S3 Ep99 Paul Blair: When Structure Disappears

What happens when the rank slides off and the real test begins? We sit down with Paul Blair, a former Parachute Regiment officer turned founder, to unpack the gritty reality of moving from elite military units to building and scaling products like SafeSticks and ArcX. This isn’t about war stories or pitch decks; it’s the unvarnished blueprint for leading without a uniform, navigating bad deals, and finding focus when the world won’t slow down.

Paul takes us inside the SafeSticks journey, from a visceral moment in the park to a vet’s dressing-down, through painful supply chain lessons and public ridicule, to a gutsy trip to a Florida trade show where a chance encounter with Kong’s president led to a global licensing deal. He explains why credibility in startups is earned by competence, not titles, and how the military’s after action reviews, calm under fire, and obsession with clarity translate into a robust operating system for founders.

Along the way, we dig into leadership shifts from command to coaching setting clear goals, giving ownership, and building high trust with younger teams. If you care about founder focus, startup strategy, and leadership without theatrics, you’ll find rich, hard-won takeaways here: how to spot bad partners, how to blag opportunity with integrity, how to licence and let go, and when to push or pull the plug. We close on meaning financial security, legacy, and finding reward today rather than betting everything on a distant exit.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a teammate who needs a “Condor moment,” and leave us a review with one insight you’re taking into your week. Your notes help others discover the pod and keep these candid conversations flowing.

To get in touch with Paul find him on LinkedIn or via his website.

Transcript

From Regiment To Reinvention

SPEAKER_01 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 joined by Paul Blair. Paul served in the Parachute Regiment, then he stepped into the civilian world where he's been built companies, including ARCX and SafeSticks. This conversation isn't necessarily about war stories or pitch decks, it's much more about transition, responsibility, and what leadership really looks like when structure disappears and you start building from scratch. Paul, welcome to the show, buddy.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Great to be here. Thanks very much for uh having me on.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

No worries, mate. Um I I think I remember I I knew I wanted to have a conversation with you and record it from the first time I met you, but I think what really leapt out of me, I know we're jumping ahead ahead here, is your story about safe sticks and how you were leaping barriers both physically and and in lots of other ways to get it into the hands of the right people. Um I'm sure we'll come on to that. Um, but yeah, for people that uh that don't know you, mate, give us a bit of uh a bit of background and a bit of your story, Paul.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Sure, yeah. Uh very happy to get into uh the whole uh safe sticks uh story. Um yeah, certainly uh not pretty at times, but um yeah, in terms of background, so I spent 20 years in the Parachute Regiment, uh left, uh went into the corporate world, uh, did five years there, and I'm now into my fourth startup. So it was leaving the army, uh two startups, corporate world, two more startups. So a real sort of mixed bag of meandering journeys.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Um, mate, well what was probably the biggest challenge for you transitioning from from an institution of of 20 years into what I assume is a very different world in terms of corporate and and in startup?

Trust, Naivety And Getting Burned

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, you know, looking back, I I think out of I was really lucky. I had such a good transition. I mean, so many people that um that we all know went from just that uh I suppose almost sort of combat roles, um uh wearing uniform to out in the world trying to find a job in a corporate world or starting their own business, and it's it was quite sort of binary. Mine was um I joke that I had the uh the hardest job in the army uh in the Red Devils for my last couple of years. So I it was amazing, it was so much fun getting paid to be a professional skydiver. Obviously, there was a serious element to it, uh representing the army, trying to drive recruitment uh and being a sort of um a PR machine. But um actually it was a huge amount of fun. But talking to lots of sponsors, lots of media companies, looking at contracts, um, it was a real nice transition into the corporate world, and I started have having to dig into and actually learn a lot of uh, I suppose, commercial skills, things that we just weren't um exposed to in the military.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Hmm. And and so I guess you there's a certain amount of awareness of of the other worlds that started to exist and how they worked before you changed suits then.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yes, I'd say awareness, but I was so naive when I left, and my first business was safe sticks, and just made every mistake going a lot of very expensive, very time-consuming mistakes just because of that naivety. Now, I'd I'd done a business degree before I joined the army, but um you know, one thing maybe we want to get into this a little bit more, but just you know, that sort of trust and camaraderie that uh we all enjoy and take it as a given during our military careers. You just assume the person next to you is capable and there's that automatic level of trust. Yeah, not so much in the in the business world. And there's a lot of really genuine people out there, uh a lot of fantastic business people who are in it for the right reason. But I I didn't meet two of them initially and got um yeah, got ripped off massively, you know, guys, suppliers lying to my face. So yeah, that was a real wake-up call uh when I left.

