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Living An Alternate Reality During A Coma - Paul Evans | Modern Wisdom Podcast 258

Paul Evans is an entrepreneur and author. Out of body experiences during operations are bizarre but at least semi-common, living an entire new life in an alternate reality for two years during a seven month coma is something else entirely. Expect to learn how childhood bullying can set the tone for your entire life, what it was like to live through the Arab Spring revolts in Egypt, the mind bending detail that Paul can remember his "other life" in and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on the best coffee in Britain with Uncommon Coffee’s entire range at http://uncommoncoffee.co.uk/ (use code MW20) Get 83% discount & 3 months free from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Buy When I Woke Up - https://amzn.to/2KfDJPm Follow Paul on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pauljohnevs/ Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #coma #outofbodyexperience #chriswilliamson - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: modernwisdompodcast@gmail.com

Chris WilliamsonhostPaul Evansguest
Dec 14, 20201h 5mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:42

    Intro

    1. CW

      So you're put into this medically induced coma.

    2. PE

      Yep.

    3. CW

      Can you take us through what happened next?

    4. PE

      I woke up in Singapore, and I had a full-time job, lived in an apartment similar to this in Singapore. Can remember the color of the shower, the registration plate on my car, the suits I used to wear to work. And I ran a sales team that sold virtual reality games, and I did that for two years.

    5. CW

      Is this common for people that are in induced comas to live a- another life?

    6. PE

      I'm still not sure today that whether that was something else or whether that was simply my mind keeping me super busy while the doctors had the chance to fix me. That's, that's probably the most powerful thing that's ever, ever happened to me, that absolute feeling of, "This is your second chance."

    7. CW

      (wind blowing)

  2. 0:42 – 1:57

    Welcome Paul Evans

    1. CW

      Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Dubai cast, 25th floor of the Marina-

    2. PE

      It's not a bad place to do a podcast, is it?

    3. CW

      Not at all. Mr. Paul Evans, welcome to the show. How are you?

    4. PE

      Chris, I'm good, mate. I'm good.

    5. CW

      Very glad to have you here.

    6. PE

      Thanks for having me on.

    7. CW

      In your town.

    8. PE

      I'm not sure it's my town, but yeah, it's my, uh, it's my home. That's most certainly, uh... It's your flat, my home. (laughs)

    9. CW

      (laughs) Nick's flat.

    10. PE

      Nick's flat.

    11. CW

      My podcast studio. Your town.

    12. PE

      My home, yeah.

    13. CW

      That's how we- (laughs)

    14. PE

      Yeah.

    15. CW

      That's how we'll say it.

    16. PE

      Something like that.

    17. CW

      I get it.

    18. PE

      Something like that.

    19. CW

      So we're gonna go through a lot today.

    20. PE

      Cool.

    21. CW

      But where do we start? Where does the genesis of your story in terms of making you who you are today, where does that begin?

    22. PE

      Um, probably begins somewhere a- around the age of 13 or 14 when I was a- a troubled little school kid who was extremely misunderstood and, um, and considered to be quite stupid. And then the relentless journey to prove all those teachers wrong, which at 45 years of age I'm still trying to do today, I guess. There's still-

    23. CW

      That's still in the source code.

    24. PE

      There's definite motivation there for that, yeah. There's, uh, even today. Even though probably all those teachers have, have rest their souls-

    25. CW

      (clears throat)

    26. PE

      ... have passed on and there wouldn't be one of them that can say, "Look, I told you I was gonna be somebody." (laughs)

  3. 1:57 – 3:06

    Bullying

    1. PE

    2. CW

      So that's something that I was considering thinking about this last night, that what happens to you as a child lays down foundations...

    3. PE

      Infinitely.

    4. CW

      ... for the rest of your life. And I think that there's a really interesting implication for bullying there.

    5. PE

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CW

      Because bullies, maybe they get some recompense in the time, maybe they gotta do some detention, maybe they gotta do whatever. But consistent bullying throughout school, which is something that I dealt with as well, it sets a tone for the bullee's life, the victim's life, f- for the rest of their days. Unless they do an ungodly amount of deprogramming and self-work. And-

    7. PE

      Or they use it to motivate themselves in the right manner. So I would imagine that you're the size you are and you have the ability to train like you do, um, and you build yourself into a human that can't be bullied because you didn't enjoy being bullied. And then I would imagine that also you'll have personality traits that when you see whatever the bully may be, obviously in, in later life it's a different style of bully, um, but if you see somebody being bullied today, you'll be the first guy to step forward and say, "Behave yourself there."

  4. 3:06 – 4:03

    Pauls passion for bullying

    1. CW

      It makes me, it makes me very, very, very uncomfortable. It's one of the few things that I'm incredibly passionate about.

    2. PE

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      Um...

    4. PE

      When you watch individuals bully or be bullied, whether it's in the workplace, whether it's in a venue, uh, on a night experience, I'm also the same. I absolutely loathe it. I loathe teacher bullies who are bullying my children at the moment through their au- authoritarian manners. When I see people in our venues trying to dominate other customers, pfft, it's, uh, yeah, i- i- it's in my DNA that, that I don't tolerate that and I don't like it and I, I'll stand in front of anybody I see being bullied and... I've tried to create an environment in our, um, in our company today that is, is absolutely the opposite way. You know, bullying can be perceived from multiple angles, whether it's a senior colleague bullying down the track. I can't have that. I can't stand it. And that all stems from being, you know, kicked around a school playground when I was 12 and 13, I guess.

    5. CW

      So

  5. 4:03 – 6:34

    Bullying in school

    1. CW

      what did that move into, bullying at school, and then where did you go after that?

    2. PE

      Um, bullying in school projected itself from there into bullying from kids, from being from a different town as a Liverpool fan going to a Manchester school, um, and being bullied by teachers. You know, it's a different style of bullying, but asking a dyslexic schoolboy to stand up on a- in front of his entire class and spell words in front of teachers is bullying. Just no doubt about that. Um, unfortunately, that then projected itself into my work life where I became pretty good at what I could do, uh, and then I became an arrogant prick who just decided to... nobody... anybody that got in the way on my journey to become successful, I would walk through. Um, I wasn't a bully, but I didn't, I didn't consider people's opinions or people's feelings or people's, um, um, projection of how I was being to be concerning for me, um, because, uh, uh, success became way more important than personal perception. But I didn't know what success was then. I was just a 22, 23-year-old kid thinking that success was a paycheck at the end of the month.

    3. CW

      How did you define success?

    4. PE

      Money. Money, growth, progression, possession at 22, 23 years of age.

    5. CW

      And what'd you learn working for Jack Welsh?

    6. PE

      (sighs) The best 10% get promoted, the bottom 10% get fired.

    7. CW

      Every month?

    8. PE

      Every month.

    9. CW

      Where was that?

    10. PE

      GE Capital.

    11. CW

      And what is that?

    12. PE

      Um, it was General Electric, um, corporate finance. I worked for those guys.

    13. CW

      So what do you do?

    14. PE

      Um, I would lend people money.

    15. CW

      Okay.

    16. PE

      Or lend companies money that would then go off and use that money to lend to other people. So I ran the Manchester sales center office at 26 years of age and I just, you know, indulged myself in that culture of success is possessional financial reward, um, until I reached the point where I really, really didn't like myself anymore, I didn't like who I'd become. Uh, the, the pendulum of insecure, sad, unmotivated...... scared little schoolboy had become arrogant, I am this, I am that, I am the best, I am, look how successful I am, look at my numbers, look at my sales, look at my car, look at my houses or house. You know, uh, it- it had gone the other way, so I'd gone from being timid and frightened and, to being an arrogant dick. And then suddenly, I'm like, "Yeah, this is

  6. 6:34 – 7:15

    I was caught cheating

    1. PE

      not cool."

    2. CW

      What was that point? Was there something? Was there an incident? Was it compounding over time?

