Hello everyone and welcome to this very special episode of Productivity with Zest. Today I am very privileged to sit down with someone I know pretty well.

My dad, Dr. John Kirkby, CBE. John is the founder of Christian Skin’s Poverty Cap, an organization born in Bradford in 1996 from his experience in finance and personal hardship. Dad grew cap from a bedroom office startup when I was nine into an international movement, helping thousands of people break free from debt equipping communities and expanding into Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada.

And now, instead of retiring and looking after his grandchildren, he’s growing a new charity as I 61. But beyond Cap, I know my dad has been entrepreneurial from a very young age. Facing crisis, adapting, pivoting, and staying productive and consistent over decades. So today I want to dig into how he’s kept momentum across seasons, how he thinks about productivity at 20 versus 60, and what wisdom he’s passed on to someone trying to build something meaningful for the long haul.

So, dad, thank you for being with me. That’s a fantastic introduction. Wow. Thank you for the introduction. We could stop there already. My podcast guests come on and say, Ooh, you’re picking me up in the intro. But this is all stuff that’s real. Yeah, it is real.

It’s nice to, yeah. Nice to have a moment just to go, wow. How did all that happen? Fab. So we’re gonna go back to the start. When did you first realize that you had a drive to start something like a business project venture, and work for yourself as opposed to being an employee? 12. 12. Wow. Tell me Bob.

Quite difficult home life at the time. So my dad actually was termin ill at the time. I was just approaching teenage years. Things were a little bit chaotic as you would imagine, at home. I met a guy who ran a car shop and I went down to get some oil for my dad, for the car, which I was looking after ’cause he was in hospital.

And I asked the guy for a discount. I just asked him for a discount. And you can imagine what I must have thought, who is this kid who’s walked in and asked me for a discount? So first of all, I got one. And then I said to him, I said, so how do you get all this stuff?

Where do you get this from? How much do you make? You know, I just started asking him those questions. Eventually he told me his distributor and I went and bought, car stuff from a distributor with my dad and put a sign in the attic window of our house. Believe it or not, no one would ever see that sign, but I put one up at 13 saying car parts for sale.

I also realized I knew nothing about business, but the urge was there, I suffered from dyslexia and was deemed to have special needs at school. At the time, dyslexia wasn’t so, I was deemed special needs. I did not like school.

School did not like me. I was quite a lost young man. I left school at 15 a year early by making up a national insurance number. Borrowing my friend’s national insurance number, making one up, telling ’em I was 16 and got a job in a paint factory putting lids on paintings. And they said that you could take paint home that was damaged.

And I started taking paint home that was damaged and selling it. My number one thing, which I still can’t quite understand is because I could add up really well. They asked me to do the sandwich run to go from the factory for breakfast and lunch. There were two sandwich shops, 50, a hundred meters apart, I went into one and said, I have 80 sandwiches to buy every day.

What’s my price list? And went into the other one and said the same, pick the lowest price list, and made more money doing the sandwich run at 15 than I did getting paid, I realized there was something to do with business. Wow. Dad. I think that that’s the first story is one that I’ve never heard before.

I think that’s a story that I’ve not heard. That is so funny that you did that and you put the sign up. In the loft window. Wow. Somehow the fact that I started a tamagotchi babysitting business at 10 doesn’t seem that odd. Now I definitely know where I get it from. Yes. I thought it was a bit odd.

As your dad, but I’m thinking, great. She’ll go far. So you did lots of different things, tried lots of different things. What early failures or experiments did you do that shaped how you approach risk now? Yes. My dad died at 18. My mom unfortunately had a mental breakdown, so I was literally on my own.

At 18, the authorities shut the file because I was over 18. So I had to bring myself up to a certain extent. First of all, I realized life was serious. Up to then I realized life was serious, so I had to do something. I learned to be an activator.

I learned to get ready on the way. You can plan when starting something that you don’t know what it is too much. So I used to start things. The lessons I learned were numerous and mainly it was just. Lack of wisdom but I gained wisdom through making mistakes.

I think the funniest one was when I decided to sell washing up liquid at a car boot sale, and bought concentrated washing up liquid from a chemical company in a barrel. Both loads of plastic bottles put a certain amount in the bottom, filled them with water, shook them up, went to a car boot sale and started selling them.