Military Leadership Vs Corporate Reality

SPEAKER_01 4:34

A lot of talk and assumptions are made that that that the military is the pinnacle in terms of leadership and that we take across so many valuable things uh into civilian world, and I I I get it. Um and and yeah, I'm curious of uh maybe one or two things that you have taken from from your time in such a yeah uh incredible unit um and from so long in service in some incredible places, um, and some things that you're really happy to park um given the changing of the green suit to the formal suit um i in corporate. But yeah, two two things, so one or two things that you've taken uh and one or two things that you drop like a hope spud.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, the leadership training we get at every level, where whether it's junior soldiers um doing junior break-in in the infantry, uh to sanders to whatever sort of leadership training. I mean, the military is is fantastic at that, and it struck me certainly in the corporate world, that there just isn't that that level of training. People get promoted to be a manager uh sometimes by just virtue of the fact they're the longest serving. There's no real training, okay, you are part of a team, there's no training course to be a manager. Um, maybe that's the case in in some companies, but certainly not uh in the ones I've I've worked with. But it struck me that you know when you walk into a room holding any sort of rank in the military, you're automatically afforded a level of credibility. When you start talking, people will listen just because of uh the discipline and the chain of command. And clearly in the in the startup world and the corporate world, you know, you walk into a room and no one knows you, and you know, so there isn't that automatic level of credibility. You've got to earn that credibility through through competence. Um, and at the same time, uh, what is it is the Peter principle that uh everyone is promoted to the level of their incompetence. I have just seen so many not so much bad managers, but just incompetent incompetent people, and you think, how on earth have have you got here? So yeah, that's that leadership transition is is interesting. Um, and also I had to adapt my own style away from that, I suppose, authoritarian approach to more consensus building, all of a sudden being uh in the corporate world and in charge of a team of nine initially. Um everyone speaking different languages from different parts of the world, and yeah, it's you've got to uh foster that um, I suppose, decision by consensus, almost lead people trying to get the best out of them. So, yeah, very, very different. But there's still a lot of a lot of lessons that we do carry over from the military that that do lend themselves well. But it's it's that just uh all those little nuances and those little soft skills that have got to change.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

As is it was pointed out to be me by a mate the other day that sometimes the mil well, the military and sports as well, the training to comp competition ratio is quite high or operational ratio. So they spend a lot of time training and then specific amounts competing or in operations. When I I'm assuming in the corporate world and in business, you spend most of your time competing or working, and very little time training or preparing. Um just default. Um so yeah, go into your your first or safe sticks, mate, or or some of the first projects that you that you set up. Well, yeah, let's go to the the two lads that ripped you off. What was you give us a bit about that that story?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah, so um I had the idea for uh for a dog toy, uh wanted to get them manufactured cheaply. The go-to was China, um, and this was 2010, so there wasn't that easy access to manufacturers, so I had to use a um supply chain company who sourced the manufacturers for me, and just yeah, obviously expected them to make a margin, but not the insane margin they did. And uh I don't know, I found it bizarre that when I questioned them on this and saying, listen, everyone's making money apart from me, I'm making pence per per unit. Uh that can't be right, and and it's not sustainable. And they lied to my face uh several times, and I found it bizarre because it was only a matter of time just through talking to other suppliers, other manufacturers, that I showed someone my price list or the uh the cost of goods, and they uh they nearly fell off the chair and just said, listen, yeah, you need to uh go somewhere else because you're getting ripped off massively.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

So did they didn't take your idea and run with run with it themselves, they they the margins were just incredibly high and skimming off the top, basically.

