The Detached podcast
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Sophia
The Detached podcast
E:59 - Rob Warner: ‘Footsteps echo the longest around the corridors that you never walk’
What drives a 20-year journey in the fashion and sportswear industry? Join us as we welcome Rob, Chief Innovation Officer for Squat Wolf, who has also carved out a niche with his own design agency and academy. Discover how a school catwalk show ignited his passion for fashion, and how his love for Oasis led him to a pivotal university choice. Rob's story is a masterclass in balancing diverse roles and seizing serendipitous moments, all while reflecting on the academic and familial influences that have shaped his creative path.
In our second segment, we explore the emotional minefield of living far from family in the early 2000s, a time when communication was less advanced. Rob shares compelling personal anecdotes about adapting to life in Nuremberg, coping with intense homesickness, and the critical role that family support played in his journey. Alongside this, Rob delves into the duality of loyalty, sharing how it has enriched his life with deeper connections and the vulnerabilities it can bring when misplaced. This heartfelt conversation underscores the importance of loyalty, connection, and the collective consciousness shaped by shared experiences.
Our conversation takes a deeper turn as we navigate the intricacies of depression and anxiety, highlighting the importance of support and emotional resilience. Rob opens up about his unique experiences at Puma and Lululemon, linking personal growth with professional integrity. From the challenges and rewards of parenthood to the wisdom gained through varied life experiences, Rob emphasizes the importance of living in the present. Tune in for an episode brimming with life lessons, emotional transparency, and the courage to embrace both the highs and lows.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Detached podcast Today. I have the lovely Rob on site today, all the way from the UK, yeah.
Speaker 2:Can you introduce yourself properly, rob? 20 and a bit year career in fashion and sportswear and now I work as Chief Innovation Officer for Squat Wolf, as well as running a design agency and a design academy.
Speaker 1:Wow, so how do you manage everything?
Speaker 2:I'm thankful I was already bald when I started, but yeah it's. It can be quite tricky to to balance things. Being able to to prioritise and figure things out isn't always easy. But yeah, I'm quite lucky that, because of the nature of the industry, it does naturally have peaks and troughs in terms of what's happening at any given moment with the timeline.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so I just want to kind of pull things back a little bit, because I know obviously you're such a creative human being, and it's not even just these titles that you have and the industries that you've worked in. I just want to get to the root foundation of where did this creativity even start? When did you know you were this little creative soul? Oh man man?
Speaker 2:I don't.
Speaker 2:I always was, but I didn't know I was until I was older, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So as a kid I used to always design football kits, and trainers was my big thing, and I would get Roy of the Rovers, which was a comic for kids back in the 80s and 90s and before that, but obviously no use to me then and I would tip x out the kits and draw new kits over the top.
Speaker 2:I didn't think anything of it really until then, years later, we I was actually at a grammar school, like a selective grammar school, so I was really supposed to be like an accountant or chemist or a lawyer or whatever, and we had a guy came in from the children's charity, barnardo's, and wanted us to sell pin badges door to door, and for me it didn't feel like that would be enough and I wanted to do more. So randomly I decided to put on a catwalk show at school, so like a prototype of the in-betweeners, and, yeah, met a local fashion designer and a guy that owned a store and I started hanging out with the fashion designer, going to his studio in Birmingham on the weekends. This was when I was about 17.
Speaker 1:So that kind of episode that you've just explained. There is quite extravagant. How was the people around you during this time like? How do you find people supported you? Yeah, I did actually a little bit different. Yeah, I was quite.
Speaker 2:I was quite fortunate, I guess, that I'm in this school. It was like Hogwarts it's 450-year-old school set up by a bishop in you know, like the 1500s crazy. And I needed to drop an A-level to be able to focus on what I was wanting to do. Because I'd studied design up to GCSE level, so up to age 16 in the UK. So up to age 16 in the UK.
Speaker 2:And yeah, at that point that was all designing hair dryers and pens and boats and whatever else. It was very much industrial design and I didn't quite know what I wanted to do with it. I'd had a really bad sporting injury in my early teens as well, so I'd gone from doing a lot of sport and representing a lot of teams and schools to then not being able to do any at all, and so there was kind of this melting pot of I was creative, I wanted to design stuff. I quite fancied being a physiotherapist because I'd had so much physiotherapy and then, yeah, with with doing this catwalk show, it kind of brought me into the thought of sportswear. So I decided I wanted to go down the fashion route, started researching which universities to go to, Throughout that journey did you find it kind of difficult to understand what exactly was right for you?
Speaker 1:because it seems like you're in the fitness, you're in design. It's kind of a mix mash of a few different things. How did you feel like you were going and led? In? The fitness, you're in design it's kind of a mix mash of a few different things. How did you feel like you were going and led in the right direction, or did you just go with your gut or what was telling you to take a step forward?
