Episode 28 · 34:47
Embracing Personal Growth through Life's Transitions
Life changes in seasons, and strategies that fitted one season may become restrictive in the next. Dan and Tom talk about practising what they preach, the story behind Bank of Dave and how people evolve through periods of growth, disruption, harvest and rest.
The aim is to recognise the season accurately enough to stop demanding the wrong kind of progress from yourself.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- A useful principle should survive contact with your own difficult circumstances.
- Not every season is designed for visible growth; some are for repair or preparation.
- A strategy can stop working because the context changed, not because you failed.
- Name the season before deciding what progress should look like inside it.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
And she shouted look stop him and then I thought it was so funny because [Music] there's our intro Welcome to our new podcast um this is a new episode I thought I should have shouted a bit more but I'm in too much of an echoey room to shout to shout and I'll probably blow your end drums out um thanks again for joining us for another week of don't be a doorstop and you've got Tom and I Old Faithful over.
Here um and again we are bringing in a new um kind of routine and a new set of orders of just a little bit more punchier a little bit more organized on our side so we hope we we hope that you're enjoying it if you are give us a thumbs up give us a follow give us a like give us a subscribe if this is your first time welcome if it's not your first time then it's time for you to subscribe.
Um and help us grow to the um very close but very far a thousand subscribers that we're trying to to get towards so we're just going to pull it away by creating our library of content and in jokes as we've always stated so this week we start off with um basically Practice What You Preach Practice What You Preach um we will probably come up with some Jingles for those middle bits as well so I think this week we posted on socials.
About um Liz Capaldi and the fact that every time he walks into a room he feels like everybody hates him and it's about this imposter syndrome now I went to a couple of um events over the weekend slash this week and I'm slowly getting better at just going into a room of of strangers and forcing myself to to introduce myself and I'm forcing myself not to feel like an imposter and I think the key thing is is when you speak to.
Individuals and you hear their stories they're confident in their story and they might share um like a a small piece that they're confident about and you realize oh well I can also be a confident about these two things over here so sometimes in in throwing yourself out there you see that people have a particular level of confidence and they're projecting a particular level of confidence and that can like increase your level of confidence because you're like well I'm also doing.
The same and I'm also doing this so to some extent if they're able to bring in confidence with that one thing then you can bring in confidence with the two things that you've been working on so I've been really enjoying pushing myself because I've been doing stuff around um Insider inside of promos introductions and so forth and like a really difficult technique is like you walk into a room and intro yourself and I think the best opening line is like hey I don't think.
We know each other my name is Dan or like hey um uh we we haven't met before my name's Dan or you know you say something like that yeah coming after or even like hey my name's Dan what's your name um and then like the conversation itself is like you can either um kick into the typical like oh so what brought you here to this event or how did you hear about this event or you kind of ask like oh so who are you.
Looking to meet in this event so you can figure out exactly who they're looking for and then they'll probably ask you who are you looking for and I always find that when I'm explaining the app and yes it's great to say the one-liner but showing them is far more important and far more impactful um and then like to close off the like the disappearing away when you realize okay either one these people are not my people that I need to be speaking to.
You'd be like really great to meet you I'll let you meet other people kind of thing you do the die in your own cross Vibe so I've got loads better at it because I think I'm super focused like I know who I need to speak to I I know my like pitch as it were and I feel less um less of an imposter um because I just like know my stuff right so I I'm just confident in in the.
Value that I bring I'm confident in the narrative in the story because it's a good story and then I'm able to just bash through and kind of just like keep pushing myself so I'm not overthinking of like I'm stood in the corner I've not spoken to anybody like break that first like chat you know go and speak to someone so when I said really nice meeting you both I'll let you guys like Network even more I've turned and I just.
Saw the first guy that was on his own and walked straight over to him like Hey my name's Dan like what brought you to the rent kind of thing and I'm just trying to get better more rehearsed um so I'm kind of like yeah you bring in the positive energy and you just don't ever ever like allow yourself to kind of like think of everybody speaking and they don't know me because I I walk up to people and they actually know each.
