RWL228 How To Overcome Isolation and Succeed Remotely w/ Dipesh Pattni Founder, GravitasQ

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
0:00

Hello everybody. It's Alex from the Remote Work Life podcast and I'm here with Dipesh Patni. Dipesh Patni is somebody I've known for a number of years and he's had an influence in my career. We'll talk a little bit about that in a little while. But Dipesh is the founder of GravitasQ. Having spent many years in digital marketing for a top agency called PhD, he's now a digital marketing consultant. He's gone from actually managing a team of 70, I believe it is to now setting up his own consultancy which deals with helping digital marketing agencies as well as client-side work as well, and I'm going to get a deep press to talk a little bit more about that in a little while. But deepesh is also a partner with help for addiction.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
0:56

So this is something that as well might interest you as well, and I think this particular podcast will interest you. If you there's a couple of things actually um, if you've, if you've transferred from, if you've transferred or want to transfer from a digital marketing scenario co-located scenario to a remote scenario. As well as that, if you are struggling as well with working from home, being isolated. So those are two areas that we're going to cover in today's show. So I just want to really say thank you, dipesh, to you for joining us today. Thank you so much.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:33

No problem at all.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:34

Hey.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:35

Alex, thanks for having me on as well. Appreciate taking the time.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:39

No problem, no problem. What I want to find out, what I want you to tell the audience, first and foremost, dps, we want a bit of a backstory about you. How did you come to be becoming a consultant, working from home, having you know um, built your way up through mainly seo, digital marketing?

Dipesh Pattni:
2:00

just tell us your backstory yeah, sure, sure, so, so actually like, so I think, a large proportion of my career was working at PhD and you know that was approximately nine years.

Dipesh Pattni:
2:14

Before I actually went into that, I was in sales and I actually enjoyed being in sales. It was exciting, sales was exciting and I was exciting and I loved going in for the sale and closing deals down and stuff. But then I kind of got to a point where I was like, well, I've got all these IT skills, I love the whole marketing aspect of things, so I want to be a. So I want to find myself, put myself in a position where I'm a full on expert at something and not just detailed. And that kind of led me down a path which actually initially didn't work out really well, because I was trying to get an SEO job. I'd heard of SEO from university and things like that, and do you know what? Nobody would hire me for an SEO job. So, yeah, with no experience you know, it's that whole chicken and egg thing you don't have any experience, so we don't think that you know you're the right person for the job. Okay, fine, great. So what I ended up doing was learning SEO from searching on Google and that led me on to setting up my own you know small SEO outfit. Anyways, I don't want to spend too much time on that because, to be honest, it was a terrible. It worked out terribly. I took on a few clients. I was having problems getting money from clients and things like that. Seo was in very early days then and a lot of people still weren't like you know, it wasn, it wasn't a thing to do yet on the internet. So what happened was that kind of.

Dipesh Pattni:
3:49

I did do some freelancing projects and PhD in freelancer and I initially went to interview this freelancer but they offered me a full-time role and said it's not a freelance position, now, it's a full-time role.

Dipesh Pattni:
4:02

Are you interested? You're going to get to work on clients like Sainbury's and back then Cadbury's, um, and things like that. And I was like, wow, true, yeah. So I joined PhD on that basis, um, absolutely frightened on my first day because I, you know, I went into a job where obviously I demonstrated some SEO abilities, but I only knew my SEO abilities on a smaller client or somebody that can self-taught themselves from home, thinking that, okay, there's going to be people there that are going to know way more than me. I get there and actually, you know, the levels are pretty similar, the skill sets are pretty similar and, if anything, I had a slight advantage because I thought that SEOs should know how to build websites back then if you were going to work in a big agency or something like that, and it turns out, most SEOs didn't know how to build a website or code or things like that, and I did did because I taught myself that at home, thinking that's what an SEO should know.

Dipesh Pattni:
5:07

So, you know, cut long story short, I had a very, very good career at PhD, and PhD still remains really close to my heart as a business. You know, I've always wanted to see them going up and never down, because you, they made me in many ways Whilst. I did a great job there and I, you know, got a lot of value recognition. I got lots of exposure to building my network, to, you know, speaking publicly and things like that. You know they did a lot for me as much as, you know, I put the hard work in. So, you know, yeah, it's definitely. You know, a PhD is one of the highlights of my life at the time I spent there because I went from, you know, a very junior SEO to becoming head of SEO, running the team, rebuilding the team, you know, taking that team into, you know, a very high level of revenue from where it started.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
6:00

How big was your team?

Dipesh Pattni:
6:03

So when I first got there, there was only actually two of us or three of us. There was only three of us and we didn't even have a head of SEO. A head of SEO and things like that came afterwards and so that initial team I was working in as a junior member was only a team of five. Yeah, a team of five, I think. By the time we were done we were a team of ten. By the time when I became head of SEO, we were still a team of five. I kind of doubled that to a team of ten until I was offered the job to then manage the performance digital channels, right? So the performance digital channels included affiliates, paid search, social media and the newly developed content team which we had just started building. So I spent two years running that team and, kind of you know, that team significantly grew. To be honest, I can't take the credit for all of the growth, because it was a joint effort.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
7:12

Team effort, yeah massively.

Dipesh Pattni:
7:16

Firstly, I recognize that we had lots of resource problems initially. So I went and spoke to some of the you know, the heads, the CEOs, that look, if we're going to build the best team, then we need X, y and Z and to their credit, they signed off X, y and Z and said, yeah, let's do it then. So you know, that led to growth and, at the same, time we were winning lots of big business which?

Dipesh Pattni:
7:43

PhD still got and then won more afterwards. So you know, I imagine that team is bigger now. But you know, running that team was, it was absolutely spectacular. I loved it. It was the first year, was the hardest year I've ever had in my whole career life, in my whole career, because it was stressful. Put it that way, it was stressful.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
8:03

Well, I suppose, when you're, I had a similar kind of scenario to you, because when I actually dipesh helped me out, let me. Let me tell you a bit of my story about how I met dipesh, because there was a time when I was making a transition, uh, into seo as well. I also went the self-taught route, as as dipesh did. You know, I built websites myself and dabbled with different wordpress blogs to experiment with how I could boost, boost traffic organically, um, but I came to dipesh because I was at a time where I was reaching out to my network and dipesh was on my network and I asked Dipesh you know what what his thoughts were on on agency as opposed to working client-side.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
8:50

And Dipesh gave me so much advice, which is which really steered my career along the course of SEO and the way he gave advice and I think everybody needs to be like Dipesh in the network the way he gave the advice. It was totally impartial. He didn't sort of have any bias one way or another and he gave advice in such a way that was he was well, for one, he was very busy, and so he was very kind and very, you know, very good, generous with his time. But two, he had so much in terms of his own experience to give and to share. He was a he's a very much a sharing person. So, dipesh this I wanted to say because I mean this is the first time I've met Dipesh actually face to face I just wanted to say thank you to for you for that no, that's.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
9:39

Okay, mate anytime you know, you know I'm here.

