S3 Ep 86 Oli Johnson: Seeing the Warning Lights Turn Red

The shine of rapid growth can hide a brutal truth: when success arrives as a sprint, your life becomes the finish line. Sitting down with Ollie Johnson, founder and CEO of Prescribe Life AI, we trace a candid journey from London finance to launching a cybersecurity startup that looked flawless on paper and felt empty on the inside. 

Ollie shares the quiet signals that something was wrong, wins that felt numb, constant tension, and a moment on a flight where not landing seemed like relief and the decision to step away, regroup with his family, and rebuild a healthier way to work.

That experience sparked Prescribe Life AI, a platform that gives coaches and leaders a 360-degree view of physiological markers, habits, readiness, sleep, and mental wellbeing, turning foggy feelings into clear signals and early warnings. 

We talk openly about why numbers can’t replace human connection and why the real fix requires emotional honesty, coaching, and cultural change.

For founders and leaders, the biggest takeaway is concrete: your habits set the standard. Late-night emails and weekend pings teach your team what survival looks like. Boundaries teach something else. 

If your calendar is always full and your joy is oddly quiet, this conversation offers practical steps to steady the ship sleep and recovery routines, HRV and trend tracking, external coaching, and a cultural reset that prizes sustainable performance. 

Listen, reflect, and then choose one boundary to protect this week. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find these conversations.

Find out more about Prescribe Life AI or connect with Oli on LinkedIn. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Burnout And Performance
• 1:35 Ollie’s Path Through Finance And Founding
• 4:45 When Success Feels Hollow
• 8:40 Red Flags: From Numb Wins To Dark Thoughts
• 14:05 Stepping Away And Beginning Recovery
• 17:20 Preventative Habits And Objective Data
• 20:35 Can Data Replace Inner Work
• 24:10 Human Connection, Relationships, And Risk
• 27:00 Building Prescribe Life AI
• 31:10 Beyond Founders: Corporate And Insurance Impact
• 34:10 Culture, Leadership, And Boundaries
• 37:20 Final Advice And Getting Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to Forge and Resilience, real conversations for high performers facing transition. I'm Erin Hill, and join me as I talk with people about challenge change and the adversity they faced in life so we can learn from their experiences, insights, and stories. Today I'm sat with Ollie Johnson, founder and CEO of Prescribe Life AI. Ollie once built a really successful business that took that looks perfect from the outside but nearly broke him and took things from him. We talk about today burnout recovery and what he's learned about building sustainable performance in life leadership and the new tools he's creating to help others do the same. Olli, welcome to the show, mate. Hey Aaron, good morning. Thank you very much for having me. Pleasure to be here with you. Likewise, mate, it's uh it's uh anticipated this conversation. I think a really interesting journey and story to tell, Oli. So um, yeah, let's let's dig straight into it, Ollie. Um yeah, we met a while ago um online. Um really interesting products, but also for me, what draws me to you is the interesting backstory and the lessons that you've learned in with your last company, mate. Um, especially when yeah, everything looked fine on the outside, but on the inside it was a very different story, mate. Give us a quick run-up um and what's relevant for us up to that point, that company.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27

And hey Aaron, yeah, sure, I will do. Yeah, that's um so maybe just a bit of high-level background from my side. So uh I spent about 20 years working in the city, uh, in in financial services, always in tech, primarily sort of tech leadership roles, focused on cybersecurity. Uh, so mainly it was sort of in investment banking. I worked for a few years at the Bank of England as well, and um a bit of time in um in asset management. And towards the end of that 20 years, the last sort of five years or so of that, I founded a cyber security technology company. And really I focused on that. I was used to, you know, I was used to working very hard in financial services. You work in investment banking in London, and typically you work pretty long hours. It's kind of uh that's accepted for sure. Uh, but it was a whole different ball game once I started my own company. You know, I'd done some entrepreneurial things, but never as a sort of full-time focus. And the cyber business, it just it absolutely consumed me in terms of you probably know, I know you speak to a lot of entrepreneurs yourself, but I had this myopically focused view on the business. We had this five-year plan to build an exit, and with that in mind, all I did was focus on the business and all the good stuff around me, you know, family, friends, you know, health, exercise, diet, nutrition, sleep, all the good things that keep you alive and keep you balanced. Everything kind of fell by the wayside, really. And I was so focused on the business that I got completely out of balance and it led me to a significant incidence of burnout that took me a long time to recover from. Uh, so yeah, I'm very happy to dig into some of that and how it looked and you know, how it looked from the outside, how it felt on the inside. Um, but just sort of in terms of the narrative after that, I took I took a while out to recover. You know, luckily I had a you know financial cushion and whatnot. So I had the privilege of having time to recover. And now I've done another classic founder thing, which is build a new company built off that experience. Uh so I'm now very much focused on helping people to stay resilient and uh avoid burnout. We're working with coaches and um looking to help like leaders, um, you know, people who really need that support from basically going down going down the same route. Uh so yeah, another another classic founder move.