Other right so that's typically how they're congregating so don't be afraid to walk up to groups like hey can I I jump in here to introduce myself so yeah it's a good um pushing out the boat and I'm getting much much better at it because I think I know what I I'm saying I know my value I know that stuff and and recognize that a lot of other people feel exactly the same in these networking events and so yeah I would say that has been my.
Practice what you preach don't allow imposter syndrome to take hold of you push through it by just getting in straight away and being confident with what you know and realize other people are doing the same so why can't you do it too yeah yeah I'll continue on that imposter syndrome as I've had it quite a lot um physically recently and stuff and I've gone back to hockey and people are asking me what I was playing who I've previously played for and I'd always.
Downplay it just because sometimes when you've been and done it on a high level but you're not there at the moment sometimes you could be a bit I don't know what the word is I guess embarrassed that you're not there now or or you feel like you should have achieved more even though for people around you that might be a high achievement but it was really interesting just the other day um I've been roped into some coaching over the Easter holidays.
Um for hockey field hockey not ice hockey and um one of the coaches says oh it'd be really good for someone just to have a brief summary of of your experiences well I had a hockey CV that I used to send around to different people and send for Welsh hockey and stuff like that because she always had to say who you played for what league and stuff like that um and I basically got chat GPT to summarize it I was like this person this.
Is impressive this person is as if you're reading someone else's CV um but it's quite encouraging to be like oh no actually that is everything that you've physically done that you're not faking it you're not upping it you're not Downing it you're just being factual of what you've done and I actually heard this week on um social as a guy explaining how if uh I think it was like if a I'll rejig the analogy because I didn't understand some of it but I.
Understood the gist and it's basically saying like if you're a Lamborghini in an area it shouldn't be in do you downplay the Lamborghini or do you just like know that you're the Lamborghini because the end of day you can have a false humility humility by saying oh no it's a Peugeot or Vauxhall or something a lot lower of its value but actually you can still be a Lamborghini in let's say a poor area that it might look out of place but it.
Doesn't devalue the item at hand and I think it is an interesting dilemma of it's easier to say as a product rather than necessarily person but I guess it's yeah not to devalue you regardless if you're in a place of of everyone's very similar to you or maybe in a place that might have a lack of experience or knowledge or money or whatever and you might have that resource but it's actually being yeah humble but in a true way rather.
Than a fake humility slash meekness to it of downplaying what you are because actually some people might enjoy that and look up to that and that might be um yeah I guess role model in that sort of way to add to that because you said ice hockey it reminded me of another thing so I've been reading again uh sorry listening again to some audiobooks that I've had before it's all was good to listen to them again um like three months six months a year.
Later because they always highlight new things and one of the things was about perspective let's say you're playing um uh what's the thing not rounders but the American version baseball yeah I didn't wear that disappeared on my brain just like Duke bye um yeah if you're playing baseball and um you know typically baseball is three strikes and you're out right three hits and if you miss the ball then then you're out or if you don't run you're out now just imagine a life where.
Um you know the goal is to to hit a home run but you can have unlimited hits unlimited strikes right yeah then the difference in that scenario is you know for a fact as if you give up now if imposter syndrome gets the best of you you end up giving up that's the worst case scenario right um so I've also been like in all this uh Biz Dev in all like the introducing the app to new people I basically see it as.
Like I can hit as many bulls as I want I can strike as many people as I want and it's more so a case of um whether or not I give up or not whether or not I carry on going or not that's what my success is rather than oh I speak to three people in the room and if they're not the right three people then I'm striking out so I think um yeah that baseball analogy is a good.
Analogy to have just from a a mind perspective again just think about are you the Ferrari in this situation then act like one right and don't allow the environment to affect you yeah no that's good that's a good point so it's a good summary of uh some of the things we've been speaking about this week another thing I've been doing this week is you may have seen Bank of Dave Banker Dave is this guy up in Burnley an.
