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Forging Resilience
Join us as we explore experiences and stories to help gain fresh insights into the art of resilience and the true meaning of success.
Whether you're seeking to overcome personal challenges, enhance your leadership skills, or simply navigate life's twists and turns, "Forging Resilience" offers a unique and inspiring perspective for you to apply in your own life.
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Forging Resilience
68 Greg Barden: "We’re starving for real connection, here’s one way back”
Greg Barden's journey defies conventional career paths in ways that might make most of us rethink our own trajectories. From his early days in the UK Special Forces to an unexpected pivot into professional rugby with Bristol Bears and ultimately captaining England's Rugby Sevens team, Greg's life has been defined by adaptation and purpose.
What truly sets his story apart is how these seemingly disparate experiences converged into a powerful mission. During military deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, Greg discovered something profound in his interactions with locals—commerce created connection. Whether buying fresh bread from a baker in Lashkar Gah or coffee from Baghdad's bazaars, he witnessed how simple transactions dismantled walls between people from vastly different worlds.
These experiences crystallized when he watched his favorite local pub in Sandbanks fall victim to corporate takeover. The loss of this community hub sparked something visceral in Greg: a determination to fight for independent businesses not merely as economic entities but as essential threads in our social fabric.
Now, as founder of Explore Local—an app connecting people with genuine independent businesses—Greg has taken his mission mobile. Traveling across the UK in a converted VW Transporter with his wife and six-month-old daughter, he's experiencing firsthand the communities he aims to champion while building a technological platform that helps others do the same.
Greg's perspective cuts through conventional narratives about "supporting small businesses." Instead, he frames the choice to engage with local commerce as profoundly self-interested: "Loneliness is one of the fastest growing diseases in the Western world," he notes, suggesting our digital isolation and commercial habits directly contribute to this epidemic of disconnection.
Whether you're building a business, seeking more meaningful community connections, or simply wondering how your daily choices impact the world around you, this conversation offers refreshing perspective on how commerce can become common ground for human connection. Download Explore Local today and discover what happens when you experience your community like a local again.
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Welcome to Forging Resilience, exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership. Join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. Today, on Forging Resilience, I'm joined by Greg Barden. Greg's journey defines convention from serving UK special forces to captain in England Bunker 7's team and now the founder of Explore Local, a platform that reconnects people, their communities, in meaningful words. Greg, welcome to the show buddy. Thanks, aaron, nice to be here. Lovely mate, it's good to see you after our coffee and bath last summer, so a lot has changed since then?
Speaker 2:Indeed, yeah, it was a. Yeah, uh, nice coffee, nice, nice catch up with you. A bit random, wasn't it? But um, I said what? Nine months later, I'm here now as a dad. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:Mate in in a van, although not today, but I guess we'll get on to that the van is right there and I nearly actually had to do this interview.
Speaker 1:We're staying with um my wife's friends, um family at the moment, but I yeah, I was nearly gonna set up in the van, but she's right there, not too far away, at the moment we'll get to the van in a bit, no doubt, but, greg, give us a a rundown of your story and, up until now, what's relevant and and impactful for, for both yourself and the listener, what led you to be sat here today?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'll try and keep it a reasonable high level. Um, you know I was born in Australia, um, so my grandparents were like 10 pound poms and and it's relevant because, um, I've ended up moving around a lot in my life um ended up back in Walesales, then england and, yeah, throughout pretty conventional childhood I would say. But um hated school and wanted to get out of that environment as soon as I could and, having been given a book on the royal marines as a 11 year old, became obsessed basically, and, and as soon as I could, um, at the age of 16, I left home and went headed on down to Limston and started that journey of a military career, which was powered as much by that book but also my grandfather who's in Second World War in the Royal Navy and the old motor torpedo boat. So I got brought up listening to all those stories etc and stuff, um, so it was close to my heart and something that you know wanted to do, so jumped into it with both feet as a 16 year old really. Um, but um, there were two pages at the back end of this royal marines book, um, which were kind of semi-blacked out and it was all about the special boat service and um. So I kind of went into the room with one eye already on that um, to be really honest, um, but I spent, you know, three, three years in the royal marines as 16, from 16 um up in four or five commando um, did a couple of talk, well, one tour to kosovo etc. And stuff, but was always, was always trying to push to see what was involved in getting down to pool. Ultimately, and even though I got told not to too young, too immature, which I probably was, but didn't listen to some of the people that I respected a lot and put my notice in after joining 4.5 recce actually, which was a good springboard for me into actually going down on what was the old aptitude down in pool, got through that, ultimately went on selection, got through that and then joined the service in the back end of or middle part of 2001,.
