How to Keep Your Energy High When in Isolation | Business Survival Livestream 002

Note: This transcription has been generated with AI and there may be errors present. 

So we’re live on Facebook Simon’s second time in the week. We’ve not been live on Facebook together this much times.

I know we like buses, Alan, that you don’t see one for ages. And then we both turn up at once.

Yeah. Well, it’s better to have to come at once than none at all.

Hopefully going there early on me. Oh, my Lord.

The title was a positivity conference. So I thought I get straight in.

When I suppose that it’s fairly positive. Yeah. I mean, yes. Depending on your point of view, I suppose. But yes. Yes. It’s great to see you. And look, we’re just going to chat randomly for a second just to let this thing start off. I’m actually really, really pleased to see you today more than usual. And that’s mainly because he posted in our group. When I when I was on the meal, Jack, put the advert for tonight in there. And you went, Yes, I’ll be there. And I thought, Yes, I know, you’ll be there. And and you’re in the bloody picture. Were you planning on not paying?

Me? I’m going to show up Simon?

Oh, my Lord above? It’s a crazy, crazy world at the moment, isn’t it? So yeah, I think there’s some there’s some stuff to talk about tonight. And I know we build it as a positivity conference. But I know you were quite keen to make sure that were real as well. And I think you know, we’re on exactly the same roller coaster that everyone else is at the moment. Yes, so tell me what’s New Orleans been like today? And I wonder if it’s been any different to the UK?

Well, let’s, let’s just start with the theory to put this in a framework. And actually, my theory is that for any change to occur, you have to acknowledge what is going on at the moment. And if you don’t see things as they are, there’s no way you can create positive change. And blind optimism without seeing the issues without knowing what to work with, doesn’t actually help us. And I think that for me, I’ve always wanted pop up business or to be 100% Positive. But if we don’t have that foundation of things are like this, how do we build from there, we can never create change. So I think that’s where I really wanted to start today was a real conversation, because the people in our support group, our audience, us are going through some of the toughest times we’ve ever faced. And I was talking to Katie about this today as we walked around the deserted streets of New Orleans. I don’t think I can remember a time like this the Oh, eight financial crash. This, it was nowhere near like this for us. No way near. Other than that the 2001 crash. I remember that being bad. But nothing like this. And then I think it’s the ones that actually affected my childhood that were the biggest ones that have ever affected me. But there’s never been a time like this Simon. And I think there’s signs of that when you just walk about.

Yeah, I think, you know, I just popped out to, to my local takeaway this evening. And it’s, I think it’s the hidden knock on effects that we don’t necessarily see right now. But those are the things that I think are going to have, you know, a deeper effect and a deeper challenge for us. And you’re absolutely right, you know, you’ve got to have a realistic view. Before you can then get yourself into a good place. And, and then start getting creative about solving the problems and so on. Let’s just know what we’re dealing with and what we’re working with. Meanwhile, of course, there are so many unknowns, but I was chatting to the guys in Indian takeaway was awesome Bangladeshi family that run the takeaway from me. And they were saying that actually, it’s really tricky to get onions and really tricky to get chicken at the moment. So the price has gone through the roof. So actually, whilst we’re not included in the shutdown of cafes and restaurants, because, you know, obviously, we don’t have the same volume of people in a confined space for a long period of time. So it’s okay for us to run. We actually might need to shut anyway because we can’t afford to, to run it. We’re not making any money out of these ingredients. So you know, there’s lots of hidden things going on at the moment. And whilst I’m, I’m the number one I’m the number one person in my world right now for going like anything’s possible. Let’s create the future let’s navigate let’s let’s be positive let’s, let’s figure out adapting and my currency is ideas. You know how much I love creativity. It’s all about that. But actually, you know, some things have happened today that maybe go Oh, Jesus, I didn’t see that one coming. Okay, right. What does that mean? And trying to identify which of this stuff is real. Which of this stuff is the media putting spins on things? And all of these things have a have a way of changing our state. And I think like that text message that you sent me today, Alan, I bet, I bet that you’d been through a state change. And that put me in a state change. And we both were sort of wrestling with the decisions that we made earlier in the week. Well, actually, that was three or four days ago now. And things have changed a lot in the last three or four days, some more informations available, maybe we need to pivot, maybe we need to adapt and learn and go in a slightly different direction and the analogy that I’ve been using, before we talk about that text in a minute, I’d love to know what went through your head, just before you sent that. But the the analogy that I’ve been using is a is a sailing one, which is a ridiculous one for me to use, because I get massively seasick, which is quite embarrassing for me as I’m from the south coast. I get massively seasick. But anyway, you know, you set sail and suddenly the wind blows, you’re completely off course and you’re heading a different direction. But then you set a new course. And that seems like at the moment, the right course to take, but then you need to adjust and actually, every few minutes, you might need to adjust because the winds changing direction all the time. Meanwhile, I’m getting a little bit seasick in the corner. So tell me about that text message. Alan, what went through your head earlier on?