Dipesh Pattni:
9:41

Um, I think it's important to help people out in their career anyway, because you know like we're talking now you do podcasts and I'm here. I think it's important to help people out in their career anyway, because you know like we're talking now you do podcasts and I'm on your podcast. I probably wouldn't be on your podcast, you know, had we not had conversations in the past, right, true? So you know everything goes round in circles and the other thing is there are lots of kids and stuff out there who are just starting their careers, or there's people who want a career switch right and they need somebody to go to that as impartial and offer them good advice and I never had that when I was starting my career.

Dipesh Pattni:
10:15

So you know, and I wish I did and, to be honest, credit to you because you had the initiative to say, oh look, I've got this guy to pay. He's on my network, he's an SEO, let me reach out to him. You know, I wasn't as forthcoming as that when I was younger and when I was, you know, looking at career changes and stuff. I wish I was more open and honest back then. But it's because I kind of believe that I've just got to get on with it. I've got to do it myself. That's not how it works. You've got to tap into your network. People will do it, I'll help you out and you help them out. I think that's the best way to do business and that's the way you enjoy it the most. I agree.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
10:55

I agree. I'm intrigued actually, dipesh, because you've gone from being really successful with PhD. You've built a good relationship with the people there. You've had a good stint there. You've had 9 years there. You built up a team. How big was your team? Did you say 70?

Dipesh Pattni:
11:14

Yeah, it was about 70 by the time I left, so you've built all that up now why switch right.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
11:22

What made you want to switch to working at BESO? This is the hardest decision I've made in my life. Why switch right? Yeah, what made you?

Dipesh Pattni:
11:24

want to switch to working for yourself. This is the hardest decision I ever made in my life, and even when I decided that I'm going to set up on my own, I wasn't totally convinced in my own head, and even my wife was like look, if you're going to do this, you do it now All right.

Dipesh Pattni:
11:43

So why I switched? Okay, I loved everything about my job and stuff, but there was always that something at the back of my head telling me that you know, I still want to set up on my own. I still want to set up on my own and I had attempted it before and failed, and that never left me. Because I tried to set up a seo business and I failed. That part never left me. Because I tried to set up a SEO business and I failed, that part I'd never left me. It was always still there that you know, I tried to do, that didn't work out. And so I said you know, I'm gonna give it a go again. And the other big reason for it was my life had changed. I had a door right. My door was yeah, my door was approaching one, yeah. So the month that she was going to turn one in is the month I basically I think that's the month I resigned or left, because that first year of her life, what was happening was, by the time I got home, she was always in bed.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
12:39

I know that feeling. Yeah, not a good feeling is it when you get back home and she's asleep or they're asleep. So I hear yeah absolutely, yeah, exactly um.

Dipesh Pattni:
12:52

And so that's what was uh, that's what was actually really like um. It started, it was starting to affect me because I was like I'm not even getting to see my daughter grow up. So I said something has to change. And the time just presented itself where, actually, all right, let's set up. I just decided that I'm going to set up a mom at that point because I said that that way, initially, I can work from home, I'll be able to watch my daughter grow up. Okay, I might not make the same money I did, and you know it's going to be tough and I'm going to have to build the business up and things like that. But at least I'm not going to miss out or regret, uh, the decision of um, of, of, you know, of spending time with my daughter. And you know I won't have those regrets when I grow, you know, when I'm old or when I'm like looking back and they're and she's 20 years old or something and I don't want to feel like man. Why didn't I spend more time with her as a baby?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
13:47

And you can never get that time back, can you?

Dipesh Pattni:
13:50

No, you can't, because I think the older kids get the less time they want to spend with their parents until they hit about 30 or 40, and then they kind of gravitate back to their parents.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
14:01

Yes, yes.

Dipesh Pattni:
14:03

Yeah. So it's really weird like that. Um, so I I just didn't want to miss that, so I said, okay, I'm going to make a decision, I'm going to give it a go and I'm going to see how I get on, and if it gets really bad, then I'll look at contracting, I'll look at other options and go from there. Um, so, yeah, and the other thing, what?

Dipesh Pattni:
14:22

At the time when I was quitting, I didn't know what my proposition for Lee was, and it kind of developed because what GravitasQ does essentially is it's not just digital marketing. Yes, we can deliver your SEO. The SEO is usually delivered by me as well, as you know the front man for that. We deliver PPC, we do social media as well, and everything is based on performance. So it's about the types of clients that will come to us, the people that want to drive sales and want to do lead gen on something like Facebook. They want to do lead gen on PPC. They're doing SEO because they want more sales.

Dipesh Pattni:
15:00

It's not necessarily a branding exercise, and the best way to deliver performance is have somebody that has been around and somebody that has got the experience and knows what is going to work and what isn't going to work. So the way GrabTaskQ works is that I basically have built a network of a lot of freelancers people I've worked with in the past, people I've trained as well in the past, as well as some newer people I've met along the way. Now these freelancers, they have five to ten years' experience. They have more experience than you would get at a bigger agency. So if you're a client and you hire an agency, a lot of the time that agency is gonna have somebody that either that is a grad working in your business, that has one years experience working in your business, or two years it's working.

Dipesh Pattni:
15:51

You know it's very effective it's rare that they're gonna get that person that's five to ten years working on their business, because you know that person who's been in the game for ten years is is. You know, I'm gonna be managing a team of 78 people like myself right.

Dipesh Pattni:
16:06

So the way gravitas q works is that I'm tapping into all the people that no longer want to be in that um in that space or working for an agency and they want to contract and they like the execution side of things, they like working on clients, businesses and you know, campaigns and stuff like that and they're not that concerned about the management and managing people side of things. So those are the people I've now tapped into because I'm bringing a lot of experience to the table for a client that they're not always going to get the right recommendations and the right answers from someone that only has one or two years in the business versus somebody that has five to ten years in the business.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
16:44

And I guess you, because you've also built up your networks, you've got a great network yourself of not only people who you've worked with on other projects while you've been at PhD, but through the years you can vet those people. Having worked with them Absolutely, yeah, you can actually say, you know, I could put my hat on this guy or this, this person here, because I I've seen their work, I know what they're all about and I think that that's that as well. It's it's, it's really it's quite difficult, I I believe, to find um, good people at the level that you want them, because often you lots of people these days, people who may only have one or two years experience in marketing, and claim that they've got, you know, they're a marketing expert, sort of thing.