Speaker 2:Just after, yeah, back end of 2001,. After, obviously everything had kicked off and, yeah, enjoyed a career, a short career of seven years, basically Multiple tours, different theatres. But within that time this is where my story goes a little off-rail from what is, I suppose, conventional in the military career is that we had a rugby tournament in between a couple of tours. It was ourselves, herefordford, the Aussie Sass, down in Perth, western Australia, when the 2003 Rugby World Cup was on and we all went down there for a bit of a jolly and R&R and to kick each other around the pitch for two days and get in a beer. But that was my introduction to rugby basically and I fell in love with it, absolutely fell in love with the game and the spirit. There was a lot of crossover between rugby and military and it just resonated with me.
Speaker 2:So, having done that little journey down to to perth and, you know, got to experience um, watching england play etc and stuff, I came back and and any available time I just um from the military, I went and started playing rugby basically and I felt it's just such an amazing escape, um, and being in another environment, which I think, yeah, challenged me in a very, very different way, around very different people but also very similar at the same time and just by luck and being in the right place, my rugby career developed really quickly, having not played it at all. So from, I think, 22 23 again, you know I don't want to grab it on here, but the navy I played against the navy I was in a, I played for the county and played against navy and got picked up by the navy and that becomes really relevant because they were so supportive in in this next chapter of my career. So, um, eventually, um, I started. I got offered a contract for a semi-professional club, newbrius, again back in the navy, and this was still trying to um balance obviously my sf career. I'm going away and you know so many people stood up just so I could get off um, off whatever we were doing, to then drive up to newbury and three days a week to go and do some training on a tuesday, thursday and on a saturday, just you know, yeah, to see where I could go with this and long, long story short and, as you's much in between to this, getting to where I eventually got to.
Speaker 2:But I was in a different country. I hadn't just played the Army-Navy game at Twickenham and I was in an operational situation and I got a phone call saying that do you want to go and do a trial for Bristol Bears? I was like what? So, yeah, I found myself and this is quite hilarious one minute being around the environment. As you know, next minute I was in this flat in Clifton in Bristol, with a guy called Mikeyy mandrels who was listening to jungle sitting on the balcony going what the hell am I doing? How am I here, like in reality, like shitting myself, because I was about to go into this um pre-season with these professional rugby players, having not been exposed to that environment really, you know, and the strength and conditioning side and the whole culture really of full-time professional rugby.
Speaker 2:But off I went and yeah, it was a huge, huge wake-up call really, actually in terms of fitness and strength. Actually, I remember we had a fitness test the first week and my strength, or power as it is, um was like 40 percent down from what those guys were hitting consistently. Just a different, completely different mind, um, training sort of thing. But on the cardio side, on the aerobic side, I, I could smash, smash it and that was my, that was my um.
Speaker 2:I suppose usp um with rugby, that I had a bit of a diesel engine, so I, I, it bought me time basically to get my power up and get involved um with with this pre-season. And, yeah, at the end of it I got offered a contract and the service both down in Poole and the Navy. Let me go off and see where I would take this and fully expecting to be back within the service within a year, but that didn't happen actually, and I said where I went from, that is, I had a few appearances in the premiership but I came to rugby really late and you know it's pretty telling.