So let’s just let’s set the frame. There’s a few people who’ve come and watch which I love this Simon. So saying hello to Catherine Turner and Debbie and Lucia Liz and D. Russell’s here Kate woods here, Patricia baby. How are you? Kayla? Fran cares, Leslie. Like, this is a list of my favourite people from the pop up events that are here, Fran Packwood, Steven Murray, Lisa como, everyone is here. So hi to everyone. I love that you’re here. What I want to be with all of you, is open and vulnerable about the state of things. And actually, I think before anything, we need to get open and vulnerable. This actually started for us around about pop up. It started for us around about three weeks ago, didn’t it? Simon, when we got a message from Google, that our event with them was cancelled in New York, that was the first one to fall. Then it started to get serious in the UK. What’s the total now I’m aware of 10 have been postponed or cancelled Simon, how many total? Now?

Yeah, we’re still at 10. But in light of that news article, and some of the information that suggests that it may be a little longer, who knows, but at the moment we’re working on, when it’s a maximum of 12, it’s definitely 10. It’s possibly 12. If we’re looking at to mid August switches, you know, it’s getting close to a 200k impact on the business, perhaps a little more of you include some of the other stuff. So

it’s more than that. It’s probably more like a 300, grand vanished, gone. And if you 300 grand has vanished. And we’re still expected to pay wages, operate, support people and do things. And how are you going to do that when that money disappears. And I think that’s the position pop ups operating from. And then today, I got an email personally from the tenants of our flats. So when Katie and I went nomadic, we rented out our flat, we got an email saying, We’ve decided not to pay rent for three months based on the government advice. And suddenly, three months of my rent have vanished. But my mortgage provider still wants pay, the electricity company still wants paying. And I think we’ve got to look at this situation and go, shit has got real. And we need to do something about it. And the government is definitely reacting things are happening. But we really need to realise the state of this. And actually, that email I sent you this morning was a BBC article. And the BBC article said, the lead scientists and I don’t often send Simon stuff. It needs to be from a trusted source. It needs to have some backup data. I don’t often send stuff like that.

I didn’t even know you read the news, Alan.

I do when it affects my life. But in general, I avoid that stuff like the absolute play. But this headline caught my attention. And the headline was actually, this could last for 12 months on Katie’s here hello Sorry to interrupt. I know there’s a lot of important business going on. Yes, we are business business businessing. But that, that email that article from The BBC said, Actually social distancing, some of the measures that are coming in place, if we don’t get this under control could last for 12 months. And in the pop up finance meeting last week, we worked out that the cash reserves that we built out would last less than that. Now, I’m suddenly thinking, if we run out of money, we can’t pay staff. We can’t pay us, how do we afford to live? And there’s a big impact of that. And I think the challenge for us and the people listening the audience is, what are we going to do now to protect ourselves from the coming storm? Because I think we’re only just at the beginning of the storm? And how can we put ourselves in a place to come out of a storm in a rosy situation? And that’s, yeah, I sent that because this is something we need to figure out together as a team as a group as a community.

So what should we do?

That’s a strong message to start with, with a bit of realism that people probably weren’t expecting from me. Well, no,

I think it’s really interesting. Because this, this makes it real, because I think the, you know, we’ve been immersed in it. And I think I don’t think I’ve, I can remember a time when I’ve worked this hard. I’ve been pretty much flat out since about 6am, Monday morning, and really immersed in it. And strangely, I’ve felt really energised. I’ve never been this excited about our business, which is a ridiculous position to be in. And I keep staring in the mirror going. Is this right? Should, you know, should I be more worried, of course, I am concerned. And I read, I read stuff like that, too. I’m staying away from the media, mainly, but no, keeping myself informed, but staying away from, you know, I could be watching that stuff all day long. Because it is interesting. And it’s fascinating to see it unfold, but it doesn’t do me any favours. So I’m sort of thinking to myself, I feeling really energised, the decisions that we’ve made. In the main I think of the right decisions, which are, we’re on the front foot, we’re generating ideas, we’re working hard to put pop up online. And we’re taking the mission, which we’ve always had. And we remember the early days, Alan, I remember sat in a random Community Room in western Superman, on that very first course. And I remember you saying the words to me, I just want to help people. And I think that the mission drove that which is, you know, anyone can start a business. Now you don’t need a business plan. And you don’t need that. Let’s just help as many people as we can start businesses, and let’s find a way of giving it all away for free. Those those moments that were the early days of pop up, and now 100 times more important than they were then. So I’m really committed to that. And I think the decisions that we’ve made, and the the ideas that we’re generating, out of necessity, are really, really exciting. And I think, you know, we’re rolling the dice and making those happen, I think maybe there’s a conversation to be had about some of the spending decisions that we’ve made. And going, is that right in the light of this new information and changing information. Because I know that when you spoke earlier on you were sort of saying, well, we need to make two three year decisions, not six months decisions based on the fact that we still don’t really know what we’re dealing with here. But I think the bit that I was fascinated to chat about with you, because this is something that that I’ve learned from you and from some of the self development work that we’ve done together, the power of the state change, because when you read an article like that, and you know, when when you’re surrounded by all of this stuff, and we’re living in a time that none of us have ever experienced before, it can be very, very easy, especially if you’re not used to being at home for long periods of time used to being surrounded by co workers and so on. Very easy to take a downward hit. How do you get yourself back into a positive mindset when you’ve had the sort of news that you’ve had today? And the concern over the finances and the concern of the business in the long term risk that the BBC loves to tell us every 10 minutes? You know, what, what’s your strategy to get back into a place where, you know, you’re kind of smiling, generating ideas and figuring out what to do next?