SPEAKER_00: 3:57

Well, that's why we're here, mate, to open up these discussions and and um and pass some of those lessons on. I think it's it's really quite valuable. Um, so when did you catch that that feeling, Ollie? And what did that feel like of well, this isn't this isn't quite going as I planned?

SPEAKER_01: 4:14

Yeah, it was it was a sort of escalation process, really. I think I I had some insight into it, but it was it was a creeping feeling which turned into a feeling of almost dread, really. You know, I this is this is the sort of the interesting bit, certainly in retrospect, it was less interesting at the time and more painful. Uh, but yeah, I just I started to absolutely hate every working day, and it was such a grind, and it wasn't just every I mean, every day was basically a working day, so I got to a point where I pretty much hated my life, which is not a good place to be. And I think what really surprised me about it, and I even I recognize this during the time, but from the outside looking in, everything looked great, and in fact, even from the inside, if I'd have wound back the clock by a few years, and somebody has said, right, this is what's in your future in three years' time, and this is the view from the outside. And you know, I had a you know nice house and a nice island in the Balerics, and uh, you know, had a business that was growing really rapidly and rapidly expanding team, high-quality investment banking clients. Everything was great, basically, you know, everything that I had worked towards and wanted to have as a business, it was all all the groundwork was there. But the reality was I just I hated it, I absolutely hated it. It was so unpleasant to live on a day-to-day basis. And I still had you know, we still had the big plan, we still had the execution that we were doing, but it's really strange when it's almost that careful what you wish for, you know. You you you you want this particular thing and then you get it, but actually the reality of living it was horrible. And I think the message for myself, for what I'm doing now, and maybe for anybody else who's listening who has experienced something similar or maybe even experiencing it now I believe there is a way to develop a business and to work hard in that environment without having that same experience. You know, the big mistake I made for sure was treating a five-year business execution plan as a sprint. You know, building a business for five years is not a sprint activity, and you can't, you know, working 80, 90 hour weeks back to back for months and months on end is unsustainable. And to try and pretend that it is sustainable, you're you're completely misleading yourself. And I I don't think I don't think maybe you know, maybe there are some people who do do that continually, but I certainly wasn't able to be one of those people. So yeah, I learned the hard way.

SPEAKER_00: 6:46

Whilst there's no doubt that um the human mind and human body can achieve so much um and tolerate so much as well. What was your what was your driving factor behind all that to keep on smashing out those monster weeks and and put yourself a distant second place, sort of behind the work and the business?