    3. PE

      Yeah. Th- that was, um ... I was, you know, how to ... How's the best way to phrase this? I was caught cheating. I was not a, I was not a traditionally good one-on-one boyfriend versus girlfriend. So yeah, I was messing around and- and getting carried away with the- the life in London. Um, and then I decided that that wasn't the right, the way I wanted to live my life. I didn't wanna be that individual, um, and I needed to change. So I resigned from GE, um, I jumped on an airplane, flew to Egypt, um, and went to be a dive instructor for a year. Completely get outta that corporate, successful, dog eat dog world.

  7. 7:15 – 8:02

    I went to be a dive instructor

    1. PE

    2. CW

      Isn't it interesting how our behavior in relationships often is like a distilled version of other stuff that's going on? It sometimes identifies areas that were not quite going right in our life.

    3. PE

      Yeah. You- you- you know, I began to believe the hype. I began to believe my own bullshit. I began to believe that I was this rock star of a salesperson and, you know, all the things that, or what you perceive to be the glory that comes with that. The- the bars, the- the clubs, the women, the- the- the cash. Um, and I had to break that mold, and that's what I did, and you know, went and jumped under the sea and went and played with nature and got out of bed at 5:00 in the morning, grew my hair long, got in good shape again, um, and- and got in touch with- with nature and diving in the Red Sea.

  8. 8:02 – 9:36

    The different ways weve gone

    1. CW

      So let's think about the sort of different ways we've gone. So you've gone from like this timid-

    2. PE

      Yep.

    3. CW

      ... bullied bottom of the pile-

    4. PE

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      ... to a very brash, very projecting, overtly successful top of the pile.

    6. PE

      Prick.

    7. CW

      To now, this kind of monastic lifestyle, very in touch with nature, very spiritual.

    8. PE

      Yeah.

    9. CW

      So it's kind of bouncing around-

    10. PE

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      ... these different-

    12. PE

      It's all part of the journey of trying to find yourself, you know? Uh, I hadn't, I hadn't found myself then. I just realized that I didn't want to be this timid schoolboy that had then catapulted itself into this wolf on Wall Street, arrogant, do whatever I want, money grabbing individual, and I didn't want to be that guy. Um, so come as far away from that guy as I can possibly be. Earn $600 a month as a dive instructor. That's- couldn't be any further away. And that was all part of the process of building the guy who I eventually would become, and I'm- I'm still on that journey, and I'll stop that journey when- when my time is done. Uh, there will never ever be the final version of me. It will just be a continual path of, I've tried that, I liked that, I'm gonna take that from it. That stuff I'm not gonna take. That's- that's not cool. I'm gonna leave that there. And then, you know, I can't be a dive instructor. Un- unfortunately it doesn't, it doesn't generate enough to look after the family that- that I want to look after. But, the idea of it and some of the mythologies of being a diving instructor, I quite like, so I'm gonna take those. Now what am I gonna do? I'm gonna get drunk in a bar one night and invest in a nightclub.

  9. 9:36 – 10:49

    The mythologies of being a diving instructor

    1. PE

    2. CW

      Take us there. So you've been diving for a while.

    3. PE

      Yeah, I'd been a, I'd been a dr- my- my plan was to be a dive instructor for a year.

    4. CW

      (coughs) .

    5. PE

      Figure my shit out and then decide what I was gonna do. Um-

    6. CW

      In?

    7. PE

      Egypt.

    8. CW

      Egypt.

    9. PE

      In the Red Sea.

    10. CW

      Why'd you choose Egypt?

    11. PE

      Uh, my father was building a- a- a safari boat over there, so that was an easy gig.

    12. CW

      Well-

    13. PE

      And randomly enough, I mean, that- that's another journey of a story. My father was a sales and marketing consultant for 35 years, hit his 40th birthday and decided he'd had enough and was gonna sell up and go and build a diving safari boat. He's probably on a similar (laughs) similar thought process to me. Um, so that was an easy fit. Um, then I met a Dutch guy called Freck, um, a- around 5:00 in the morning. I've- I must have told this story a thousand times. Agreed to lend him$10,000 to finish a beach club. And I got into the bar business at that moment there. And that took me in a ... (exhales) a completely, you know, I recircled back to the- the- the type of individual I was in GE, to a certain degree. Way- way more partying. Um, drank my ass off for 18 months and put myself in a coma. Um, flatlined on an operating table three times, um, and completely changed my life.

  10. 10:49 – 12:43

    Pauls story

    1. CW

      Take us through that 18 months.

    2. PE

      Ooh. Yeah, a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Um, I was learning a completely new industry. Um, I brought a sales and marketing thought process to a bar business in Egypt. Um, there was lots of hotels coming up. I saw lots of opportunity. Um, I started to see a desire to work for myself. That started to manifest itself in me where, um, I'd learned from these massive corporate conglomerates like GE, um, I wanted to be my own boss, but I didn't know what I wanted to be my own boss in. Um, what a lifestyle, you know, waking up every morning, bit of a hu- bit of a hangover, go to the office, design a flyer on clip art. I'm- I'm not shitting you, that's how we did it.

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. PE

      You know, a poster in the toilet advertising a band.

    5. CW

      Yeah.

    6. PE

      You know, that- that was the- that was how we marketed our venues. Um, all these hotels were- were starting to crop up, you know. How do we talk to the hotel? How do we get the guests out of the hotel? It was, it was that whole process in the daytime and then at nighttime, you know, 8:30 at night we'd start drinking and we'd finish at about six in the morning and we'd go again-

    7. CW

      Go again.

    8. PE

      ... and we'd go again and we'd go again and the- the- that- that just continued to go around and around until the, um, 27th of, um, of July when it all stopped.

    9. CW

      What happened?

    10. PE

      I woke up in the morning, my stomach looked like the biggest piece of blue cheese you've ever seen in your life. I looked nine months pregnant. I was 118 kilos, um, which was what? 20 odd stone. Um-

    11. CW

      That's a big fella.

    12. PE

      I was, I was (laughs) I was a unit.

    13. CW

      (laughs)

    14. PE

      Um, I'll show you some pictures. Um, so then, um, they took me to the hospital. Um-... within 12 hours, my lungs had collapsed. I was with, in intensive care within a day, um, I was given four days to live. Um, my father had to try and raise the money to get an air ambulance and, and get me out of that country. The doctors had said, "We can't keep him alive." Um-

  11. 12:43 – 13:49

    Dying fast

    1. CW

      Just not sufficiently sophisticated?

    2. PE

      It just, they couldn't deal with the shit that was going on. My lungs had collapsed, I had E.coli, I was, I was, I was dying and I was dying fast. Um, you know, I had acute pancreatitis, which has a pretty much a- 80% mortality rate. Uh, and I was, I was deep on that process. Um, my dad managed to convince four friends to lend him the money, 28,000 quid or 25,000 quid for a air ambulance to get me home. And, you know, there was, there was some processes in that where I was very lucky to get an air ambulance. You know, there's not, they're not sitting on runways waiting to fly idiots home that drank themselves into a stupor. Um, but eventually, you know, the big man looked after me. I got, managed to get on an airplane. I was flown back into, um, Manchester. I was taken to Leyton Hospital, and the number one pancreatic surgeon on the planet was in that hospital. Um, my dad finally got them to admit me, um, and he promised to look after me and try and save my life, and six months later, I left the hospital.

  12. 13:49 – 14:16

    Coma

    1. PE

    2. CW

      So you go in, what's the operations, what are the procedures that need to occur?

    3. PE

      I don't know. I was in a coma, so-

    4. CW

      Right.

    5. PE

      ... I've got no clue. Uh-

    6. CW

      Induced or-

    7. PE

      Medically induced coma, yeah. So-

    8. CW

      Yes.

    9. PE

      That was put... I was put into that, I think, on the 29th of July, and I woke up from that on my birthday, the 31st of August, uh, and then went back to sleep again and woke up again in, um, um, on the 9th of September.

  13. 14:16 – 14:41

    Flight from Egypt

    1. CW

      Can you remember the journey-

    2. PE

      18 years ago.