Well, I think you need to be aware of that stuff. Because if you’re not aware of that stuff, you’re just plainly sailing into it. But as soon as you’re aware of it, you’re absolutely right. You have to change your state change the way you feel and get back to it. And Katie and I were actually talking about this tonight. I’m normally very good. Today, but actually those down moments that I’m having are happening more frequently over the last week than they have in the last five years. And it’s not that the down moments won’t keep coming. It’s how quickly you pick yourself up, which is this state change. So the quickest way to change your state is to change the way you move physically. That’s the quickest way it changes your heart rate, it pumps blood around your system, it releases endorphins, it releases neuro chemicals into your brain that make you feel better, you need to change the way you move. So Katie, and I’ve been jumping up from the couch, we’ve been moving the couch, we’ve been coming over here and doing warrior one and warrior two, and we’ve been doing yoga courses, and you need to move to get that energy. And that’s the bit I think, number one way to change your state is move, the more you sit on the couch, the worse it gets. And the exercise Katie and I have set ourselves tonight is we’re going to take one of the walls here and cover it with post it notes of different ways to change our mood. So we’re going to have a list of 15 to 20 different ways to change our mood. And whenever we feel down, whenever the news gets to us, we will go to the mall, pick something and do it to change our state. And I think we all need to become experts in state change to remain positive.

I love that Alan, you need to post a picture of the post it notes or, you know, transcribe them stick it in a blog post or something because I reckon that’ll be helpful to a bunch of people. Like there might be some weird stuff on the list that might play. A parental advisory caveat to it, but yeah, I love that idea. I think the it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because I think, you know, the way that you and I are approaching it and some of the other amazing people I’ve been chatting to this week, we’re approaching it in lots of different ways, of course. But you know, there was someone in our group earlier on, I think it was Kate said, Look, I’ve just accepted that this period isn’t going to happen. I’m a mum, I’ve got two young kids at home, I’m responsible for caring for them, there’s no way that I can run my business. Whilst you know if especially without a support network, if you’re the person that’s solely responsible for feeding and looking after two small people, they tend to have quite short attention spans, and an even with, with PJ Masks and Peppa Pig, one for the parents there, you still can’t get enough time together to make it happen. So it’s almost like I’m accepting that I’m going to stick a flag in the ground and go enough’s enough. I’m just going to look after them look after myself. And I know we’re going to take a hit financially, but we’ll regroup when this craziness is over. What do you think about that, you know, does does that sound like? And we’ve got to choose what’s right for us. But what advice would you give to Kate, if you if she was presenting you with that kind of thought process.

So I think the advice I’d give to Kate is the same advice I give to anyone that any decision is not one or zero, it’s not a binary decision. What I mean by that is it’s not either do nothing or do everything, there is always room in the middle. And the cost of doing nothing is you’re not planting the seeds in the winter that will come through in the spring when we bounce. Back to analogy from last week. The cost of doing all the work now is that you don’t look after your kids, you don’t properly look after your household. You’re not doing that stuff. So I think I would urge it’s not an either or none of these things are. There’s a guy called Ken who runs a blog called to humble Penny. He’s got kids, a family, and he’s been doing the blog in the evenings. And he was building that blog with two hours an evening, there is a version that you can put an hour a day, half an hour a day, there is some kind of versions there that you can do. And it’s never either or it’s never either or, and I’m sure but I don’t have kids so I can throw my time 100% into what I want to do, which is look after my relationships. Look after my people look after my business do what I need to do. But I understand and maybe this is actually a better question for you to answer is Simon is the kids better than the balance between family because you’ve got three kids and I actually persuaded you come back to pop up just as you’re about to have your third. That was good timing, leaving a high paying job to come back to a startup At that point, but there is a bit about the kids as well.

Yeah, for sure, I did promise actually Kate and one or two others that, that we make a video about this. And actually one of one of the people that’s been to a pop up business school down in founded in Oxfordshire is an awesome person called Kelly Kelly Wales, Kelly runs a support group for military mums in business. And I’m going to make a video with her about running a business from home and being the person responsible for childcare whilst trying to juggle all of the responsibilities of running a home and growing a business and so on. And she’s got some fantastic insights. And it is really tough. And yes, she right out in in 2015, no 24, two end of 2014, early 2015, I left the best job I’ve ever had, earning the most money I’ve ever owned. My wife was pregnant with our third son, the other two kids were at school. And, and it seemed like a good idea to come back and run pop up business schools with you. And that was really tough. And I think you know, but you know what it’s like, for those people that are parents watching, you just do what you got to do, like, you know, like we all do, whether you’re a parent or not. But in those early days, I was I was operating on two hours sleep, the alarm went off at half or five in the morning. And I was heading off to whichever pop up business school course we were running. And in those days, we didn’t book hotels, I seem to remember we used to drive everywhere at four in the morning, because we didn’t have the cash to to do it. So I think, you know, I do have a genuine feeling that we are capable of much more than we think we are. And in these in these tough times. Yeah, there’s lots of juggling juggling to be done, I ended up going to three different shops. Yesterday while running the home, my wife was at work juggling the kids. And obviously business has never been busier for us. And I think it’s been tough. And the changes that I’m going to make next week are that we’re going to have a much tighter routine, and shedule. And I’m going to make some time to dip out of work. And actually after the kids are in bed, that may be the time when the emails get written and all the work gets done. And I think you know, my day and the bio rhythm is probably going to change I think the there’s a chunk of work that I can do before the kids wake up. There’s a chunk of work I can do at the end of the day. But that’s work in progress. And I’m hoping that when I do that video with Kelly, I’m going to learn a whole bunch, and then we can share that with everybody else as well.