Speaker 2:What was telling me to take a step forward, and this is God's honest truth. I was 17 years old at a boys school and I liked Oasis. So I went to university in Manchester and I chose fashion because I thought I'd meet girls, and at 17 it was. You know, I'd love to say I was profound and it was always my calling, but it was pretty much, as at the time, as simple as that. And there were plenty of times and there still are where I'm like did I really do the right thing? Was that? Um, yeah, I think I was in a fortunate position because I was at a very academic school, so I could also have gone down that route as well.
Speaker 1:so there was a lot open to me do you think if Rob was born today would he go in the same direction as what he did back in the day?
Speaker 2:oh, man, I'd hate to think what like 17 year old rob would be like in this in this world doesn't bear thinking about. I don't know, possibly, I think, because it's. It's interesting that, like my mom now she'll be 89 this year and she's been spending a lot of time kind of looking on ancestrycom and tracking down the family and it turns out that on her side of the family we'd got a big chunk of it. They were master plasterers in Derbyshire doing like ornate ceilings in stately homes and whatever else. So yeah, it seems like that sort of kind of creative it's in the bloodline in the family.
Speaker 2:so I think I probably would have done something creative, whether that was creative writing or fashion or whatever, I don't really know.
Speaker 1:Do you think that's a coincidence or do you think it's actually something that happens within families? It's normally down the pipeline that someone has been creative, or it kind of runs through the bloodline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say so. I think everybody has got innate talents within them. It's just whether you get the opportunity to learn that you've got them. If you don't, if you're not naturally driven towards it or I didn't really I didn't even know, because I started out designing football kits I didn't even know that was a job at 17.
Speaker 2:I mean obviously it was because they exist, but but I just didn't know. But I think you know, there's a very kind of popular train of thought that if you work hard you can be anything. And I actually disagree. I think I could have worked as hard as I liked, I wouldn't ever have been David Beckham. Yeah, you know you've got to have aptitude as well as as attitude. You know, which might be crushing a few people's dreams listening to the podcast, but yeah, I think it's. It is a reality of you know.
Speaker 1:I think there was something there in me and I was able to harness it and do something with it so, being a creative human, I find sometimes that can be an outlet for people to express themselves like even like artists, you know they express themselves through art or singing or dancing. Would you position your creativity as an outlet for, for things that are going on in the background, or, mmm it can be a bit of an escape when you're in the work.
Speaker 2:I think being a designer and working for brands, um, it's a little bit different, because it's it's very different than being an artist. You kind of you're hired to do a job. So it's like if you're an interior designer, you can't just style up somebody's house however you want yeah, yeah, it's my creative outlet, so similar sort of thing to that.
Speaker 2:But I mean, yeah it's, it's like being paid to have a hobby really, when you, when you're really in the design season and you're spending all day listening to podcasts, listening to music, drawing pictures of clothes, yeah there's. There's plenty of worse ways to be making a living, that's for sure do you?
Speaker 1:how do you deal with, like, big projects and pressure and anxiety around executing something that you wanted to be absolutely perfect, like, how do you deal with that?
Speaker 2:oh man, it's again there. People handle it in different ways, I think. For me I do find it quite hard because, because it's because you're not an artist, you're creating something for other people and you're kind of seeking acceptance on it to a certain extent, or ultimately it's out of your hands. If it gets approved, adopted, if people then choose to buy it, as an artist you're less interested in that it's. It is really about the expression and so, yeah, you're, you're doing work where there's no definite answer. If I was an accountant, I'll fill out a spreadsheet and at the bottom line it's either right or it's wrong yeah whereas when you design something that's, that's not the case yeah um.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it can be quite. It can be quite stressful, but I also think it's having an element of insecurity about. It is what drives you to keep working harder and wanting to do things differently. There's no collection. I've ever designed that. When it's finally got to market, I've thought, oh yeah, I wouldn't do that any differently. You always look at it and think, yeah, there's something else I could have done with that.
Speaker 1:So what was your first monumental job that you had within the design industry that really got your career off the ground?
Speaker 2:I think working with my friend Gaffer Mohammed back in Birmingham gave me the start and he had a friend that was a backing musician for Boyzone. Wow.
Speaker 2:And so some of Gaffer's stuff was actually going on to Boyzone and so I designed a jacket whilst I was hanging out with him on Saturdays and, yeah, that kind of found its way on to Celebrities, which was just a quite a cool thing because I was coming at it, whereas lots of people, when I applied for university, didn't have or did have sorry massive portfolios. They'd always wanted to be a fashion designer. They've got all this work that they'd done and I didn't. I'd been a product designer yeah, up to that point and I think so.
Speaker 2:Working with GAFA gave me the opportunity to kind of try out the industry and also have some relevant experience, so that got me through the door in the first place and then, once I graduated, went to work for Puma, first in the UK briefly and was then moved across to head office in Germany. And that, yeah, that that really changed everything. It was a. It was a big gamble moving out there, but it gave me the opportunity to work on some amazing projects.
Speaker 1:What did you learn with Puma?
Speaker 2:I learned that I'm probably tougher than I think I am, because it was hard and every day for the first 12 months I wanted to quit and go home and I'd go and have a little cry in the toilet. So that was, yeah, still something I can look back on with pride.