Dipesh Pattni:
17:37

So you know it's a huge problem actually, because so a lot of the clients that come to me, um, you know, because I'll be honest with you, I am not the cheapest person to come to if you're a smaller business, but I do have smaller business clients and the ones that have come to me are usually people that have been burnt in doing their hire to do their SEO and their PPC and stuff. What usually happens is smaller business. They can't afford to necessarily pay big, big money for having PPC delivered for them or SEO delivered for them, and there's nobody that's ever managed the expectations in SEO because SEO takes time. You know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta say that, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do SEO for a year, six months and I want to look at the results over that period of time. When you initially start yeah but there's no.

Dipesh Pattni:
18:27

No one ever manages the expectations. So with the smaller businesses, what happens is they get burnt and then they either decide SEO is no good. Yeah, exactly.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
18:40

Absolutely yeah, yeah.

Dipesh Pattni:
18:42

You know, this is the fight I'm in, because that's what a lot of people will be like SEO doesn't work anymore and they keep seeing all these ads on Facebook about Facebook advertising and so then they start blocking off there and stuff like that. But actually to do digital, well, you should be doing SEO, you should be doing some Facebook, you should be doing some PPC, you should be even looking at affiliate programs and things like that.

Dipesh Pattni:
19:04

All of that combined these days is what drives business growth. And so, yeah, they decide SEO doesn't work. That's one side. Then there's the very persistent ones that say, no, my mate did it and he did really well out of it, or my competitor did it and they did really well out of it. I've clearly not got the right person in here, or I've clearly. This is how I actually became. One of the ways I became a partner in Healthful Addiction as well was we met through the fact that he had had a bad experience with previous SEO company and we kind of did a partnership where I would join and work on the website and you know, we would kind of monitor that partnership and it's gone really well. But you know this is I get a lot of people that have been banned and how comes, and I have conversations with them. I can't always sign them all up because some clients will still be a little bit hesitant.

Dipesh Pattni:
20:02

Yeah, of course, some clients will still they won't want to spend the amount that I estimated it's going to take.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
20:10

Because they want immediate results, don't they usually?

Dipesh Pattni:
20:12

Yeah, immediate results and low cost. So some clients it doesn't work with, but with many clients it does and this is where you know, to be honest, I've been doing quite well out of the fact that people have been a burden.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
20:27

Not that I like that fact. Yeah, of course I know what you mean.

Dipesh Pattni:
20:30

It's just a common story that's coming to me all the time.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
20:33

It's so hard, though, to find. It's hard to find good SEOs, and I suppose, now that you've gone remote as well, especially, obviously you've built your network. But how is that going? What are the challenges now that you face with your, with your remote team?

Dipesh Pattni:
20:49

Yeah, so you know, there are a lot of challenges from working remote and I think, obviously, this is all quite. I think a lot of the country is working remote currently due to current circumstances, so there's going to be a lot of challenges in the workplace as well. The biggest challenges I faced, from going from a big agency to suddenly sitting in a room by myself, um, was a few actually. Firstly, you know that that feeling of loneliness I'm I've got four walls around me. The only person that ever comes to talk to me is my little girl. Right, she'll pop in and she'll be like daddy, you got food and she'll bring her fake food and stuff. So, yeah, and you know that was that's a highlight of my day. It still is. She still does it so, um, and she'll only disturb me once or twice. So you know it's not even a disturbance.

Dipesh Pattni:
21:42

I'm happy for it of course, um, yeah, so you know, like that loneliness really kicked in, um cabin fever became quite a big thing and, um, you know the fact that I've got nobody to bounce ideas off. I'm somebody that bounces off other people and I always was, I'm always going to be a people person. So I've had to adapt a lot to how I now operate because of the fact that it's against my brain. You know, my brain has always been I need to be around people, I need to be social, I need to be social, I need to be. You know, I I perform best when I'm around others and I'm very good at you know, I believe I'm very good at getting the best out of others as well. So, um, when I transitioned to this, it was suddenly I'm lonely, what it's almost that whole yoda effect, you know. Uh, fear leads to anger and it leads to sadness that sort of thing.

Dipesh Pattni:
22:38

So yeah you know the loneliness kicks in, that loneliness needs to frustration. Your frustration then impacts your productivity and that productivity once you start your productivity is not as good your self-esteem or your self-worth yeah, you start questioning your self-worth, so there's knock-on effects, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, and that's when I started kind of I started asking myself have I made the right decision here? About setting up on my own and remember I wasn't initially, I wasn't making the same money I was making when I was working for an agency because I'd I'd worked my way up to quite a good level.

Dipesh Pattni:
23:14

So you know, all of that started impacting my self-worth and how I feel about myself and you know what I kind of recognized from them.

Dipesh Pattni:
23:21

You know, this is obviously this is a little bit difficult to talk about on a podcast yeah but, um, you know, the moment you start questioning what your self-worth is, you're in a little bit of trouble because, um, that means you're not in the right state of mind. And what I realized? That actually the whole loneliness, the cabin fever, the productivity slipping, the um, you know how the linkage to self-worth all of that was actually wasn't the problem, it was the result of, it was the result of um, the bigger problem and that was mindset.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
23:59

Yes, yeah, you know mindset.

Dipesh Pattni:
24:01

Having the right mindset is the most important thing, and I think anybody who's working from home and struggling right now with the coronavirus stuff going on and being locked in the house mindset is the is the most important thing that you need to have right to then deliver.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
24:17

I mean, you know obviously don't get me wrong you can't just have a great mindset and then sit on your sofa and do nothing yeah, you have to have the right mindset and process as well to um do well working at home no, I see, and I also see as well, like a little picture in my head, because I, I went through this. But when, the more you talk about this is, the more I recognize the, the symptoms that I had in myself when I, when I first started working from home because, like you said, I, I, I used to blame my productivity in terms of my you know why I wasn't sort of achieving the goals that I was. I didn't really look at my mindset until, you know, until I realized I was actually I don't know how to describe it much further down right yeah, kind of like.

Dipesh Pattni:
25:01

That's almost like your last assessment yeah first you, yeah, first you're like I need to get an office and so then, you say, okay, well, you're still not making that much money, but you're thinking about getting an office yeah, yeah right, and but just so that you can make the money you need to make right.