Is that thing? That’s right, we’re all making this up as we go along. Have you ever been confined to home before? Simon?

I don’t think so. I think I mean, I suppose there’s there’s been a few moments of Oh, yeah, I did have I did have a bit of an issue, which which put me in hospital a couple of years ago, I was I was confined to barracks for about a week and it probably should have been about six weeks. But we were too busy and I had to get stuff done. But I’m not great out of advert for self care at the moment. And I but but no, this is this is something that’s new. And I suppose if I go back to when I left my my first career in 2003, to start my first business going from being surrounded by co workers and having lots of fun and banter and so on. To just me on my own at home with four walls and a computer screen, I didn’t realise how much it was important to me personally to have social contact. Because I thought I’m a bit of an introvert, I thought I’m quite happy with my own company, it wouldn’t have an impact. But you know, after two or three months, I was to be found rocking gently in the corner of my bedroom, tapping the computer screen with my head in a rhythmic sort of way going. I didn’t think entrepreneurship was going to be like this. And I do have a thought that that people that are used to having a destination and we’ve been working remotely since pop up began. So so many of us were used to travelling around we’re used to working remotely to and working from home and so on. I think our transition on that side of things has been fairly smooth. Nevermind the kids around it’s still been fairly smooth because they used to be working from home but you know, what was it like for you Alan? When you when you first started working from home because obviously you you will work in contracts and out and about and so on. What was it like for you working from home and what would be your top tips for people that are finding themselves confined to barracks for a long period of time for the first time.

That was that was a long time ago, Simon that I did actually have to work through it. It was quite painful at the time working at home and so what are my top tips number one is the sofa The couch is your enemy, it will suck you in. You got to be careful with that. Number two is content. Online Netflix television, you’ve got to be careful with that, because that can suck you in. And when I was down, at that point, my go to option was to watch a movie or a TV show and I’d lose two hours. Now I have a completely different go to, which is to jump up and buzz around. And I think actually, we’re back to state management. Because when you’re home, you’re in charge of your state when you’re at work. Yeah, Kate Woods says yes, I always fall asleep. Haha. Kate days a big danger. If you fall asleep whilst you’re working from home, there’s a big danger. But it’s your own state management? And how can you keep yourself positive and forward focused whilst at home? I think that’s the most difficult bit. And you need a bunch of tools and techniques from bouncing around working on a question. The one I was speaking about with cares last week was the asking yourself a question and being focused on that. Actually, the key to life for yourself at home is this state management and positivity. If you get in a funk, if you get in a spiral of doom, if you get in that downwards, life’s bad life’s worth, then bear the bear, bear, bear, bear, bear bear, you’re lost. And then you’ve got to really fight to come back up. So the quicker you can change your state and move, the better. So we’re back to that big list of things, and motivation. And one last element, which I know you’ll build on, is you don’t get motivated to do something. You get motivated by doing something. And I think it’s dangerous at times like this, to sit here and go. I’m done. I’ve got no motivation. And well, motivation isn’t coming unless you get up and do something. And I think that’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve had since the early days. I wouldn’t take the action, I wouldn’t do it.

So look, I think I’m going to go to Jack in a minute because I think there’s a couple of questions in there and hiding behind the scenes is is Jack who make sure that all the technology works or that I don’t break it mainly. So if anyone’s got any questions that you’d like us to have a go answering and riff on then please post it in the comments below. Jack’s monitoring the the comments. Just before I build on you’re doing something with just to say hi to Husna and Kipps watching Great to see you here Kip. luxuries a head of editing. And proofreading has suggested that we set set new routines and timetables and that’s exactly what I’m going to do at the weekend. And I’m going to agree with the kids and we’re going to stick to it for as long as we can. And there’s quite a few funny memes going around. But day one was all about art, French Maths, English and so on day two was about six hours of Xbox but it’s all work in progress. And we’re figuring it out. Jack Ayling is going to ask us a question shortly. Hey Angie just joined us. Lisa. Lisa from Cornwall. These are from Lisa como from not Cornwall from Devon close it great to see you here. Lisa. I love the idea that of you creating the group that looks brilliant. Yeah, Kathleen, I think you’re right. I think having a nice working area is definitely something that that I’m working on today was chatting about where I’m going to put the whiteboard I’m gonna get a whiteboard here and create some kind of area in the kitchen on my bedroom or something to have a place to go. And great to see Laura here. Laura jumped in the pool that isn’t actually a real middle name but it should be and Catherine from Doncaster I’m so glad that you found the Doncaster popup helpful and how amazing is Katie as a presenter and I know you’ve had lots of fun with it. So I’m so Jack, there’s a question in there somewhere I think that I might have missed. Hello. Yes. The voice of Jack

I am the voice of doom. Why? Hang on. I’ll make sure people actually see my face. Like hello. Excellent. Yes, I am hiding in the background making sure that the live stream doesn’t completely fall apart or Simon doesn’t accidentally post it on his personal page again. thievin Murray asked the question. He said how are you weighing decisions to simply adapt our current business to be available for people online versus creating a completely new business model. So actually, I think, that particular question, if your business was working before the virus hit, it will probably work afterwards. So you don’t want to throw everything out, because we’re expecting things to come back. But we do need to change, we do need to adapt. So I see it as two levels. One is, what we’ve got actually worked, and is going to come back and two is what’s going to get us through the gap. And actually, there’s a third one, which is, is there actually, the thing that could replace pop up permanently from this? And who knows, there might be a word of way of doing it, this might change things forever. For us. Who knows? But those are the levels I’m looking at is, how can we get through the next three 612 months? And then what actually, are we doing afterwards? Are we just going back to business as usual? Or is this going to change everything for us?