And the problem was, it wasn’t the right stuff. So as people bought them and walked around the car, boot sale, it settled back to the bottom of the thing with a concentrate with water. People started bringing them back to our store saying, this isn’t the right stuff. So I was selling it as fast as I could and then deciding when to run off the car boot sale in the back of a van and realized, know your product.

Know your product, know your product, know your product inside out. And each time I did something, fire extinguishers, saunas, sunbeds, water filters, you name it. Just learning all the time, but also never really disappointed and always realized I’d be fine. So I kind of wasn’t put off by disaster and failure.

But that’s what entrepreneurs do. That’s what people who build businesses do. You have to have the ability to roll with the punches and go, that didn’t work. I made a mistake. The humility and then the openness go, but I’ve learned. Don’t sell washing up liquid at a car boot sale when you haven’t checked.

It’s the right stuff. That resilience is so key, and this is something that me and Dad have chats about all the time. When I’ve had a dip in business something’s gone wrong or not like I expected it to go or I was let down by something or someone, I called my dad knowing that, he goes, yeah, you don’t get any better jazz.

Just pick yourself up. Move on. This happened to me last week and it’s actually quite reassuring to know that I’m building resilience with every challenge that I face. I’m building resilience for the long term and that’s what I’ve seen in dad. Luckily, I’ve not had to go down the hole selling washing up liquid at a car boot thing that is also bonkers, but.

We do try things and it’s good to try things and it’s good to fail and good to learn. Mm-hmm. So, dad, you tried all these things selling saunas and washing up liquid and car parts when you were 13 and then you settled into the consumer finance industry. So tell me a little bit about that.

Okay, so, I started my career in finance very in mind. I needed to, earn to eat. Super, super, super where to start a business. But if I didn’t earn, I didn’t eat. So I was a door-to-door debt collector in Bradford. However, even in what could seem to be a really clear way of doing it, knocking on a door saying, you owe me money and ask him for money.

By the way, that was the training course right there. I just thought, well. I don’t think that’s the best way to do this. So I was 18, and I started this collection round but approached it in a completely different way than I’ve been trained because I had enough confidence to think there’s always a better way.

And I think that would be one thing that has followed me for the last 50 years. Because there’s a better way of doing it. It’s just that simple. So I’m still doing it. And what I did is I realized that, um, all business is people, whether you’re collecting money selling houses at an estate agency life insurance or all the other myriad things I did, it’s all about people.

I realized that if you can’t engage with people, business is gonna be hard and unsuccessful. So as a debt collector, I basically engage with people. I, I realized by experimenting that if the first time I knocked on the door, I didn’t ask for any money and just said, hi, my name’s John. I’ve got this debt.

Can we first of all just check, is it yours? Is it the right amount? Is there any dispute? Is there anything I can help you with? What would you like to say to the company that you owe the money to? Do you like to have a think about what you’d like to pay? What could you afford? And I’ll come back next week when you’ve had a chance to think about it.

And that’s it. So I did it on my own. My results were phenomenal and they gave me a small number of people to run. So guess what I did? Trained them in the same way ’cause it worked, but also let them do their own variance of it. Who they were, what they were, made sure that the rules were adhere to in terms of how we did it.

And then got picked up by an American finance company who didn’t care about qualifications ’cause they didn’t really have any at the time. Or not many. And just applied the same principle about people, and I brought it into consumer finance and eventually ended up being reasonably successful I finally ended up designing brand new consumer finance products, and I did it by talking to people about what they wanted, not what we wanted to sell them.

Guess what? Know your product. Back to the washing up liquid. And lemme tell you, I knew my product by then. I could present to boards, but fundamentally, people know your product and drive and determination. I used to collect nose on my board, so I used to have a board in the office.

And I used to have no’s and yeses. Every time I got a no, I put across the number 1, 2, 3, 4, used to collect nos. ’cause I knew I’d never got to the end of the row without getting a yes. So I used to collect nos. Every time I got a no, I used to run back and, tick something, I need to achieve something.

I started collecting nos. ’cause I realized it was so unproductive, but I could think, well, one more. No. It’s near to a yes. And of course I worked to reduce the number of nos as a percentage of the yeses, so I did that as well. So collect me nos and increase the percentage of yeses and also people let you down.