Speaker 1:What made it so difficult?
Speaker 2:I think I've always been a real home bird, really close to my family, and so that I think being far away was difficult and back in those days, so like the early 2000s communication, everything just wasn't as easy. It was still ordinary SMS, text messages and things like that. So I moved out there with my UK mobile phone and for the first two months I must have run up about £1,200 worth of phone bills. You didn't have Netflix, so you can watch what everybody else is watching.
Speaker 2:My mum used to record stuff off the TV and send me a jiffy bag full of videotapes. That's so funny Of.
Speaker 2:Hollyoaks and Bad Lads Army and things like that that I missed from home. So it was difficult. I think, as the world has become more globalised, I think it's perhaps a bit easier to adapt. I certainly found, like 13 years later, when I moved to Canada, the adapting there was a lot easier and obviously there was the language in common. But I think even back then, like Nuremberg didn't even have a Starbucks until the year before I left, which in hindsight was a great thing, but yeah, it was the, the unfamiliarity that was, it was quite uncomfortable do you think having your family removed from your natural habitat is beneficial or makes your work ethic less productive than what it would be if you had your family around?
Speaker 2:No, I think I mean, obviously, depending on the specific circumstances for me it was, I don't know. I think my family's always been so important to me and played such a big role that I've kind of seen myself as a bit of an ambassador and wanted to do well knowing how much they've supported me. Yeah, I remember when I was moving out to Germany and having my leaving party that my sister had bought me like a big old-fashioned compass with an engraving on it and she'd written a little note of um yeah, have this so that you can always find your way home and it's kind of stuff like that that I, as a person, I'm more inclined to want to prove people right than prove people wrong.
Speaker 2:I don't get motivated by criticism and negativity. And so having that, that help, that push and support, and knowing that there was no such thing as failure. So if it didn't work out, just come home yeah, and that's always been the thing. Oh, you don't like it anymore, just just give up yeah, bother, yeah you know which.
Speaker 2:That's not that there's a big financial safety net underneath us in our family, far from it, um, but it was just. There was no, there's never been any any ego to anything, and so it's just been really nice that the family are able to we celebrate together the wins as a, as a unit, wherever yeah, any of us are situated so obviously, family seems like a really crucial part of your life.
Speaker 1:What would define your core values?
Speaker 2:that's a good question um loyalty is a really big one um why do you think loyalty is so important? I guess it's always been around me, I think, whether that's through the family that I grew up in, supporting a football team that, for large parts of its recent history, hasn't been very good, all that sort of stuff. Obviously there's blind loyalty, and then there's being loyal to things that are genuinely important, and, yeah, I think there's perhaps not enough of it in the world now.
Speaker 2:Everything from products to relationships are somewhat disposable, and so I kind of cherish the fact that loyalty is important, that contributing towards something bigger and as much as I'm not a religious person, I definitely think that there is a higher level of connection, which can sound quite I don't know kind of hippie. Hairy, hairy, woo-woo.
Speaker 1:I love all this kind of hippie hairy fairy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the reality is like yeah, but if you've, if you've, if you've been to a concert or a festival or a football match, you've experienced it, you felt it. If you're at a football match and somebody's about to take a penalty, everybody's in the same moment and it doesn't matter your background, what's going on that particular day.
Speaker 2:You're all in that moment together and there is a collective consciousness and I think loyalty helps you that particular day. You're all in that moment together and there is a collective consciousness and I think loyalty helps you bring that. If you're a lone, warfare in the world, you don't have that and you don't get to experience that kind of collective conscience, and that's a shame it's like natural disasters as well, like even the pandemic and even the rain that we've just had in.
Speaker 1:Dubai. If nobody knows about it, you can see everyone's going through this crazy chaotic state altogether, but there's something really weirdly nice about the situation, because everyone's sharing the same problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And people come together and, like you said, loyalty like when people really need support they become very loyal very quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, and I think that's like something that helps me get through difficult times is trying to think how it can help me or how it can help me to help others in the future, which is also a weakness of mine as well, in that I can leave myself overexposed in terms of perhaps it's part of what led me to be a designer, but there's always an answer. I can make something better or easier, um and so.
Speaker 1:I think that overexposure allows yourself to actually have higher feelings, though, in terms and better experiences in life, because you're exposing yourself to the highs, but then that comes with the cost of, like you said, being vulnerable, probably being a bit more vulnerable. And when you're loyal and you're loyal to the wrong person as well it can be sometimes thrown back in your face.
Speaker 2:Yeah totally, and I've been through that where it wasn't so much loyal to the wrong person as much I was loyal to a relationship that kind of neither of us should have stayed loyal to for as long as we did and that was a big learning as well, that you know sometimes things are broken beyond repair or not meant to be, or you know whatever it could be and it's.
Speaker 2:it's important to recognise those things. So perhaps the next value I'll tell you about is pragmatism. I've always thought of myself as being quite pragmatic, quite practical. I've generally got quite an organised mind, more so, perhaps, when I'm dealing with other things or other people than when I'm trying to manage my own emotions.