Speaker 1:Sorry, greg. Two quick things there, mate. What did the professionals make of you turning up then, mate?
Speaker 2:I'm curious to know, yeah, there was, obviously, they all knew. What did the professionals make of you turning up then? I'm curious to know yeah, there was obviously, they all knew, they all got announced and, yeah, embarrassing if so. But I think there was obviously a lot of intrigue. A lot of these guys you could easily see crossing over. You know you would be of that military sort of mindset you know, willing to put their body and mind on the line. You know you're in a commercial setting in professional rugby, but there was a huge amount of crossover, which is what I loved about it in many ways.
Speaker 2:But there was this you know, not self-recess aura, but you know that they would project, you know, you know, like, not self-process aura, but you know that they would project, you know, on onto not necessarily me, but obviously what I was representing, um, which was, you know, um, interesting, like to try and deal with, where you're just trying to be there and you know, like you, you're looking at them, going bloody hell. You know this is what I've got to get to, and and challenging myself, thinking that I wasn't good enough to be there, actually, like, nowhere near good enough. These guys have been playing rugby 20 years. They've been in strength and conditioning specific for that much time as well. So I think there was a bit of not standoff-ish, because I was so welcomed by everyone, but there was an element of unknown about me, I think, um which took time to to break down um, and vice versa actually, because you know I was in such an alien environment, um, and playing catch up yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1:I guess there must be so much opportunity for that internal chatter to go off, like, like you alluded to there, what am I? What am I doing here? And and you, before I interrupted you there you're saying it's very telling that you'd not played rugby. In what ways? What examples can you give us that that marks those differences between you and those guys I think it's in every, every career.
Speaker 2:You know this is all the nuances, isn't it all the one percent that actually add up over time to make a big difference. I think the only way you get to a certain level is by spending time in something. I think you know there's that 10 000 hour rule. Isn't there, you know where, but it's. It's the little like, from a rugby point of view, being in the right place, right time and being able to read something on on the ground. You know, in a, in a situation which you know you've trained and again, you all know that really well and how hard you actually have to train so when you're in that situation, you're not thinking and that's exactly the same in rugby, I think. So I was there thinking all the time, thinking that I've got to be in that position, or rather than, um and this is certainly my style anyway, as as a, as a as a whole is that you know you just go with your gut. You know you're not feeling and you understand the game as it, as it should be um, uh, so yeah, so there was that side, and you know that was a challenge for me actually in that period, not only knowing that I wasn't strong enough and powerful enough, but also that you're trying to acknowledge yourself all the time, which was incredibly challenging, you know, coming, like I said, going from one environment which was so extreme to the other. But, like I said, I wanted to be there and you know, that was always, was always, you know, the baseline of you know, and knowing that it was my decision, um, and thankfully it worked out, you know, and I kept pushing and pushing and got offered um the opportunity by um friend of mine, um, a guy called ben ryan, who was my coach at newbury, to to go and trial for England Sevens based on, I think, just generally my fitness and being able to go through those barriers which you actually do nearly every time in Sevens from a fitness point of view. And so, yeah, I went and joined the, you know, got offered a central contract with the rfu and and ended up kind of leaving my 15s career behind, knowing I came a bit too late and that was in my head.
Speaker 2:I've got regrets around that in some way, in some form, um, when I always look back and said should have, you know it should have, could have, would have all that. But I chose that path at the time because I thought it was the best one. I'm talking about England 70 and the actual sevens, which was, you know, it was a more extreme version of fitness that you have to go through. And again, I think there's something in us, you know, from a SF background, which I really, really enjoyed, you know, putting myself to that challenge and, certainly on the fitness side, an exposure that that game gave me years on the circuit, basically, um, uh, traveling around the world, um, playing the different tournaments you know, down in hong kong, sevens, wellington, las vegas.