I learned that really easy right at the beginning, and I kind of just expected people to let me down. And if anybody didn’t, it was a bonus. I didn’t rely on people as much as I used to do. ’cause I used to believe everything everybody said and promise when I was selling things. Oops. I love that about collecting nos.

That’s a really good principle because every No is getting you nearer to that Yes. And if you get one no, and you stop, you’re stopping the opportunity for the Yes. And there was a couple of really key things I think in that, that I just want to pull out. And the first one was about always adapting, always changing.

Is there a better way to do this? No matter whether it is the first time you’ve done it and someone else is teaching you. Or if it’s something that you’ve done the same way for years, is there a better way of doing this? Is there a more efficient way of doing this? Is there a more productive way in terms of will this get the outcomes I’m after?

I think that’s really key. And then just drilling it down to people. It is about people and what they want, and that’s amazing that that approach was so different when you were door todo collecting. It really worked because it’s about the people, not the money. The phrase is there is, and I think this really came into being as I became better. More successful through knowledge, resilience, learning product, all the kind, all the things that work very, very hard. Although always kept my work life balanced by the way, and I basically always said there is a better way.

When things became successful, I, so, you know, like the nos if I got too many before I got a yes. I would go, there is a, there not, there might be, there is a better way. And then I realized, one of the little things that you don’t realize until later, I kept that going when things were successful.

So we would do some brilliant, massive successful things. Yes, I’m happy to have a beer with everybody and everybody’s excited, but I’m sat in my room on Monday morning going There is a better way, there is a more efficient way.

And that approach of gradual improvement. It’s not about not being satisfied, it’s about being delighted and satisfied with what you’ve get. But then the, can we do this differently? Can we, and if it changes and doesn’t do any better, you go back again, humility to go back to where you was.

So that whole, there is a better way, but you’re unlikely to find it the first time. As definitely that’s been a thread through everything and continues to this day in all. So business interest I’ve got. Mm. So rather than, is there a better way, just that slight change, the swapping round of those two words, there is a better way.

It’s massive. So you move from the consumer finance industry to found cap. So tell me about that transition and what prompted you to leave that job and move into something completely new. Okay. Two things really. First of all, in the whole story of, my life, I had periods of, real abject, poverty, and very challenging period in my life, when I separated from your mom, which again, still really friendly with your mom. It’s never a good thing, but it was a reality that threw me into. Huge debt, not because your mother was unreasonable, is that I’d wrapped up too much debt doing unsuccessful businesses. So I ended up in one as you know, you were with me in my friend’s room, we slept on camp beds.

There was not much money was there? Ja, no. Um, and I also realized how people will abandon you when you’re on hard times, so nobody bothered with me. All the people I thought were friends left me. Now because I was in the consumer finance business and I’m entrepreneurial and a go-getter, I had all that was required for me to get out of it.

Listeners won’t be surprised. I got out of it. I set a system up, negotiated with my debtors and sorted it out. In the meantime was still working in consumer finance, so that recovered as well. Then I met, Lizzie second wife managed for 30 years now, who took all of us on and everything looked brilliant.

Then I walked into a secure lending division sat in a, an office with like glass, just looking out all, all these people working. And again, this is an air side, but it can be a b side of entrepreneurial people. We’re really willing to just do some stuff and we also will pursue what we want to do.

I always think if you’re talking to an entrepreneur and they don’t want to do what they’re doing, it’s not right, you’ve got to actually want to do what you’re doing, and I just did not want to do consumer finance anymore. I’d also found Faith, about two years before this.

So I had a different outlook on life I walked in one day and I just went, I’m done. I didn’t leave until I knew what I wanted to do. Another thing, so I knew I didn’t wanna do this, but I spent some time and it became clear to me that I wanted to help people whose lives are devastated by debt and circumstantial problems.

The circumstantial problems cause the debt generally. I thought like all entrepreneurs and leaders and business people do, I could do that. I can help people who’ve been where I’ve been, I can put a system together. So, I started Christians Against Poverty in my office with 10 pounds in 1996.