Dipesh Pattni:
25:15

And that was you know. These are the thoughts I was going through. And then I almost like started saying well, you know what I'm around? My wife too much, and my wife and kids too much, you start to blame everybody else. Yeah, it's just, you know it's the wrong, because that's where the problem is gonna lie can I ask you something?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
25:41

what did you do? Because when, when you're in that frame of mind, right, it's almost like things are, it's almost like there's like lots of pressure on top of you and you can't I suppose some people, they may not be able to think straight, so how do you pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and think do that self-assessment? How do you even do that? You know, do you see what I mean? Yeah, so.

Dipesh Pattni:
26:04

So that's a really good question and one of the biggest things that I realized that when I wake up in the morning, I need to, I need to set myself up right, so, um, so to do that, I did a couple of things. First of all, I put some I like there's, there's a couple of things that motivate me. Like there's a pic, there's a portrait, that has always motivated me. So I bought that portrait and I put it in my study. So when I walk into my, the first thing I see is that portrait right. And then the other thing is you know what, like, what happens is sometimes you almost start thinking too realistically, and you can't do that when you're working from home and you don't have people around you to reassure you or, you know, to give you recognition or, you know, tell you you're doing a great job. You almost have to just step out of realism and just say that, look, being realistic is not the way that someone like Bill Gates did it, and I'm not even trying to become a Bill Gates or a.

Dipesh Pattni:
27:13

Steve Jobs, but that's not the way they did it. Or, you know, rupert Murdoch you think that he went home to his family and told them listen, I'm going to stick some satellites in the sky and we're going to get all this news information and we're going to do all this. What do you think his family said? His family probably thought it was completely extraordinary right.

Dipesh Pattni:
27:32

Yeah, so you. So you have to take those examples, and I think that's important as well. Motivation is important because you should be looking at quotes of what some of these top people are saying, just like how you do podcasts with CEOs and stuff. The information they offer is valuable. Whenever you face a dark time at home, you should be referring to that stuff. Whenever you face a dark time at home, you should be referring to that stuff.

Dipesh Pattni:
27:55

That is one exercise you can do is, you know, if you don't want to sit there and you know, meditate or something, go to YouTube, put some motivational videos on and go see what some of these guys are saying, because they will tell you some very, very important things, which not all will apply to you, but many things will apply to you, but many things will, and I, I think, I, I think in some cases, they'll say things that will set off like little um, actually, yeah, I've been been in that situation myself.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
28:23

That's what I'm going through right now. And you, you, you begin to realize that it's not just you, right, yeah, that's going through that particular thing or that particular issue.

Dipesh Pattni:
28:32

No, I hear that, I hear it, and yeah, and the other thing that's really good is affirmations. I don't know, have you ever tried affirmations?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
28:39

yes, yes, I do, yeah, yeah, what which ones do you suggest? Are there any particular ones that you you would use?

Dipesh Pattni:
28:46

I, I, I wrote my own because, um, so I've got about 11 and remember what I was telling you about. I was having some challenges because I started questioning my self-worth. So I basically, you know, started building affirmations, really short ones, they might be four or five, um word sentences, and I'd have about 11 of them, and in the morning, you know, I just start the day like that, and what happened was I then suddenly stopped reading them, um, you know, and what like for anybody that doesn't know what an affirmation is, is basically just a one-liner. You might say to link yourself, um, to remind yourself of who you are, um, or where you want to be, like you might say that you know, I love myself, uh, remind yourself, I've had a very strong career, um, and I will continue to do so yeah.

Dipesh Pattni:
29:34

I will deliver success, regardless of how long it takes, like these are the types you know you have. You have to have affirmations, and you might even have some of something you're already not yet. So you might say that I am a millionaire already. Do you see what I mean? So yeah, you have to have these affirmations, because what happened to me? Actually, I was doing that formation for quite a while and then I stopped reading them. So then I I kind of said so, I recorded them on my phone okay, now I just have to press play right when I sit down at my desk and that's it.

Dipesh Pattni:
30:06

That's good enough. That's a good idea that's a good idea.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
30:10

It's a good. That's actually a good because what you get on you've got quite a lot of these things on YouTube, but you get other people saying them. But I think if you've done what Dipesh just suggested there in terms of writing down your affirmation and recording yourself saying it and also the repetition as well, like you said, you can't just sort of do it for one or two days and then have a month off and then come back to it after that it's a, it's a thing that you, that you should do, I think, um, on a daily basis, you know is do you do it daily?

Dipesh Pattni:
30:42

so I I generally do it on a daily basis.

Dipesh Pattni:
30:43

There will be days, there are days missed, and I'm going to talk about process in a minute actually, because okay um, because you know the way, when I talk about process, I talk about how do you split up your day and how you operate now at home versus how you operate in office. Really, I think that's really key. Um, but, yeah, affirmations I try to do every day. There are days that I missed, but I do regret that I missed that day afterwards. Yeah, um, look like the way I look at it is every little thing that helps and there must be a reason why people say it helps. I tried, I tried the meditation thing.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
31:18

It doesn't work for me right, I tried to do meditation didn't work for me.

Dipesh Pattni:
31:22

So I said well, rather than meditation, why can't affirmations be my meditation? Um, and that's you know. That's why I kind of went down that path, because at the time a lot of my friends are talking about meditation, a lot of gurus are talking about meditation and I was like I can't even like sit there and, like you know, I basically get ants in my pants when I want my eyes. I am in, I am trouble sleeping, like it takes me ages to fall asleep and you want me to sit there and meditate I can't.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
31:49

It's not a one-size-fits-all, is it? It's not. It's not a one-size, one size fits all. You have to figure out what, what works for you, and I'm the same. Meditation, um, I mean, I've tried meditation myself, um, and I, yeah, I think I prefer to just get myself in a zone by this, either listening to a certain music or um reading about a certain somebody who I, I really sort of respect, or, you know, affirmations or a combination of those things, and those are the things that really sort of motivate me and sort of get me in the right frame of mind for the day going forward.

Dipesh Pattni:
32:25

You know, see, you, you have a unique. You have a unique method which actually is built around what you like yeah, yeah so you know meditation might not work for you know, meditation might not work for you. Affirmations might not work for you. The method that you're using, alex, might not work for someone else, right?

Dipesh Pattni:
32:41

so you know, it's very good that you've built one that is specifically geared towards you and people. That's what people need to do. They can't just say, oh, I'm going to meditate like you know, uh, bill gates does, or you know whoever else, um, or you know richard Gates does, or you know whoever else, or you know Richard Branson, I'm not going to do it that way. You have to find your own way of doing things and you know, I'll tell you a really good story about that, because, so, this is more about process.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
33:06

Yes, please.