Speaker 2:I know it sounds terrible, right, you know I hated it. Um, yeah, and it's just incredible, incredible period and and I was playing for the navy in that time, coming back and representing the service etc and stuff, but but I never came back to, I never went back to paul. Actually, um, I kept reading, really close ties with them, but obviously their operational side went through the roof and, um, I was left behind. So I didn't even you know that point like I'm going back, to be honest so just focused on my rugby career at that point as a as a second career.
Speaker 1:So so what led you to be setting up, explore local and how did the rugby finish?
Speaker 2:finish off well, in rugby you get a lot of downtime and and you're you're fined. And it started in bristol, actually, um, a guy called, uh, joe alabd, who's now the england defense coach matt, so rob higgitt all gone on to do um sort of the things. You spend a lot of time in coffee shops talking about life after rugby and also I remember all sorts of conversations we've had. I had this idea of a I think I don't know I put diesel in petrol, in their diesel, and I was like I'm gonna, I developed this mis-fueled prevention device and I was obsessed with dragon's den at that point and thinking about all these stupid ideas. Um, actually I had a go at selling Christmas trees one year. This is when we, when I was playing rugby, um, it's all sorts, and it just set a little thing in motion about like life after you know, military and rugby, and these guys were brilliant. You know they were always talking about it.
Speaker 2:So you know, long story short, you know it was during the last part of my sevens career that I started developing this idea, which came through my military experiences and this one thing I I always reiterate, and this was time in afghanistan and in certain parts where you know I was operating um as a in a small team, reasonable isolation, um completely reliant on um locals for our safety in some way from intelligence and stuff, and it was in that time again, you'll know this British ration packs back then. I think they've changed now, but they were pretty honking and spending a reasonable amount of time with them was like the most depressing thing ever. So, being a bit of a foodie, um, I'd always try and go out and see if I could source anything locally and I think one scenario or two scenarios I'll I'll use is you know, um the bread from the local bakery in la chagall. They would come every morning with these incredible type nan type breads, freshly baked, and I'd be there to pay him and take this bread off him and over that period not friendship obviously, but you could see how walls that were there figuratively just sort of got pulled down just through commerce.
Speaker 2:Um same, when I was in baghdad, you know, buying coffee from the bazaars um, you know you got a chance to meet people on common ground and that that resonated with me as as much as anything in in my life and I love that, that humanity side that I think. Commerce, um, it gives us the opportunity to meet people on common ground, um, and so that that that sowed a seed, so much that when I left um, when I left the rugby career, um, I just I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I just knew that I wanted to do something around empowering um what I saw as the most important part of that commerce, which was independent businesses. Um, independent business being, like you know, your local baker, um cocktail maker, all these types of locally run businesses that have got um local stakeholders in.
Speaker 2:And oh, actually, and there was another um at that time and that was a tesco had just taken over my favorite local pub down in sandbanks, um, called the sand acres. It's like where we'd all come off the water and or come off a bike ride and end up back in this little gritty, sticky car park carpet pub down in sandbanks. Pool tables and people were just of all sorts would just descend there, you know. And and then the community were trying to buy it, and but Tesco, which already had four bloody units close by, took it over and I fucking hated it. I literally hated it.
Speaker 2:It was like the commoditization of, like our local community right, and it just took a huge amount of personality away from where we lived and it really really allowed, you know, a couple of blog posts at a time, like you know, inventing basically, and it filled something in me with a company, with this other side, or passion for, or experiences at that point, for you know, local businesses or local people, and they just came together basically, and I've been on this um journey of entrepreneurship now, um, but it's gone so far, it's so personal to me, um, that you know, from a business point of view, you know we've, we've probably failed two or three times um, from a business idea, execution and funding point of view, um, but I've managed to pivot, endure, often to the detriment, I think, of myself and people around me, but I've pushed through this period or this part of my life to try and realize this vision that I have in in my head and it's it's, it's still up for grabs.
