tell my story and I can be absolutely behind it. So if if you can try to veer away from from from lies, basically, and I suppose it's easy to lie, and and um but I don't think it's easy to lie to seem like telling the truth. Yeah, sometimes you get conversing in scenarios where you feel that you've got to lie to fit in, and that that still doesn't happen. I had another one of those, but I was a bit older, about 25. I was looking for a new job, I think it was when I came back from the States, and it was for working one of the really, really famous billionaire uh who and his daughter needed uh a house manager. And I was and the agency said to me, You should go through this, you're gonna be great. And I was like, Are you sure? Because I'm not sure we've got enough experience. And they were like, Yeah, absolutely you need to go for it. And I was like, Okay, cool. I went there, and they just the job wasn't the job that they'd said it was for me, and so she was like, We got about 45 staff in this house, you know, how many staff have you managed before? And I've managed two, and I was like, I was like 24, 25, and they were like, I said, Oh, you know, you did it across different properties, different things, you know, maybe like 20. And it was just I just knew as soon as I said it, like they're just gonna know I'm lying, and needless to say, the conversation never went anywhere, uh, and nothing ever happened of it. And I just thought, well, what if I'd actually just told the truth?

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

And maybe they've just been like, well, we'll take a shot on this guy because of X, Y, and Z, because of these great things that he's done, and not because what he said was completely implausible, and we just read right through it. Or maybe it's just a fact. This is why I never made it as an actor because I just can't ban it. I don't know. Not very well anyway.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

No, I think it's great. I think that's such a you know, there is something about being in your truth and and being truly authentic. And you're right, it's very hard to lie and continue to fake it. And I think you know when people are authentic and when brands are authentic because you connect in with that because there's a resonance there. And so I think that that's so great. So I'm gonna turn it back to Thomas for kind of advice across all stages.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Awesome. Thanks, Aaron. Martin, if you could sit down with a young professional just starting their career, maybe someone trying to figure out their path, like how you did moving from fashion to television to law to hospitality. What advice would you give them about building a career and finding their direction?

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Well, uh uh it would be uh it's always a privilege to be with somebody who's in that position, you know, to to when you're in the infancy. And I think I would remind them that it's absolutely anything is possible. And there are things and there are jobs that you can't even imagine yet. You know, if and if you're a student athlete, for example, there is so much opportunity for you, but you don't necessarily know all of the names of those things or the roles of what they are, and you know, you may have a really clear vision of sport that you want to become prone in, but always knowing, and it's a very nuance dilemma, if then, if if if for want of a better word, because you know that you're not going to be doing you should know or should have the force. You really need to understand that that's not gonna be forever. So what finding a way to kind of being able to supplement what you're doing with another interest is something that's I think really key. Don't be too you can have your focus on your sport, but let other passions thrive because you never know where those things are going to take you or what opportunity you might have. And also people like talking about different things. We were speaking with somebody very likely in a marketing agency, and they said athletes are really interested in people, but they're more interesting to brands when they're more than just their sport, and that kind of really kind of resonated not only because that's what we help people do is find find this uh this interest outside of sport and try and elevate that and create it, make it into an opportunity, but also just being a dynamic individual is interesting to people and it can be really interesting for yourself as well, because sometimes you need to give yourself some headspace from your own passion because it can be awe-consuming, and giving yourself time to step away from that, and it can take so many different forms, it could be another sport, or it just could be uh something in the arts, or you just happen to really like reading or something else, and then those things can become a side puzzle potentially, and don't have to be something that becomes your your main profession, or it could be just a passion, and sometimes you don't want to turn every passion into uh into your profession either, because sometimes that doesn't work very well. You know, it's nice to have just passions that can sit siloed and you know I I like going, you know, like going to the theater, and that's just is what it is. I don't have to talk about it on online, I don't have to put social media, I don't have to write a book on it. It just sits there in your life and is absolutely fine where it is. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

And what's next? You you've had a quite a range of professions and job transitions and career transitions. So, what's next? What are you currently working on that actually brought Aaron and I together together with you?