SPEAKER_01: 7:09

I mean that's that probably gets to the heart the heart of the matter, I would say. And I'm not sure I've fully unpacked that yet. Maybe I need a bit more time to to go through it, but it's a combination of things, so definitely ambition was underlying some of it. There's probably some ego driven there, and ego in in different ways of a I have this goal and I want to achieve it. I'm telling people I'm gonna achieve it, so it's it's gonna happen. Uh, that's definitely definitely part of it. And maybe the other side of that ego as well was I'm gonna be fine. That attitude of, yeah, do you know what? I'm I can do this, no problem. I've got this goal, I'm up to the task, it's gonna be okay. And not really acknowledging that there are limitations and actually just trying to push through, it's not you know, it's not gonna work. And then, you know, if I if I if I go a little deeper, there's probably just insecurities buried there around wanting to attain financial security for myself and my family. That's definitely a big, a big driver, and you know, it still drives me now. Obviously, it drives a lot of people, right? But definitely that's something that I recognise in myself to achieve that. And it was interesting because during that period, I also I had some professional outside help. I I used to see a therapist during that whole process who I see once a week, and I also had a business coach and a business mentor who I saw maybe once a month, and it was curious because you know, particularly with my therapist, I used to see her uh mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, and that hour would follow probably like eight or nine hours of work in the morning, and it would be you know back-to-back calls on Zooms and really stressful, difficult stuff, and then it would be immediately followed by another you know eight hours of work or so, and I'd be in a conversation with her, and I'd communicate like why aren't we getting to what's going on here? Like, why aren't I feeling better? And you know, why aren't we why aren't we digging deeper into you know into what I need to get to the bottom of? And she in the end, she's almost laughing and saying, There's no there's no mental space, there's no capacity there at all because you're so overwhelmed with work. And it was it was farcical in the end, it really was. And she almost became a business coach to me instead because there were you know lots of different things going on in the business, you know, lots of relationship challenges, and she really helped me, but at the same time, she was clear you're not going to do any sort of root cause stuff here when you're so overwhelmed and stretched. So she was giving me this message, and our business mentor had also done this a few years ahead of us and had basically executed the kind of plan we were looking to execute ourselves, just said the same thing. This is totally unsustainable, and again, this is where that kind of ego and maybe a bit of combination of naivety and arrogance, perhaps it's not a great combination, uh, of thinking, well, I'm gonna be fine, it's not gonna happen to me. And yeah, like I say, I kind of hard way there.

SPEAKER_00: 9:57

Well, whilst there was people talking to you about these things, and obviously you weren't maybe in the right state of mind to to be able to hear that, if eventually that landed. Can you or or my question is eventually did that land, or did your thinking catch up? And do you do you remember that moment, Ollie, or even if it was a realization that was a bit shocking?

SPEAKER_01: 10:19

There were a couple of things I think I think I I knew it at a level what they were saying made sense. It was clear to me that you know you know, intellectually it wasn't hard to gather what they were saying. You know, you'd have to be pretty off the ball to not appreciate that. That actually feeling it myself, I'd say perhaps I describe it as amber, amber warning lights starting to flash, and then red warning lights starting after that. There were a few, there were a couple of things that stand out quite significantly, and uh I'm at risk of oversharing here, so uh rain me back if you feel you need to. Yeah, the the first the first thing was actually it was a it was a financial metric, so you know, I said I was obviously these were it was a commercial activity, right? So I was being driven by the financial rewards as well. It wasn't like I had this massive passion for financial services or cyber security, uh, particularly, although it was an interesting field to work in. But you know, we we hit one particular stretch where you had a big intake uptick in in revenue, and I personally had a sort of you know, there was a particular project that dropped, and we had a significant uptick one month in in revenue, and it meant a good uptick for me personally. And because I'd you know driven financially, usually that would have given me this huge kind of spike of um personal rewards, and it would have made me feel really good, you know, it would have been it would have been a reflection of the hard work and I I would have felt great about it. But in the state that I was in mentally, it it barely registered as a blip on my radar, and uh it really made me sit up and take notice because yeah, what would normally have caused a really good reaction would have really kind of ged me up and made me think, yeah, this is why I'm doing this, come on, this is great, we're heading in the right direction. It barely, barely, barely flickered on my radar, and that was a that was a warning sign to me for sure. And then as things progressed and things got more serious and the situation deteriorated. One particular I remember this particular particular trip. I was flying back, I've been away on business, and I was I was flying back to the UK for five days of intense activity. There was a a board meeting, there was a co-founder meeting that would look to be pretty intense. We had client meetings, and we were doing some filming as well for some content. So it was it was a lot in a short space of time, and things have been very tense, very challenging. And I was on the plane flying back to London, and I was literally, you know, I've been up really early, travelling the day. I had this full afternoon, this five days lined up, and I just remember I was looking out the window thinking, if this plane crashed right now, I'm absolutely at peace with it. I don't, I literally wouldn't, you know, that wouldn't be a bad outcome. And that was juxtaposed to all this, you know, inverted commas amazing stuff happening, and you know, on top of that, not just a flourishing business, but you know, beautiful young family, like two-year-old child, like lovely wife who I adore, you know, great lifestyle and whatnot. But I felt completely numb to it, and I was so overwhelmed and felt so awful that I was completely, completely cool with okay, that's that would be the end of it, which is a really poor indication of someone's mental health. You know, there's no way I could look at that and think, yeah, that's that's a normal place to be or a normal way to feel. And that for me, you know, if the if the if the amber light was the you know, the the lack of recognition around financial gains, not being that fast, whether you're involved in a fatal plane crash, that was there, that was the red warning light where I was like, geez, something's got to change. And shortly after that, I took for the first time in a long time, I took a week off, and I took my family and I went away for um for a week's holiday, and I was the first time in about 18 months, I just closed my laptop, turned my phone off, and it was during that time that I made the decision I've got to change something drastically now. It's like this is unsustainable, it's not a good lifestyle, I need to change something, and and that was really the beginning of of orchestrating an exit.