Yeah, I think my if I was to build on the answer, and I think the with we’ve gone back this week, we’ve gone back to startup mode, is what it feels like to me. And I think if I think back to those, you know, in 2015, we had an empty calendar. And I had something like a four month five month runway. And we had to go into sales mode very, very quickly. So we were we were testing and experimenting and emailing and calling and having as many we those are the days when we went to every single meeting, he you know, even if our gut feel was that it probably wasn’t going to lead to anything. And I think obviously, I’m not going to meetings now. But virtually I am, I’ve sent. I’ve sent. I’ve sent five emails today to CEOs of other organisations that we could potentially partner with. And I don’t know if they’re the right partnerships or not, I don’t know if that’s going to drive traffic to our page if it’s going to create an income, and so on. But my gut feel right now is that that feels like the right thing to do. And the reason I feel confident in my instinct is that I’m completely immersed in this challenge. And having regular conversations with the team, regular conversations with clients with with trusted friends and just bouncing things off. And I’m kind of an I’m very much about kinesthetic, I just got a feeling my way through what’s happening. And we’ve made, we’ve made a call this week, which actually, on balance, I wasn’t sure if it’s the right call, you know, we’ve gone into taking our miss our business model for running our live events, which is finding sponsors, to finding sponsors for an online thing and going to the same organisations that actually I’ve pulled back from that a little bit of sort of thinking I, I think there might be some, there might be some sponsorship opportunities out there. But right now the right thing to do is to find out what people’s problems are, and then offer them some help without any any expectation at this stage of, of money coming back for some of our clients. But there are definitely some opportunities for us to, frankly, to sell. And if we don’t sell and find ways of engaging new customers, then, you know, like Alan says the runway suddenly becomes shorter, because we’re not, we’re not being able to, to generate the income to pay the wages and so on. So I think it’s it’s ideas that a commodity that I’m telling him right now, it’s like let’s continue to develop ideas, to test them just to do little experiments with them. You know, James has been on the phone to to clients, he’s been sending emails and testing the little ideas that we’ve got coming out, and we’re making them real, and you don’t know if they’re going to work until you put them in front of someone and ask them for cash. So it’s almost, it’s almost like we’ve gone full circle that we created this thing to help people we’ve grown this business to a successful business. You know, you’ve got seven of us in the core team. There’s 16 of us in the team in the wider team. We’ve grown this business and now this thing has happened. And we’re backs straight back to the beginning again in the same boat as everybody else looking at a blank sheet of paper going well, the world’s changed, hasn’t it? What do we do now? What do you think Alan?

Why think this brings us back to the principles Simon and times of challenge. It’s go back to the principles, what are your principles? What are the principles of the business and everyone who’s on this Facebook Live now has probably been through the course and heard the principles of sell something to someone and we need To do that, Dan is better than perfect. That’s where we are at the moment. And I think the startup principles that we teach are now more important than ever before. Because, yeah, in a lot of ways, we have all gone back to being an early stage startup.

Yeah. Just looking down the comments here. We’ve got Kevin has made a comment about insurance. I think we’ll circle back to that. John’s being very entrepreneurial, and asked if we can mention if anyone’s a dog owner, I know that he’s building a Facebook community for dog owners. He’s asked if I can give him a shout out. So John, MB, I know you sent me a message earlier. Unfortunately, we can’t email everybody on our list about your dogs, because that breaks the rules of GDPR. But I think I’m okay to mention your name on here and go join John’s Facebook group about dogs. I don’t know if that means you’re an ecstatic dog. Or if you’ve got an exotic dog, either or that’s all good. Angie, Angie is working on writing the 50 things that she can do in the next 12 weeks on personal development, exercise and silly stuff, too. It’s the silly stuff that want to hear about Angie. So please share that and post that in the group. Kim loves that idea that she wants the silly stuff as well. Trevor’s asking if we can get paid by doing online? Sure, that’s definitely what we’re after. And Fran friends gonna join John’s group by the looks of it, which is great news. And Ben Perrault from the American mafia is on the line as well. Hello, Ben, great to see you on here. Who else have we got? Lisa’s doing to do lists? Hurston has asked the question, Jack, I’m going to come to you for this one as head of technology by a cat your year of birth is fairly recent. The question that Hurston is asking is about zoom and how to work zoom with an associate and show slides recorded. I think that’s a fairly a fairly quick win, isn’t it with screen share and so on?