SPEAKER_03 43:53

So I what's great about what I'm doing with the Take It Easy group is we work with so many people across. Suddenly different professions, and that's that's absolutely brilliant to bring something dynamic to every day, and I'm always exploring something new. And one of the great things I'm working with a non-profit at the moment called American Paragons, and they are helping in various different ways. They have their very clear, we're talked about pillars and a mission and a purpose. They have really clear pillars of of um how they want to help team USA athletes to continue to compete at the highest level and move towards hopefully getting a podium place in the next Olympics or world championships or Pan American competition or Paralympics, whatever it is. And by the way, this is across 97 different disciplines, which I didn't even realize was a thing. Like, but there are so many different sporting disciplines that I definitely couldn't name them all on this on this uh on this chat, that's for sure. But um just mission is so is just so true, and it comes from the heart from the from the founder, Shane Fisher, because he's a team USA bot set pilot, and he has struggled forever just to raise the finances to compete because of the team USA athletes are not funded from central government, and they need outside donations or they need help from organizations like Team Paraguays to actually continue to do the work that they love. I mean, these guys are some of the best in the world at what they do, and some of them are just bagging people's food at supermarkets on their day-to-day and then fitting in training around that. And some of them, like uh Shane told me they got a call the other day, he's like I was speaking to a guy who said, Oh, I've just got five minutes of just back, you know, bagging some food for people in one of the the biggest supermarket in the in the uh in the US. And he's like, this guy's doing this, he's literally gonna win a gold medal in two years. And he was like, This is exactly why I I've founded this organization, is because these people need to be able to concentrate on on their work or have um employers who completely understand that they might need to go away for three weeks and and compete in and potentially bring back a gold medal for Tini USA and not have to worry about whether they can pay their electricity bill at the end of the month. I was speaking to somebody last night who's the most famous um uh female box led team member, and uh she needs to raise$80,000 to compete the next year or next season. And she lives with her parents, you know, and she's she's making life sacrifices to for her dream of doing that. And most most team USA members are in are not in funded sports, and they're they're they're just doing it for that absolute love and passion and for the drive for excellence, and to take themselves to to the absolute peak of of what they are, they're capable of. And it's and it's an amazing organization. As you can see, I'm completely like I'm all in. Like I love these guys, and all of the people, all of the people who are in the organization are team USA or former team of USA athletes who are all currently volunteers to just try and move this thing forward and get as much exposure for what they're doing and bring in partners to help find housing, for example, when there are competitions around the country, or find business environments where those employers are actually completely understanding that they may need to take a prolonged period of time off to go and compete, but then there'll be a job for them when they get back. All of the things that these guys need, this infrastructure. We're trying to um helping them create the processes, the systems and using our black book for opportunities to create relationships for these guys to strive. And there's a lot of people to help.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

No question, no question. Let's turn it over to back to Aaron. That's the rapid fire round, Aaron. Go ahead and take it away.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Okay, I'm back. So I'm gonna just start a sentence and you're just gonna finish it. I will give you the kind of just excuse it's really fast. So discipline equals not so fast.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

Dedication.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Dedication, I love it. Leadership equals Understanding, faith equals the wholesale. Legacy equals what you leave behind. And what is one thing you would never compromise on?

SPEAKER_03 49:50

My people.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

I love it. And what is one message if you could put it on a billboard for the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 50:05

Be true to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

I love it. Okay, Thomas, you're back up.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Right on, Mark. We're gonna get into the closing round. One of the things I like to ask a lot of our guests, and most of them are athletes from the college pro and Olympic level, but you with your background, I'm gonna switch it up a little bit. I'm gonna ask you who are Mark's top three actors of all time and why I just read Al Pacino's biography called Sonny or Sonny.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

It's an absolutely amazing story, and I just didn't realize where he came from and how he got there. And his life story is just absolutely amazing. He's had so many highs, so many lows, and he has a love for things that I didn't ever appreciate. You know, you kind of see of him as this gangster and scarface, but he's obsessed with Shakespeare and poetry. Um so I I he's just a very well-rounded individual who's made an un has an unkind of deniable legacy, and so really impressed with him. Obviously, also watching all of his amazing movies, some of them not so good, but he's also very candid of that as well, which I love in his um in his biography. There's a guy called Ben Wishore. I hope you've heard of him. He is a British actor, won so many awards. He's also Q in the Bond movies. Sure. Sure. And the Young The Young Pew. He also went to all of my schools, lived his parents still lived down the road from my mum and dad in our tiny little village I grew up in in a place called Bedfordshire in England. And we even went to the same youth theatre. Oh, it's awesome. He's like, and he's just honestly one of the like I've seen him in theatre a number of times, and obviously all of his movies, he's just absolutely incredible. And everyone should know about him if they don't, and where they've been if you don't know about them. And lastly, I'm gonna tell I'm gonna say a guy called James Robinson, and I don't think you know his name, but he's a friend of mine from drama school. He is still working as an actor, and it's a really, really tough game, and he's still doing some amazing things, works with the National Theatre of Scotland, goes and does movies all over the place, and just has never ever lost the passion and the drive. But his claim to fame so far was that you know in great heart in the first 45 minutes of the movie, Mel Gibson is a child.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Yeah, he played him as a child, that's right. That that's him. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:16