Dipesh Pattni:
33:07

Process is really important with working from home, because one of the other things I realized was so productivity haven't like this wasn't my productivity sleep I had. There were times where I would be doing proposals or pitches for new business and things like that, and when I did this in the office, when I worked in an agency, I was very, I was very quick, putting something back together. I always knew the story I wanted to tell to the clients, the information I wanted to show all of that. When I suddenly started doing it at home, I would be staring at a blank PowerPoint and I'd be like I swear I'm really good at this. Why am I struggling with it? And that's because when you're working from home, if you're not sitting at your desk, you're not working.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
33:58

Or if you're not typing, you're not working.

Dipesh Pattni:
34:00

If you're not sending an email, you're not. That's not how working from home works at all. Right, how it works is so I'll tell you how I discovered my process. So I basically got frustrated looking at that blank powerpoint. I went and turned on the playstation during the working day, started playing fifa for about an hour and a half my wife.

Dipesh Pattni:
34:24

My wife comes in and she's like what the hell are you doing? We've got a mortgage to pay. And I'm like, and I said to what you're talking about. And then she's like, how can you be playing playstation when we built, like you're building this business and you know, like you're saying how important it is, and you told me just last night how you've got a proposal to get done by the end of today, right, and um, and I was like, look, basically I was like just leave me alone. I'm thinking and uh, and that's actually when I discovered my process, because so when you go to, when you go to uh work, you always have to get on the train. I had one hour for me on a train there's a set way of doing it, isn't there?

Dipesh Pattni:
35:07

yeah, so. So what would happen is is that I've already started planning, I've already done the audits and the downloads and I already know what information I need, right. So on the train, I've already started planning what my slides are going to look like, right? So by the time I've then gone through that process for that one hour on the train, I then got to work and said I need to knock out this proposal, mm-hmm, and I need to get this proposal done so that it's ready for today or tomorrow or this week or whatever. I'm very quick at it because I've already visualized what it's going to look like in my head.

Dipesh Pattni:
35:41

And so that time, when I sat there and I played FIFA, I had basically gone through that process. I went and sat down at my desk and within two hours that proposal was done right, because I hadn't done that process, process, yeah.

Dipesh Pattni:
35:56

The thinking bit yeah and yeah, and you know, because I was sitting on my desk staring at the slide, thinking what should I do, rather than not being anywhere near my desk and processing everything that I need to do and visualizing it in my head and recreate and creating it in my head before I go recreate it physically. Yeah, um, so that that, yeah, my wife was like my wife realized that wow, that is a process like I get it like what you did.

Dipesh Pattni:
36:19

There was fairly impressive yeah that's how I discovered what my process was, so suddenly now, how, if I have a proposal or something like that, I'll do I might turn on the playstation I might go to the gym and I will.

Dipesh Pattni:
36:32

We can't go to the gym right now, um, yeah, they're closed, right, so you know. But I would go to the gym and I will. We can't go to the gym right now, um, yeah, they're closed, right, so you know. But I would go to the gym and basically I'll go for a run. So on the day I've got a proposal, I'll pick specific things like a run, because that's long, you can only think you're in a run because you're on a treadmill and of course, there's nothing to yeah, just don't don't hit the Netflix buttons or anything like that, right, um?

Dipesh Pattni:
36:54

so I'll'd go for a run, then I'd go in the swimming pool and then I'd go in the jacuzzi, and in that time I would have processed what I'm supposed to be doing when I get back on my desk. So then you know, 10.30, I go to the gym, I'll be back at 11.30, and bang.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
37:07

That proposal will be done over the next few days. Right, it's a couple of things there, isn't it? It's? The first thing is, um, you know your, your mind, when you're, when you're at work, and you have to have that commute, your mind is almost, like, gets used to a rhythm, doesn't it, of going through the pro. You know the process of that gap, of going through work to work, which, in your mind, is working and thinking about what you've got to do when you get there. But when you're at home, you don't have that sort of um, that commute, so to speak, so that that journey is you on your, on your playstation playing fifa, isn't it?

Dipesh Pattni:
37:41

and yeah, yeah, exactly, and you know, as I started to, as I started to dissect that even more, what I realized was that there were times where I would go sit in the canteen at work and I would just sit there with a coffee and maybe a piece of toast, or you know, in the morning, or like I'd be sitting there at lunchtime, after lunchtime for a little bit longer, and what I was doing at those times was processing how um, processing how these things work. I need to blow my nose no, go for it.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
38:08

Why are you doing that? I'll just say as well.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
38:10

Um, I'm gonna say right now the worst thing to do is cough or blow your nose, or something, but at least we've got our distance, at least you know we've got a two-meter distance between us. I was going to say the other thing Don't be you, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, no, go on. I was going to say the other thing is you talked about sitting at your computer, that's the first thing you talked about where you're just sitting at a, and it can become frustrating, can't it?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
38:40

I don't know about you, but if you sit at a computer and nothing is sort of coming to you, I become more and more frustrated. So I have to then take myself away physically, usually away from that situation. And it might mean I go out and I don't know, I sit on, go and sit outside with a pen and paper, or I might just I don't know go for a go and sit outside with a pen and paper, or I might just I don't know go for a run around the block or a walk or just do something that completely takes me away from the scenario of sitting down. And that's when my thoughts start to gather themselves and I start to think, you know.

Dipesh Pattni:
39:18

Yeah, it's so important, and everybody that's working from home and stuck at home right now, they'll be going through some of these stages. So what you know, the biggest thing you can do is identify when you do your thinking and how you do your thinking. Yeah, I love that you're sitting at a desk I love that you know for you that might become something like hitting a tennis ball against the wall for an hour yeah yeah, whatever it, it is right, it's still working.

Dipesh Pattni:
39:45

That doesn't mean you're suddenly not working, as long as you're still focused on what your task at hand is and you're basically trying to figure out how you're going to do it.

Dipesh Pattni:
39:53

You're still working, so you know. That is very important for people to understand. I like that. Yeah, I saw this video where somebody's using a fan or something to move their mouse around at home, so it looks like they're working and I'm like that's not how it should be. Companies shouldn't be sitting there monitoring. Are people still logged in? Are people still logged in? That's not how working from home works and people work differently, don't they?