Entrepreneur in Burnley that he decided that um with all this banking crisis and with all the kind of banks uh failing and getting kind of like not bought out but supported by tax money and by the government he was frustrated with the business model of Banks and bankers would still get their bonuses even though the bank themselves would have lost a bunch of money so he decided to create uh he wanted to create a very very small small bank and.
Everybody he spoke to was like no you can't do this this is impossible you're not going to be able to get a bank you'll be able to get like 60 there but you won't be able to get to a bank and what I really appreciated is um just his mindset so he was like he was bullied when he was a kid and the difference happened that when he started to fight back so the important thing is to fight back and that was kind of like.
His Mantra in business almost to fight back and keep going so when they said you categorically cannot use the word Bank um because you are you don't have a banking license therefore it's wrong for you to do it and he was like I really want to use the word bank so he basically came up with a really clever creative way of using uh the word bank and phrasing it as Bank on Dave which suggests that you're going to rely on.
Dave and because he put it in quotes he was able to put it on his um on his like building that he hired so in quotes it said Bank on Dave which then means he's using the word bank but not kind of like falling foul of the law because he's phrasing it as you know rely on Dave now his business model was completely different because what he would do is he would try and give five percent interest over a year on people's savings.
Once they've paid all their bills they would basically give any profit to charity and that was a really nice circular model so he was saying everybody in Burnley needs money they need to borrow money but the banks are not able to borrow money um that's right lend money so he provided um like loans to people now if you watch it he hits multiple hurdles uh even with the um I think it's the financial audit whatever the financial um kind of FSA I think it is or.
Something like that um and even with them saying at one point hey you need to stop what you're doing because we think that you're doing something dodgy and he was like cool we'll stop this part but we'll keep going we'll keep going until we can figure it out so he was very very determined and what I love about it is like he completely understood the Injustice that is in play and for some reason he is the one that's being.
Attacked um in this situation um so yeah I I think the key thing that stood out is like even though it might say you can't do this then carry on to be creative to come up like with a way around it now he's been now running this bank for for ages I think I think it's still running and then was even a Netflix film about his story the story itself has probably been glamorized a little bit but um yeah I find the the documentary.
That he does really really fascinating and he's such a nice guy and so yeah I would say his mindset of like don't give up and when these big boys are like um basically coming at you with everything um then don't don't be scared as well because there's a way around it and the way that he did it was manipulate social pressure of getting everybody else to agree with him and get Parliament and get MPS to agree with him that the way.
That banks are structured isn't great so if basically somebody's coming for you make a noise right and if you know what you're doing is right then ultimately you can kind of peer pressure the bigger um person the bully into like submission like submission because they recognize the the bigger picture the the bigger kind of like impact of them going through with this and screwing this guy over when he's got a bunch of publicity and a bunch of like.
Um fans and local people that are fully in support of what he's doing so I find it's really really inspiring so you know how you're saying if the banks are failing the taxpayers have to um help out so if the young Bank of Dave fails to all the Dave's in the UK have to help him out by banking them out imagine that imagine you get a letter being like you have to have like the bank of Dave send me all your money.
Um what he did as well is like he was able to um lend money out he was able to take deposits so he could lend more money out and um he had just insurance to cover all of it so rather than like not having insurance and kind of like cool we're now too big to fail so when they do end up failing the government bail them out with all of our tax money rather than being in that setup he basically has.
Insurance so if worst case a worst case happened the insurance will pay out all their stuff and he says that's a much better financial model now interesting I'm sure that there's a load of intricacies that you wouldn't see and are behind the scenes um but somebody that he's never been in banking before he has never run a bank before everybody he spoke to was like laughing him out of the room I thought he was crazy and was suggesting smaller.
Different versions well you can't be a bank but you could be a building Society he was like no no I want to be a bank so his absolute determination to basically go against the odds of of professional advice and all sorts of stuff he then ended up doing it so what's that like grit and persistence factor that you need in your situation and kind of the deluded nature of like you know it's right so that's the thing that persists you that's cool it reminds.