After giving my job up, just getting married, Lizzy. And I just went from there. The success appears, like it went really well, really quickly. It didn’t, the first 10 years were like chiseling granite. With a spoon. Literally the spoons broke all the time.

Nothing chipped off where I was trying to get everything broke. We had no money. We didn’t get paid on time. We ended up having to mortgage the house, all that kind of things. But I knew that I was onto something and that’s the thing with all business people, um, in terms of what’s really important, you know, so.

I met some people in Belfast last week who were asking me about their business and I just said, do you believe in it? You just could tell. Looking into the eyes straightaway. I said, do you believe in this business? Do you believe in it? Not anybody else. ’cause no one else believe in it.

Do you believe in it? And I believed that what I was doing was worthwhile. I believed that it had potential. The need was massive. We had something unique. I was learning every day. And also then other people around me who shared that passion and vision. And together we did see it grow to 500 centers in the uk, a thousand frontline workers.

Again, why can’t we do this somewhere else? Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and 25 years of that. In the meetings before I decided to hand it on, I was thinking there is a better way. There is a better way. I’ve learned a lot listening to you with what you are doing with, zest productivity.

I think it’s wonderful. When you say things that you’re telling people, I’m like, oh yeah. Never start the day without a list ever in 50 years. Never, ever started not knowing what I’m trying to achieve by next month. Mission critical. Ruthless elimination of stuff.

That’s not mission critical. I’m going nowhere. Speaking at no events. Not doing anything unless it’s mission critical, so that. Productivity element that I didn’t, obviously it’s been great to watch your business grow and all the, I mean, the wisdom you bring, I’m making notes myself.

I’m learning all the time, but that whole thing about being organized and planned and productivity, is just something I’ve done for that long. I didn’t realize I was doing it. I can’t show you ’cause it’s a podcast, but that this week’s jazz Oh, and it’s highlighted as well.

Yeah. I’ve got six greens already. What’s green mean? Done. Oh nice. So you highlight to show that you’ve done it. Yeah, and although you can use, digital. I like the physical act also it means that I’ve gotta write it down. If I’ve gotta write it down, I’ve gotta make sure that it’s mission created or I’ve gotta write it down so it gives me a check before I decide to do something.

Lots of ideas, lots of things to do. If I’ve gotta write it down, I’ve gotta do it. So before I write it down, I just pause and go. Really? Somebody asked me for an interview this morning and I went. Nah. ’cause it’s not mission critical. That’s where I see so many people get themselves really worked up with productivity because they haven’t figured out what is mission critical because they dunno their mission.

They dunno what they want to do in a month’s time, three months time. And I think at different stages of businesses and different personalities, we all plan for different lens. I generally have a loose plan for the next year, but I have a more solid plan for the next three months. And I have a more solid plan for the next month and I adapt because if something doesn’t work, I wanna change it.

I’ve tried all sorts this year that have bombed so much that I don’t think even people will have seen them ’cause they were that bombing. But I know that they’re bombed and it’s all about thinking about what do you wanna achieve and then what are the critical tasks for that.

And that ruthless elimination of everything that isn’t. It’s that 80 20 rule of 80% of your outcomes. Come from 20% of your activities. If you can highlight the 20% of activities that will push you towards your goal more and double your efforts in them, then you’re gonna massively increase your output.

But it’s something where we get head up in the busyness and it. Takes a moment for you to be ruthless. That might be every week when you’re doing your to-do list. What isn’t mission critical? Get rid of that delegate. If it’s important, but not for now. Or just delete it completely.

And the great thing is we can do that. Especially when we are running our own businesses. But even when you are working for someone else, you still have a choice about what activities you do, you know, your goal, you know, hopefully your job description. And if you don’t find out I agree I have, like little axioms that when I say the word to myself, I know what I mean. The first one is the why, because I think it’s really easy for activators to go past the why. Why are you doing this?

What’s the reason? Making money, being successful, creating employment, doing something really well is absolutely fundamentally wonderful. We shouldn’t be embarrassed about our why, but we certainly should know it. And then the other one is, so what? When I’m.

Thinking of doing something, I always say to myself, so what, what will come from this? Is that thing that I believe will come from it? Is that worthwhile? Is it worth the is is the so what, what, what am I gonna come out of it? And then that gives you some calibration as to whether something’s working or not.