Dipesh Pattni:
40:18

Yeah, exactly, everybody works in different ways and I think that everyone has to self-reflect to find what that process is. When do you do your thinking? When do your best ideas come to you? Um, you know what do you actually do at your desk when you're sitting there, and why are you? You know the times you're most productive, why are you that productive at your desk? Um, and you know again, if we can tie this all back to mindset, because if you accept all of these things, suddenly you're already in a better mindset and a frame of mind, because you know how you operate in a different condition.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
40:53

No, I love that going into an office, yeah, delivering, deliberate. On the. On the flip side of that, if you're feeling at your lowest point, you you probably need to assess yourself and look at yourself and think to yourself why am I feeling like this right now? What, what's causing me to feel this way? And then, when you, when you're more aware of the things that help you to do your best work, or you're aware of the things that are causing you to be in a slump, then you can actually begin to think about remedying them right.

Dipesh Pattni:
41:25

Yeah, and you know there's already signs of it, because so I think I mentioned that I've partnered with a gentleman named Nick on his business Help for Addiction, and we did an equity deal where I would basically take equity of the website. And you know, we've been working together for over a year now and you know, due to all the current circumstances, we're literally launching online therapy next week, because we've had an influx of demand for online therapy and everything seems to be related to more mental health, with the idea that you've got this virus out there and that virus scares people. It's frightening, right, yeah, and then, like, people are working from home now, so they're not only dealing with the pressure of I need to learn what my processes are working from home, how I operate from home, um, the boredom of not being able to leave your house.

Dipesh Pattni:
42:18

Um, then they've got this virus out there as well that they're scared, they're frightened of, they're scared that something's gonna happen to them or their family member or their friends, right, um, so there is, you know, that's going on in the back of their mind as well.

Dipesh Pattni:
42:31

So you know, that's why, like this whole online therapy we're doing with that is, the reason we're launching online is simply so we can deliver it via zoom, so people can have that while they're at home. Um, but the, the only reason we've done this is because we've already had inquiries about um, about, you know, having therapy from home. Can you give us therapy from home? And we, you know we've got therapists, so we're like, let's just deliver it online because, you know, I I think that, as this develops and depending on how long we're in lockdown, there's going to be a lot of people are going to start struggling with working from home. So, you know, I hope that they listen to this conversation because you know you've said some really useful stuff um, about um, you know about the process, about, like, um, how you found your way how I found my way and I think that's everybody has to find their way, uh, at this time and find something that works positive for them.

Dipesh Pattni:
43:28

I come from the school of positivity and I'll tell you something when I set up on my own that all went out the window. I thought I was immune to feeling negative about it, but yeah it's easy to be positive when everything's going right, absolutely right it's.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
43:41

It's not so easy when everything's going right, absolutely.

Dipesh Pattni:
43:42

It's not so easy. When everything's going right, it's still easy when a little bit's gone wrong, but when everything, suddenly, all the pressure is on you and you have to deliver, positivity is you're not sitting there thinking. Let me just be positive about this right now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
43:57

It's one thing you need to have that positive mindset. Yeah, it's one thing being a manager or a founder or an owner of a business that's co-located. There's pressures that are brought to bear on somebody who is that person, because they often talk about being, you know, wondering who they should talk to. But when it comes to being that person that founder or that manager, and then working remotely, I think it's even more. The pressures are even greater because you don't have that contact.

Dipesh Pattni:
44:32

Yeah, absolutely Alex. Because, alex, if you're a manager right now, you're probably thinking uh, not just about yourself, you're probably thinking how, if you're a good manager, you'll be thinking how am I going to manage my team?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
44:47

absolutely yeah, yeah they are mentally okay as well and how I mean actually on that point, how can you recognize sort of symptoms in your own team as well? I mean, as much as it's, it's probably. I don't know if it's easier. I I mean not to say I found it easy to look for the symptoms in myself, but it can sometimes be more difficult to look for symptoms in people you're managing, because people I don't know unless you've got a really really close relationship with somebody. You know them inside out it's. Sometimes people might mask them or I don't know what what can you do?

Dipesh Pattni:
45:23

well, that's really, that's a really good question. Um, there's, you know what there's a lot of.

Dipesh Pattni:
45:30

There's actually quite a lot you can do as a manager. Um, first, when you first sit down and think about it, get yourself right, make sure that you're comfortable and you've found your process at home, and how you're going to basically continue to be productive, and how you're going to make sure you have the right mindset every morning, and stuff like that. So, once you've looked after yourself, now you help your team. Right, but you've got to be quick with it if you're a manager, because you can't take weeks to find your own process and stuff, you've got to be pretty quick. So, in the meantime, what you should be doing is implementing something that creates a little bit of normality to what your staff has in the office. Now, what? What does staff love most in the office? Well, they will enjoy the fact that they get to have banter with their colleagues. They will and I'm taking the work out of it like, whether you enjoy your work or not, it's got nothing to do this right now. Right, you need to.

Dipesh Pattni:
46:24

Basically, as a manager, you should be focused. If you want the best out of them at this time, you should be focusing on their mindset and how, what you create that keeps them in a strong frame of mind right now. So the biggest thing that we all have right now is we can all relate to the fact that we're all locked in our houses. So, as a manager, if you didn't have anything that you could relate to with your staff before, you've certainly got something now, because you're going to be having the same challenges as your staff is Absolutely yeah. And what I would suggest is, if you're not always going to recognize when somebody is shooting down because they might pretend, but what you will notice is that if they're more frustrated on web conference meetings or on the phone, you'll be able to sense frustration for sure, because somebody who normally contributes a lot will suddenly contribute less, will suddenly contribute less.

Dipesh Pattni:
47:25

Somebody who, um, somebody who doesn't contribute as much anyway, but will suddenly become very quiet or very distant, or when you've asked them something, they might not necessarily be as focused on their work. You know you want it's good to ask, it's good to ask your staff details at this time, because if they're not in the detail when they normally are, then you'll be able to. It's another tell, right? But I think that rather than trying to identify, okay, which one of my team has got anxiety and which one hasn't. I think that what you're going to be more better off doing is, as a manager, ring them up, ring up everybody, ring up, whoever your team members are. I mean, even if you've got a team of like, when I had a team of 70 people, I still had five direct reports right, and then it kind of like filters out.

Dipesh Pattni:
48:11

So at least ring up, yeah, ring up your direct reports and maybe bring up a couple of people underneath them too and, just you know, have a conversation with the house. Things you know, like you talk to them about some maybe you're some of your frustrations. Let them talk about some of their frustrations, because letting it out is going to help as well. Yeah, um, we've got things like zoom as well, where you can have a whole group meeting. So you should be setting one of those, you know, every every two or three days, I think, at this moment in time, just not necessarily to do work, right, but just so all the staff are still talking to each other, so you might talk a bit about work but then talk a bit about everything else going on.