Me of um a social that I spotted this week seems like my whole life is on socials um and it's basically talking about Starbucks and how they cleverly have a uh a Top-Up card system that a lot of people will tend to put money on the card and then would use it at some point to buy a drink but it's basically I think the amount of money that's on everyone's card I think in the world it was either like 1.5 billion or 1.5.
Million I'm assuming probably a billion with amount of people that enjoy their Starbucks but anyway and they were basically saying it's super clever because you're gonna get that money at some point through a drink but you could also spend it now because it's in your account it's a zero interest loan that you can make more Starbucks to then get more people putting on more money so it's like a really weird I guess um oh what's the word facilitating your.
Money without even realizing it or even investing it in the stock market because obviously if it's sat in a wallet Starbucks you're not going to make any money off it but they could already pre-put that money towards um some shares of something that's working out and making more money which is so interesting um I think I'm the person that wouldn't put money on a um a Top-Up card just because I prefer cash because then if anything changes and you need that Starbucks money for.
Let's say a Tesco shop well it's you have to then request it back and it takes 10 days or or whatever the whole process is and a lot of the time there's not that much benefit by having a Top-Up card um it's more the fact that you don't actually accidentally spend it on something else so that the bonus is you'll always get your Starbucks but by having that as the bonus it's basically Starbucks can pre use that money then use it again when.
You then buy something with it and then use it again when you then top up that card it's like because it's basically this this um guy was saying how it's more of a bank rather than a um coffee shop and that's its way of um I guess depositing different people's money without people realizing which I thought super interesting yeah and it aligns that's such a great example it aligns so nicely with somebody's kind of um patterns of behavior right you know that if you're.
Kind of a coffee drinker like I've noticed that Pratt do like a membership now so you pay 25 pound a month and you can get up to like five coffees a month or something like that if you know it's a part of somebody's day-to-day routine how can you get that commitment up front you know the committed because they keep coming here every day so how do you build mechanisms for like a structured commitment because really if somebody paid like 20 pound on a Starbucks card.
And basically they they didn't use it for a year one you've used the 20 quid and two giving that person 20 quids worth of drinks is nothing right because we all know chances are the drinks are marked up in a crazy way so like giving somebody a hot drink it's probably costing them like 30p to put it together yeah so like you can get 30 pounds worth of coffees which are like 30 Pence a go and here's your five and I think that's.
Such a clever idea so if you run a business or you have some sort of a side hustle that you've aligned to somebody doing something in a regular way like I've always thought if I was going to start a um like a business where it's like a product business I would go into something that somebody uses every day like hair shampoo like you literally use shampoo all the time so how can you build like do something that somebody.
Regularly needs it so then they're gonna if it's a really good product and a good price then they're going to subscribe to it right or buy it in bulk or whatever it is um so yeah like that's such a clever idea and it's great for cash flow then because it's all fronting it um and then you can forecast a little bit better right because you have this like solidified monetary kind of like um platform through the through the reward.
System and obviously it's important to give rewards for the usage of the card because otherwise if you didn't get rewards nobody would do it because I think I think the rewards is just used to do it only I think it the reward or for Starbucks point of view is just the ease of it because actually I do have a Starbucks card that I scan when I use my card or use cash and get points but to my knowledge I might need to look into.
It more maybe there is a bit more of a benefit to encourage but I think it's the fact that save you accidentally overspending on petrol and you have no money for your coffees or whatever that let's say you rely on I think it's more the fact that it's like an allocated amount as if it's in a separate pot um I use monzo so as if it's in a monzo pot that you can't get up very easily or straight away yeah because you can.
Always do this both routes right if somebody uses their cards for points um as kind of like a club card right you don't load the club card with money you just use it and then that means you're gonna come back so it increases up the Loyalty because anybody that gets a free drink feels great even though it's not that much of a cost for the business to do something like that every now and again which makes sense it's all about.