Yeah, so Well, that does sound like a massive advert for zoom. Because now everyone is remotely working. Zoom has suddenly shut up. Because it’s kind of like the new go to thing there are there are things like Skype, there are Google Hangouts or a million other ones. But Zoom is one of the big ones. It’s one of the most user friendly, kind of like voice chat. So this Facebook Live is on Zoom. It’s primarily used for private kind of live video conferencing. I saw in the comments, yes, so the free version is free for up to 14 minutes. We have one premium account that pop up have which enables us to live stream and go slightly longer. We use that for when we have a lot of the like over the overseas partner calls and stuff like that. But the rest of the team have free. When it’s one to one calls, it’s free for as long as you want. It’s only 40 minutes for when there’s free people are more. And the popup free shortcut that we always have is that I would say at least once a week, we have the conversation of oh, there’s a box in the corner that says we have 30 seconds left, shall we start another call and then we just send a new link. So when you log on, just go to the Zoom account, create yourself a free account, it’ll give you a link, all you need to do is text email, however you want to send the other person the link, they click on that. And they can access it, they can either download the programme onto their phone or their computer or they can access it directly in their browser. So Safari or Google Chrome, the paid version, you don’t really get much more for it. We’re playing around with it for the first time this week. This is kind of the first time we’re using it. We’re actually really using the premium features besides longer than 40 minutes. But yeah, you can share screens, you can share your slides. We’re looking to experiment to do some of our online core stuff potentially with this. We might do some test runs in the support group. We’ll let you guys know but yeah, definitely explore zoom. If you find any other cool tentative, be sure to post them in the comments here or the support group because we want to know just as much as everyone else.

Thank you, Jack that was not an expert that was much more comprehensive than I thought you were going to do. That’s why they came to you. I said, Oh no more things.

I’ve taken my eyes comments, John. Yes, you can use your phone with Zoom. There’s an app, either on the App Store or the Google Play Store depending on what your poison is. Well, how do you guys not get distracted by the comments? I feel like Okay

so look, Jane is here. Say hi to Jane. Great to see you.

Hi to Jess and Jim sending you love

Kim for the Bolton mafia is baking toilet rolls in the oven. Some upcoming upcoming craft blogs, which I think is fascinating and exciting. I can’t wait to read and see all about that stuff. And Ben’s got some information about zoom that he’s adding to what he said as well which is awesome. And yeah, Kathleen’s mentioning that there’s loom I think that’s the one that Shawn likes to send videos on. And we can do good stuff with that. And and Kim’s ask the question, Eleanor Jack, you might know the answer to this. Or perhaps someone in the group does. Does anyone know how we can put free downloadable PDF resources on the website? Kim, I think you’ve got would you have a weebly website? Or did you go with Wix in the end? But yeah, it should be pretty easy to get a PDF download on your website, right?

Weebly. In the drag and drop bar on the left, there’s a button that says downloadable file, just drag that in, upload the PDF and people can download it. If you want to charge for it, that becomes slightly different. You could do a free version with a PayPal button and set up an autoresponder that sends the PDF afterwards via email once they’ve paid, or Weebly has an advanced e commerce version. But that’s a paid for thing. So there’s lots of options. There’s lots of different ways to do it. You just need to play around with Weebly or your one. But you should absolutely be able to do that.

First off, so

now I’m gonna say I’m going to hide in the background and collate some videos if you if you need me just shout young person and he shall appear.

Like a genie. I’m going to find an old lamp in the corner here. I’m just going to go on camera and rub the lamp and then I expect you to be the face. So look, our hand has arrived Jack Marsh, I know I’m staff. But I have a question. I’d love to know three things that you’re excited on in work and life right now. Marshy? What a question. That is. Alan, I’m going to go to you first. Because you’re much better thinking on your feet than me. What are the three things that you’re excited about in work and life? Right now?

Yeah, Jack Marsh? That is a brilliant question. And that’s actually one that everyone on this Facebook Live should be thinking about? And answering, because it’s a question that focuses you on the future, and what to do next? What am I excited about? Number one, this has given me a huge amount of time to do yoga videos, hit videos and work on my health. And I’m thinner than ever and stronger than ever. So I’m working on my health. Number two, it’s given me an opportunity to experiment with tech, you do not need a young person, let’s bust that rumour, you do not need a jack, it helps itself. It does help. Obviously, we love Jack, we’re still gonna pay your wage. But Simon, we can learn tech too. We are not past it. Anyone can do this stuff. So it’s actually giving me an opportunity to learn new things. And number three, I have been really excited about writing my blog, and sharing tools, techniques and tips with people. And the response to the blog articles I’ve written over the last week has been phenomenal. And actually it’s given me a platform to help more people, which I just want to contribute at the moment.

I love that. And I was so interested in your answers that I forgot to process my own answers to Marty’s question. But I think just to pick up on a couple of things that you said. So the oldest participant of a pop up Business School is Jim, Jim’s an artist when it came to pop up. He’s 83 years old. Jim uses Twitter, Instagram and build a weebly website through our course. So you’re absolutely right age isn’t a barrier. It’s more about us recognising that I think the challenge some of the challenges that I’ve found with some of this stuff is that my approach is to just I just dive in, and then I roll up my sleeves, create a login, dive in experiment and so on. Experimentation is great and it gets you started but there is a risk that if you don’t keep your learning going that you plateau that you can only take it so far. It’s a little bit like teaching the building websites using Weebly is a great example because unless someone says to you, sometimes if there’s a break in the Wi Fi this During freezes, and you have to refresh the page. Now, if you’re not tech, you know, comfortable with tech and using it all the time, you might not know that sometimes you need to do that extra bit of learning that breaks the plateau and gets you to the next level. But I think, you know, you’ve got to stick with these things, haven’t you. And I think if you’re going to, if you’re gonna learn a new skill, it’s it’s not just the time that you put in, it’s also about the effort that you put into, to learn how to use it, and so on. And so good.

