The Journey of Balance and Success with Charlie Reading

In this episode, Charlie Reading is interviewed by co-host Claire Fudge. Charlie shares his personal and professional journey from a farmer's son to a successful financial planner and finally to a business coach with a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and goal setting. Charlie recounts pivotal moments that shaped his career trajectory, starting with the inspiration he received from his uncle Bill, which led him to value independence and the ability to set his own rules in business. He discusses his transition away from the financial sector's commission-driven environment to establishing his own business that prioritises client needs and a balanced life. A significant turning point came from attending a Tony Robbins event, which motivated him to focus on health, family, business success, and writing books. Charlie emphasises the importance of goal setting, fear setting, the role of AI in the future of business, and measuring what matters both in personal life and business. He advocates for regular goal assessment, creating systems for achieving goals, and the use of data and AI to enhance business operations and personal achievements.

Highlights:

• Charlie's Journey: From Uncle Bill's Influence to Financial Services
• The Turning Point: Tony Robbins and the Pursuit of a Balanced Life
• Achieving Personal and Professional Growth
• The Power of Goal Setting: Insights and Strategies
• Overcoming Challenges in Goal Achievement
• Measuring What Matters in Life and Business
• The Future of AI: Opportunities and Concerns

Contact Charlie Reading: Website | LinkedIn
My journey has been a blend of relentless pursuit and strategic pauses, marked by completing four Ironman competitions, running ultra-marathons, and navigating the peaks and valleys of entrepreneurship. Founding, building, and exiting one of the UK's premier financial planning practices wasn't just a career move; it was a testament to my belief in living life on my terms, integrating work with my passion for endurance sports. This narrative isn't solely about the finish lines crossed or the business milestones achieved; it's about the philosophy of taking three months off every year. Having authored four books, I've sought to distill the lessons learned from the endurance required in sports, business, and life into insights that resonate beyond the pages. As Claire delves into my story, we'll explore the essence of balancing high performance with true enjoyment, the challenges of maintaining this equilibrium, and the victories—both big and small—that have defined my journey. It's a tale of ambition, resilience, and the art of crafting a life that celebrates achievement while embracing the joy of living.

Please Subscribe to Business of Endurance on Apple Podcasts, leave a comment, and give us a 5-Star review.

Sponsor Messages:
Sign up to the free Limitless Life Workshop from the Trusted Team here
Get your free goal planner from the 4th Discipline here

Launch Your Own Podcast:

ShoRunner is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with the right st

This episode was sponsored by The Trusted Team and 4th Discipline

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

I'm Charlie Menning and I'm Claire.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Fudge.

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to the business of endurance. That's the advice I would give them is you know, go out, step outside your comfort zone, do more, go earlier, because there's things I look back on. I think if I had had the balls to do that earlier, I'd have got to where I got to now a lot quicker. So yeah, that'd be the advice. He wrote down a load of goals, forgot about them, discovered them years later and he'd done them. But actually I suspect that's very good TV and I suspect he had it more structured, even if it was only in his brain. In today's rather special episode, I'm stepping into unfamiliar territory, not as your host, but as the guest Whilst my incredible co-host, claire Fudge, takes the reins.

Speaker 1: 1:02

My journey has been a blend of relentless pursuit and strategic pauses marked by completing four Ironman competitions, completing ultramarathon and navigating the peaks and valleys of entrepreneurship. Founding, building and then exiting one of the UK's top financial planning practices wasn't just a career move. It was a testament to my belief in living life on my terms by my design and integrating work with my other passions. This narrative isn't solely about finish lines crossed or the business milestones achieved. It's about the philosophy of taking three months of every year off. This practice wasn't just for rest, but for exploration, for writing, for deepening my understanding of what it means to merge business with fun.

Speaker 1: 1:46

Having authored four books, I've sought to distill the lessons learned from endurance required in sports, business and life into insights that resonate beyond the pages. As Claire delves into my story, we'll explore the essence of balancing high performance with true enjoyment, the challenges of maintaining this equilibrium and the victories, both big and small, that have defined my journey. Hopefully, you'll find it a tale of ambition, resilience and the art of crafting a life that celebrates achievement whilst embracing the joy of living. So let's flip the tables on me and I hope you enjoy the episode. That is about me, charlie Redding, really looking forward to this episode where the shoe is on the other foot and I am being interviewed instead of being the interviewer. So if you listen right the way through to the end, I've got an amazing gift for you. So watch this space.