Speaker 1:It's funny, isn't it like yeah, do as I say don't do as I do all the time you can delegate and have the biggest files out there for everyone, and then, when it comes to yours, it's like yeah, just an absolute dumpster fire, totally.
Speaker 2:but yeah, I think pragmatism is important and trying to stay somewhat on an even keel, which can mean that you perhaps miss out on the very, very top of a euphoric high, but it can also for me. I find it keeps me somewhat safe from the lows of the Stabilise yourself. Yeah, yeah. And being practical about situations I think is important to me, and trying to being practical, though.
Speaker 1:Do you think that just comes through life experiences? You experience so much different highs and lows throughout life that you just become this kind of baseline of like. Your default is kind of just becomes in the middle, rather than this volatility of highs and lows um, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:I think that that definitely plays a role, but only if you're able to acknowledge and, I guess, internalize those experiences and able to look back at them. Because, again there, if I think back to my time at Puma and bearing in mind what I've said, with kind of how I got into this industry age 27, italy won the World Cup in 2006 wearing the kit that I'd designed, and I was a bit lost because six-year-old me that used to colour in comics and draw football kits was like well, I've completed that. Now I've done it, it's like they've won the world cup and I felt really lost.
Speaker 1:And then how did you feel that day?
Speaker 2:didn't make sense. Still doesn't still see it on the tv. I've still got books, magazines around me. Netflix did a big documentary about the italian team at the tournament, like a four-part documentary, and I still watch it and they're all. They're all there in, whether it's in the hotel, on the pitch, whatever. So I designed all of that like it's.
Speaker 1:It's weird do you still? Because sometimes I do stuff in life and I'm like I don't know how I got here, how did this happen? And then I just push it to the side and then I just forget about it yeah but then it comes up again. Then I'm like how did that happen?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, and well, something that I learned was so after that, uh, part of my, my career, not long after that, I left Puma and went to work for O'Neill in the Netherlands. Um, and the job that I was the company got bought out. The job I was hired for didn't exist anymore. When I got there, the relationship that I was the company got bought out. The job I was hired for didn't exist anymore when I got there. The relationship that I mentioned a couple of minutes ago ended just before I moved out there, and so it was.
Speaker 1:Did you have a broken heart or was it one-sided? Was it mutual?
Speaker 2:I was broken hearted, I think largely on the grounds that I don't like to see things break. I get upset. If I drop a cup at home, it properly stresses me out. I'm very confident there'll be people watching this that have been diagnosed with ADHD or autism going like you need to see a doctor, mate, because, yeah, I put a lot of attachment to things and not in the sense of like. I like having delightful stuff around me. Just one of my other kind of things is I've got a really good memory and I can.
Speaker 2:I can smell a fragrance or a particular smell or hear a song, and it puts me right back in a particular moment it could be good could be bad yeah could. Could have been good at the time, but now I'll miss it and that can be quite hard, just walking down the street and being like so sensory aware and again, if the neurodiverse people watch me, I'll definitely see the doctor um but yeah, to be so, to have such sensory awareness can be can be really difficult have you been diagnosed with anything?
Speaker 1:no, have you tested?
Speaker 2:I haven't okay. I've kind of self-diagnosed a bit and thought you know some of this stuff because I guess you know, like you said, you go through life and you learn a lot. I only learned recently that not everybody can think in three dimensions yeah so I didn't realize that if I'm thinking about clothes that I'm designing, I can spin them around in my head, I can see them on people and whatever, and apparently not everybody can do that, which I didn't know though she's like okay I have a woman spinning around so I think yeah, and then with so, I guess, until you learn that things aren't the same for everybody, you just assume that they are.
Speaker 2:So kids grow up speaking whatever language they speak, and then at a certain point it's like not everybody speaks English. Some people speak. French and Spanish and you're like what? And it's the same sort of thing. So I think, for me, having that, yeah, just the attachment to, not to the object, but to things that have gone on around objects, relationships, places, fragrances, whatever.
Speaker 1:It's funny because you say objects like I have no attachment to any object whatsoever. You can take away everything and I don't care. But when it comes to relationships, that's the attachment, the expectation. Yeah, you know, I can completely relate to you on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so no, it was yeah. I went out there to the Netherlands and just everything came crashing down around me. That was the first time that I was kind of formally diagnosed with depression and anxiety. And you were 27, yeah, yeah, and I think I kind of I knew it was there and I'd experienced bits of it before at various stages of my life, but it was kind of I was really going through it. I was really in a in a difficult spot, I mean how did your day look when you were in that bubble?
Speaker 2:um, wake up in the morning with absolute sinking feeling in my stomach. That's if I'd had much sleep the night before. I was living in like a beautiful townhouse right on the flower market in the center of amsterdam, so in many respects living the dream, um. But yeah, go to work, just be anxious all day, constantly anxious weight just falling off me for no reason, I think within like four or five months I was like a 28-inch waist or something. I was an absolute waif.