    3. CW

      You remember the, the flight-

    4. PE

      No.

    5. CW

      ... from Egypt?

    6. PE

      No.

    7. CW

      Were you induced during that time as well?

    8. PE

      Yeah, no, I was gone. I didn't... from the mo- I... so the last memory I have was being awake when they, um, banged a 12-inch metal spike into my ribs to, um, give me a lung puncture.

    9. CW

      You's still got the scar?

    10. PE

      Yeah. Yeah. I was awake for that. Bam.

  14. 14:41 – 15:02

    Red hot poker

    1. CW

      Is that the worst pain of the-

    2. PE

      No, that was-

    3. CW

      ... the trip?

    4. PE

      It was the weirdest thing, actually. It was like a red-hot poker being shoved into you, but it meant I could breathe. So that, that, that-

    5. CW

      Satisfaction.

    6. PE

      I couldn't talk. So you've got this, this doctor coming towards you with this thing and you're like-

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. PE

      ... "The fuck are you gonna do with that?"

    9. CW

      (laughs)

    10. PE

      Like that's not good, is it? (laughs)

  15. 15:02 – 15:28

    What are you planning to do with that

    1. PE

    2. CW

      There's only a few places that that can go and I don't want it to go in any of them.

    3. PE

      That, that, you know, where, where... Yeah, exactly. What, what are you planning to do with that? But, you know, I'm... (choking sound) There was nothing, you know, both, both lungs were, were f-

    4. CW

      Fighting for breath.

    5. PE

      ... were, were filled with fluid. Pancreas had swelled up, lungs had, had filled with fluid and this thing had to go into me or, or there was no oxygen going in. So when he, when he banged it in, you know, it's... yeah, it was, uh, that was the moment they let you know you're alive.

  16. 15:28 – 15:55

    What happened next

    1. PE

    2. CW

      Okay, so you're put into this medically induced coma.

    3. PE

      Yep.

    4. CW

      Can you take us through what happened next?

    5. PE

      I, um, woke up in Singapore, um, and I had a full-time job. I got up in the morning, lived in an apartment similar to this in Singapore. Um, can remember the color of the shower, the registration plate on my car, the suits I used to work, uh, wear to work, and I ran a sales team that sold virtual reality games. And I did that for, uh, for two years.

  17. 15:55 – 16:15

    Finegrained memories

    1. PE

    2. CW

      How fine are the memories? How fine-grained are the memories from that time?

    3. PE

      That I can remember the spelling that was on your top if I went to dinner with you that night. The most... not like, not like a holiday when you were 14. No. Like a significant career that you had in your life.

  18. 16:15 – 17:06

    Is this common

    1. PE

    2. CW

      What do you think was happening there? Is this common for people that are in induced comas to live another life?

    3. PE

      Yeah. Look, you have to have a load of psychiatric treatment when you come out of a coma. They have to, um, they have to help you through that process. You know, I went to sleep with hair shorter than yours and I woke up with hair longer than mine. I mean, seriously. I bite my nails. I woke up with things like this.

    4. CW

      (laughs)

    5. PE

      Like one of those, uh, Instagram girls.

    6. CW

      Yeah, yeah.

    7. PE

      Um, so yeah (laughs) , I, uh, I had to have some treatment and, you know, you asked the questions-

    8. CW

      What the hell was that?

    9. PE

      I'm still not sure today that... and, you know, we can get into some really deep rabbit holes on that one. Whether that was something else or whether that was simply my mind keeping me super busy while the doctors had the chance to fix me. And it was four months, just under four months I was away. So, you know, that's a, that is a shitload of time.

  19. 17:06 – 18:24

    I could buy your life

    1. PE

    2. CW

      And how long did it feel being there?

    3. PE

      Two years.

    4. CW

      So you were working a job-

    5. PE

      Yes.

    6. CW

      ... selling people's memories-

    7. PE

      No.

    8. CW

      ... in VR.

    9. PE

      No. What this VR was, was I could buy you a life. So I would go and buy your life story and I would plug it in, I'd put the headset, I'd go into this pod and I would wake up in the morning and I would be you. And whatever you do, I would do and I would live your life. So you could buy Muhammad Ali, you could buy Mike Tyson, you could buy Pele, you could buy, um, Ronaldo. I don't even think Ronaldo was out then. So you could buy famous people's lives and then you would go into a virtual reality experience, come into his life or her life, and then you would live their life. And we were testing the latest version of this software, and I was the kid who tested it. Um, and it got blocked and locked and I got taken into this black room, plastic membrane, and I spent six months in this room trying to find my way out. And as I went into that room, the computer software people were talking to me. Um, "Don't worry, we'll patch it, we'll fix it." It's... and I'm, I'm just stuck in this black space. I can't find... I could kind of feel the sides, but I couldn't find the edges, if you know what I mean. It was like a black membrane. Um, and then slowly over time

  20. 18:24 – 19:33

    Slowly over time their conversations changed

    1. PE

      their conversations changed from talking me through the code that they were gonna fix, they were gonna change-... to telling me the sports results and talking to me about what's happening in the news. And I started to realize that the only way I was gonna get out of this room was if I got my out. These people, these programmers were not going to get me out of this room; it was gonna be me. And what I know now is it was not computer programmers. It was my parents and my family and my friends around my hospital bed just talking to me. You know, my dad sat there every single day reading the newspaper to me, reading the sports results. In my virtual world, this was the computer programmers losing faith that they could fix this problem and I'd be stuck here forever. And I started to realize that the only way I was gonna get out of this was if I started to get out of it, if I found a way. So instead of sleeping all day in this room, I was awake and I was looking, I was picking, I was trying to find some way of breaking through this membrane. And then after six months of picking away, I eventually got a finger through, and then another finger through, and then I opened this membrane, I stuck my head out and I woke up in a hospital bed on my birthday and my entire family were there. (hands clapping) And that was me out of the coma.

  21. 19:33 – 23:27

    The Matrix

    1. CW

      It sounds unbelievable. I've heard the story before, but it sounds insane.

    2. PE

      Yeah. It was nuts.

    3. CW

      It sounds like s- some Inception.

    4. PE

      I, I see it... Look, have you seen The Matrix?

    5. CW

      Yeah, yeah.

    6. PE

      'Cause I saw it like that. That's how I sort of, kind of put some place to it after, you know. Y- you come out of that shit and, you know, lose four months of your life. You know, I, I did, I did... I've lost chunks of my life for, for different pur- for different reasons, whether it was having to stay in a one-star hotel enforced for a while, or whether it was a bit of time that we, we spent in a chiro, uh, facility. So I've lost chunks of my life and I've had to learn to deal with those chunks. And some of them were 'cause of my own stupid actions in my younger life, um, and some of them were for things that were not my fault. This was my fault. I drank myself into that position. I put myself in, in real harm's way. But I massively believe that it was a wake-up call that I talk about regularly today of, you know, shit, adversity, it happens. What do we do with that and how do we use that to fuel the person that we become? That's the powerful stuff. There was a reason I went through that experience. There was a reason I watched them operate on me and take it all out. Somebody was showing me that I'd screwed my life up so badly that I shouldn't wake up and that should be the end of it, and 'I'm gonna make you watch it. But actually, I'm gonna make you wake up. I'm actually gonna give you another chance. Do not fuck it up again.' That's why it was so clear to me that I was awake during that entire coma, why I was given an experience like I was given, why I buried my father in my dream. He died and we had to go through that whole thing. And I can... I remember crying. My, my family remember me in the coma, crying.

    7. CW

      Weeping in real life?

    8. PE

      Fucking breaking down. That was at my father's funeral. You know, my family remember me waking up and sort of, on my birthday, and sort of looking at the end of the bed and there was my dad. And I kind of looked at everybody and I just stared at him, like, "You shouldn't be here." 'Cause it was so real that I'd lost him in my dream, in my virtual world, in my job in Singapore. He'd gone.

    9. CW

      Is Dad still here now?

    10. PE

      Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's in England, but he's still around.