Speaker 2: 2:54

So, hello everybody. We are going to change up the podcast a little bit today and I'm going to be interviewing Charlie. So we are going to start, charlie, with finding out a little bit about your story and how you've got to where you are today.

Speaker 1: 3:09

Well, this feels slightly weird, doesn't it? The shoe is on the other foot. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this, but we'll give it a go, We'll see. Okay, so my story. Where do I start?

Speaker 1: 3:17

Well, I suppose the place I often start when I'm talking about my business life is a story about when I was travelling around the world and I was in Perth, western Australia, and I was staying with my uncle Bill. Now, my uncle Bill was this kind of big sort of David Hasselhoff lookalike. I'm still trying to emulate my uncle Bill through my swimming escapades. But uncle Bill had this incredible house and it was surrounded by these beautiful artifacts. And I remember saying to him you know, like you've always got this incredibly successful business, but where have all of these amazing things in your house come from? And he said well, charlie, I take three months of every year and I travel around the globe Three months, bill, you know, I thought once you got a job you had to sort of be restricted to sort of 25 days holiday. And he said oh well, you know, you work for somebody else's company, they set the rules. You work for your own company, you set the rules. I'm like well, that's interesting. That's kind of like sort of continued my travels around the globe. That was like a bit of a seed growing.

Speaker 1: 4:13

So basically when I came back after travelling I fell into I mean, I'm a farmer's son so I expected to go into farming, but I kind of didn't really want to. And I fell into the world of financial services by mistake and what I really found was I love giving people advice, helping them save for their future and protecting their money, but I really didn't like the sector, the industry, the commission, hungry selfies and. But ultimately the reason I took that job was because I'd still got Uncle Bill's words ringing in my ear and in fact even in my interview for that job, the guy that was interviewing me described type A and type B person. Type A was the person that takes an employed job they get paid a good salary and they but ultimately they end up working for the bigger company and making lots of money for that company. Or there was the type B person that earns a bit less in the early years but ultimately ends up creating their own thing and controls how much time they were. And I'm like that's Bill, that's my Uncle Bill. I know the answer to this question. I'd be so obviously that's where I ended up.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Very sadly, my Uncle Bill ended up taking his own life because I thought he had everything, I thought he had incredible life, but he clearly he had mastered. I sort of later learned to be known as the science of achievement. He had definitely got for the art of full film and he hadn't got, and so a combination of that and kind of not loving the sector I was in, I found myself thinking I can't need to do things differently, and so probably a whole load of things happened. But one of the big things that really started stuck out for me next was probably about 10 years later. I was at Tony Robbins event and I was this was called Unleashed Power Within and you walk across burning hot coals over the course of a four day event. But what Tony did really well was he kind of got us thinking about what decisions we were making over the prior five years and what the impact the impact those decisions are going to have over the next 20. And what I realized was I mean, once I'd got like with people dancing on chairs and it was all really crazy. So once I'd sort of got past the worry of the fact that I might have joined the occult or something.

Speaker 1: 6:13

I basically thought back and thought well, okay, five years ago I'd set up my own financial planning business to do it properly and to do it the way I wanted to do it and to give the best advice possible and work on a fee basis rather than commissions and all that kind of stuff which was market leading for the outsector at the time. But also I stood there going hang on, I'm three stone overweight, I'm working every hour God sends and, yeah, the business is doing okay, but it's not doing brilliantly. And I realized, and Tony said something over the course of those four days. He said you make the same decisions today as you made yesterday, you'll get the same results tomorrow as you got today. And it kind of made me he maybe create this vision of what life was going to be like 20 years from the future on this path. And all I could see was me sat weighing 20 stone and my gut hanging over the side of the chair, surrounded by pizza boxes.

Speaker 1: 6:59

Carol and the girls had left the business at fold and I was like that's not the trajectory I want and so I kind of left underneath the power within with this massive determination to sort out my health, sort out my work life balance and also create, work out how I could help clients at a much deeper level. And so I did it and really and I did it in that order so I went from working every hour God sends to taking three months of every year off Mike, michael Bell, and as a result of that, over the course of the following years, I've created incredible family memories. You travel the world together, amazing experiences together, and that's been an incredible my life in terms of health and well being. I went from being three stone overweight and struggling to run up some stairs to obviously, as you know, completing multiple iron man's, running great ultra marathons around the Cornish coastline and Any number of stupid things long those, and that was kind of a gradual trajectory. But it's amazing how I know you know this, but it's amazing how a little bit often makes a massive impact over the long run, and so that was really good.