The regularity of it because the um so I go to prep for lunch and um the guy started to recognize me and every now and again he'll give me a free drink now chances are that's literally costing 20 people to make right but for some reason I'm like oh that's really nice I I should come back and do that more so the psychology of like that feel good thing with whatever setup you have yeah is so fascinating even like this week Tom and.
I were talking about council tax I'm not sure if you know but basically counts attacks you can pay typically they pay you charge get charged over 10 months um but you can pay over 12 months now again the 10 months actually benefits the council because they get two months earlier so they have more cash flow up front but then for us as the um Council taxpayers it psychologically feels nice that you don't have to pay those last two months.
But if in month two you did not have a tenor and you were below you would literally get a red letter like you've missed your payment so what's the point of not saying that everybody's at that breadline and such but let's say that you were at that red line for the feel-good two months at the end of the year it actually is better because if you did not have a five or if you were like a penny sure it would be after you.
So it'd be better for like a balancing act to spread it over the 12 months so then you're saving like 13 pounds or whatever it is on those months um on those 10 months prior which is all about cash flow right um so so much so that you can make it to that um 11th 12th month and then it's more um it's more of a forecasting thing it's easier to forecast when something's a more consistent price yeah yeah it's.
Very interesting how psychologically that plays um talking on to psychologically playing stuff we're on to the third and final area um so this is a spontaneous talk that I found again on socials a very interesting thing and this is a live topic so I've not spoken to Dan about this and I've not really given it much thought other than this would be really interesting for the Pod so we're live um people change in four different seasons so number one.
Hurts enough they have to change C is enough so they're inspired here's enough so they want to change and then receive enough so able to change I found that very interesting especially because either you find people that are very good with change or really wrestle a change or a lot of people are numb to change in the sense that they would prefer change to happen to them um I think it's very similar linking in with the first one of when bigger.
Companies are bullying you you're more likely to be like actually I want the status quo I'll just stick in my lane and I'll be about um Building Society or something completely different rather than going actually sometimes it's good to fight for your position because something good might come from it which I think is quite tough because I think in schools if you get in a fight with someone or an argument or whatever there's always a a negative spin on it.
Or that you're told off you're disencouraged to engage with it um a lot which is really interesting but we're looking at those four different areas I don't know if we can give maybe examples from our lives um that maybe that has been there or just wing it to see where this conversation goes for the next 10 minutes it reminds me of um nature when it comes to birds I don't remember when I was told this thing but Birds when they make nests the parents.
Make nests so that there's like glass or like uncomfortable stuff at the bottom of the nest and then like soft stuff at the top so when the chicks hatch and they become heavier The Nest itself actually becomes more uncomfortable enough to force the chick or now the small bird to fly the nest now typically are in life I've tried to always jump before I'm pushed because waiting till the last minute waiting until you're um kind of like body gives.
Up or um waiting until you're like hurt or like have the trauma of a situation is never ever worth it based on oh but I was loyal or ah but you know I stuck stuck there till the end um and we're talking very much like career-based things that like not um like that are easy to kind of like change but I'm not talking necessarily about relationships although I'm sure relationships could be a factor of um things as well but um yeah I've.
Always tried to do like the so just recapping what they were so hurt enough see enough hear enough received enough I'm way more like I've seen enough and I've heard enough and I think it's all because I'm wanting to gather information before I walk into something um and also wanting to gather reference points so then I can jump and basically jump out the plane way before the time comes that I'm actually pushed at the plane because I want to be in control of.
The decision rather than the decision being made for me so I try to avoid at all costs try to avoid waiting until I'm hurt enough before I do something and it's very much I would way prefer to see hear and receive way before hurt yeah I think that's the thing is looking at those four things I'd assume that the average person links more with the hurt enough or received enough so the hurt enough in the sense that you.