Speaker 2:But I mean, I went to the sales in Harvey Nichols and cleaned up. But yeah, so it was just living on my nerves all the time, I think, really just feeling uncertain. And then when I started so I moved back to the UK for a bit, o'neill were really supportive of the bosses that I had at the time. A guy called Thomas really kind of did what he could to help make sure that I was okay. I think he understood what the situation was.
Speaker 1:Do you think people around you realised how difficult your mind was at that time?
Speaker 2:I think so. I think if they were exposed to it, they did. So I got a season ticket back at Villa when I moved to Amsterdam because it was only an hour's flight. So I was like I'll go home for all the home matches, which was great. But it was increasingly getting harder to come back on a Sunday and I remember one day I was staying at the spare room at mum and dad's and dad came in to take me to the airport. And I was just day. I was staying at the spare room at mom and dad's um and they, dad, came in to like take me to the airport. I was just lying on the floor crying, just flat out, face down, just crying my eyes out, didn't want to go back and what did your dad do at that point?
Speaker 2:that's laughed at me and poured his drink on me. No, he was um, just supported me as as best he could. I mean just supported me as best he could, I mean bearing in mind. You know, my parents were born in the 30s. They were kids in the Second World War.
Speaker 2:So, that doesn't mean that I'm older, even older than I look. My parents were quite late having me. That's another podcast itself. But yeah, so you know, he did what he could, my mum did what she could and I went back out there and they just gave me the encouragement to be like look, it's not working, just don't, just don't, and it's not. I've certainly never been bred with a quitter's attitude. But it's also don't flog a dead horse yeah, I just fail fast.
Speaker 2:There's always been a, you know, or perhaps not fail fast, because that would suggest giving in easily, and they've been married like 66 years or something, so they don't give in easily. Um, but yeah, just recognize. Just use your intuition and recognize are things worth fighting for or are they not? You know, even if I rectify that situation, what does good look like? Yeah, what am I going to put all that effort into pushing through for what's it going to be at the end of it? And so I did end up signed off from work at O'Neill. I was back in the UK. I couldn't leave the house without holding hands with my mum. I was just like an absolute nervous wreck, but quite quickly, because it was so how long was the duration of that?
Speaker 2:pretty quick, to be honest, I think once, once it became clear that I could navigate, I guess where the pragmatism probably saved me a little bit, when it became clear that I could find a way out, I think when I. What I don't like is if ever I feel cornered did you feel cornered at that stage though well, I think, because I'd just moved to a new country, I'd taken on a 12-month lease on a on a fancy gaff.
Speaker 2:I'd started a new job and I think to kind of come back to the, the original point that I left behind a long while back.
Speaker 2:I'd never internalised the success that I'd had, so to me it was like well, if I fail at this, then I have failed. And it was only through seeing a counsellor at that time and she taught me to look back and be like look what you've done, look what you've achieved, don't write it off. You know, italy may not have won the World Cup because of your kit, but nonetheless, you know, you put yourself in a position to design a kit for them.
Speaker 1:It's funny how we don't clap for ourselves, but sometimes it is actually something we should do Absolutely should do. I don't know whether it's a UK or an Irish thing, but it's like if you create something or you do something, know whether it's a UK or an Irish thing, but it's like if you create something or you do something, well, that's kind of like okay, on to the next you don't really pat yourself on the shoulder.
Speaker 1:But if you don't put yourself in the shoulder, then you don't actually recognize that you're doing any good. So then, what's the next step?
Speaker 2:so, like I think, if you were, if you were running a marathon and you're 21 miles into it, do you want your running partner so essentially the voice inside your head to be going? Still got five miles to go. This is going to be hard. This is the hardest bit. Now Five miles I'll be like, look, you've done 21 miles. You're doing amazing and some people need one and some people need the other. And for me, it's very much more look what you've accomplished. Therefore, you can excel and do the rest.
Speaker 1:Talk with positivity and then lead with positivity when it comes to climbing the ladder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think my inside voice has always been my worst critic and it was a different counsellor actually a few years later. Because I kind of treat seeing counsellors as like seeing a personal trainer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I believe in that as well. I think even sometimes you might go to say a therapist and you have a great run seeing a therapist. Maybe you stop, and if you find another one, it's a unbiased review yeah of how you think and it's like a fresh start, and then you might tap into something that you were completely unaware of, and what the other therapist was unaware of as well yeah so it's like changing and cheating on your personal trainer every now and again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but no, it was. Um, it's just something I mentioned in a throwaway comment about how I was loading the dishwasher or something and dropped a spoon and swore at myself and called myself an idiot, and not not being hard on myself, but just out of habit. She was like really, you said you know if, if someone was following you around the house doing that? And it wasn't you would you take it? Would you be like, hey, idiot.
Speaker 1:And I was like, no, I'd be really upset yeah you know, and she was like well, you're, that's what you're doing, you're following yourself around just being hard on yourself all the time when I was a personal trainer and when I used to coach clients, I used to tell them like I used to create a scenario and say to them imagine you telling your child before they go to bed. You're gonna have a terrible night. Sleep tonight, good night I'm walking out of the room.