    11. CW

      How do you think you'll feel? Inevitably, at some point, you are gonna have to say goodbye to him twice.

    12. PE

      It'll be-

    13. CW

      That's a pain that no one really should go through.

    14. PE

      It'll fucking demolish me. But it will- that will be the toughest thing I've ever had to go through. Bla- like I would imagine with 95% of other children of the world, this planet.

    15. CW

      Yeah. But you had to do it twice.

    16. PE

      Yeah. (laughs)

    17. CW

      (laughs)

    18. PE

      Yeah. Yeah, I did kind of. Um, it was and still is today, uh, an incredibly powerful experience that keeps me true to being the person I wanna be. You know, when there's, when there's moments where I have doubt and I have questions and, you know, COVID at the moment, and the situation that we're all faced with, this, this incredible thing that's happened to the world in the last eight or nine months, you know, I always look back to that point in my life where I was able to come through that and I was able to gain so much from it. I just have to, I have to think about this as the same th- thought process. There is a reason why this is happening. Every single road we ever go down, no matter how painful it is, there is a purpose to that road. Why have we been presented with it? Why are we gonna go down it and why are we gonna come out the other side of it? The key to Paul Evans today and who I've become is finding the purpose of all of those adverse roads, whatever they are, whatever the reason is. There's a reason I have to deal with that. What am I gonna learn from it? How can I use that? And then how can I pass that knowledge onto others?

  22. 23:27 – 24:47

    What Did You Learn

    1. PE

    2. CW

      What did you learn from being in that, other than stop drinking?

    3. PE

      That I had a greater purpose in life. And the purpose was not me, it was others. If I made my journey about everyone else, then by default, my journey would become so enlightening. When it's only about me, it's selfish, it's self-centered, it's egotistical, then it's worthless really. What are you doing it for? Today, I have two children. I never wanted children prior to that. They are my absolute everything. I have a team of 500 people today. If I make the journey about them and their path and their career and their growth and their redevelopment and their becoming the best version of themselves, if I have 500 people suddenly becoming better than they were yesterday and I'm fortunate enough to sit with those people, their power and their energy will drive me to become... (exhales) Wow, where's that? That's limitless. And that was the big change that the coma did for me. It made me understand it's nothing to do with me. It's about everyone else. And if I am being given a second chance to project that message and to help that, then by default, my life is gonna be-... absolutely amazing because I'm 500, 600, 800,000, 2,000, 10,000, 20,000. No limits.

    4. CW

      Why,

  23. 24:47 – 25:40

    Going Back Into Nightlife

    1. CW

      after being in a coma, did you go back into nightlife with these insights? I-

    2. PE

      Because it became, it became a business, not a lifestyle. I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't invest in the nightclub because I wanted to be a, an owner or a business owner or a mentor or a CEO eventually. I wanted to have a bit of a riot. I wanted to have a bit of fun. I wanted to be excitable, understand that, that it was the glory hunter. You know, in our industry today, and you're in our industry, there are two types of, of, of guy that operate in the food and beverage industry. There's guys like me who love what we do, and there's guys that love the glory of what we think we do. There's a guy who stands in an office and talks to his team and helps develop and grow them. And there's a guy who sits on a table with a bottle of Belvedere and everything that sits around him.

  24. 25:40 – 26:45

    You Can Quickly Acquire Capital

    1. PE

    2. CW

      My equivalent insight from 14 years of running nightclubs is that some people realize that you can quickly acquire capital and have influence in a quite low barrier to entry, uh, industry.

    3. PE

      Industry, yeah.

    4. CW

      Um, and other people love to drink and party and realize they can monetize it.

    5. PE

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      And professional party boys will... They're able to move fast and break things very quickly, which is impressive. And if you can weaponize them as a good businessman, they're incredibly powerful.

    7. PE

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      But there's a glass ceiling on how much they can scale because there's only one of them and they can only drink so much and there's a lifespan on it.

    9. PE

      Yeah.

    10. CW

      Like, the, the promoter that you know that's still doing it at 30 years old, at 35 years old, it's a depreciating asset.

    11. PE

      Yeah.

    12. CW

      That person by health, coma, uh, wife, family, lack of energy, just sheer demotivation is on that trajectory. It's scalable to do it the way that you have spoken about there.

    13. PE

      Well, we've had those guys that work for us and they've been incredibly valuable for us.

  25. 26:45 – 27:44

    They Still Need Them

    1. CW

      Still need them, right? They're your foot, they're your foot soldier... They're, they're not the foot soldiers, they're the SAS operatives that you send in.

    2. PE

      I think the en- I think the industry is changing, especially when you, you have a scalable business that you've got one venue, you can have the guy who sits on the table and invites whoever he invites to come and have a drink with him. When you have multi-site, multipurpose, multi-location, global desire, then you have to have a strategy at the top, uh, how that guy on the table becomes the digital way of advertising the consumer. And in all honesty, you use a great terminology, you weaponize them, weapons explode and you can't use them again.

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. PE

      True?

    5. CW

      Absolutely, yeah.

    6. PE

      Push the button, bang, there's my impact. I need another one.

    7. CW

      Yeah, thank you.

    8. PE

      I can't do-

    9. CW

      Can someone s- Can someone send in the replacement?

    10. PE

      I can't keep doing that to these 28-year-old kids because I was the 28-year-old kid and that ruined me.

    11. CW

      How did you-

    12. PE

      Or it made

  26. 27:44 – 28:28

    Pauls Coma Experience

    1. PE

      me.

    2. CW

      One or the other. How did you reintegrate after this experience?

    3. PE

      (laughs)

    4. CW

      'Cause you've been, like-

    5. PE

      What do you bench press now?

    6. CW

      Uh, 140 kilos.

    7. PE

      Wow. Right. At my peak, I was 120 and I'm banging them out. And then I went into my coma and then I became this. So from 120 kilos to 70 kilos, uh, you could put your hand around my, around my leg. I couldn't even lift a bar never mind 120, 140. Full respect as well.

    8. CW

      (laughs)

    9. PE

      Uh, we'll touch on that later. Um, I just became this little timid mouse of vulnerability and, and, and, and shit, I break. I didn't realize I broke, you know, I was like every

  27. 28:28 – 30:15

    Pauls Second Chance

    1. PE

      25-year-old kid, I'm indestructible, I was-

    2. CW

      How, how old are you at this point?

    3. PE

      I was 29.

    4. CW

      Right.

    5. PE

      29. So all of a sudden you realize you can get sick, you can get ill, you, you're not indestructible, you need to be careful how you treat your body. You know, no 15-year-old kid today is running around thinking, "I get hurt." He doesn't give a shit. He does any... He'll jump off a, you know, he'll jump off a multi-story car park because he's had a few too many beers because he doesn't care.

    6. CW

      You're made of rubber and magic. (laughs)

    7. PE

      You're made of rubber, aren't you? Rubber and magic. Yeah, exactly.

    8. CW

      (laughs)

    9. PE

      Um, so all of a sudden I realized that, you know, I, I can break and if I don't take care of myself and, um, be careful how I move forward, then I could have a problem. On the flip side, the birds were singing, everything smelled beautiful and the sun was shining. It was the most humble, embracing part of my entire life. I've never been more thankful. Even now today with all the wonderful people I have around me, that year of feeling insecure and feeling vulnerable and feeling broken, but also feeling like, "Wow, I've got a second chance and I'm, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna maximize that to the absolute most." So it helped me through that process of feeling vulnerable and, and gradually rebuilding myself and probably realizing that actually I don't need to lift 120 kilos and I don't need to stand on the door and stop people coming in. There's somebody bigger and stronger than me. "You, you can do that. I'll stand behind you and train you so you never have to stop people coming in." And it was just that, that gradual process of believing, "Wow, I have a second chance." And that's the most powerful thing in the world. That's, that's probably the most powerful thing that's ever, ever happened to me. That absolute feeling of, "This is your second chance. Do something

  28. 30:15 – 33:26

    Pauls Day To Day Life

    1. PE

      good."