SPEAKER_00: 14:22

Almost mate. You mentioned uh at the at the end of the exit, yeah. Once you exited, you took some time for recovery. I'm curious to hear what lessons you were able to draw out once the dust settled and on that experience.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

Yeah, I mean the recovery process was long. What I would say to anybody again, anybody who might be experiencing this or feels like they might be heading in that direction, uh preventative measures are 100% the way to go. I think fully burning out and experiencing that, it's it's painful, you know, it's and it's difficult. Not just you know, obviously the business perspective, you know, perhaps you won't get the outcome that you hoped, relationships get damaged, your own mental state, physical state as well. Everything everything becomes difficult. So I would urge anybody to take preventative measures and not get into that situation within my first stop. Um, and then yeah, in terms of that recovery process, I took my family uh uh to we went to Thailand and you know, it's so cliche just saying it, but literally, you know, did all the kind of stuff of yeah, meditation and ice baths and like muay thai training and just connection time with the family was the big thing. So it that was amazing. It was it was it was exactly what we needed, and it really got me back on my feet. But yeah, it took a while to kind of go through and process the feelings behind it and really kind of re-establish how I felt about my situation and also you know what happened during that period. I think when you're so intensely involved in something, there's no space to process those emotions and feelings. So having that time afterwards allowed me to assess it in more detail. I mean, one thing I did do, I did a um I did a Vipassana meditation retreat as well, just a silence retreat, 10 days straight of just zero communication, really, you know, no eye contact, no gestures, no talking. Obviously, obviously no technology. Um, and you just meditate for 10 hours a day. And that was pretty amazing, very intense after being in calls, you know, like 10 plus hours a day and being totally overwhelmed with technology and just demands on you all the time, from that to absolutely nothing was yeah, it was an incredible experience, also quite overwhelming at times. But I found that was helpful because it was almost like processing on fast forward as well. Because when you're not medicine, you're focusing just on your breath, other than that, you you don't you can't do anything, so you do naturally think about what's going on. So that that helped me to process things things quickly. But I would say in retrospect, yeah, the the big uh the big thing for me was uh to approach future ventures more intentionally and with more awareness and be preventative rather than reactive in in any situation such as that.

SPEAKER_00: 17:09

On on that point there then, Ollie, what are some of the preventative measures and practices that you have in in place now so that when business or life starts to get noisy or demanding you're you're you're better positioned to manage those and and and respond?

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

I think there's not there's no panacea. I think it's a combination of things, it's a common it's in its practices, it's its habits, it's how you're showing up on a day-by-day basis. And I'm not perfect to this for sure, so I put my hands up. You know, I've had a I've actually had a really challenging couple of weeks recently, so I'm making sure that I'm on on top of things right now. But there are just core things around, you know, sleep hygiene is super important, making sure, you know, reasonable bed times and reasonable working times as well, you know, like the day, and in fact, the days when I could tolerate 15, 16 hour working days on a regular basis are behind me. I can't even that just it's not a thing I can or want to do. And having two young children as well, I've got a six-month-old and a six-year-old, so it doesn't really allow. If you want to have family time, uh, then it doesn't really allow. But you know, things are obviously, you know, nutrition is super important, daily exercise, meditation, family connection, all of those things together are super important. The other thing that I I bring in as well is um physiological markers, so you know, having a wearable and looking at things like your heart rate variability, very good indicator of stress. Um, and then you know, looking at how you're showing up mentally every day. I think bringing in data points can be very, very helpful to give additional insight. So, you know, combination of data and habits and practices can you know that combination, as I say, no panacea, but those kind of practices and consistency around that I think is is really key. Um, final thing is always just is is having somebody else who you work with who's external to the business. So, you know, whether it's a coach or a mentor, someone who you're seeing on a regular basis to help you check in with yourself and help you have that external viewpoint. As I mentioned, I I had that before, but I largely ignored a lot of the good advice that I was getting. So uh there's no point paying and having great advice if you don't take it. So certainly it's it's very important to listen to those around you. Uh so that's a combo of things I would recommend.