The SafeSticks Origin And Setbacks

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Um not so much skimming off the top, but just saying this is what it is going to cost you to manufacture each unit, um, where actually it was a fraction of that cost. And when I said could they um reduce their margins a little bit, um lied to my face, said no, no, they couldn't. If anything, they would have to put them up, which yeah, it was just bollocks.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

How did you go about resolving that, mate?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Um I wanted to have a face-to-face, I think just to clear the air, um, but they avoided me when they I think they realized that um it was going to come to this. They continued to lie to me on the phone, refused to release me from uh the contract, and it ultimately I had to threaten legal action uh before they then backed down and and cancelled the contract.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

So, where did you get the I the idea for safe sticks?

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Personal experience. So had a couple of little Jack Russells at the time, and as I did on so many occasions, like so many dog owners do, took him to the park, picked up a stick, and I threw this cack-handed throw one time, and the the stick landed into the ground a bit like a javelin, just as the dog ran onto it and uh heard this crunch, and thankfully he wasn't seriously injured. Uh, took him to the vet and got the biggest debriefing of my life from the vet, um, who was probably going at it a bit like uh Sergeant Major. Brecken chop the Brecken Chop and just threatening me to say, you know, don't ever do that again. Sticks are so dangerous for dogs. So uh that was my little Eureka moment. I thought there must be you know something a safer alternative out there. Uh there wasn't, so that was where it came from. Um and uh it is just a safe stick, it's just a big long piece of rubber.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Well would you say you you're you're you're driven entrepreneurially driven and and were looking for opportunities anyway, Paul, and this was just the the right moment, or was this the the the the the bolt of lightning that initiated it?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, good question. Uh yeah, I I don't know. I just I felt that this this was an idea that um here's a gap in the market, it's personal to me, being a dog owner, and if I can produce a toy that will of course make a little bit of money, but um you know this could be a whole lot of fun building a company, being my own boss, yeah, that'd be great. How little did I know? But um, and also you know, there was almost that um that moral aspect to it. If if I can help other dog owners save their dog from injury, then then great. So there was there was a nice little ring to it. So um yeah, off off we went.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

What's been some of the biggest challenges that you faced in with this company, apart from your mates taking the piss out of you because it looks like a sex toy.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Uh there were yeah, so many comments in the early days uh from your mates are can be very supportive, but at the same time, you know, just that that level of banter can be quite cutting, and it was funny until it wasn't. I remember uh Tulisa, who was uh one time she was a pop star, one time judge on the X Factor, and she was papped walking down the street with her dog holding a safe state. And I thought, yeah, this is great, I'll share it all over social media. And of course, my friends were on there, lots of uh comments I probably shouldn't share here. But it's like, come on, fellas, seriously, give me a break. Yeah, we and this is like this is like a year in, so we've heard all heard them all before, but you know, there was that yeah, it looks a bit phallic. So I mean, how do you get over that? Um, I had retailers who bought some products and then wanted to return them because their customers said, Oh, that looks a bit rude, when you know, if you get over yourself, it's it's a a rubber stick.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell us that story then about getting that into the hands of that person in America? But we already got there's quite a lot in that.

Dragons’ Den To Blagging In Florida

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah, so trying to grow the business, um extended lots of lines of credit, maxed out credit cards, remortgaged my house. We were really starting to get a bit of traction, selling in multiple countries, getting demand from retailers, so couldn't quite make them fast enough. Um, making it a tangible physical product is hard is capital intensive. So um yeah, I needed cash up front, and that led me to going on Dragon's Den, which is uh is another little episode, but didn't get investment, got some great publicity out of it, but walked out of there feeling pretty dejected and realizing with with this level of interest there's there's something here, and not wanting to let it wither on the vine. So took a bit of a punt, searched for the biggest pet expo in the world. There was one happening in Florida, and jumped on a plane, managed to blag uh a ticket. Uh there was a non-solicitation rule, so you're not supposed to go in selling products, but uh smuggled a few of these uh phallic dog toys in my coat. I'd hit list of the five biggest pet product producers, uh, one up to the biggest one I could find, uh, a company called Kong, uh, which a lot of people will be familiar with, been around for for years, amazing company, and um started pitching to the first person I met on their stand. Two minutes in, he put a grandfatherly arm around my shoulder and said, Come this way. I didn't know at the time, but it turns out he was the president of the company and kind of liked the product, liked my chat um for some reason, and yeah, we hammered out a deal within uh a few weeks.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Awesome. So was that the the the injection that you needed to be able to scale then? Yes, right.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So effectively I licensed the design of the product to them. So I took a big back seat and let their huge distribution machine just take over, and immediately we were selling in 60 countries.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