Uh, and if it isn’t. There is a better way. And if it works, there is a better way. I would think they’re definitely subconscious now. I know what my whys are. I know why I’m doing what I’m doing. Really clear and always have been. That flexibility and adaptability.

I mean, I plan very much, and it very rarely happens like I think it will. So I adapt. But it’s all adapting within set guidelines. I’ve set working out, I only work these days. I only do this. I’m not working at, you know, I only do what I have to do. And that’s also made me be more mission critical in what I do.

’cause if you’re just willing to work all the time, you’re less likely to be focusing on mission critical. And the more you can focus down on this is the amount of hours I’m willing to commit to this, this is what I’m gonna do, you will do more critical things otherwise, you just do everything and everything is the least successful thing to do.

Hmm. That’s a bit of a thing I’m trying to get my head around at the moment because I think it’s the business. I only launched it in January and I’ve got loads of ideas and it is just me at the moment I’m very productive in the time that I have. But I probably do work a bit more than I should.

It’s hard because I do have my lovely little limits. Who are my beautiful children? Rose and Jamie, who five days outta seven have me next to some form of football, pitch for hours, watching games, watching training. So I’m very limited by them. And I remember being a bit frustrated by that. And my sister, Jess, gave me a bit of a wake up call and she was like.

Even if you didn’t have kids and you were single living on your own, you still wouldn’t have enough time to do all the things that you wanted to do. So actually my lovely little limits are a really great boundary for me that stop me from working all the time because I do love what I do. You mentioned earlier about boundaries and work life balance.

So tell me how you’ve managed that over time, particularly when starting something new and when there’s a lot to do. Okay. Um, I think it goes back to why I think, and again, obviously we’re unpacking this really quickly, so you’ve gotta kind of go with the heart behind what I’m saying, not the particular statements that you might go, Ooh, ouch.

I often, rage against work. I rage against it. I challenge friends. I challenge everybody they can meet about it and I’ve often heard people say, well, I’m doing it for the family. Now, that might be true to a certain extent, but what. You can’t say you’re doing something for somebody unless you know what they want and what your family want, subconsciously or otherwise is they want some time with you.

They want to build a relationship with you. They want you to have time for them. Be that marriage, children, family, friends. You need time. No time. You can’t build relationships. So I do challenge the why. I worked long hours on occasions absolutely.

But I have never had a culture of working long hours. I don’t have my computer outside my office. I didn’t bring it home. I don’t do emails at home because I’m at home and the world spins. An example of that would be, uh, what would dare say? Yeah, I’ll say it. So for about. 10 years. I deleted everything I was CC’d on.

So every email that anybody sent that I wasn’t the person it was sent to, but I was copied in. By the way, we had 400 staff, so I got copied in a lot and I deleted them all for 10 years. No notice.

Because I didn’t have time to read all the ccs. I just do think, well, you know about it and I know about it, so what are you telling me for? So that kind of thing. So I think work-life balance is almost like a personal commitment. It’s where do you get your fulfillment from

I have been utterly fulfilled with my work. I’ve loved it all, despite the hardship and all the stuff that I’ve been through for 50 years, but also my family’s been really important to me. You can have two things why you do it. So my wife or a business, or a charity, or what I was doing was I want this to fulfill my calling as a dad, as a husband to my family.

That’s part of my why I want to run this charity or build this business really well, because that’s got to be part of my why. And people say, well, it’s okay for you now. You’re 64 and all your kids have left home. Yeah, we had five children at home. Yeah, we had three kids under five and we built a charity.

I found time to be at home with my kids when I was at home. Hopefully you could. You can testify. I can. And I don’t think I’ve achieved any less by doing that. When you look at what you’ve achieved in your lifetime, you know, you sold washing up liquid at a car boot, dad, you’ve achieved, but you’ve done so much and you’ve been recognized for it.

I was. Utterly proud and over the moon to be at two major occasions when you were recognized for the work that you’ve done. The first was when you got your honorary doctorate at Braford University. And I went and I had my little rose with me. I think she was one at the time. We got to watch you go up on stage and receive that, and that was amazing.