Yeah. That we are in the most fortunate time ever with YouTube, there is a free video on how to do anything, all you need to do is go to YouTube and type it in. And if you combine Simon’s experimentation, with watching a video of how to do it, testing it, learning it, and looping back round and doing it again, unbelievable how much progress you can make and how quickly unbelievable. So I just wanted to add, I think there’s never been a better time to try this stuff.

Great stuff. I think the just the answer, go back to the marshes question about what’s excited me the most at the moment. Just before I answer it, the you said earlier on that the fastest way to change your focus is to move your body. I absolutely love that. And you’re quite right. And I think the other way would be to change your focus. And a question like that just takes you out of the funk and into what possibilities are. So I love the question, marshy, please, can you ask me that question every day, for at least the next fortnight. Because I’ll probably forget, like, the stuff that I’m excited about. Number one is one of the ideas that we’re cooking up in this moment to see that fly and help the business and help other people that we’re trying to support with their business ideas. To see that that thing realised I think that excites me massively to, to figure out how to navigate through and lead the team and my family and my loved ones through this little period. That challenge actually really excites me in a strange kind of way. Secondly, the I guess, we’ve got some some fun stuff happening with with John and Karen card who are supporting us with telling the story of pop up and getting us out there in the media. We’ve had some interest from national newspapers and potentially writing regular columns about about business and about how to support small businesses and self employed people and freelancers through this next phase. That really excites me because it helps put our message on a on a bigger platform. And thirdly, I’m out of my comfort zone with this stuff. I for those people that are hesitating on making videos, for those people that hesitating on doing Facebook Lives and getting out there. I am the reason why you should because as Alan joked at the start, he’s been trying to get me to do video for about five years. And occasionally I’ve done it. I’ve done a few bits here and there. But it’s felt massively uncomfortable. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed these Facebook Live sessions this week. Whilst they haven’t been perfect. Some guy commented that I shouldn’t do my hair at the start of a Facebook Live post. He said that. Yeah, I think I was doing this display, just as it went live just to like make sure that I looked moderately presentable. And I was kind of going Yeah, but what was the content like was anything interested in it? Well, he wasn’t listening, because he was too worried that I’d broken the etiquette of videos. God bless him. But Done is better than perfect. Make the video press record, press live. Do the stuff that makes you feel uncomfortable. And if it doesn’t go right first time if it’s not perfect first time, good. Because it means that you’re doing it right. And it means that you’re learning. And now is the time to do that stuff. This is the time where it doesn’t really matter what you do. What do you think? I’m doing videos at last?

You’re doing it Simon you’re doing it and it’s way better than when I had to force you to do it. Laura jumped in the pool just said she did her first yoga video on Facebook this evening. So Laura is out there doing it. And one of our one of my favourite success stories out of everything we’ve done is what Laura has done, having met her in Newport market at the pop up three years ago to seeing her today running her own yoga business and yoga events around the world where she was running yoga events around the world. But now she’s running them online. It’s phenomenal. And I think you’re right there is Actually, so if you look at the population out there and what’s going on, now’s the time to test because people know that you’re changing, and you’re trying things. And they’re actually more forgiving of businesses now than they ever would have been before. So I think there’s never been a better time to try this stuff to get online to have a go. There’s never been a better time to experiment. And the worst that happens is it doesn’t work. And you wait three months and go back to doing what you were doing before. That’s the worst that happens. And maybe this bloke who didn’t like your hair never comes back? Well, you know what I wouldn’t say it was many expletives. And I have this on my blog. People get very het up over the fact I don’t spell words correctly all the time. And my response is, do you like my content? Do you like my thoughts? Would you prefer me to spend more time getting my thoughts out there or more time double checking every spelling of every word. And there’s going to be a whole bunch of people that would prefer me to spell every word correct. And that’s fine, go to someone else’s blog. There’s other people who can get past it. And while I’ll do everything I can to help them.

Alan, I quite like your spelling, it’s part of your charm. I remember, you know, you used to make a website after a business meeting. And by the time I’d arrived home, you’d already published the website. And I would go mad because you use the wrong picture, the wrong words, and there were spelling mistakes all over it. But the key to it is that you’d already sold one because you’d run three people until then told them about it. So you know that that mantra and all the principles of pop up about, you know, it’s all about trust Done is better than perfect, have an unreasonable sense of urgency to get stuff done. is all true. I think, you know, we’re just coming up to 10. I think we’ve got time for a few closing thoughts. And then an idea about what next, have I triggered a thought in your mind? You know, I

can’t believe it’s 10 This is in a snip of fingers.

So, a couple of thoughts on my mind. One of my thoughts is that my mind’s gone blank boys are gonna say, Oh, I know what I was gonna know. I’d forgotten what was I gonna say? Come on, you know, you. We’ve been business partners for years. I was gonna say something it was gonna be good.