    2. CW

      And how has that impacted... Beyond wanting to serve and facilitate other people, how has that impacted the way that you live your day-to-day life or see day-to-day life?

    3. PE

      Um, the, the stuff doesn't matter. So whatever that stuff may be, the flash car, the big house, the fancy watch, d- don't... I don't care about it. I'm not interested in it. It's a byproduct of, of doing what I love well. Um, I really value relationships today. I have, uh, so many people in my life that, um...... really, really mean something. You know, you talk about having friends that you can count on one hand. I'm blessed to have people I can count on two hands 'cause I, you know, I put a lot of time and effort into, into relationships and, and having real purposeful relationships.

    4. CW

      You've not like that before?

    5. PE

      Not as much as I am now. You know, I have a, I have a, I have a, a partner in my life, Dom, who is, you know, my absolute soulmate. M- It took me a long time to find that level of person where I, uh, I believed in a certain level of relationship and how enhancing your partner makes you a better version of yourself. And there's so many people today that run around relationships destabilizing their partner 'cause they're afraid that they're gonna leave 'em or, you know, "If I, if I, if I big them up too much, they'll leave me, so I'll just keep them unbalanced." I also used to be that guy, where today, I want that person on the absolute mountain of this world because they picked me. And if I can put them there, whoever that may be, my best friend, my girlfriend, my children, make them feel amazing, the fact that they choose to spend time with me by default makes me feel amazing 'cause if they're so amazing and they wanna hang out with me, I must be so amazing. So, so that was a, was a big step of how I evolved my outside-of-work activity. You know, I, I do a lot of, I do a lot of diving today, I do a lot of experienced stuff that, you know, success, if you like, as everyone else perceives it, allows you, in my opinion, the facility to do the stuff that's good stuff, that's wholesome stuff that I get to live in Dubai, this amazing country that gives you limitless opportunities. Um, and if you give to Dubai, it will give you back what you give it. It... A- and I talked about this a long time ago. Put my foundations here. This is my home. This is where I'm gonna live. I'm gonna dedicate myself to this place. Dubai says, "Thank you." There you go. There's your opportunity. There's no jealousy here. There's no... or I don't, you know, I don't get to see a lot of that. I, I only see people being encouraged to do well. You don't hear about people keying cars in Dubai. If you have a Lamborghini in England, someone's gonna key it. That doesn't happen here. Somebody goes, "Well, full respect.

    6. CW

      When Nick's let me into this apartment to record just by leaving the door open-

    7. PE

      Yeah, man. (laughs)

    8. CW

      ... y- and, I, I couldn't believe it. I was like, "Mate, this is, this is really expensive." And, and, and it's, you know, it's right in the marina. And he's like, "No, mate, y- d- you don't understand, like, this is Dubai." Uh-

    9. PE

      This is Dubai. What a beautiful statement.

    10. CW

      Yeah.

    11. PE

      We are safe, proper safe. What a great place to bring up a family. What a great place to bring up children. I was blessed that, that my, both my children had a good six years, seven years here.

  29. 33:26 – 34:41

    Pauls Recovery

    1. PE

    2. CW

      So moving forward now, you come back, you do your recovery. You start to grow an awful lot of venues, 18 venues or something in, in 18 months, something like that?

    3. PE

      Uh, no, a bit longer than that, but-

    4. CW

      Okay.

    5. PE

      ... I think we, overall, we did, we probably did 20 f- there was... When I went into the coma, there was three. We had three venues. Um, by the end of it-

    6. CW

      How did they perform while you were in?

    7. PE

      C- m- don't know actually. I never really asked that question.

    8. CW

      (laughs)

    9. PE

      Yeah. Just let everyone get on with it.

    10. CW

      That could have been the first thing that you'd done.

    11. PE

      Yeah.

    12. CW

      If my business partner went into a coma, the first thing that he would do would be, "Show me the Excel sheet. I wanna see the balance." (laughs)

    13. PE

      Yeah, yeah. He's, he's probably a bit stronger than I was. I d- I don't think I was worried too much about that. I think, um, yeah, it was, um, I let them just get on and do what they had to do. Everybody stepped up and did what... And look, I was not the only owner, you know. I've, I've, I've been blessed to be in a partnership since, since day one on this process. And, you know, I have a, I have a great team of people that take care of... They, obviously they took care of stuff when I was in a coma, and even today, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're going through some very challenging moments now. I'm not around all the time. M- I have a team of people that look after it, so I guess they did okay. Managed to come out of it. So in the end we had, um, we built tw- I think we built about 25 across Egypt over a eight to nine year period.

  30. 34:41 – 37:34

    What separates you

    1. PE

    2. CW

      What separates you and your particular working process? That's an non-typical result, right? That's not what most... Even the best of the best promoters don't tend to have that much aggressive growth.

    3. PE

      Mm-hmm.

    4. CW

      What is it that you're doing that's causing that to occur?

    5. PE

      If I don't keep building this business, there's no opportunity for the people who are in this business. Everybody wants growth. Everybody wants to become the, I believe, or I try to create an environment where everybody b- wants to become the best version of themselves. So I have a responsibility to all of those people to provide them with the next opportunity, not you or not somebody else or not one of the different operators in this city. It's my job to make sure that you're, you as a bartender has got the opportunity to become a bar manager, and you as a bar manager have got the opportunity to become a floor manager and you as a floor blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that appetite of the team that I'm trying to build to become the best version of themselves drives me every day to get out there and go and find the next opportunity. So by default, that energy that they push me to create more opportunities gives me the opportunity to do what I love, and I love to build whatever that may be. Build you, build a team, build my children, build a son, build a house, build a tree house in lockdown, whatever it may be. I just love to build stuff. I love to create something. I talk about, you know, whatever you're doing, you should be building something. S- I don't mean you should be building a bar. You should be building you. You should be-

    6. CW

      And a family.

    7. PE

      Whatever it may be. Somebody, something. Growth is a fabulous thing and it, uh, uh, you know, we today have, what, however many venues we've got, every single one of those general managers that runs the show started at least two positions lower. Prob- some of them started even three or four positions lower. That's, that's the cool shit. You know, I've got 26-year-old GMs. In any other business on the planet, they shouldn't be GMs.

    8. CW

      They're shut up, yeah.

    9. PE

      But I, I push them and I let them make mistakes. I want them to make mistakes 'cause I want them to learn, I want them to grow and they drive me. You know, the second I hear one of my GMs is looking at somewhere else, I'm like, "Right, where can I move that kid?"I put years into that boy, I'm not losing it. I need to find something else. So in COVID when the rest of the world is, is sort of, "What we gonna do?" I'm out there looking for opportunities. So, we're, we're gonna do five more as it sits today. And I'll probably find another couple over the next few months. So when the world wakes up again, we've got some footprint. And it was the same in Egypt. Great opportunity, great brands, great reputation, um, and it's exciting stuff. No one likes to do the same stuff every day and every deal that you do is slightly different. The negotiation's different, the personnel are different, the project's different, the venue's different, the demographic's different, the consumer's different. It's, it's variety. That keeps me engaged.

  31. 37:34 – 41:00

    Leaving Egypt

    1. PE

    2. CW

      Take us through what happened toward leaving Egypt towards the backend. You had some more adventures there.

    3. PE

      Yeah, we did. Um, I got involved, um, in a huge marina development, um, where I was asked to come in and do the sales, and the marketing, and the leasing, and every opportunity that came with that. And I grabbed hold of it with everything I had. We built this marina, rented out 140-odd shops, built 10 of our own, did all the sales, all the marketing, all the entertainment. Launched the opening weekend with, like, 50,000 visitors. Biggest tourist attraction outside of the pyramids. It was, it was amazing. Because we did it so bloody fast, certain things got forgotten along the journey and one of which was permits. So I get a phone call from my c- company GM at the time saying, um, "Can I, um, can I take ... I need to take some money to Cairo and pay for the license for one of your venues." Uh, I said, "Yeah, of course you can. How much is it?" He says, "Three grand for the, for the guy at the Ministry of Tourism." I said, "Okay, cool, take it from the safe." Um, that call was recorded, um, and that was apparently a bribery case.