And it was just recognizing what you’d done for the country, for the city of Bradford and for the hard work that you put in. So you might not have, you know, you might have left school a year really, but you still got your doctorate, which I haven’t got, which I will do one day. I’m gonna peck at your heels for that.

And then the other one was in, 2018? When you got your CB. And that was incredible being in London and dad being dad, managed to get us all tickets to watch it, rather than just the usual, two guests. He’s like, well, I’ve got five kids, so sorry. So there was, all of us don’t say, don’t say someone, loads of people said to me, you’ve no chance they won’t give you five tickets.

And I said, well, I am gonna say they’re no forum. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We got the five tickets. We were in London. Watching you get that award from then Prince Charles, now the king in that room. And obviously the best bit was that Kira Knightly was in the room also getting a, I think she was getting an MBE, so that was a bit more exciting for me, it was incredible to get those external.

Validations and rewards because when you are building something, it can feel a bit reward less at times because you are slogging your backside off, feeling like no one’s noticing. And then there’s moments like that. For me getting the new Business of the Year award a week or so ago at the Keithley and Dale Business Awards new Business of the year.

I was not expecting it at all. And Daddy, you were there, weren’t you? Because of course I was. You were there to support me and my lovely husband and we were sat there and I was so nervous and I wanted it so badly. My heart was racing. I was flabbergasted to win because the people I was shortlisted with were amazing.

Their businesses are amazing, but I won it. And having that recognition means such a lot, doesn’t it? Yeah. I mean. We were, again, I’m not unusual. There’s millions of people like me, but I was really strategic in all that stuff because I knew you got so much disappointment, so much let down in everything that, you know, in business that’s gotta be part of it.

I used to set out with a view to make sure I got encouragement and I’d force it out if I had to. I collected every single thing anybody ever said good. I’ve still got the email thing on my computer today, which says encouragement. When anybody says anything slightly positive I put it in my encouragement box.

I just put it there ’cause I think that’s great. So I’m collected encouragement, but also, I had a strategic plan to win awards for me and the team. Why? ’cause it was mission critical. Why is it mission critical? Authority? All the advantages, but more importantly than all the external stuff was for us internally as a group as a leader, you know, won the Sunday Times Leaders of the Year, three times running, and also Charity of the year, Sunday Times twice, by the way.

That’s because we were really, really good. We weren’t the businessmen or women of the year by any stretch, we were basically the business. Of the year that entered. So very realistic about it. But yeah, those nights where we went down, sat on a table, what it meant to the team, and the encouragement it gives your customers or your supporters or your donors or whoever you’re engaging with.

Business is tough. Business is hard. You’ve gotta squeeze the encouragement out of it. Because otherwise it’s really difficult. Anyway, so awards. An email from someone says, oh, that was really great to meet you. I put that in your encouragement.

But also as business people, we need to be more encouraging to each other as well. We can be so encouraging for other people’s businesses. I used to spend all my time telling everybody else who are doing great, it’s free and it’s right because I know what it meant to me. We all know how much we need encouragement.

We should be way more interested in encouraging to other businesses. And as you so, so shall you reap. Mm. So be encouraging. You know, if, if you feel, and I’m not being encouraged by anybody, we’ll start encouraging other people and watch what happens. If we all did more encouragement to other businesses

event a couple of Fridays ago. The thing I loved about it was everybody on the table was really encouraging to everybody else’s business. I’m like, wow, that’s more like it. There’s no competition here. There’s plenty of people out there, plenty of opportunity. So let’s be encouraging to ourselves and others and our teams and other businesses.

Yeah, that’s really good. Really good tip. I keep little reviews and emails and things, and. You just, you dine out on them, for weeks. And if you’re feeling like, oh, it’s not worked, that thing’s not worked, that thing’s not done, panned out like I expected it to pan out. And you can feel a bit low.

You know, there’s times when I’ve called dad and said, right, I’m getting a job. I’m looking for jobs. I’ve applied for this job, I’ve got an interview for this job. And just before starting Zest, I was a sole trader and I was coaching and doing bits and pieces I actually got offered jobs, I’d accepted jobs and then turned them down a week later and, ’cause I knew it wasn’t the right thing for me to do, but it’s on those moments where I go, right. This is too hard. I’m not doing it anymore. We need to dine out on those encouragement. We need to dine out on them.