Dipesh Pattni:
48:50

Don't just let it all go back to work because, if you're just going to talk to your staff about work at this worrying time, then they are not going to be mentally, mentally prepared or mentally safe, because what you need is you need to be creating some normality about what they have in their workplace. You know that fact that if you've got a Zoom and everybody's on it and everybody's having a laugh about something, then that's great. The other thing is you could even do evening drinks, right.

Dipesh Pattni:
49:19

You could say that, oh, let's all have a team drink together um this evening it's friday or it's thursday remotely, yeah, yeah, let's do remote drinks.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
49:28

Yeah, yeah, why not exactly yeah?

Dipesh Pattni:
49:32

the other thing, there's a great app. It's called um house party. Have you heard of?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
49:35

it. No, I haven't. I'm gonna write that one down.

Dipesh Pattni:
49:37

House party yeah yeah, house party, yeah, so so what you can do in house party you could set up. You and your team could set up on house party. Yeah, so, what you can do in house party, you and your team could set up a house party and let's say, you decide to FaceTime one of your team members, so you might be having a conversation with that team member, but somebody else from your team can then intrude and jump in on that call. Okay, so if you leave the room open, so somebody else from that team, from your team or your friend list can jump in on that call and suddenly just randomly join the conversation. Um plan spontaneity? Yeah, it's like it's a banter, isn't it like in?

Dipesh Pattni:
50:14

the office as well it'd just be a good laugh to do something like that. Um, you have to be delivering. I just think you need to right now, at this moment in time. You should be delivering more mindset stuff. Then how far are you with your work? Can you hit the deadlines and that sort of thing?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
50:29

yeah as long as you've got a team that hits deadlines, then you should be focusing on on the people and what their state of mind is and how the communication is flowing, more than anything else yeah, I, I agree, and I think in this because, I mean, I've spoken to people who who've been in the world of remote work, who work remotely for 10, 20 years, and some, some of them, it took them six months a year, two years, to get to grips with working from home and forget about the the day-to-day work that they have to do.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
51:01

It just it just took them like that length of time to just bed in. So I agree with you, I think it's so important to talk about things other than work, but it's also important to have that empathy and have that patience with your team so that you, you can give them, as you know, as much time as possible to actually acclimatize to this new, this new sort of uh, you know way of life that we're having at the moment. You know, you have to get, get ready for it, prepare them for it.

Dipesh Pattni:
51:31

I completely agree, because businesses are. You know, businesses are worried as well right now, because obviously profits are down, sales are down.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
51:48

So for somebody that's leading that business, it's difficult because they need to worry about the patience of their employee and then they need to worry about their bottom line.

Dipesh Pattni:
51:55

But I think that if you can focus more on the people so that that bottom line improves, and that that might be one way to go about it, or you do need to split your time by saying, okay, well, clearly we're going to need more clients, clearly we're going to need more sales, so you put things in place for that, and then you say how am I going to carry on making my people deliver as well as they? They've always delivered and you have something in place for that? You can't. If you, if you as a business, and if you now suddenly just focus on the sales bit because that's where the emergency is, then just put this side the people think is going to dip. Without doubt it's. You know, you're going to have to be that leader that you you thought you was or you are when you started this business and you're going to start juggling things you know again and make sure your focus is split in two places yeah, it's a different kind of leadership, isn't it?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
52:48

it's really.

Dipesh Pattni:
52:50

Yeah, it's more of a business owners right now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
52:52

Really feel for them I do, um, I do too. It's, it's and it's difficult. I think those business owners also or business owners, managers, founders they also need to have that support network themselves because they're taking. What you have to realize is you're taking on being that, I suppose, coach, I suppose you could say they're almost being becoming coaches, um, and being more sort of that. All that empathy it's gonna have, it's gonna probably take, it's take a sort of toll on on on you as well, because you're having to, like you said, you're going to have to acclimatize to working remotely and getting your team all in place and dealing with all the daily pressures that it takes to actually run a team or run a business. But who is looking after you? So you have to figure out who that person would be, or bring people into your network, your support network, to look after you as well, so that you're in the best possible position to look after your team.

Dipesh Pattni:
53:48

Yeah, great, and I think you know you just stumbled on something really important Like who's looking after you, um, and and so like, I think that you should still be trying.

Dipesh Pattni:
53:58

Just like we talked about remote drinks with your work colleagues and stuff like that, I think you still should be doing some remote stuff with your friends. Um, so I've actually got something planned, you know, today, um is I'm going to be playing a poker game on poker stars, and you know it's not for a lot of money, it's a very small amount of money, uh, but I'm playing in a private room with friends and simultaneously we're all going to be talking on Zoom as well while we play. And that's something I've got planned tonight, because I can't go in one of the houses and play a poker game. So we said we're all stuck in the house. Should we have a game of poker, like we would normally like once every couple of months? But we'll do it from home and we'll do it on PokerStars, because you can have a private room and we'll come and zoom at the same time.

Dipesh Pattni:
54:48

Um, and this is you, this is all of that stuff is what helps your well-being as well, because you've got to see your friends and all your family and stuff like that, and you know this is just how you have to function for a little while. But you've got to embrace all the technology that we've got, because we've created all this technology that allows us to be remote. And aren't we lucky we created it. Yeah, exactly why we should be using it because we've built a world where you can stay at home.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
55:20

Literally yeah, yeah, no, I agree, it's about also thinking outside of the outside of the box. I suppose I wouldn't, I'd never have thought of, actually. I mean, I don't, I don't know much about, um uh, poker or well, gaming is not something I do that much, but I know that, for example, places like twitch, if you are a gamer, twitch is a place where you can sort of hang out. You can create private spaces, can't you, and game on there. I don't know, just like you said, just having on for something like Skype. If you've got people in your network, you can just gather together and just talk about what went on.

Dipesh Pattni:
55:59

Yeah, exactly.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
56:00

And lots of these apps now, for example, google. Now they've stepped up and they've been. They've improved um hangouts and they've got meat. Now, haven't they? And you can have, I don't know 10, I think, up to 20 people, 25 people on there at a time. So it's, there's all kinds of different tech.

Dipesh Pattni:
56:17

So I didn. But I've always used it just for like um, you know, like almost like a FaceTime or something. Yeah, Uh, when I'm only having a meeting because I didn't know that actually they're doing similar things, that's quite good, yeah.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
56:29

But I think that interaction we're human beings after all we need interaction we need to separate work, uh, from, like you suggested, uh, depe, separate our work from our, you know, our downtime. We need to have that downtime. We have to have that that sort of baked in to, yeah, to the you know, the daily, daily life, or at least once or twice a week, you know, especially now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
56:52

So, yeah, yeah definitely now yeah, um so yeah, I was gonna say what, what. What are the plans for you now? What are the plans for you now? What are the plans for you and GravitasQ?