Speaker 2:So you know we're, we're. You know I'm on the road, as you said, we'll probably dive into that in a bit, um, but, um, yeah, very much still in in a big fight here at the moment yeah.
Speaker 1:There's a question coming through me that in terms of yeah, so what's the bigger picture here? Help us understand, then, if all we ever do is buy from Tesco because that's convenient. It's all we've ever known. Help me understand why I might seek out local business, independent businesses, a bit more, greg.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the key thing is it's not about supporting right. I hear this all the time. You've got to support independent businesses a bit more, greg. Yeah, it's well. The key thing is it's not about supporting right, the the. I hear this all the time. You've got to support independent businesses. They don't want that, right? It's actually all about us and what we want in our lives.
Speaker 2:And I always come back to humanity, right, humanity relies on connections and loneliness is one of the fastest growing diseases in the western world, and with that, you know so many other issues that you can see that happens across our society and that comes through, you know, lack of ownership, lack of identity, lack of belonging, um, and that is, you know, the problem with and I, you know I'm not clever enough to talk about economics and capitalism and consumerism. It's worse. You know where we're just doing. You know we're not thinking, we're not understanding what actually we really value in our everyday life. And you know, I see it. You know, across, mainly across Western societies, where we have been targeted by these huge companies to live a certain way and they've had it so successful, with online now dominating, the likes of Amazon taking huge, huge amounts of wealth physical wealth, actual monetary wealth, as well as societal wealth, as I call it out of our local communities. You know. So for me, that's that's the vision, right? So how do we um go up against it? And I make no bones about that, but do in a way which is really positive and that people understand and can make a choice by themselves.
Speaker 2:Actually, I want that more in my life. I want less of that in my life, and that more side is all about human connection for me, and like I said, going back to my Afghan story, is that you need common ground for that, and there's all sorts of common ground. Dog walkers, for example. If you've got a dog, you'll understand. You meet someone else with a dog. There's common ground instantly. Walkers, for example you know, you know. If you've got a dog, you'll understand. You meet someone else with a dog. There's common ground instantly and you'll stop to talk. But I've seen it when people don't, they'll just walk past each other.
Speaker 2:You know, um, but from my point of view, my common ground is these independent businesses, these people who are like these, small, small time passion-led entrepreneurs that are going and putting themselves on the front line. As I see it, you know, with the, the marketplace and the macro sort of trends that are out there, you know cost living and war in ukraine, and you know tariffs now and everything else, brexit and whatever else gets thrown into the mix, but these people are still there trying to realize their own little dream, their own little passion, through, I think, what I perceive as huge adversity, because it's just, it's not a fair marketplace at the moment with these big boys dominating the market.
Speaker 1:So so for my own understanding, then are you saying that more independent businesses is there's more opportunity for connection, and then that that has a spiraling effect on the communities and lots of other things that probably be on this conversation.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I should reduce my answer, that's exactly it's a ripple.
Speaker 2:It's a ripple effect, you know, the more, the more common ground you have. So you know, yeah, it's exactly that, you know. So the more opportunities you have to be in front of someone rather than a machine that just beeps you out and you walk on with your head down, the more opportunity you've got someone to say, hey morning, how are you doing today? Or little tiny things that all add up, you know a skill or you know career in these 1% that's. I think you know the idea behind having thriving local economies wherever you are. And if you don't, you'll see it in towns that have, you know, been commercialised.
Speaker 2:You know, I got born and raised in Merthyr Tydfil. I'm not born so raised in Merthyr Tydfil for a period, which is, you know, an ex town in, you know, in South Wales, and when I was a kid there, everyone would descend, you know, down in the town centre on a on a Saturday. The markets were there. You know it was real buzz of um community, ultimately in a, in a very low income community, but it didn't, didn't matter back then. Now, if you go back there, they've got four or five retail parks, um, they've got a trago mills, um, you know they've, they've sucked, which have sucked the kind of like the heartbeat out of that local economy, um local community and and people just scat around and, you know, go through their, you know their lives kind of a lot more detached from from each other yeah is.