So at what point did you walk away, or not walk away is maybe the right word, but uh hand over the reins of that business and and and start exploring other opportunities and arc?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

It was pretty much from that deal. So, yes, I can obviously assist. Uh, I still take a bit of an interest in uh where the product's going, a bit of sort of marketing commentary, but that was pretty much me handing over 99% of control at that point.

Licensing With Kong And Letting Go

SPEAKER_01 16:19

What is it you think you're you your drive? I know there's a personal reason, and probably for the safe sticks, and it probably will be with ArcX as well, but I'm I'm curious what's behind your drive in in business and if there's any sort of like commonalities that you've taken from from your your background as well, uh still nudging you forward but in a very different arena.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Yeah, um another good question. I think part of it is you know it's not all about the money, of course. That's an aspect to it, and having that early success with safe sticks made me think that okay, great, if I'd much rather build a business and get a salary and that lead to some sort of financial security as a result, as opposed to just being a cog in a big machine in the corporate world where if that company goes under, you're just a number and and you'll be you'll be made redundant fairly quickly. But um, yeah, so thinking about this over the years, yeah. I came from uh fairly humble beginnings, uh working class background, yeah. I had to wear my sister's hand-me-down code at school, so I didn't have a huge amount of money growing up. And I suppose in the back of my mind there's that drive that yes, if I can get a business to a certain scale, exit that, then it will give me that I suppose level of of financial security and financial comfort of never having to worry about you know paying the bills or keeping the lights on or having my kids having to wear hand-made-down clothes.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah, yeah, interesting. Talk us through um the idea of ArcX then, Paul. How did you come across this idea and get that out into the world?

What Drives A Founder Beyond Money

SPEAKER_00 18:07

So, like the doctor, based on personal experience with an army mate on a skiing holiday, he very selfishly tore his ACL on day three, very inconsiderate, meant that I was Billy No Mate skiing by myself, and so started listening to music and and couldn't get a gloved finger to earbuds, smartwatch underneath the jacket, so couldn't get to that. I thought there's got to be an easier way to uh adjust the volume, skip a track um on my playlist when voice control doesn't work, and obviously, I'm in an environment where I'm I'm wearing gloves and actually using both hands to uh hold a set of ski poles. So that that was the the basis of of the idea.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

And some of the biggest challenges that you you you faced with with that again, uh given in mind your experience with with the safe sticks, what how how did that unfold for you this time around?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

First realization was um I don't know how to build a piece of consumer electronics. Dog toy is one thing, it was a solid piece of rubber, so I need someone who's smarter than me who knows what they're doing and has got some experience, and it was it was kind of luck. Um met a amazingly bright uh co-founder, CTO who had a background in wearables, built um small-time consumer electronics before, software engineer, and yeah, we hit it off, and that was five years ago. Off we went.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Awesome. Um and where are you today with that Paul? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Yeah, it's been uh an interesting process. Clearly, lots of lessons learned from SafeSticks and a couple of other little startups, but we bootstrapped it for the first two years, so we both both put in a big chunk of money. Uh, we've raised a couple of little investment rounds. We started off selling it as a little sports tech product, so just for those use cases I talked about controlling music during sport, um, but then realized actually there's because it's so versatile, which has been both a blessing and a curse, we've gone from pretty much 100% D to C and in the last 12 months pretty much doing a 180 and now selling mostly B2B in all sorts of industries, non-sports tech. Um, so yeah, we're we're scaling up there with a couple of really very exciting but um you know really big enterprise customers.