SPEAKER_00: 19:34

Yeah, that's an interesting one because I think sometimes it is still worth, in my opinion, still having those voices, whether we hear it or ready to hear it, yeah. But I I almost see it like as the seeds that are being sowed or sown. You know, that that the in terms of us being busy might mean that the the soil isn't quite fertile or ready to take that seed, but this the seed is ready there for us, if that makes sense. So if we're hearing the the reassurance or the calm or the gentle challenge or the compassion or whatever it might be from this external person, um yeah, I'm talking to myself out loud here, really. But that the but yeah, that that I personally still feel it is is valuable, even if we're not ready to fully step into um what they're trying to support us through.

SPEAKER_01: 20:24

Um that's right, yeah. I I found even if in the moment it didn't land, I didn't not even that it didn't land, but I didn't react to it in the way I would want to, oftentimes I would reflect after a session, or if I had you know time in between, then it seeps in slowly. You know, perhaps it's almost a brain being at capacity with all this other stuff, but the seed is sown, like you say, and it does kind of seep through and it eventually will have that impact and move you onto a onto a better place. But that that awareness is key, and I think having experienced that level of burnout before, there is there's almost some sort of muscle memory at an intellectual level, but also as a physical level where my my tolerance isn't isn't what it was, and that I'd see that as a good thing as well because I don't want to drive myself into that place again. You know, I speak to quite a few people who younger entrepreneurs, younger founders. In fact, what one of when I after the the burnout that I experienced, when you know, I coming back after that, I wanted to do something with impact, and this space became very interesting to me because I'd obviously gone through it. And I spent the first year afterwards really exploring the space. And in fact, I bought like built up a little health team, and we were doing um programs for entrepreneurs, for founders, and really getting curious around that problem and understanding how it was showing up for individuals. And you know, we started speaking with lots of venture capital firms where they have portfolios of founders, and those founder conversations were really illuminating, is depending on the type of founder that we were speaking to. What we're often finding was the younger founders who were, you know, maybe in their 20s or 30s, perhaps it was their first, you know, their first time, and they were much more prone to being, you know, gung-ho and not really acknowledging the the risk and the potential of burnout, and very much reminded me of myself in the previous venture where just thinking, yeah, it's gonna, I'm gonna be fine, like this isn't a real thing, quite kind of skeptical. Whereas people with a bit more experience and perhaps had either burnt out themselves or been on the cusp of that burnout, or even surrounded by somebody else, perhaps they'd seen a co-founder burnout, or they, you know, they'd seen it in a corporate environment, for instance. We saw a range of attitudes towards it. And uh, yeah, that in itself was was quite enlightening.

SPEAKER_00: 22:43

Yeah, but it was. And and that will lead us on to the company that you went on to what you're setting up now, prescribe life and and the the data points and the metrics that people are able to draw on to have more awareness. Can you talk us through a bit about about that, the company and the the products and how that's serving entrepreneurs and yeah, certainly.