Speaker 1:Is there a, a city or a town in in the uk then that that embodies this sort of uh. So I'm gonna catch my words. They're not supporting, helping um or encouraging local businesses, independent businesses.
Speaker 2:That that is standing up to the trend of the big boys there are and there's lots of um like, there's quite a few councils that you know are actively trying to, you know, put a focus back on their local economies, um, again, not just for the monetary value that it provides, but from a societal point of view, mental health and all these repercussions that come out of having a healthy local community. You know there's some. I've lived in Bath for the last four or five years. They get it naturally because it's a tourist town, so there's lots of footfall, etc. So independent businesses can tend to thrive there a bit more. But then, you know, there are lots of towns trying to take ownership through their independent businesses. So there's Sherbourne down in Dorset, and lots more which we've identified.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know lots more which we've identified, and and as part of my next journey is to go and experience that and and understand that firsthand what are they doing to make a difference? Um, which is the next part of our journey, actually. But in short, yes, there are lots, whether it's coming through the council or through, you know, a collective of in local business owners, um, there's always a fight, but they are fighting against huge, huge macro trends, um, and not only that, but our attention as well. Um, you know, with you know smartphones, etc. And all that now. So, and that's where we're trying to intercept, actually, and where we see an opportunity to have a positive impact.
Speaker 1:We're going to explore in the journey in a second. But, yeah, as a dad we're both fathers I can see it now. So my kids are 8 and 10, and we control the amount of screen time they have, which is only TV. Bless them, they kick off about that because most of their friends have more. But anyway, that's another conversation.
Speaker 1:But you can see it from the cartoons that they watch, the, even if it's just the odd advert, that that is the seed sown in their mind with what they want. So, even if it's, if it's six months down the line or a week later, or a birthday, or with their pocket money, they'll go out and buy what they have seen, and nine times out of ten it's shite which gets, which gets abandoned. So, yeah, we can see, I can see that, and that's why I talk to them most of the times they just roll their eyes. But it's I. I want you to make your own choices about what you want. If we're just fed through screens or the messages of, this is what you need to, yeah, if it's adults, for for a good lifestyle, this is what you need to do, this is what you need to say, this is what you need to wear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've become pre-programmed and even if it's not some sort of dr evil grand scale to control the world, it's business, they want to make money and it's well, the profit I think you can put into that bracket, to be honest, because you know we are um, you know, whether we see it or not, you know you're, you're exactly on point there. We are in some way being oh I don't want to get like guys, but you know controlled in some form. You know we, you know absolutely, and it's being delivered to our hands every day of our lives and and so, yeah, the, the education inspirational part is, it's a big part, you know, because people hate being told what to do. You, you're never successful that way. So we're trying to do a cultural shift from the ground up and, like you know, with kids, you know you're, I dread the day that when, when that comes it to me as a father, trying to control what they're exposed to outside of the environment that I can give them, which hopefully extends their childhood for as long as possible.
Speaker 2:But for most kids these days, that's incredibly hard. They're thrust into a world out of our control and that scares me and it's something that I'm not willing to accept. And same as I'm not willing to accept, and same as I'm not willing to accept, that amazon and all these other huge brands, um will win, and I do see it as a fight. You know, and I want to. You know I'm in that fight with explore and you know it's what motivates me and keeps keeps me jumping out of bed every day to go and take that fight and and cause.
Speaker 2:I experienced it, I did. I generally do experience every day. You know I'm on the road now and I will guarantee to that I will go into some shop or some, you know, whatever it is, pub, something and I will have an experience or connection that will make me happy and will make me happier and and a better person. I think and and not having that in my life, I would hate, I would literally hate. And and if I, through explore, if we can help bring that more into people's lives, then I I think the world would be better for it.
Speaker 1:You touched on the journey, mate, and as we alluded to at the beginning of the van, so explain to us a little bit about this journey and and the van story well, yeah, I love this.