Speaker 1: 8:05

And then and then, from a business point of view, I wrote I'm initially wrote a book called dream retirement. That kind of had a really big impact on our business and efficient portfolio came to be known as one of the top financial planning practices in the UK. I was featured on TV Radio etc, etc. And and then subsequently I sold that business. But I sold that business having generated 50% growth year on year, whilst taking three months of every year off and whilst writing for books and was doing all the stupid stuff as well, and so really that kind of them took me to where I am now and which is Wanting to help other businesses do the same, because I see so many business owners close to burn out.

Speaker 1: 8:49

I see so many business owners not looking after their own health yeah, they're working every hour God sends, but they're also not seeing the growth they actually deserve as a result of all that effort. So my business coaching practice the trusted team is really about helping businesses grow whilst also regaining their work life balance, also putting the fun back into business, because even if you take three months every year, still work nine months. So you love what you do because you spend a shitload of time doing it. So that's where I'm at, that's kind of, and so that the iron man stuff I love and the business stuff I love to.

Speaker 2: 9:21

It's absolutely fantastic story and I had heard the story before, but actually when you hear it in the kind of in the fullness that you just described, it is amazing to hear, kind of you know, the things that made you want to change along the way. You know right from your uncle, three, two Tony Robbins and actually one thing that just stood out from what you said is about the art of Fillments, and that's exactly what you're describing like towards the end. The one thing that resonates with me is actually, you know we can all be working really hard, but it's actually about fulfilling things and you know it's nice to you hearing about you fulfilling life and wanting to help others.

Speaker 1: 9:53

I think is an amazing journey and story and just to sort of finish that piece of, I think you you kind of prompt another thought, which is that you know, with the art of fulfillment you it is about. You know there's nothing special about me. I just spend a lot of time reading books and coming up with new ideas that have helped me change the way that I live my life. But the art of fulfillment piece is it is like to kind of bring it back to uncle bill. It's really about sort of saying well, okay, we've got to think about how we the analogy often uses that when you get on an airplane they say you have to put the face mask on yourself first. You know, you've got to look after yourself first. You gotta put you, you gotta put your own happiness and health and well being first, because you can't put the face mask on yourself first, you can't help the person that sat next to you on the road behind you.

Speaker 2: 10:41

So that's kind of where it comes from and one of the things I really wanted to ask you a bit more about. We often spend time don't be on the podcast talking about goals. I really. I guess I'm really interested to know a little bit more about why, for you, is goal setting so important and when is the where's it come from? So where's that to develop from in terms of you know you talk about a lot, so so why and why is it so important?

Speaker 1: 11:04

I think so. Where's it come from is probably a more difficult. I suppose it comes from all the coaching content I've consumed over the years. So whether that's teaching coach with that's Tony Robbins, with that's Brian Tracy, with like the one common thread that runs through all good coaching and it's goal setting and it's no light. At the moment I'm going through, you know, we've done nearly a hundred episodes of the podcast and I'm going through and looking at every episode and picking out what were the most important pieces from each episode and then what are the common threads across, and this will end up becoming a book, as you know. But the one thing that comes out across all of those hundred podcasts that keeps coming out, more than any other subject, more than nutrition, more than Anything else, is gone. Yeah, why is that? Because the people at the very top, the people are most successful, know, the goal setting is a huge part of me, like I see we see so many interesting ways.

Speaker 1: 12:01

I think you know I might be interviewed and mark Bob, who set the world record, cycling around the world. He did it unsupported and he set a goal of doing in a hundred ninety days, I think it was, and he hit that almost to the death. Then nine years later he goes back and says right now I'm gonna do it with a support crew and I'm gonna set the goal of doing in eighty days. And he did it in seventy, nine days. So again almost to the day he hits it. You know I'm always and why is that? Because he said a very specific goal. When you set specific goals, you know smart, smart goals so specific, measurable, attainable, realistic miss something timely. You can't smell smart as the dyslexic person.

Speaker 2: 12:42

You call the end of the end of the month in the.

Speaker 1: 12:45

But you know, when you do that, you're much more likely to hit it. The other thing about goal setting is that it just is so. It's such a great way of pulling you forward. So when we interviewed mark brian who, for those of you haven't listed the episode you must, because mark brian was diagnosed with terminal leukemia, his life insurance paid out to go less than six months to live, but instead of sulking around, he set a goal to complete an iron. That which you would take years to do, but he did it six years later and I have no doubt that one of the reasons what mark brian is still here Now, seven or eight years after that diagnosis because he set that specific goal to go and do an Ironman. And you know it becomes.