Dipesh Pattni:
57:05

So you know, as I said, I feel sorry for business owners because, to be honest, right now is a difficult time for GravitasQ as well. You know, we've had a couple of clients turn off their PPC ads, so that's going to impact as a business. That's going to impact me because, um, if they're not advertising, then obviously I've got less to do. Um, I'm very lucky in the fact that seo clients they, they continue to do what they do. Um, and they should, because with seo it's you know, you can't just suddenly stop because we're on lockdown for a little while. Seo is something you've got to keep doing anyway. I think with pvc and media because it's real-time, there are pockets where a couple of clients have turned up because it doesn't make sense for them to be live If you're on a venue and you're doing PPC ads when your venue's closed.

Dipesh Pattni:
57:57

There's no point in running ads.

Dipesh Pattni:
58:00

Send people to ask them to come to your shop or anything like that, right? So you know it's going to be a tough time. I mean I'm confident that people get through it, but it's going to be a tough time and, um, going forward, I mean like, um, you know we've it's, it's, it's almost business as usual otherwise. So I'm lucky in the fact that you know I've got a um, a good uh client book, in the sense that I've got a variation of clients so they're not all people see where everybody has to turn off or anything like that. So I'm very lucky in that sense. So it's business as usual and we've got to skews.

Dipesh Pattni:
58:32

Just, the plan is to continue growing it and kind of like one of the biggest things that doctors Cuny's is exposure and the fact that we're bringing people with five to ten years to the table, with five to ten years experience to the table, you know, and what they can do and how good they are is very, very important to how a business can grow. Whether you're large or small, you might be a very big brand and you've just never managed to get your performance right. Well, what if I told you we can give you people that have been around and have worked on a lot of brands and managed to get the best out of some big brands as well yeah.

Dipesh Pattni:
59:14

So you know, that is the message we're putting out there, because I think that a lot of brands are now kind of becoming a little bit hesitant with agencies and things like that, and this is the whole reason the consultancy was started up. And even if you want somebody to review whether you're doing the right stuff, then that's another reason to give us a call as well. But yeah, for us it's business as usual. As I said on Helpful Addiction, we're going live on online therapy this week, so that's going to be big because there's a lot of people out there who are not going to be able to get to rehab to deal with their health or drug addictions.

Dipesh Pattni:
59:55

There are people that might be having anxiety and depression issues. So the fact that they'll be able to get therapy at home from their phone or tablet or computer, it's going to be really big, and that's delivered by a registered therapist from our clinic anyway.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:00:11

So you're still busy, then You're still keeping busy. Yeah, still busy Still busy.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:00:16

It's a bit like the hard bit is not being able to go out. So I haven't been able to go to the gym and today I was feeling a little. This morning I was feeling a little sore, um, like my muscles, aren't you know?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:00:26

they're not active. Yeah, yeah, they're not active.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:00:28

So today I'm going to go for a run, probably about four or five o'clock as well, because I just need, I need to. I'm gonna have to go out and at least have a run in the fresh air well, at least we're allowed to do that.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:00:40

We're allowed to do that. We're allowed to do that.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:00:41

Yeah, we're allowed to exercise once a day, and I haven't been taken the opportunity to do that either.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:00:49

Again, that's another. I mean that could be a whole other podcast, couldn't it On how to sort of keep physically in shape? Because I actually did a podcast about that. In terms of the, because lots of people, people, we talk about the mindset and the mental, the mental aspect of working from home. Rightly so, because it affects a lot of people. But sometimes that's the we don't. We neglect the physical consequences of working from home as well, because obviously you have to have that discipline, don't? You have to be able to discipline yourself to get up, and just get up, and walk up and down the stairs or go to the gym or go around the block.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:01:26

So that's a whole different story which we'll cover at another time, I guess yeah, mate, that there's definitely a podcast in that, because when I when I first uh set up on my own, I was thinking you know what? This is brilliant, I want to go to the gym every day. And, um, it did not last. I was very bored when I was in the workplace, right?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:01:45

so I was like something's not right here. Yeah, I thought that, you know, I thought this would be easier.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:01:50

Yeah, and your fatigue does suffer a little bit. Yeah if you're not exercising, then you know what happens. Your productivity um change. I started intermittent fasting as well, where I don't do anything till one o'clock as well. Um, and I find that really good because, uh, in the morning I'm not like rushing around to uh to have. I'm not not rushing around, but I'm not worried about what I'm having for breakfast.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:02:13

All I'm going to do is I'm going to come in the kitchen, get a coffee and get on my desk, and it just made me a whole lot more productive as well so yeah, you probably have a podcast on that, yeah, there's definitely a podcast, but this one has been really eye-opening for me and it's like I said, it's been good to have some face time with you, having written to you all these these years.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:02:32

And, um, I just want to wish you all the best with gravitas q, I'll be keeping obviously up to date with that. What I want to do as well is, um, is make sure that we we get get help for addiction in the show notes so people can actually link to it from the show notes and you know if, if, if, any of this has chimed with you today. If you're experiencing I don't know slumps in your mood, you know if you, if you're feeling not yourself, if you're feeling, if somebody you know is is not feeling themselves, then don't keep it to yourself. Whatever you do, at the very least talk to somebody. But, um, it may be that, uh, help for addiction could be something that could help you out definitely reach out, because on the website you can even have there's instant web chat.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:03:20

Um, there's a consultation form, so you don't necessarily have to come and, you know, buy online therapy before somebody is willing to have a conversation with you. If you just put a little message in the web chat and, um, you know, nick or one of these colleagues will um have a conversation with you. Uh, less likely to be me, as I'm probably not the most, I'm not the best suited to it, but you know people that have got experience in therapy, people that have the experience of addiction. You know you can have a conversation with them on web chat on up for addictioncouk.

Dipesh Pattni:
1:03:49

So, yeah, definitely if you are struggling with remote working then yeah, definitely, but I hope, like you know the conversation today that we've had, you know that will help people. Um, that will help people anyway so I'm sure it will.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
1:04:02

I'm sure it will and we'll be keeping up to date thank you for having me on as well pleasure. It was my pleasure and we will speak to you soon and thank you everybody for listening, and we'll catch you with another episode very soon. So all of you take care and we'll speak to you soon bye, bye.