Speaker 2:So there's two parts. There's a selfish part and that is, you know, I want to be around my family, I really do, and I don't want to be disappearing at half seven, eight o'clock in the morning and coming back, you know, tired stress in the evening. So this whole thing journey that I'm on has got to be a balance. I've got to live what I suppose I'm preaching in some way and I'm fortunate, very, very fortunate, that at the moment, through Explore, I am able to go on this journey literally in a camper van that we bought with my family. Um, it's only a, it's a converted vw transporter um, so it's not the biggest um between my self and wife and our, you know, six month old baby at the moment, and we've been mainly trialing it out down on the Welsh English board in the mountains. Um staying in campsites lay by so far um quite a bit of logistics to it, but we're absolutely loving it at the moment.
Speaker 2:Um, and we're currently up in Moreton, cn. Near um, on our way up to Hull actually um, hull of all places. We are um we've been invited up there by the council as part of Explore to set it up across Hull and East Yorkshire. So watch out space for here. But yeah, ultimately our goal here is to be led by our community and get introduced to people, businesses, along the way and actually go and experience them and highlight those stories, tell those stories to our growing community and sort of live the mission ultimately, how does Explore, tie in and serve the community and businesses that want to align with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're basically an app, right, so there's only so much of the fight you can take on and you know smartphones are here to stay right, so we've got to try and use. We see it as using that means to a better end or beginning. So a lot of small businesses, communities. It's all about exposure, you know, people understanding that they're there, that they exist and they're worth visiting, from a local perspective even, but also from a traveler's point of view, which is obviously the journey I'm going on through a curated marketplace and by a stamp of approval of every business that joins explore. We certify as a genuine independent. I won't bore you with a criteria, but ultimately what it means is that more, more money stays in local hands and that has a significant impact further down the line. And there's lots of other features, tools that we're building to empower both the local traveler and business.
Speaker 2:So we've just launched events, so we're taking on eventbrite, for example, to provide a unified solution where, wherever you are, eventually across europe and hopefully a global scale at some point, you can go to Lisbon for the weekend, or you know some obscure village in Italy and experience it like a local would, rather than this mass tourism, and go into all these hotspots around the world and you know, and where I think you know no good at these quotes, but Mark Twain said about you know, and where I think you know I'm no good at these quotes, but Mark Twain said about you know, travel gets rid of all bigotry, or something A lot more finesse than that, but you know where you get to meet people with different cultures, different backgrounds, different opinions to you, but doing it in person is very, very different than being a sofa warrior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's what I love about travel and you know, and and meeting locals, and I said, the best form I see that at the moment is independent businesses being that common ground there's no doubt, with your military career, with the rugby and and business and fatherhood, that that challenge doesn't raise its head.
Speaker 1:And I'm curious, greg, what, what you do when, when you meet challenge that other people might find useful or be curious about, given your your wide variety of of careers and, and now as a, as an entrepreneur, what, what sort of things do you do when you're faced with challenges, be that personal or the other? Work the team?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think well, for me, the biggest challenge actually throughout this whole thing has has been um. It's been financial, um. I've I've put myself personally and um on the line, um I've had, you know, um investors that I respect and um care about actually putting money into this idea Um and and and you know, obviously, the people that rely on you as well in some, some form. Um. So for me that that's been one of the has been the challenge actually. You know, the product and the idea side. You know that's kind of like the easy side to it for me.
Speaker 2:This is very personal to me, like my experiences, so that particular avenue has often brought out the worst, I think, in me along this, this journey and um as brought the stress on and the, the constant question of as as always doesn't matter what you do in life, like your why, you know why are you doing this, why are you doing this, why are you putting yourself through this? Um. So there's two things that my why has always been strong. You know I love our mission um, so that that doesn't really ever get into question and come into question me as um a person who can execute against that vision. It does constantly, actually nearly nearly every day, um, you question yourself, um, which I'll come back to in hc.