Speaker 1: 13:28

You know, when we see sporting success, whether it's Kat Matthews setting the goal of doing the sub eight, it just comes up time and again. In fact, there was a research that came out of Harvard that said that 3% of Harvard graduates wrote specifically right goals and 97% don't write goals. So it's just such an important part of the process, but it's also. It is also a process so and you actually don't rise to the height of your goals, you fall to the level of your system. So the goal setting is important. Writing down the goals is really important, because that's what inspires you to achieve great things. But it's then having the systems that ensure you achieve those goals.

Speaker 1: 14:18

And there's too much goal setting. Talk around, you just write the goal down, forget about it and it all happens. No, it's then what system do you use? And so that's why I mean I talk a lot about in my coaching. I talk about tool called the limitless life planner, which actually you can download for free on the trusted team or on charliereddingcom. But it's just a tool.

Speaker 1: 14:35

That is the system behind the goal setting. So you set the goals, but it's the tool that keeps coming back to okay, well, actually this is the system that you use to ensure you're repeatedly looking at those goals. And what have you got to do this quarter to hit that one year goal? And what have you got to do this month to hit that on that quarters goal? What you got to do this week to hit that month's goal and what have you got to do today to hit those week's goals? And if you break everything down like that it become. You know, they say it's like eating an elephant. You know it's really difficult unless you just eat it one bite at a time and that's all. The goal setting is about just chunking it down and breaking one big goal into lots of small goals.

Speaker 2: 15:14

I think you know, definitely we've seen those threads, haven't we, of the goal setting throughout all the pod card that we've done and actually, on the limitless life planner side of things, that is, having delved into it it's got everything you need in terms of a system and, you know, the one thing that I see about that is it does make you come back to it and address it the whole time. So, from that, a thought I've just had and a question I want to ask you is you've talked about, you know, the real successes that you see from some of these people that you've interviewed in terms of goal setting, and certainly your success, I imagine, is off the back of a lot of your goal setting and I know the goals that you know you talked about. But what are the real problems that you see when people are trying to set goals and maybe don't achieve goals? So what are the pitfalls that you often see?

Speaker 1: 15:56

That's a great question. So one thing that a lot of people do is they just like I just said, they just write down the goal, forget about it, and occasionally that can work. If you watch the documentary on Richie McCaw, the amazing All Blacks captain, he wrote down a load of goals, forgot about them, discovered them years later and he'd done them, but actually I suspect that's very good TV and I suspect he had a more structured, even if it was only in his break. The one thing I think that's really interesting with people and therefore goal setting, is that some people are more motivated towards pleasure and some people are more motivated away from pain, and actually the majority of people are more motivated to move away from pain than they are toward pleasure. You see it in financial planning People get really stressed when their investments lose money, but they're not that motivated to find investments that are going to make them more money, and yet ultimately you're seeing exactly the same pound swing one way or the other, and so actually the problem that a lot of people have is they just write the goal and it's this lovely, exciting thing, but most people are more motivated by moving away from pain. So really good goal setting is about finding the pleasure. It's the carrot and the stick.

Speaker 1: 17:07

So we also do fear setting as well as goal setting. So goal setting is here's the positive thing that you're trying to do and this is how you can break it down and achieve it. Yeah, but then what's the downside of not doing that? And if you think back to what I just talked about in terms of what Tony got me to do and the power, then it was okay. What's the downside of me not sorting out my health and not sorting out my work life balance? It's this big thing. It on the horizon here. That, to me, was way more motivating than you know creating a successful business and having three months of holiday year. That actually, it was the fear setting that works for me to achieve the goal, what I think. So I think it's a combination of the two.

Speaker 1: 17:50

I think the final thing is that people don't set big enough goals. Goals are there to create a better life, much better to hit. Set a massive goal is really scary, can have you stepping outside your comfort zone and only achieve 80% of it. To set a really easy goal and achieve it, doesn't matter whether you hit the goal. Goals are a tool to help you live a better life. So Create massive. I always think you check. Create. Goals are going to scare you but not kill you, and, to be honest, when I first set the goal of completing an iron man, I wasn't quite sure whether the latter was true, but that's what it's all about. It's about you know, goal setting is a tool to motivate you to achieve way more and live a better life, and isn't really about hitting the goals, about the results you get as a result of setting the goals and having the systems to pull you forward.