In comments in the closing thoughts that this is the time to make changes. Oh, yeah.

Thank you. I know what it was. It was nothing like that. But but you have triggered a thought again, thank you so much thing that was in my mind is so Gillian said Gillian that Alan, you know, Jillian from from Chautauqua and from the financial independence world. I remember having a conversation with Jillian last year. And she said she cuz I have a tendency to keep on pushing hard all the time, striving to make ideas happen and putting myself out of my comfort zone every single day to make something happen. And I was starting to get a bit worn down. And she said, you know, it, her analogy was great it was if you’re splashing around the deep end of the pool, sometimes you need to get out of the water, dry off, you know, have a hug with a towel, drink a cup of tea, have a biscuit, and just relax and give yourself some love and just calm down. But just to summon up the energy to get back in the pool again. So there is for me, there’s a there’s a very important self care element. So all of the craziness that’s going on at the moment, because if we spend our time worried anxious, staring at social media, staring at the TV, reading the newspapers and so on, that is going to have a significant impact on our well being. So, so part of my strategy for next week, and over the weekend is to take some time out to rest, take stop, breathe deeply, you know, meditate, just take some time out to allow my body and my brain to recover. And then that’s going to help me summon the energy, enthusiasm and creativity to go again next week. And I know, I know what happened at the weekend, I’ll be too excited. I will get drawn into writing blog posts and articles and figuring out ideas for the team for next week. But I’m going to force myself to rest and just chill out, get out of the pool, stop splashing around for a little while. Rest and then ready to go again. So I wanted to share that because I felt like that’s an important an important thing that we need to be mindful of. I just wonder what your closing thoughts are, and then perhaps a thought about when we do the next one of these.

So Andy’s actually said one of the things I wanted to say in the comments, Thank you Angie Beeston. It is, as with everything we do, it’s what actions are you going to take? So you’ve you’ve been chatting to us For an hour, you’ve been part of this, what are you actually going to do? Are you going to do a yoga course every day? You’re going to meditate every day? Are you going to go out there and make five sales calls to your customers tomorrow? What are you actually going to do? Because it’s the action that makes this happen. And I think Katie and I were reflecting earlier today. And she said, one of the things that makes me different, that makes Allen different, is I read a self development book, and then I do all the actions, I actually do the stuff. And that’s what will truly change things for you is if you actually do it. So if you like to my idea of the post it notes on the wall with the different ways to change your state. Do it, get the post it notes out? If you don’t have post it, who cares? Write it on the paintwork. It doesn’t matter. Do it? Take the action? Yes, I actually said that, Simon. But you’ve got to do it. Lisa says she’s going to go and do YouTube videos. I absolutely love that. It’s the action. So what I would love you to do is, after this call, what are the two things you’re going to do? And when are you going to do them and get on with it straight away? Because this change has given us an opportunity to create change for us. So take that opportunity. And let’s build something, let’s create something, let’s do something different. And your actions compounding over time will create the future that you want. That’s what I really wanted to say to people. Yeah, Lisa Marie says, I’m going to get up off the sofa and turn the TV off. Hell yes. Switch me off. Get out there do stuff. Lisa, all of you turned me off. Please go do things. That’s what Simon and I wish for all of us is to make stuff happen.

I love it. Alan, we’d rather turn you off and turn you on. So I just like to just to say our friends made sales today through Facebook by going by your rules. ALAN I love that. Teresa suggested we look at Peter krones videos on Instagram about reframing her business taking action every day. Jodi I noticed earlier that you read through your notes from the pop up course and got some energy from that which is brilliant. If you’ve got landlords then no wall writing place as marshy a good bit of advice for keeping your tenancy in place of this calm or matron so yeah, there’s some good stuff in here. Rachel’s got some inspiration. She’s done a TEFL course, got something from a pep talk and Lisa’s doing youtubes. This is just brilliant. And Debbie. Just a shout out to Debbie from Doncaster, who graduated from the Doncaster pop up today. And there’s been some disruption there and you stuck with it. So credit to you for that, Debbie. You’re part of our family now. There’s no escape. We’ve got you now. So Alan and I and Jack. Thank you, Jack. I Don’t Know Jack, are there any thoughts that you wanted to add? Are you still there? Or have you been at the Jack Daniels whilst you’ve been waiting for us?

So I couldn’t really answer some of those questions. He’s here. I’m here. My my my biggest question is, when are we planning to do the next one of these? Simon’s

Alan, you look like you’re about to say something? Well, I’m thinking that we should do Monday. I don’t know if but should we check it over the weekend? You around Monday, Alan? Should we do it again?

I am currently on lockdown in New Orleans. I have no plans for the foreseeable future. I’m

available. If you close your diary for us.

I think we should get Katie coons on. I really miss Casey, and I’d love her to come on. So let’s email Casey. I know she’s been watching tonight. I’d like her to come on the show soon as she runs the courses. And let’s do that. And yeah, I want to keep giving energy and inspiration to the people we work with. Brilliant. Okay, so let’s aim for 9pm Monday. Keep your eyes on social media and we’ll lock that in and we’ll set up an event. That was a good call. We’ve just hit an hour and I spoke everyone.

Thank you very much for watching everybody. Good luck. Stay safe.

Bye, rebels