    4. CW

      (claps once)

    5. PE

      So internal affairs started, um, needed me. Um, I'm like, "Well, I haven't done anything." They said, "Well, you, you bribed a government official." I'm like, "I didn't bribe anyone. I just said yes to my GM asking me for money." Uh, "Well, you need to come to Cairo and admit that you were the beneficiary." I said, "All right, no problem, I'll do that." "Bring your passport and a toothbrush." "Why would I need a toothbrush for?" "Well, you have to go in jail for four days." "I'm not going in jail for four days." "Well, you have to, that's how it works. We'll, we'll arrest you, you'll say you did it, and then we'll release you." I'm like, "No chance. I'm a dad and I'm diabetic. You're not putting me in a Cairo jail for four days." Um, (laughs) so the guy said, "Well, then we'll come and get you." And because I was pretty well-connected in that country, I was, I mean, I, I won't go into that level of detail, but there was not a lot I couldn't have got solved in that country. So I said, "Then come and get me. Knock yourself out." (laughs) So he did. So I went on the run and, um, rang all my friends (laughs) and all my powerful people in that country to say, "Look, I need to solve this problem." Every one of them were saying, "This is bullshit, it's ridiculous. Um, we'll fix it for you. Just stay out of the way." So everyone gave me the keys to different apartments round Egypt and I spent four months avoiding being grabbed. Hiding in alleyways and waking up in the middle of the night 'cause they were coming for me.

    6. CW

      I was gonna say, what's the closest call you had?

    7. PE

      Uh, three o'clock in the morning, they know where you are. "Get out of bed, go now. Burn- throw all your phones." I was working, but I had burners and everything, man. Brilliant.

    8. CW

      (laughs)

    9. PE

      Yeah, I'd watched a James Bond movie and thought I'd get away with it.

    10. CW

      You know how it's done.

    11. PE

      Well, I thought I knew how it was done. Those lads are smart, way smarter than I thought they were. Um, so in the end, um, some dude grasped me up. So I was, some bullshit story, um, "We know the judge who's gonna try the case. If you come and interview, if you come and tell your story to him, give him your passport, he'll release you into his custody and you don't have to go into a jail." I'm like, "All right, cool, I'll do that." Uh, walked into this room, um, and as I walked in there was just him, sat on his own. I'm like, "You fucker." And then bang, in they came, MP5s. Threw me in the back of a van and then proper abused me for a while to, to remind-

    12. CW

      Teach you a lesson.

    13. PE

      ... to remind me of I'm just a British kid and we won't have that arrogance. Um, and then I got thrown in a Cairo jail, which was, um, yeah, an extremely unpleasant experience.

    14. CW

      How long for?

    15. PE

      I did 12 days in the, the darkest places you can imagine.

  32. 41:00 – 43:19

    Jail in Cairo

    1. PE

      Yeah.

    2. CW

      Are there many jails in Cairo? Just one?

    3. PE

      I don't know. (laughs)

    4. CW

      No?

    5. PE

      I only saw one. I only saw one. Yeah, not, um, not something I would wish on my worst enemy. Let's put it like that.

    6. CW

      Lawless inside?

    7. PE

      Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. Read a b- you've read about it in the book. Um, so then eventually my, my biggest friend in Egypt, and in the book he's known as MBF, my big friend, uh, flew in, um, and intervened. Met the, uh, head of the district attorney and said, "What's going on? Why do you need this kid? Why, what, what's the, what's the, what's the big situation?" And it turned out that the guy who was after me, it was his brother who was the guy in the Ministry of Tourism. And he didn't want him prosecuted. So the minute he could get hold of me, his brother ... 'cause his brother was arrested. So the minute I was grabbed, the case could be done, lost, and his brother could go out. And that's why he had such a hard on for me.

    8. CW

      What happened to his brother in the end?

    9. PE

      The whole case disappeared. There was no, no charges, nothing.

    10. CW

      Right.

    11. PE

      My general manager spent four months in jail. I was away from my family for four months. I had the most horrific experience of my entire life in that Cairo jail. Um, and there was no consequence to anybody whatsoever. That was the end of it. So then I decided it was probably a good time to leave that country. I'd lost faith there. I was, uh ... that really upset me. I'd given so much to that country. You know, at one point we appli- we employed over 1,000 people. You know, and, and I worked so hard to do great stuff in that country. I gave it way more than it gave me. And I felt betrayed. I hadn't done anything wrong. The way I was treated was bang out of order. I was a good person, I, I was doing good things in that country. I was introducing nightlife. I was the first guy to bring house music into Egypt. I, you know, we brought the Ministry of Sound, we brought Headcandy. We were doing some really cool stuff. And we were doing it properly, we were doing it right. And that was just a shitty experience. So I, I'd kind of said to myself, you know, "I'm, I'm, I don't really wanna be here anymore. I don't feel safe any longer." And once you don't feel safe somewhere, that's a scary place to be. Um, but then bam, revolution happened. So then we didn't really get a chance to plan our exit or strategize how we were gonna move.... 18th of January, everybody went into the streets and started protesting against the president. And seven days later, I'd lost 85% of my business and I was done. That was the end of

  33. 43:19 – 44:11

    Repatriating private businesses

    1. PE

      it.

    2. CW

      It became s- uh, how would you say? Kind of repatriated, private businesses became just repatriated toward the government, right? People just came and took businesses-

    3. PE

      Oh, God.

    4. CW

      ... and then they released criminals into the street and stuff?

    5. PE

      They, they, they opened every single, uh, prison. And we had, we had a... I remember one night when I'd managed to get all of the, um, all of the foreign workers that, or employees, team members that we had, to my villa. And we fueled a boat that sat offshore and we had, you know, makeshift weapons because there was a bunch of prisoners come into our compound to basically rape and loot. And we'd heard about this. It, it, it had hit that coastal, that compound, it hit that one, it hit that one, it'd come to ours. You know, we're sitting there with fucking baseball bats waiting for, to protect our homes. I mean, that was the most frightening 48 hours

  34. 44:11 – 45:37

    Two revolutions

    1. PE

      of my life. Horrendous.

    2. CW

      Wasn't it... There was two revolutions. Is that right? Was there-

    3. PE

      Yeah. (laughs)

    4. CW

      Yeah. What, what...

    5. PE

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      How did that work?

    7. PE

      (laughs) So they, they (laughs) , they didn't like the existing, um, government. Um, so he stood down and that panned out the way it did. And then in came the Muslim Brotherhood, um, and I... They didn't like that, and so they, they went back and did it again. And they went back and... But I was gone by then. I was gone. So I, I left everything, what we had. You know, we'd gone from... We had 18 operating places in January, and by February we had six. That was it. It was over. I moved here with 20,000 bucks and we were, we had a business that was doing a million sterling a month, half a million sterling a month. Yeah, it was gone. It was done.

    8. CW

      And then you arrived in Dubai?

    9. PE

      Yep. Arrived in Dubai and then bought and sold cars on da bizzele for 18 months to put my kids through school and pay the rent, and convince, um, some investors to back me in a, in a bar play. And eventually, in 2013, I managed to convince a consortium of individuals to lend me some money and I built Q43. And that was it. The journey began, and you know, then we spent the next six years, we've done 14 venues, 15 venues now. Um, it's been incredible. Absolutely, I couldn't have, I couldn't have wished it in my wildest dreams it would have been as, um, enjoyable and successful and fruitful as it has

  35. 45:37 – 48:41

    Unchosen adversity

    1. PE

      been.

    2. CW

      Happier in Dubai than you were Happiest- ... happiest in Egypt?

    3. PE

      Happier in... Happier today than I've ever been in my entire life. Even in COVID, this is the happiest I've ever been. And tomorrow, I'll be a little bit more happy.