Speaker 1:Yeah like, because most people, when I found when I was personal training, they would have difficulty with sleeping. So and I would say well, what's your initial thoughts before you go to bed? Then I can't sleep, can't sleep, can't sleep. So that's why I used to use that analogy Imagine going into a child and just being like. You're going to have the worst night's sleep ever yeah totally.
Speaker 2:Good night and walk out, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's like we sometimes get so caught up in our own thoughts, our own narrative, that we don't actually separate the two. We don't understand what's been talked about up here. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's when you separate the two and I think a counsellor does a really good job at you being able to define the way you think, the narrative inside your head and then you as a person as well so when you can have that disconnect, then you can start playing the puppet strings to manipulate how that person's speaking or how they're walking around. But sometimes when life gets too busy and things are a bit chaotic and life throws you a curveball, it's hard to separate the two. Everything becomes mashed in together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, um, and I I think that probably brings us on nicely to if I was going to say my third value would be fun, it's something I like this I always I try not to take things too seriously. I mean, obviously some things are grave and you know you, there's a time and a place for having fun. But most of what we do in this world doesn't, doesn't really matter. Like if we, if everybody on earth died right now, mother nature would completely take over in no time and that would be it.
Speaker 2:We'd be all gone. All the buildings, all the football shirts, all the Tippex comics would just be gone and aliens would come and land and be like, well, there was no sign of life here ever. And so you know, it's kind of just just having that. That view on what you're up to has been like, look, we're not. I mean, some people are saving dolphins, but I don't save dolphins for yeah, so yeah, you know it's?
Speaker 1:um, it's funny that you say fun because I I actually met. Uh, it was one of my friends that I had on the podcast before and he asked me what was my theme for this year and I said my theme for this year is enjoyment. Because last year I went through, I was in finance and everything was very serious, which I'm still kind of in that similar field. But I said to myself this year I'm going to do everything, even if it's a financial shitty situation. I'm going to do this year. I'm gonna do everything, even if it's a financial shitty situation. I'm gonna do this with pure enjoyment. I can walk into this meeting either with high levels of stress being super serious, or I can walk into this being like I'm gonna have the most enjoyable meeting ever. Yeah, and it just flips your perception on everything.
Speaker 1:You can actually walk through life and actually just enjoy it yeah you know, every day is created to have that sense of enjoyment and just to live yeah but I don't think sometimes, like our environment allows us to do that responsibilities, paying bills, the doom and gloom of news war, everything that you see that's going on around us but if that's actually not affecting you at your fingertips, like why not have a different analogy on how you create your day?
Speaker 2:Yeah, or even if it is affecting you at your fingertips, like again, if I think of war. Who would you rather be in the trenches with Somebody that's sat there going? This is horrible we're all going to die, or somebody that's, you know, focused on what they've got to do, but at least still trying to lift spirits and keep morale high.
Speaker 1:It's funny because even when you said about you sitting in that beautiful place that you were living in when you were working for Puma, it's funny that even you had that all around you and your mindset was elsewhere. You know, and it's like how you think up here just will differentiate how your perception is of any environment. You could be sat in a cardboard box.
Speaker 2:You could be sat in the trenches. Totally Well, I think. I think probably the overarching most important thing to me is being able to look myself in the mirror and think I'm probably all right. You know, I'm an all right bloke and I think that's. I can confirm you're an all right bloke, but yeah that's, and I think it all. So something I learned about at Lululemon, where I also had a relatively traumatic experience.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to be like so you worked for Lululemon, where I also had a relatively traumatic experience. I just wanted to be like so you worked for Lululemon. Tell us about that. I really want to know about this.
Speaker 2:One of the big things that I learned working there was Sorry, cuba and Lululemon, get out of here.
Speaker 2:About integrity, and it was a massive thing there in terms of they're a company that's very big on coaching, personal development and whatever else. You're not just there to work, you've got to grow as a person, or they present the opportunity to grow as a person, and a lot of that's related to integrity, and they describe it as being like spokes on a wheel, and if spokes start to break, eventually the wheel fails, and so I think when I've had really difficult times, it's when I've actually felt out of integrity with my own values.
Speaker 1:So so how do you um keep your values up your four focus? When does that come into your four focus?
Speaker 2:focus. When does that come into your fore focus? Um, it can be hard, I think. Sometimes I have to check myself and think am I, you know, do I feel comfortable with what's going on around me? Um, and I usually know, it's just whether I'm actually brave enough to do anything about it. I come from a family that's mostly kind of been confrontation averse, and so sometimes I have that inner battle with myself. As I've got older, I've found that I've become more it's probably been self-belief, really, that's yeah do you think that comes with building confidence as well, though?
Speaker 2:do you think sometimes, when you lack confidence, um, you can have a poor judgment of what's going on inside, and yeah, I think so, yeah, and you can worry about what would happen next um I think a analogy that I heard about bravery and I feel like it was in a really naff film or a cartoon or something, but it was to do with like bravery isn't a brave person isn't somebody who doesn't feel scared.