And also I would really stress from a productivity point of view, ’cause ultimately the productivity is if you don’t carry on, that’s not productive. Can we all agree that, you know, we forget the most productive things to keep going because if you stop, there’s no more production in what you’re doing. If I was talking to myself when I was in my twenties, I didn’t start it till I was in my thirties, is I should have journaled more. So I’ve journaled now for, 20 odd years, nearly 30 years. The reason why I do it is I write down all the stuff that doesn’t work, all the challenges that I face.

So I’m very honest. My personal one, it’s not public. I also go back to them and in italics, write down either what I learned from it. How it eventually turned out and literally, I do my own encouragement by reminding myself of all the challenges and how it all turned out okay in the end, and also what I learned from ’em and how I improve.

So almost like journaling the difficulties. You’ll realize that they don’t really matter ultimately, but also journaling your successes to remind yourself that this did work. This did happen because we so easily forget we can be our harshest critics, but fundamentally, if you’re still going, you’re doing really well,

so whenever you are listening to this, wherever you find yourself, whatever you’re thinking, if you’re still going on an idea or you’re still believing in a product, or you’re trying to get a business off the ground or wherever you are, whether however long you’re doing it, if you are still going, well done, really well done, well done, if you failed and got up again and gone again even more, well done.

Well done. It’s not for everybody. It’s a really special gift set and the rewards are enormous. The difficulties and expectations are high, high challenge, high reward. So well done everybody for, finding time to learn and pick up new ideas well done.

’cause you see people who, do one thing and it works and they think they’re the next Dyson. It’s like not really read his story, he failed loads. So just whether you’re doing well or not well done for keeping going. Thank you. I will take that encouragement as well.

On those days when you just feel like you’re smacking your head against a brick wall, at least we are still going and That’s right. You can’t be productive if you stop if I’d have given up and taken those jobs or. Applied for others I would regret it right now. I know I would.

But I’m really happy. I’m keeping going. You’ve mentioned if you were to go back and give yourself that advice about journaling, which I will take, I’m a spotty journaler, but I do go through seasons. I think it’s something that I would love to do more and more. How do you think your personal productivity rhythm, your routine rest or work blocks how has that evolved from your twenties, thirties to now?

That’s a big question, a good question. I think one of the most productive things you can do is stop doing some stuff. Sounds like, what, how can that be productive? I think even in the last five or six years, I have, definitely grown since I handed on Christians against Charity and began something really small and unresourced

brand new is less, is more. I wish I’d learned this 30 years ago. Less is more. Less is always more. You know, if it’s four sentences doing two. So less is, less is more. If you’ve got 20, core values do three. If you’ve got 15 objectives, what are the main two? You know, all that kind of.

So less is more. And also stop doing stuff. People say, well, that can’t be very productive. Well, if you can do something else that’s more productive, it is. So being honest with yourself. Brutal truth. Earlier, I had brutal truth, but often too late. Hence, failed estate agency, loads of debts, business that didn’t work because I just didn’t stop doing it earlier.

’cause I wouldn’t accept that what I was doing. Wasn’t working. I needed to do something in a different way. So I think stopping doing things is also something that I would’ve said to myself as a younger entrepreneur. Mm-hmm. But never stop being an entrepreneur. Never stop picking yourself up, dusting off.

I have had fear of man surgically removed. I have none. I’m not fearful of what other people might think or say. I’m certainly not perfect. Many mistakes in my life, definitely. Would’ve gone back and done some things differently.

Absolutely. But, I am not gonna live under. What other people think of who I am or what I do i’m very interested in what, my wife thinks. Close friends family, all that stuff. But in terms of being fearful of what other people might think or say, I’m not interested.

Why would I be interested in what you think? Do you care for me? Are you interested in me? You don’t know what I know you’ve not been where I’ve been. You don’t know my story. Trying to not be fearful of what other people think that allows you to make a much better decision over and over again.

I’ve made good decisions that other people have thought that’s not the right thing to do. But I’ve made the right decisions, or even when I’ve got it wrong, at least they’re mine and I’m not being influenced by what other people think. You know, the woulda should, or coulda the people who’ve never run a business who say they should have run a business or they would’ve run a business, or they could have run a business, and if it had been them, they’d have done this and it’d been really successful.