    4. CW

      What's that built around, other than serving other people?

    5. PE

      The ability to deal with... The ability to know that you can come through pretty much anything. You know, we talked about this off, off, off the camera that unchosen adversity is actually one of the greatest gifts you'll ever be given. The, the real understanding of what the body can deal with when it has to deal with it, what the mind can deal with when it has to. You know, you touched on, um, you know, whether it's a triathlete or a, or a mara- an ultra-marathon runner who chooses to take himself in deep water, the reward at the end of that is amazing. You know, I chose to, to do an ultra-marathon. I'm speaking in the third person, I can't do an ultra-marathon. I have no desire to do an ultra-marathon. Um, and at the end of it, you've done it. Wow, boom, amazing. But you chose to go there. You chose to put yourself through that, and you choose to feel the reward of that. When something happens to you that absolutely slaps you up the side of the head and is relentless in its pursuit of demolishing you, and you're able to come through it? The foundations and the, the strength that that gives you to overcome whatever this globe is gonna throw at you. And believe me now, your ankle is not the only shit that's coming your way. Your ankle will show you, "I can deal with this shit. I never thought I could. So whatever you're gonna give me, I believe today whatever you're gonna give me is just a puzzle that I need to start fixing." You know, I have not... And this sounds... And I, I mean this in the most humble of manners. I've not flinched once in COVID. Not once. Not once have I sat there and gone, "Oh my God. How am I gonna..." No. "Hmm. This is the chance for me to prove how good I really am. I think I might be very good at this bar business malarkey. Now's my chance to prove it." 'Cause when it's easy and they're just all walking in, yeah, it doesn't need a guy like me to run it. Any one of us can run it. These are the moments when you get the opportunity to really shine. How do I navigate through the most challenging food and beverage marketplace ever? And when I do, wow, look at the version that's gonna come at the end of that. That's how I see it. And I was able, I'm able to see that because of all the other shit. You know, as I'm hiding in a alleyway in Cairo thinking, "Shit, what's gonna happen to me?" Nothing, really. Okay, what happened was horrific, but I'm still able to sit in your beautiful apartment and you'll, you want to talk to me about it. So what came of it? I became more interesting. I became more able to help individuals come through that bullshit 'cause I proved it. I've come through it. I'm a... I am, uh, the, the living, sleeping, breathing proof that a 13-year-old boy who's never gonna do anything in his life can become a guy today that you reach out to and say, "Hey, listen, should we chew the fat a little bit?" Wow.

    6. CW

      We have too much caffeine in us.

  36. 48:41 – 52:03

    Why youre here

    1. CW

      Couple of things I've got in my mind. First one being, my newsletter that I put out this week, I was spending some time with ultra-endurance athletes.

    2. PE

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      And one of the realizations that I got was that, "This is why you're here," is a very good sentence to tell yourself when things get challenging. We can start to flinch and turn away when discomfort comes in. Right? Discomfort naturally is uncomfortable.But that discomfort is a sign of growth, whether it's building a relationship, building a business, learning a new skill, in the gym, whatever it might be. The discomfort is a feature, not a bug.

    4. PE

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      That is the reason that we're doing the thing that we're here for, so lean into it because the time's gonna pass in any case. So you might as well spend it well. So that's one of the- the- the, um, lessons that I'll certainly be taking away from Dubai, that there are... I spoke to Marcus Smith, the guy who hit a wall at 54 kilometers an hour, snapped s- seven ribs, punctured a lung, and ripped his scapula off, and had to focus on just keeping himself alive by breathing until he got picked up by a- ambulance three hours later, and then ran for the Sheikh last year, 30 marathons in 30 days. Like, hearing people who go through that level of adversity... We were talking before we started about how brilliant it would be for everybody if there was an inverted Instagram-

    6. PE

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      ... where instead of seeing the best of everyone's lives, you get to see the worst.

    8. PE

      The real.

    9. CW

      What is, what is the absolute worst scenario that you can imagine? A- a person who lives some weird form of, like, panic room torture Inception movie with, uh, their father d- dying and then wakes up having lost a third of their body weight, and then, you know, like that. Uh, that's a story that people need to hear and I think that contrasting effect is so important. And the other thing that I've got in my mind is, especially this year, all of our problems in the 21st century are problems of abundance and not scarcity. We have too much stimulus, we have too much convenience, we have too much food, and what that leads to is people who are inexperienced with adversity, inexperienced with discomfort. One of the reasons why sports like CrossFit and ultra-endurance races have an attraction is that it gives people the opportunity to do that.

    10. PE

      Mm-hmm.

    11. CW

      But I think that this, for a lot of people, especially in the West, COVID will be the first real adversity-

    12. PE

      Yeah.

    13. CW

      ... they've ever faced. My friend asked me a c- about, probably about a year ago, he said, "When was the last time that you failed at doing something?" And I was like, "Bro, I- I really don't know." Like, I haven't failed, up until about 30 years, stuff hadn't gone perfectly and there would have been businesses I'd started that had kind of fizzled out or whatever, but no big catastrophes, no major failures. And he was like, "Man, I- I- I d- I think that you are missing out on valuable learning opportunities. I don't know how you can make yourself fail, but there is something to be learned through failure." And this year, for a lot of people, will be their first experience of failure. Now I've happened to get a double hit of it in that I've experienced COVID-

    14. PE

      Mm-hmm.

    15. CW

      ... and ruptured my Achilles during COVID, which is like, okay, like that's two

  37. 52:03 – 57:50

    Reframe 2020

    1. CW

      things. But very quickly when that happens, especially with the Achilles, less so with COVID, I dealt with that fairly easily, I was so surprised at the resilience and the fortitude that my system was able to create that I didn't even know it was there. It was like opening a door inside of a house I'd lived in my entire life to a room that I didn't even know existed.

    2. PE

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      And that was very, a very, very interesting experience. And I wonder, uh, I wonder how many people can reframe the experience of 2020 in a way that makes them better than if it hadn't happened, that brings them closer together with their family, or...

    4. PE

      That- that's the key. The key is to take from this what it's giving you. You know, you- you talk about failure, um, th- you know, "When was the last time you failed?" It's a fabulous question. I've never failed. I'm still practicing. You only fail when you quit. And if you go back at it again, then you remove the failure. So I'm not, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna, I'm gonna learn to run a marathon, right? And off I go, train in marathon, train, train, train, train, train. And I get to 17 kilometers and I quit, right? Then I've quit, then I've failed. And until I start that journey again, I still have the failure ticked. The second I go, "I'm not having that," and I start again, I've just rubbed out failure, not failed, because I'm still at it, I'm still going. And at some point in my life, I'll run that marathon and never ever fail. I've had bars that didn't work, could be considered failures. I consider them to be educational messages to make sure I never build a bar like that again. That's not a fail. I don't need to fail. What I need to do is figure out the solution to what's put in front of us. I think, you know, one of the biggest messages of people that, uh, platforms that are growing like your good self is the ability for people... and why people are watching it, 'cause they wanna get hope, they wanna get, they wanna get answers to questions they don't have. You know, so many people are asking at home, "When is this thing over?" I'm not asking that. I can't control that. So why focus on it? What I can control is what I do in the moment. I'm not chasing down that vaccine. That- w- how can I possibly, possibly make a difference to a vaccine process? I might be able to sell a few of them when I get hit, but don't focus on the end of it. You're in the middle of it. Focus on now, how are you gonna deal with it now? Don't focus on when am I gonna come out of it. We all wanna come out of it. We all want it to be over. But we, let the people who are busy with that be busy with it. You be busy with what you can control. You won't hear me asking the question, you know, "Shit, I can't wait til this thing's over." 'Cause that's so obvious. Of course we all wanna go back to normal. Quite, I'm not that impressed by normal. I'm not that impressed by (snaps fingers) instant gratification. Earn it. And I have that challenge with my children, you know, that they want it so easy. I had to fight with every tooth and nail to get to where I am today, and I've enjoyed that process. Today, we knock on a door of our neighbor and we go, "What do you think?"And if a neighbour goes, "What are you talking about?" Well, it's- it's just Instagram really. It's the same thing, but I just want that personal interaction 'cause this photo of me in this T-shirt only got 127 likes. This one got 100, 200, 500, whatever the number may be. When I was a kid, it's the same as knocking on your neighbour's door and going, "What do you think?" Your neighbours think you're a lunatic. In today's world, we want the now. We're not prepared to do the graft.