Speaker 2:A brave person is somebody who feels scared, weighs it up and then does it anyway yeah um, and so I guess, in from that perspective, I do feel like perhaps I have been quite brave, but sometimes I've, yeah, when I've thought about my own integrity, I've kind of weighed it up and still just sat on the fence or sat back a little bit, and it's probably only been over the last few years, really, that I can say that the vast majority of times now I'll be like no, I'm not, I'm not gonna, yeah, I'm not having this you get better at judging yourself and reading the situation, I think, over time, because you kind of scrape away the stuff that really doesn't matter anymore and then I feel like it's like you're walking up the ladder slowly and then you have sight downwards.
Speaker 1:You can actually see what everything is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, well, and I think again, it does come with, like, say, age, age and experience. I think of, like my kids, if my little boy's just turned six kobe, if he drops an ice cream, it's the end of the world yeah but because, right at that moment, that's his world, he's living in the moment yeah ice cream's the most important thing, and as you get older you do have different priorities and other things become more important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your experience become piled up on top of each other. So your view is a bit more grand, and I think that was a big factor in what happened for me.
Speaker 2:with Lululemon I mean amazing opportunity to go and live and work out there.
Speaker 1:What was it like to work for Lululemon? I mean amazing opportunity to go and live and work out there. What was it like to work for Lululemon?
Speaker 2:Not quite what I was expecting, that's for sure. I mean, I went out there, so obviously, based in Vancouver, incredible city to live in, you know, just breathtakingly beautiful.
Speaker 1:I've never been before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing, a little bit shallow at times, in as much as because it's a relatively new city once you get out to the forests and stuff yeah see where the first nations people were living. Obviously that's all ancient but the city itself, you know, isn't that old, so perhaps lacked a little bit of depth. But yeah, the opportunity was incredible and going out there and scoping the place out and getting shown around of here's the yoga studios in-house and we have our ambassadors come in every day and do classes and people can go down there.
Speaker 1:Are the staff happy there?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of them are. Yeah, I think there's perhaps a lot of people that, um, yeah, how am I going to answer this?
Speaker 2:the right way, because I don't really want to speak on other people's behalf, but I think I mean they're. They're a multi-billion dollar corporation and with any multi-billion dollar corporation there, there are positions and roles within a company which are very hard, really really hard work, and so at some point there is a bit of a or can be a bit of an uncoupling between he has vision and goals and do yoga every day in the office and whatever, and you've got an important job here. You've got lots of work to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah so you've got to do the work, and I think it's. I know a lot of people that have worked there, still work there and really enjoy it. I know people that worked there for a long time left and weren't happy by the time that they left. I know people that worked there for a long time left and weren't happy by the time that they left. I know people that worked there for not very long and weren't happy when they left. I think it's an interesting place from a cultural perspective because it was, and it's been, fairly well documented. It was originally built around, um, the principles of a personal development theory called landmark, which, um, yeah, it's. It kind of calls upon existentialism and, uh, some of the work of john paul Sartre and the idea that life is empty and meaningless, but not in the horrible way, the same way that we've just talked about. How?
Speaker 2:one can attach meaning to a broken cup, for instance. Well, actually there isn't, it's just a broken cup. The memories still exist, the cup doesn't. They don't break with it. There's obviously a lot more to it than that, because it's a you know landmark so they teach you that kind of culture, then you get the opportunity to go and learn it.
Speaker 2:I think back in the in the early days of the company, it was um, yeah, it was, it was a gift it was talked about as a as a gift for all the employees after a certain amount of time would you say that's a gift, or would you say that's brain mush in the company? Well, I think, like anything it depends on, I mean, you can read a self-help book, guided learning, whatever, and it's what you take out of it. I personally got quite a lot out of Landmark, but in my own way, where it did help me to see things a bit differently.
Speaker 2:Perhaps I didn't attach so much meaning to things, but then I didn't necessarily have things that were worth being really upset about to that extent, whereas there were people in that course and obviously the two companies aren't linked, so it's important to say that but yeah, there were people on on the landmark course that had suffered incredible emotional trauma as children as grown-ups and to then try and be like it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 2:It happened in the past and it's gone. I'll get the principle of it, but I think as humans, because we have language and evolved mental capabilities, it's not as easy to just go okay, I understand that piece of information and therefore that's it processed.
Speaker 1:I think they can, though I just think it might take time for them to digest it.
Speaker 2:The process might be a lot longer than someone who doesn't have a traumatic background rather than just oh you get it um, and I think during my time at lulu, which was 10 years ago, there was still kind of a the, the landmark learning. Part of it was still part of the infrastructure, part of the language, part of the infrastructure, part of the language, part of the way of operating. You'd go into a meeting and get clear at the start of the meeting where anything that was getting in the way emotional problems, you've got going on whatever. You could clear those.
Speaker 2:So it gave people a bit of understanding, of perspective around the table of like oh, you might not really be present today or you're um, you've overreacted a little bit, but it gives.