SPEAKER_01: 23:03

So I mean again, it's all borne out from my own experience as you know many entrepreneurial ventures are. So during so, yeah, I guess step by step, having experienced that level of burnout, I got super curious and started investigating it. And I I just I knew it was a big problem, but I hadn't realized quite how significant it was and how large it was. And just to give a sort of a high-level stat, so there's a trillion dollar impact to the world economy each and every year through ill health, like mental ill health, and burnout is a huge contributor of that, and cuts across all different segments, but founders, leaders, you know, people in areas of big responsibility are particularly prone to it. So it's this huge problem. And then yeah, we spent a year really just understanding the problem more. Like I say, we did some did some programs with founders, and we had a little health and well-being team. So we had psychiatrists, medical doctors, you know, functional medicine, lifestyle doctors. And one of the issues we continually came up against was a lack of data when working with those individuals. So, you know, we we would see them on a regular basis and they would self-report, you know, we do some structured assessments and that kind of thing. But it was quite hard to dive deeper and also to have trending metrics as well. If we were working with people who were already burnt out and were recovering, or people that we were trying to keep healthy, we didn't have a way to really get a consistent view on how they were showing up. And that really led us to what we're what we're doing right now. So that was the first year, and then the second year, we really spent this time building a platform designed specifically to do exactly that. So we're deep diving into each individual and collecting a 360-degree view on those people, and so that's everything from collecting physiological data. So again, we look at things like heart rate variability, breathing rate, blood pressure, um, you know, all of that interesting information. We collect a significant number of those biometric data points, biomarker data. And then we have aggregate scoring. So you don't have to be a data scientist to understand, you know, 50 different data points. We, you know, take a view on you know how you're showing up each day with your readiness, with your sleep, your mental well-being, um, which is obviously super helpful for from a coaching perspective. Um, and then looking at how the individual is showing up from habits as well. So I mentioned, you know, for me, it's there's so many things that I do that are really important to do consistently. So being able to track that and see what someone is actually doing, are they doing what they need to be doing on a day-to-day basis? And again, having that trend information there too. Um, so there are different data points that we pull together, and again, from our experience, as a coach or someone who's working with a founder or a leader, having deep data insights really enables a person to coach in a deeper way by you know having having more than just the feedback from the individual. And again, if I if I take this back to when I was in my previous business build and I was reporting to my therapist or my coach, I was in such a maelstrom from the business. I wasn't able to remember what was going on yesterday. You know, I couldn't articulate what was actually happening. So as a coach, it enables you to step above the noise and actually, you know, have this almost like an independent view of what's going on, and doing that over time as well. You know, I had my therapist for a long time, have my coach for a long time as well. And having that trend information, I could have seen myself degrading month on month, and you know, that that's very helpful. So that's that's effectively the platform that we built. And we're now working with coaches and you know, actively using this in the real world, and it's it's starting to see some really, really important results.

SPEAKER_00: 26:56

Nice. Just some something that that struck me as you're talking there, it takes me going back to the beginning of our of your conversation around, yeah, whilst on paper everything looked fine, um, but on the inside it was quite different than what I heard you say in indirectly that there's the missing connection piece, you're quite disconnected from yourselves, which got your results, but obviously came at a cost. And and I'm wondering sometimes, is there a danger that we hide behind data and external metrics um rather than get into the root cause, the belief, or processing an emotion or a trauma? Because it's it's easier, it's out there, it's something we have to do rather than to look inward on it. Have you have you come across that either with your research or in your own life?

SPEAKER_01: 27:43

It's a it's a totally fair question, and I think it's a yeah, it's a really important point. So, one thing that I would say, and when I speak with coaches and coaches that we work with, so obviously we're in a new world of AI and you know preventative healthcare, um, agentic AI, there's this huge change, a huge environmental change, and this is a big macro driver of the healthcare sector right now. So, you know, getting this data and interpreting it and having these early warning indicators, uh it's really important and it's a new field which is giving us amazing opportunities. Associated with that though, it's absolutely critical, in my view, that the human connection still stays in place. And this is one of the reasons why we've built what we've built in order to partner with human coaches. What we're not building is something to take over from the coach entirely. You know, there are AI coaching solutions out there, for instance, and you know, that agentic AI for coaching is part of our solution, but 100% what we're not saying is oh, just use this platform and you don't need a human anymore. So the layer that you're talking about there, the root cause, the emotion, the connection, all that other stuff, that's a massive contributor to burnout as well. So whilst we're collecting these 360-degree insights into an individual, that's not to say that that individual shouldn't still be speaking to a human, and the human is in is using this data to assist them and to amplify their impact rather than being replaced is like, oh no, it's all about an AI coach and all this data, and you just look at the data and you you know make these adjustments accordingly to your schedule, and everything's gonna be fine. That I mean, that's 100% not the message, and I think it's a really important valid point that you've raised.