Speaker 2:But and then I think, if you ever drop off that and you go like not use my words carefully here, but I suppose when you're down right and you use, endorphins have been kicked to shit because you're like, you're so stressed You're, you know you're, you're spinning so many plates, like what, what stops you from going, I think, even further, into a spiral or whatever? And and for me that's always like it's so simple, but it always works for me and it's nature, like I literally all I have to do is like get in, get out, go for a walk, go for a run, and zoom right out and go and ask myself some questions Am I doing something I want to do? Am I doing ultimately something good? And if I can answer those questions honestly, then I think, well, okay, if, even if this fails, it doesn't matter. You know, I've, I've tried everything and I'm doing everything, um, and that always grounds me instantly, actually, and I've had to do it so many times yeah, is that being a thread through your, your career?
Speaker 2:great. Yeah, I, I've thought about this a lot and I knew this question would come up and I don't want to. You know, you don't want to be dishonest and say it's something that I've trained or whatever it's. It's not. I think it's just a case of seeing how simple life can be and should be actually, and what really really, really really matters, and that is now spending time with my daughter or going to watch a rugby game with my mates, spending time with my family, going for a walk. Literally, I'm 44 now. That is it for me. That's the lessons of life.
Speaker 2:You can't take any of this stuff with you. So you know, I said, as long as your integrity is intact throughout that journey, that's, that's the only thing that really else matters to me. And even if, if, even if I fail and, like I said at beginning, that's potentially still on the cards, you know, nine years into this journey, that you know it's business. So you know no one's here to do you a favor. It's got to solve a problem for people, um, and that's hard. It's really really fucking hard um to solve and um, so, yeah, so I, I hopefully I answered that there yeah, you did, mate.
Speaker 1:I love it, I love it and I definitely, yeah, solving the problem of standing up to the yeah, everything else for for a better society, what more? That's very deep, mate. I love it, I love it, but that's a whole other episode, greg. Um, mate, is there anything that you'd like to mention as we start to wrap up that we've we've not talked about something that's important to you?
Speaker 2:well, no, I just whoever's you know listening to your, to your podcasts, and I know they're becoming more on the probably on the resilient side and and stuff, and I, I think, for for me and it touches on this, this last last point, you know, and it's, and it's whatever that common ground is, and for me I hope it is, you know, getting out into your local community and meeting people.
Speaker 2:I think it's whatever that common ground is and for me I hope it is, you know, getting out into your local community and meeting people. I think it's so, so important, whatever you're doing in life is to always just check yourself, take a step back, get out and do something different to what you're doing and, um, like I said, for me that was always getting out in nature and or going to connect with people. And I think you know, take that away and hopefully, from my business point of view, that might be, you know, downloading Explorer and you know, going off and exploring Abergavenny or Froome, or as we go up to Edinburgh now, and these amazing sort of pockets of communities, peoples is one community going to that people will start doing that more again and reaching out and putting themselves, getting outside of their comfort zone and go and experience in different places through different people, and I think if more of us are doing that, the world would be a little less angrier, um, and a little bit more happier love it, mate.
Speaker 1:Greg. Where can people find out a bit about more you, a bit about more about you, or explore?
Speaker 2:yeah, um. I said we're predominantly uh an app, so we're expanding across europe now. But if you just go to explore local um, explore without the e at the beginning, explorelocalcom and or. Regrettably, I am on social media as much as I hate it, but it's a means to an end. Check me out on Chief Explorer, where I'll be sort of sharing my journey with my family as we go across the UK and Europe over the next few months.
Speaker 1:Uk and Europe over the next few months. Awesome, greg, it will be an absolute pleasure to have you on the show today. Mate, best of luck with the next stage of the journey in the business and stay in touch. Let us know how it goes.
Speaker 2:I'll be doing, yeah. Thanks for having me on Pleasure, mate, cheers.