I’m like, no, I don’t think so. Not worrying about what other people think or even if the fear does creep in a little bit, but it doesn’t stop you doing it. And I’m sure it’s something that, like a muscle you’ve grown, but it’s certainly part of your DNA, which I feel like I’ve got that I do sometimes.

It never stops me from doing what I want to do or what I believe is the right thing to do. Yep. And I can see it in your lovely granddaughter, rose as well. I can see the way that she forges her path. She’s only 11, just gone 11, and she just makes that decision of, this is what I’m gonna do.

No matter what you think is the right thing to do, mother, this is what I’m gonna do. And she did it with her football. She was like, I’m a goalkeeper. And we said to her, but you are amazing on the pitch, amazing upfront. You can kick a ball really well. And she’s like, no, I’m a goalkeeper.

And we think part of the motivation was the fact that she would get a full game on the pitch ’cause she hated being subbed off she would always get that full 90 minutes, but she’s amazing. She now plays for Bradford as a goalkeeper, but she has now started playing back for one of her old teams, and she plays up front and she scored 12 goals in three games for them, but she’s still a goalkeeper.

And I’ve said to her, you sure you are not a striker? She went, no, I’m a goalkeeper. And she just has that. Other people can have their opinions, but if she’s made that decision, she will forge forward with it. She definitely will. Yeah. But I do think particularly for her, I’m really glad she’s got that because as she enters her teenage years there’s more peer pressure, she gets a phone, all those things.

I hope that this pure conviction in what she wants to do keeps her going and stops her being. Taken off on a different path, but we shall hope so. Dad, we are coming to the end now. Right? And we’ve got loads of amazing stuff in here about resilience and people first and ruthless prioritization, always thinking about not, what was the phrase?

Rather than, is there a better way? There is there a better way. There is a better way. All the time. So have you got any, anything else to add? Any little bit of advice to anyone who’s feeling like they’re not as productive as they’d like?

First of all, well done for being honest with yourself. As long as you are learning. I also work as a chaplain, as a police chaplain and help people in life in all sorts of different ways. Particularly people who are struggling.

Maybe that’s from where I was, but I think one of my major advices. To myself as if I was speaking to myself younger again, probably the one thing I would say to be, be kinder to yourself. Fundamentally, no one else can be kind to, you, it’s up to you.

But I, I think in all the drive, the ambition, which as you, you probably, as you know, and hopefully your listeners will have realized, I am gonna go and get that. I, I’m gonna make it happen. I’m gonna keep going. I’m gonna find. The new way, the better. I’m gonna keep going, but I’ve learned over the years to be kinder to myself as well.

And that actually gives you freedom to be more productive, gives you freedom to think more. It gives you freedom to not have any more pressure than is already on. And that kindness to yourself is really important. So write down the good stuff.

Write down what you’ve achieved, business people, forget what they’ve achieved. I keep reminding you what you’ve achieved, but you know what? From nothing. I mean, who does that? So you’ve just gotta be kinder to yourself. Yes, set yourself high bars, high expectations, high sales. Trust me, honestly, rah rah, Johnny boy, they used to call me.

I used literally do all that. But you can do all that. Just be kind to yourself. Have the ideas and the enthusiasm. But if it doesn’t actually work as well as you think, be kind to yourself, please everybody. Be kind to yourself. In doing that, you will create a much better environment in which you can become more productive, in which you can think a little bit clearer, but fundamentally create an environment of being kind to yourself

as most people will already know, if you’re in business, there ain’t a lot of people out there who are getting up in the morning going, I’m gonna be kind to you. So be kind to yourselves. Wonderful. Thank you so much, dad, for coming on the podcast. There’s some amazing stuff on there. You’re not on lots of social media, are you?

You are only on Twitter. It’s not even Twitter anymore. Is it X? Not really on that. And it’s mostly about Bradford City. So if you want to follow any of my dad’s opinions on Bradford City, I’ll put the link in the show notes so you can follow him on X. Thank you so much again, dad. Yeah, that’s great and well done.

Jazz, very proud of you. Love what you’re doing and you are making a difference in the productivity of business people and that is a worthy, brilliant why. Thank you, dad.