So James Robinson, I still have every so he like knows Mel Gibson, and you know, he technically kind of won an Oscar for the film, so he's in an Oscar-winning film. He still goes over every Christmas, and they do this like Scottish because of his part in big break part, he goes and does these dinners in in in New York every Christmas and gets flown over to New York to do these these dinners. And he's still going for it. And I've got absolutely every admiration for him. So uh, and I go and see him in all the shows that I can.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

That's amazing. Mark, before we wrap up, is there something we didn't touch on today that you feel leaders, entrepreneurs, or professionals navigating transformation need to hear about building sustainable success?

SPEAKER_03 54:12

Sustainable is the key word, I think you say there. Being sustainable means you need to innovate. So constantly making sure you kind of have your have your eye on the horizon and the landscape in which you're operating with, and just and it's not all about technology, but you don't want to get left behind. And I don't think it's easy to just be siloed within within the kind of in your own little world, and sort of making sure if if you want to kind of continue, you you should always be in a sense of transformation, I think, because the world around us is transforming all the time. And again, not just in you know, in technology, but in in culture and in politics, things affect the way business is done all the time, and you need to find a way to embed that into the way that you learn and the way that you develop, whether it's a service or a product or your own personal brand. You know, you don't mean to talk about politics, but you need to reflect the needs and the wants of the people who are interested in who you are or or what your brand or buy something from your brand. And so you need to find a way of effectively reflecting the world around you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

That's awesome, Mark. This has been an incredible episode. We're super excited, and it's gonna be fun, it's gonna be hard to cut this one down because there's so much insight here. Where can people do? I'm sorry. No, no, please. It's I mean, the the more the better, right? It's the when we have a lot of information that allows us to cut together an incredible episode, we'll definitely get away with that one. This one. Where can people connect with you and learn more about you? Whether that's on LinkedIn, social media, or a website.

SPEAKER_03 56:17

I think LinkedIn is probably the best way to find me. Or or the Take It Easy Group website, although I don't have a specific profile on there. Um don't bother looking at my my Instagram handle. It's just a load of pictures of of bits of street art around London. So I'm sure many people would be interested in that. They're just my musings on the world I see around me, and there's not many of them either. I've got I've got a five-year-old, so I don't have enough time to do social media. So I think LinkedIn, and that you know what? You lost to LinkedIn. I had a time where I didn't enjoy being on there and actually came off, and I came back onto it in January, and I then really enjoying being on there and connecting, and it's actually how we we connected with each other. So, you know, I see a lot of value in in the platform that's there, the way that people share information. So I'm I'm kind of all in on LinkedIn at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

Nice. Well, yeah, I mean you touched on when you said your Instagram handles a lot of street art, I'm gonna have to ask you who's Banksy, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_03 57:34

Yeah, but it's this is one of those things. It's like I'd gonna want to know. Yeah, right. Yeah. I actually, do you know what I'm gonna have to tell you? Like, there's a new Banksy for me, but he's but actually you know who he is, but in terms of his like some of the cool things he's doing in London, he but he does it with mosaics. He's called Florist F-L-O-R-I-S-T.LDN. And he's he's been getting arrested a lot recently, which has not been good. Yeah, but that's but that's because um he put some his mosaics on some buildings that people didn't like, but it wasn't pe people like them, but like one person complained, and then it became an issue. Yeah, I haven't really dug into it because again, I haven't had so much time, but I really love what he does, it's he's completely unique, using kind of mosaics to tell to tell stories, you know, kind of candid and often with a bit of a kind of political or cultural message going on. So um yeah, and he's done some stuff around the world, but I don't know if he's done anything in the States yet.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

That's brilliant. Well, he's gonna make his way to the States, no question. He will, as long as he doesn't get a criminal record. Mars, we really appreciate it. Thank you for sharing your story and your truth, your insight and your experience. Tim, if this conversation challenged you, inspired you, or made you think differently, share it. Send it to a leader navigating transformation, an entrepreneur building their brand, a professional trying to figure out their path. This is the standard podcast, and this movement only grows when we raise the standard together. Talent fades, but truth endures. Let's raise the bar, rebuild the culture, and become the standard. We'll see you next time. Mark, Aaron, thank you so much for joining us, team. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

Cheers.