SPEAKER_00: 29:29

Because if if I look at my own sort of routines and potentially once upon a time in the past as well, what what I did to stay away from my own discomfort because I didn't have the awareness or connection to myself was was train. And it wasn't to the point of burnout or um exhaustion, but I definitely found was interesting that I used to get rewarded for it. So I was I was quite fit, which led me on to uh a successful military career and uh afterwards in endurance sports. But that that was my way of that was my way of coping, but it wasn't necessarily address addressing a root issue. So I was hide behind my training and get rewarded for it, which would make me want to do it more, and conveniently kept me away from from addressing my own root stuff. So yeah, I it's something that I I ask, yeah, as usual, but for myself, not to not to point out.

SPEAKER_01: 30:25

No, I I agree. I think I think you're also you're just about touching on another issue which is oftentimes associated with this kind of situation, which is around any addictive tendencies. And you know, exercise like that, training like that is is definitely one of the better addictions to have, but you know, it can take up a lot of focus and can make you feel better, but at the same time, you can be masking other things. And for sure, you know, being addicted to training and going, you know, running two hours a day or whatever else it is you're doing is you know, there are certainly far worse habits you can have. But oftentimes, and again, we saw this in the programs that we were doing, people will be masking these issues with, you know, it might be drugs, it might be alcohol, it might be fitness work, whatever it may be. But for sure, there is a way that you just focusing on that data and focusing it in a in a outwardly seeming healthy way can have a negative context as well if it's not addressed properly.

SPEAKER_00: 31:22

Yeah, it goes back to your earlier point for me that it's it's the meeting of the the internal or the external world on the internal world. It's an inside-out job as well as an outside in, it's not just one or the other. Um for harmony.

SPEAKER_01: 31:35

Yeah, it's critical. We we've got a a burnout coach that we're working with right now and who's using our using our platform. And he, I mean, he's incredible with what he does. He's been he he again came from personal experience. He burnt out in 2017, and now he works globally with loads of you know really high-end leaders who experience burnout, and he's got this amazing program to bring people to bring people back. And he continually talks, not just you know, the physiological physiological side is really important, and he's again using the platform, looking at those metrics as a way to help, and he's using it in terms of measuring somebody improving over the you know the several months program that he's doing to bring them back. But he always talks about the the human connection, the emotion, the root cause, and how that's what really leads to it. And and certainly when I look back to mine as well, the hard work, the hours, the pressure, all of that has a significant contributory effect. But actually, it's probably the relationship side of things that really took things over the edge. And you know, whether that's in terms of coworkers or you know, co-founders, it can be super difficult in in those terms, and even you know, the family connection as well, when you start to feel disconnected from your partner, you know, when you cause these problems at home because you're you know you're absent, or even when you're with them mentally, you're always somewhere else. All of that kind of piles in and it can it can take things to the next level in a in a in a really unfortunate way.

SPEAKER_00: 33:05

Yeah, yeah. Ollie, the the the company sounds really exciting, mate, and it's really it'll be really interesting to see how this develops and and the impact it has on individuals and organizations with being able to measure so many things. What's the next step for for the company, mate?

SPEAKER_01: 33:23

Yeah, so we're we're it's still in the early stages. Um obviously, you know, building a solution like this technically it's very challenging. Uh, you know, we have a lot of AI, so you know, we have a great dev team that are continually moving things forward. So in those terms, we just continue to make the platform better, um, constant tweaks and bringing in new areas of capability. Um, we are about to do another another raise. So we did a pre-C to get us to this point, and we're working now, we're just about to start now, um, doing another investment round to get us to the next stage. Um, so those those are two core components, and obviously the other component is the is the commercial stage of it as well. So, you know, every day we're speaking with coaches and looking to expand our impact. Um, we've had loads of really interesting conversations. Uh, we've got a a lot of um a lot of people in the pipeline now who are um you know moving moving forward with us. I think looking at the bigger picture, some of the conversations that we've had recently that are particularly interesting for us are in the um the corporate and insurance space. So, you know, I met with somebody last week who's um in a very senior position in um in terms of consultancy for European health insurers. And you know, I mentioned the figure earlier around uh you know a trillion dollar global impact from burnout. And just looking at that European market, he was talking to me around the cost that health insurers are seeing on average for burnout of their leaders for corporations. And it's around half a million euros on average when a leader in a in a corporate burns out. So, you know, the the cost around that, you can imagine what that looks like at scale and you know how many people are burning out. So, you know, that's everything from poor decision making to um paying someone for you know their treatment when they're burnt out, the time when they're on the bench, and you know, when they come back, or if they come back, then having to replace that individual. So us bringing to the market something which is completely novel, you know, just in terms of what we're doing, it's a new micro category of technology, this agentic coaching solution for preventative health in this space, is not something that's been done before. So, you know, for us, obviously commercially that's a good advantage, although it means it's very challenging to build, and there's a lot of education around that. But we see this big wider opportunity, and you know, from my side, again, I am you know transparently commercially minded, but at the same time, this is an impact venture for me. I want to help as many people as possible, so that's really the bigger picture for us. How much exposure can we get and how many people can we work with? That's that's what we're looking at.