ArcX: From Ski Gloves To Wearables

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Awesome. Again, given such a strong foundation in in the military and such a yeah, the pivotal moment in so many ways in terms of the operations that you're on and the amount of time spent there. How how has your decision-making process sort of changed um and and leadership style changed? I mean you've uh alluded to it earlier um with these different companies. Uh I'm gonna ask you sort of like on behalf of behalf of leaders that might be listening, um, and and any wisdom you might be able to shed or share like there, really.

Pivoting From D2C To Enterprise

Evolving Decision-Making And EQ

Leading Gen Z And Small Teams

SPEAKER_00 21:15

I think that that growth mindset is important. You've gotta you've got to keep learning, you've got to keep adapting. None of us are the the finished product. And you know, leaving the milledray, I thought, yeah, I know a lot uh of what it takes to lead teams in challenging circumstances, and actually in the business world, yeah, that that as we said, that didn't really cut it. So ultimately, it's continuing to learn how to get the best out of people because if you're leading, um, yes, you've got to look at your own performance, you've got to be delivering. But in a in a so small startup, when you don't have the resources, is it's like a military operation, you're never going to have enough time, money, resources, or whatever it else. So everyone has got. to be delivering and as a leader it's a case of okay how how do you get the best out of out of everyone and whereas well no I think I realized um there's there's a great example of bad leadership in the military that has always stuck with me and that whole IQ and EQ balance you've got to have that in um leading leading teams um yeah there was uh his nickname was the morale hoover uh terrible leader like that um yeah nickname because when he walked into a room he just sucked the life and soul right out of it and just just just a bully of a leader and I think I learned as much from him as from a lot of the awesome leaders that um I I work with and and took that into sort of corporate and uh and startup world so yeah definitely IQ and EQ you've got to have that balance and and continue to learn and yeah keep an an open growth mindset. Yeah yeah definitely I that's that's what I'm hearing for myself there being open to learn open to make mistakes and and probably soft isn't the right word but more conversations sat shoulder to shoulder rather than than in a an a structured organisational top down type of type of way I guess yeah totally and all those little lessons of of being openly accountable because let's face it you know we all make mistakes um me very frequently and and when that happens it's yeah very first to admit okay uh guys you know this this didn't work well you know those little tools after action reviews that um you know we spent so much time in the military doing is um in a lot of our client meetings or even pictures or whatever of having a little new ego let's look at this forensically um what went well what didn't and how are we going to improve um next time around love it mate yeah I was just gonna ask is there a set format that you use but you've you've just given it to us there I'm I'm I'm curious Paul if you've had much experience and interactions with some younger generations within your teams and the differences um that yeah youngsters might we might have in in terms of our approach in terms of our outlook uh let alone politics um and how to try and integrate inspire um and pull the best out of them in for themselves rather than just us with our set way of of looking at the world and you have to do a nine to five and I yeah I'm just curious if you might be able to share anything there mate. If you had have asked me that maybe 10 years ago um obviously I would have given a very different answer um something about yeah the generation of today and um uh not having the same work ethic as us but I found that actually that's not true so you know as long as everyone has a clear goal everyone's on the same page so you've got to have a sort of common direction and and you give people all the resources and support they need to do their job and let them get on with it, get out of the way because none of us like a a micromanager and again it's certainly nothing new, nothing groundbreaking but actually you know a 19 year old um coming straight into the workplace for the first time or or a 50 year old I think those those little guidelines yeah I don't think they change. Because we all respond to in in slightly different ways. You know do we find the work that we do regard rewarding can we have some direction in this and that's the beauty of a startup because with such a small team you take on so many tasks yourselves because you don't have the money to outsource it. And so you know a small team of six or seven can shape the whole direction of the company less so in a in a large corporate when you're you're part of a cog but I've found that yeah we've we've taken on uh some interns uh 1890 year old interns and they've been fantastic as long as you do all those things that we we just talked about goal clear tasks clear boundaries what good looks like all the support and resources they need to to succeed if you had to be quite uh aware of your own boundaries um in terms of of looking after yourself so that it's not impacting the work and the guess I'm where I'm coming from there is how easy it is to work eight nine ten twelve sixteen hour days and and and how you go about yeah man managing that for yourself Paul I think I've been guilty like so many other founders in as much that you used to wake up um five six in the morning go to yeah go to the toilet come back I'll just check my emails and then your your day started and you're into this just constant slog and that's what it takes early days you know you've got to put the time in there's no shortcuts but I find that that's not sustainable as so many people will say so when you're working seven days a week um and you're sacrificing going out with friends you're missing someone's birthday party um you're missing time with your family all because and quite often it takes uh a bit of sacrifice but it's not sustainable and yeah I've had a couple of little mini uh burnouts when I've just lost that motivation and started doing some soldier searching so yeah about a year ago had to really change my whole uh routine of getting up and not going straight to a phone to check emails so a bit of exercise bit of fresh air first walking dogs it's great when you've got two big dogs are just there staring at you going okay time and a safe stick and a safe stick yeah get out of your scratcher time to uh time to go for a walk so everyone you know uh has a different I suppose routine and I'm I don't subscribe to uh ice baths and journaling and meditation all at the same time before 4 30 and uh all the rest of it but yeah for me a bit of fresh air and it it it is it's finding a balance I found that and with the team as well we agreed no comms on a Sunday at all if you want to do a bit of work which okay sometimes we have to but no outbound comms at all um let's just give all each each other uh just a bit of space to have have one day off yeah in terms of uh maybe offering a bit of advice for for people that are running teams and when the the shit starts to hit the fan um or they are up against challenge what what's some of the things that you like to do um and I I'm yeah not always getting it right but in terms of just pausing before before you go into something is it is there any strategies that you you apply for yourself Paul I go back to military training and used to call it the condor moment when it's all happening um you know based on the old uh ad uh of just take a deep breath because you will do no one any favors of just having that instant emotional reaction to a fast changing set of circumstances so just yeah take a big deep breath and and and give it a little bit of thought um and also when you're leading the team yeah everyone looks to you and if you are flapping and um making lots of decisions on the fly yeah I think everyone will realize that okay all's not well um so yeah you I think you've got to try and put a poker face on things and I've said to so most of the team are are younger than me and um yeah I think it comes with experience it comes easier of just okay everyone let's take a big deep breath you know um no one's gonna get injured or pregnant so you know it's not that serious or do we have to say yeah you know pregnancy is a beautiful thing um at times but yeah I think it's just that that objective approach um when when things are going wrong and they will go wrong uh quite frequently and it's how you deal with them and it's it's back to that cool hearted look of okay why did it go wrong? What can we learn from this? What can we do better? How can we minimize the chances of that happening again?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Do you mentor people Paul? Or you worked with a program seem to remember from some of our past conversations.