Speaker 1:It gives some grounding to that. So it was a really unique environment to work in.
Speaker 3:That's brilliant, yeah, that's actually brilliant, yeah so it's not, it's not for everybody.
Speaker 2:I quite welcomed that, yeah, yeah, that side of it. But then you know, there were other people in the business because it was a multi-billion dollar corporation that were coming in very much with the view of like, look, multi-billion dollar corporation, we've got to get shit done here.
Speaker 2:And so there was quite a clash of tensions between what the culture had been and was kind of morphing into, I guess, growing up as the company grew up and then people that wanted to get it there quicker and naturally you know that push and pull creates a lot of tension, but I mean I'm thankful for what I learned whilst working there. I became a dad whilst living out there and that gave me another big, sharp dose of perspective yeah, what's it like to be a father uh, it's really hard yeah and having one kid can make you think that, oh well, in that case I can probably have another kid.
Speaker 2:It's not, because they're both completely different. Having two kids isn't double the work of having one kid, it's like yeah more than um. So, yeah, it can be hard to juggle that, especially when you, when you think around the values of loyalty and fun and whatever, and the realities of of life. Yeah, it's, it's a difficult thing to do you recommend having?
Speaker 2:kids, yeah, yeah, I mean, all all experiences help us to to grow, and if you're somebody that thinks you want kids, then you know you just kind of have to go for it.
Speaker 2:If you somebody that doesn't want kids, that's cool as well. I always had not, so became a dad when I was living in Vancouver and I think again, that just shifted my perspective, and so I think my relationship with that company is like all relationships really, where they can start out in one place and then the various parties involved evolve over time and you're not always then still on the same path. And so for me, by the time I became a dad, I was a very different person than the one that joined the company that wasn't the dad. So you know that all that all plays a role, and I think it's important that we hold our values close, but also we check ourselves on our own journey just to see yeah we're not carrying stuff along with us that perhaps we don't need anymore how do you manage to fill your own cup up when you have business and family?
Speaker 2:uh, I think that's where the kids can come in useful okay because they they can be a handy distraction. They can be a massive pain in the arse as well yeah um, but yeah, I mean having amelia andoby around to try and live the world through like their eyes a little bit it's refreshing yeah, and just at the end of the day, every night, I'll read one of them, a story.
Speaker 2:So we alternate myself and Kelly alternate between who's going to read to which child each night, and so my phone's off. Alternate between who's who's gonna gonna read to which child each night, and so my phone's off. I'm sat there in a somewhat darkened room with this tiny little person who's just obsessed with me reading them, that story and the stories made of nonsense, and it's just like you know what, like nothing can touch me. Yeah, when I'm in that zone, and it's quite nice to just have that. Yeah, I'm all right, I'm, you know, the superhero that they want me to be. Well, right now, in this moment, perhaps I am that's so nice.
Speaker 1:You're gonna make me emotional, okay. So before we wrap this podcast up, I want to ask the question of what kind of advice would you give younger Rob if you were to come and visit him at the age of 16?
Speaker 2:I know you were going to ask this, so I thought about it last night and in the car on the way here.
Speaker 1:What kind of advice you'd give him. Because, I feel like you've had so much experience in life now. So I think, you'd give them some decent advice now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it would be. The person you are at any given moment isn't the person that you have to be or will be in the future, and it's important to recognise that you are evolving as a person all the time. Um and so that would be it, and I think also with my particularly young boys. School me would absolutely have been just have that bit more belief in yourself. Book the holiday, buy the car, kiss the girl. You know all them sort of cliches. But footsteps echo longest along the corridors. You never walk, and so perhaps that would be the thing. 16 year old me would think I was an absolute whopper if he said that. But yeah, I think that would be it. Back yourself, take the chances.
Speaker 1:And what kind of advice would you give anyone who's starting off a very similar career to what you've done?
Speaker 2:same sort of thing. Back yourself, believe in yourself and also don't assume that people with fancy job titles and fancy watches are bulletproof, because they're not, because I. I thought that, going into the industry and and here I am now, with all the things I've done and the places I've worked and lived it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just as flawed, fallible, vulnerable as anybody else. There are plenty of sociopaths out in the world who manage to get through without a care about anything. But being you is all right, and if you're at a point of anything you're doing whether it's a relationship, work, whatever that being you isn't enough. Well, that's on them, it's not on you.
Speaker 1:So what's the future for Rob now? What's going on?
Speaker 2:Oh man. Well, yeah, I guess next few days here in Dubai and then beyond that I don't really know. To be honest, and I kind of do, I have grand plans. I don't know if I really do at the moment.
Speaker 1:Would you tell?
Speaker 2:me? Yeah, of course I would, but yeah, I'm just enjoying being at the moment. There's so much stuff going on right in the here and now. I'm trying not to think too much into the future. I've got ideas for my 50th birthday where do I want to be and who do I want to be around, and whatever. But I think I've spent too many of my younger years looking ahead to the future and where I was going to get to, and right now I'm just enjoying having a little look around brilliant.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for being on the podcast thank you for having me.