Are literally hating your job to the end of the world but you'll still go at it but then you'll be made redundant or it might be receive enough it might be the thing of like things like the lottery or winning 200k you're over the radio and that type of thing it's it's the hope that once that will happen I will bring change into into my life but I think things like YouTube and Tick Tock and all that type of stuff is very empowering from.
The the seeing and hearing to just be inspired and want that change because you see that there's so many options rather than being stuck in that nine-to-five job that that let's say your parents or grandparents um got into but actually didn't enjoy it at all but actually wasn't in enough pain to leave because they saw the pain of maybe letting down the family or not having money being greater so that's like a stick that's poking them to stay.
In the job rather than push away to look to see their value and their Worth to find um a more improved situation for them um obviously it is very very tough and I think it is a privilege to have some of them um obviously receive enough you could have inheritance and stuff like that which makes things a little easier sometimes it doesn't because you still need that wisdom and discernment of knowing how to spend the money and you can blow it all.
In once but it gives you the I think the Silver Lining that everything will change but actually by inheriting a lot of money that might make you do that change you would always need inherent money for that change and actually your mindset and your emotions will follow you regardless of how much money you've got and I think it is a really interesting thing that let's say you got a million pounds or whatever you might spend you might be very scarce with it and not.
Know what to do because that's what you're used to doing um and actually you might not necessarily enjoy it because you're so inferior about losing it but actually when you don't have money you've sort of to some extent got nothing to lose and you've got so much to gain and then when you do gain it um I remember someone asking um KSI a famous YouTuber what would you do if basically you had zero in your bank you had to start all over again and.
He was like I'll just create content I love it that much and I know I know how to be successful so I know I just basically reproduce it to some extent and I think that's the thing is when you don't have a fast lane to success you learn how to do it how not to do it and the journeys of the snakes and ladders of life but then you perfect your skill and your craft to then hopefully if you did get a.
Bump or redundancy or whatever you could pick yourself up and go again because you know the the secret passage ways to a more successful life but yeah I think one sentiment that just keeps repeating in my mind is like there's no honor and struggle now I recognize like we were talking last week about um kind of like pain and then the prolonged idea of pain right of like suffering being the prolonged version but you're still going to be like pain.
Of a moment so in these situations where you're hurt enough to move to move on because you have to kind of try and reflect like we all know that that is never an ideal situation and with the concept of there's no honor in struggling for 10 years there's no honor in struggling for five years there's no honor in struggling for two years if there's a better situation then why not do it because there's there's um you know as as they typically say they.
Always say you know if you were to drop on the desk today they'll literally have your your job advertised by the end of the week you know and it's and it's always that kind of like understanding the Loyalty really your biggest loyalty should be to yourself first and trying to make sure that you look after yourself first because there is no award for being around for X years or whatever I think times have shifted in in a way.
Um away from that typical approach um and it doesn't mean that you're um that you can't commit it doesn't mean that you're disloyal like you just loyal to yourself and people sometimes don't see that right their benefit their their thing that they think that is really positive doesn't always wait out with you being in a healthy position because somebody's probably benefiting from you basically steamrolling yourself as we said in the last few episodes so last um episodes back about steamrolling so yeah there's.
No honor and a struggle don't steamroll yourself and don't wait until you've until you hurt enough to have to move on like Be Inspired like experience enough to move on you can take experience as a positive experiences or negative experiences but um yeah you always want to jump before you pushed and that's the thing is Inspire yourself but if you do have a weak spot for pain how do you bring that pain into your situation that the pain.
Might be losing out on your dreams so then you can hijack your body um for that change but yeah try and Inspire yourself and run after that and see what happens awesome well if you've been inspired or been challenged or been hurt by what we've said today um receive do let us know yeah or received um so if you've heard seen heard or received an app from us today then do let us know because we're always very fascinated and in hearing the.
Impact ultimately a lot of the time you never see the impact um but yeah if you have the the um the confidence and the energy to to write in a comment of maybe something that um has struck a struck a chord with you something that's resonated with you and what we've spoken today that'd be super helpful and until next time keep hammering those nails [Music].