SPEAKER_00: 36:02

What do you think would be one piece of advice that you would give to a a founder or business owner or or somebody that was in a similar position to you in terms of they're really struggling um and yeah, life is feeling too much and they'd rather the plane go down or not be bothered if the plane goes down? What what's one thing that you would potentially tell them, Ollie?

SPEAKER_01: 36:27

Do you know what one thing I I think is really important because it has such wider implications on the kind of business that you're building and the kind of leader that you want to be. And this actually is probably my biggest regret when I look back, and it's having insight into how you're showing up as an individual and what that says to the people in the company that you're building and being the leader that you want to be. I look back at how I was showing up and how we're building that business, and I do not feel proud of the culture that we built, and I do think that the culture has moved on a bit since then. You know, it's been it's been a few years now, but that's not really a great excuse. And I I really don't feel proud of the example that I was setting, and I think it's really important that if you show up in a way that is just you know, you're continually on, you're continually sending emails, you know, at any time of the night, any time of the weekend, you're basically saying to the rest of your team, this is how I expect you to show up. And that's not something that I feel is a good thing to do. And so I would say to anybody, just be aware of the impact you're having. And it's one thing that I'm absolutely fastidious about now is that you know, we we've only got a small team, there's about 10 of us, um, we're globally dispersed, so obviously there are some challenges on you know, like the time zones, etc. But I'm really conscious to make sure that I'm not fostering this environment where I expect people to be on all the time, you know, over delivering continuously to the point everybody works harder than it's expected, but it's not to a point whereby, you know, it's it's it's gonna lead to burnout of myself or to anybody else on the team. And I think for anybody listening, even if you're disregarding your own health and well-being, just imagine what you're doing to the rest of the team is my advice.

SPEAKER_00: 38:17

Nice, I like that. It reminds me of the distinction between giving it all and giving your all. Giving it all is there's no boundaries, yeah. Your phone's ringing or answering emails all day, all night, and giving it your role is is knowing that from nine to five or whatever the hours are, then you're dedicated and focused, and the rest of the time is for you, um, or whatever that that priority is. Ollie as we start to to wrap this up, is there something that you'd like to mention um a question that I've not asked that you'd you'd like to be asked, or something you feel on that's on your heart to share?

SPEAKER_01: 38:54

Um, I think that covers it nicely, Aaron. I mean, I would say again, I mean, obviously I know that you're a coach in this space, so I would reiterate again that having somebody like yourself is um you know is is really important and it's a good it's a good thing to have. So maybe just building on my last response, so in terms of your responsibility as a founder to your workforce, to the you know the team that you're building, you do still have a responsibility to yourself, you know, do you know perhaps the uh put your own oxygen mask on first analogy? So I would yeah, I would highly recommend that uh you know, if you're struggling, if you feel like you um you know maybe having difficulty coping or feel like additional help would be beneficial, then I would urge anybody to yeah, to make that investment into somebody else to help you because that that level of insight can be absolutely invaluable. So it's it's it's definitely a thing I'd recommend. Awesome, mate. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 39:53

Well, I'll put the in the in the show notes where people can find you um on LinkedIn and and your your company profile as well, Ollie. But for me, it's been a very insightful conversation, mate. I really enjoyed this, and and there's a lot there for for myself and and no doubt listeners as well. So, yeah, thanks very much for your time um and and and sharing a bit about your journey as well, mate. It's uh appreciated. Total pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.