Burnout, Boundaries And Sunday Downtime

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Yeah I do so um obviously there's lots of programs out there lots of charities but um yeah charity close to my heart heropreneurs so I volunteer my time there so they offer pro bono free for 12 months mentorship for anyone leaving uh the military who are starting their own business and I think one of the reasons it's close to my heart is that I never had that opportunity when I was leaving hence all the mistakes with safe sticks and I wish I had someone just as a signing board um someone to offer a second opinion just to ask some questions to try and point me in the right direction and give me the benefit of their experience is is there a message or a story that you find yourself repeating in terms of yeah when when you're speaking to these guys and girls uh about startups um or or what like the the one message if you remember anything remember this bosh focus because you can be very very busy and put in the time that it takes that we spoke about and that could be 12 14 16 hours a day but as if it's not focused then you're you're not going to get anywhere and that focus might change um obviously when you realize that customers change markets change I mean there's that great military line that no plan survives contact with the enemy in a business context it's no plan survives contact with customers the market regulation um competing products um and and and so it's it is that bit of focus and I suppose my lesson is yeah if depending on how well you work whether it's first thing in the morning over a lunch or last thing at night is just take a bit of time to pause and reflect and try and understand where that focus and where your energy is best placed. And what do you do for yourself or what advice do you give to it to others in terms of maintaining that focus for extended periods be it days weeks months and sometimes years do you think Paul Yeah you've got to you've got to love what you do you've got to have that that self-belief and even in the face of lots of people telling you otherwise so back to Dragon's Den Duncan Bannertine well I got told they were stupid uh Duncan Bannertyne told me uh you'll never sell many so uh I'm mute and left thinking wow you know these are all amazing business people should I take that to heart but that sort of stubborn founder mentality of no actually uh they don't have all the answers so uh I'm gonna prove them wrong um but yeah it's sustainability and keeping that going yeah you've got to have that that sort of belief I find I I fell foul of that with another startup where that stubbornness to keep it going I just wouldn't accept that it it wasn't gonna work and I should have made the decision after 12 months extended it for a further six before I accepted actually I need to fool this business uh it's not gonna work so what does that lead us to yeah it's um you've got to enjoy what you do you've got to have that belief you've got to have I think the friends and family support as well um because if you're doing it's hard enough as it is and you've got to have that family structure friend structure around you who who support you um as opposed to telling you all day every day that you're being an idiot and it'll never work.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah I think that's a really important point not not just for for startups and and founders but that support element as well um and and it's something I'd like to hammer home as well just especially given military backgrounds doesn't mean we can stand on necessarily on our own particularly well and usually there's a there's a lot of other people um or they do well to have other people around supporting and taking the piss but mainly supporting um is so vital that that yeah that that element Paul um is is there anything that you that we've not talked about that you'd like to mention um or or or bring up as we start to close this conversation down Mike It's interesting over the last couple of years I find myself being north of 50 and uh you start to consider actually how much how much time have we got left?