    5. CW

      (coughs)

    6. PE

      COVID is the graft. This is the world showing us, the universe showing us ain't meant to be easy, mate. It's meant to be hard. Because if you work at it and it's hard, it has a value. Easy money, easy come, you know, easy go. You, you go and gamble and you put $500 on red and it comes up and you win a grand, you're gonna spunk the grand on a pair of shoes 'cause you just won it. You wouldn't have bought a grand, uh, a grand shoes prior to winning it. If you've earned that thousand, it has a value. And I've said that from our bar business. Be busy with the guy who spends the 50 dirham on a pint, because he earns his money and it means something to him. So say thank you to him. The guy who comes and spends a million dirhams on a certain check at the moment, he doesn't give a shit about you. He's got no loyalty to you whatsoever and he's got no value to money. Don't be busy with him. Be busy with the normal man that understands how hard it is to earn that money, because he'll be your guy who's in your bar four times a week. He's your guy who comes to you in COVID 'cause he remembers what you were like in the good days. The dude spending a million, he doesn't give a shit about money. Doesn't know it. Never... He's got no comprehension of what it takes to earn a million dirhams. That's why he's prepared to spunk it on a check. It's disgusting. Be after the guy that's earned it. COVID should teach us all, let's earn it a little bit. Whatever it may be. Earn the right to run the triathlon, earn the right to run the marathon, earn the right to go from 50,000 to 70,000 to 90,000 to 100,000 followers. You've earned it. I asked you how many shows you did at the beginning of this. Two and a half thousand shows.

    7. CW

      250.

    8. PE

      250 shows. How many hours is that?

    9. CW

      100s, 1000s, yeah.

    10. PE

      It's a shitload.

    11. CW

      Yeah.

    12. PE

      Plus research, plus reaching out, plus convincing someone to come on the show, plus the editing. You know, you have grafted to get 80,000, 92,000, whatever the number may be. You've earned it. So it feels like you've been given, it feels like you got it. You didn't go and buy 90,000 followers, did you? No. You went and grafted it, you went and earned it. So that would be my message to anybody who's looking to what can you take from, from this COVID experience. Take the fact that it's not actually meant to be easy. It's meant to be tough, because tough is worth something.

  38. 57:50 – 1:05:38

    Social Media

    1. PE

    2. CW

      One of the concerns that I have, especially with COVID, that's been weaponized by social media, I've seen it increasingly with, uh, my dad, with all of my friends. Anyone that posts on Facebook, less so on Twitter, but Facebook seems to be the social media of choice for speculation in 2020.

    3. PE

      (laughs)

    4. CW

      You know what I mean.

    5. PE

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      And I worry about how much people are externalizing their locus of control. So our locus of control should always be as close to ourselves as possible. So you have social media, which prioritizes socialized metrics of success. This is something that you can see easily, it's outward-facing.

    7. PE

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      There's no chart above your head where I can see your peace level or your happiness level. There's no happiness counter. Um, and sadly, I worry that the primary impact COVID has had on people are those socialized metrics of success. The 25-year-old, 30-year-old, 35-year-old guy or girl who harnessed a lot of their self-worth from being in the right place with the right people, with the right car, with the right shoes, with the right friends, the right follower count on Instagram, now no longer can use that. They've had to focus, if they pivot correctly, on internal measures of success.

    9. PE

      Does it not scare the shit out of you that our world today genuinely values that level of matrix as a barometer of success?

    10. CW

      So...

    11. PE

      Famous for being famous.

    12. CW

      I don't like it. I've got strong opinions about it. Um, but status signalling has been around for millions of years in biology and the fact that it's now being weaponized and been given a metric-

    13. PE

      Mm-hmm.

    14. CW

      ... by some companies like Twitter and Instagram and Facebook... Yes, the war for our dopamine and our ability to see what's truly going on has... The power of the weapons has swayed now away from us and that locus of control is outside a little bit more. But the game's the same. It's a, it's-

    15. PE

      When, when your 14-year-old girl says, "Dad, can I have an Instagram account?" What are you gonna tell her?

    16. CW

      No. No. The only other industry-

    17. PE

      Why?

    18. CW

      The only other industry that causes their customers and users are drug dealers. And social media's that one.

    19. PE

      We both did the same documentary.

    20. CW

      Yes. So Tristan Harris-

    21. PE

      But he's so right.

    22. CW

      Tristan Harris, the guy that's on that, I've been a fan of him for three years. Tristan, if you're listening, answer my emails please, mate.

    23. PE

      (laughs)

    24. CW

      Um, I've been a fan of him for three years and I went deep, deep, deep down the rabbit hole with him a long time ago. Uh, and the other insight, which I thought was really, really interesting from that, was looking at how, uh, Steve Jobs didn't let his kids have an iPad.

    25. PE

      (laughs)

    26. CW

      What does that say?

    27. PE

      It says everything and it says nothing.

    28. CW

      Yeah, I know.

    29. PE

      So it's a great bit of a PR tool. It's a great story from a, from a, from a man who was, you know, probably one of the greatest corporate leaders of our generation, at least. Like him, loathe him, you've got to respect him. Um, it's a great story.... whether his kids have iPads or not, who'll ever know? You don't, we don't know any ... We know what people want us to know, you know. Um, my son has an Instagram account. He's not posted a single thing. Why is he busy with Instagram? It's the route to the quickest success rate of what he's busy with at the moment. He doesn't give a shit whether he gets likes or not likes. He's not in it for that. Uh, he's in it to see pretty little girls dressed up, looking nice, 'cause he's a 15-year-old kid full of testosterone. I get it. Um, the second he starts posting and then he starts changing the type of post that he posts to see the level of ... then that's when Dad will step in and say, "Listen, mate, it's ..." I did it for a purpose. I'm in an industry where, fortunately or unfortunately, it's a requirement of what we do. Um, I, but I know what it is. I, I don't count likes. I'm not bothered by it. It doesn't matter to me. Um, but I, I did count followers because the more followers, the bigger the message. The louder the message, the more, you know, When I Woke Up, the book, can, can get out there and help people. I will not make a single pound out of When I Woke Up, but I've made so much from personal growth of, first of all, going through the experience of writing it and going deep in those (breathes deeply) inner dark moments that I had to go through to become who I was. And then to tell people that, you know, that is some enlightening shit. For example, I won't dance on a stage 'cause I'm petrified of people laughing at me, from when I was 13, curled up in a ball, being kicked in a playground. Um, I still won't dance 'cause I can't stand the thought process that you laugh at me, because the echoes of the children laughing at me when I couldn't spell library still ring true in my head. The ability to release that was something I was never prepared to do. I'm gonna keep that inside of me. That's, that's my demon. When I released it into a book, eventually I was like, wow, that's, wow, that's amazing. Show my vulnerability. Show my me. I'm not this hard dude covered in tattoos. I'm actually, I cry, I cut, I bleed. I'm, I'm a normal, decent human being. Um, that was a process that I went through. Everybody that reads the book and writes me one comment is worth way more than any money I'll ever make out of that book. Way, way more. So I needed a following, I needed people to listen so I could help. That was my thought process on it. I've kind of backed off that. In COVID, I went completely away from it. The only thing I shared during COVID was the little projects of the things I was building with the kids in, uh, in the, in the garden. But an interesting thought process that you wouldn't let your 14-year-old girl go on it. Would you let your 15-year-old boy go on it?

    30. CW

      (tuts) So yes, probably. Probably 15 to 16 I think would be the line, and it would be older for girls and it would be for boys.

Episode duration: 1:05:39

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