Condor Moments And Calm Under Fire

SPEAKER_00 35:46

None of us know and yeah sadly with with a few school friends friends from uh early days in the army who have have moved on from this world you start to question your own uh mortality and and then that you get into some sort of big questions of what it what's it all for so is it worth still slogging day in day out and sacrificing for a business and giving up on friends and family I think that that question's easier if you're you're 20 and the stereotypical founder story of of living in a basement or uh sleeping on your friend's sofa then then yeah yeah you've times on your side but you're older with commitments um particularly with children then I've started to ponder you know what it what's it for how long am I going to keep sort of hard charging uh to do this um part of it is finding it rewarding um part of it is enjoying the people you work with and building something out of nothing that ultimately gives customers joy and value yes will we make some money from it yes of course that's the uh the whole intent but then having money to uh enjoy the friends and family time so it's a bit of a mix but um yeah I find myself more and more asking that question why yeah why could I could I poke that back onto you mate and I'm I'm curious what comes up for you at the moment today, you know what's it for it's um yeah it's like financial security so not wanting to have to worry about paying the mortgage in years to come it's is it legacy um maybe a a a bit of that that um you know through doing this it's it's helping others it's maybe passing something down to uh to my kids um ultimately I'd love to be able to you know give some money uh to friends and family uh those who are maybe um experience experiencing a little bit of hardship but it's I don't see myself you know age 60 sitting back in a hammock uh on a beats all day every day you know there's still got to be some sort of level of reward so there's the financial aspect I suppose there's a legacy bit to it um but then yeah there is that finding not so much enjoyment but reward from from the work that you do yeah yeah yeah and I guess I guess that's that's the that's the dance isn't it is finding that reward now not waiting until or making the assumption that it will come at the end or the sale or the or retirement. Yeah which which may never come um I mean so many stories of corporate life of people working 20 25 years for a company and uh they leave at the end of it little retirement party that not everyone turns up to that they've worked with for 20 years and and off they go with a little bit of a pension and and and maybe a well back in the day it used to be a gold carriage clock or something but it's it's a case of okay what what now what what did I get from that and you know you're forgotten very quickly by the corporate world. Yeah yeah awesome Paul um where where might people be able to reach out to you mate if they're interested in having a conversation uh it should be easy to find on on LinkedIn although there was um I just posted the other day for six months I've been getting calls and emails um people thinking that I'm the financial director of Charlotte Tilbury who is also called Paul Blair and um not DSO though yeah no but um yeah so it should be easy to find on LinkedIn uh and also website is arcs.fit awesome mate listen thanks very much for taking the time to speak to us today Paul is uh there's a lot of experience there mate um and a lot of lessons that people can uh can take away reflect on so yeah I appreciate you taking the time pal and uh keep on doing you mate really good to talk to you thanks a lot