Speaker 2: 18:41

So Charlie has just been talking about goal setting and something that we do really often at for discipline. So if you'd like to download our goal planner, then go to fourth discipline dot com and it's also available in the show notes to download. It kind of creates more stepping stones, doesn't it as well? So your goals that can't get bigger and, yeah, more exciting. I guess to a certain degree as well. One of the things I want to dip into a little bit is you often talk about measuring what matters, and I know that you love data and we're going to come on to a in a second, but let's talk about data. So tell me a little bit about you. Know what you mean by measure what matters and base with it. You know how does that play into both of them sporting perspective, but also from a business perspective.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Well, I'm gonna throw this back to you a little bit. First, because I think you've said to me a few times over in the episodes, and when I think I first came for sweat testing, it was like All that data is great for what are you doing with it? And it's great advice because in this day and age, in school, you know we get so much data from our garden. What the hell are we doing with it? And so I think it's one of the reasons why I don't use training people anymore, and I'll come on to that in a minute. But One of the things that love about training peaks was it bolded down to three numbers, and I think you know what was great about that. Is it just get you? Could you know if one number was off? You go off and look at a bit more detail elsewhere. Why is that number? Why am I doing something wrong? But it's just, it's real simplicity in numbers.

Speaker 1: 20:18

And like, I remember hearing a story once of a guy going in back in the days pre nine, eleven, where you could go into the cockpit with the pilot and whoever it was that was telling. The story Was basically looking at this sea of dials and dials everywhere. How the hell do you fly a plane when there's like a hundred dials to look at? And the answer from the pilot was actually all we ever do is look at those five dials. If that dial is reading something wrong, we look at the section of dials that dials reading something wrong. We look at the section of dollars and it's like actually how do we boil it down to just a really important numbers? So it is about measuring what matters. In sport, like I said, training peaks is great way to do that and you know, but in well being, that's great. You know, like I love the fact that the ordering gives me two really easy numbers to see my sleep score.

Speaker 1: 21:05

I'm ready to score. My readiness score is a combination of my readiness is off, which actually is really bad. A couple days I was jet lag from Toronto, probably had a few too many drinks as well. My sleep was off. My training had been quite tense and quite a lot of training while I was there, and so my readiness score was lower than it was after the ultramarathon. In fact, I think it's my lowest ever readiness score, which is quite impressive actually. But it's just simple. I got a readiness number and I know okay. So the readiness number is down. What's going on? Well, my heart rate variability is off, my sleep is off, my recovery index is off because I'm trained too hard. It's like, okay, it's a warning system Say just take it easy for a couple of days, get your readiness score back up again, because otherwise you risk yourself, risk getting ill, don't you?

Speaker 1: 21:50

The same applies in business. We have a system that we talk about in the trust team called the successful business score card. It's about having a number for each different part of the business and going right, okay, and what is the target for each number in the business and who's responsible for each number on that business score card? And that's a weekly number. And we, just as a business owner.

Speaker 1: 22:11

It's incredibly powerful to be able to look along the line and go okay for each part of the business, each section of the process. This is how many leads we need to generate. This is how many plans we need to write. Or this is how many new clients we need. Or this is how many you know. This is how much income, this is how much expenditure. This is how happy our clients and customers are. This is how happy our team are those sorts of key numbers, then you can go well, okay, if that's the target and that's where we're at. It's, you know, like training peaks green means you're hitting the target, amber means you're a little bit off, red means it needs attention. And if you're doing that, you can just create real clarity in terms of okay, this is the part of the business that needs the attention, because we've got three red numbers here.

Speaker 2: 22:52

Interesting to hear the way that you talk about you know data and using it properly, and it kind of sounds a little bit about you know the same thing that you were sort of talking about with goal setting as well that people will often ignore data sometimes if they don't like what it says. So actually that helps you to address it, doesn't it? In terms of you know, looking at it, doing something with it, and I like your analogy of you know the green, amber, red as well.

Speaker 1: 23:15

But I think on that, I think there's a couple of things that I would add. One is a saying which I love, which is in God we trust, but all others must bring data. So it's just about you've got to provide the evidence with data. But then the other piece to that, which is something I took away from a book about Google, which is essentially that, when it comes to people, not all data matters and not all things that are measurable I don't know what's the term, I can't remember exactly Something along those lines All things that you can measure don't matter and not all things that matter are measurable.

Speaker 1: 23:47

So, with when it comes to people, it's slightly difficult. And in fact I was talking, I was doing a leadership meeting for one of the businesses I run today and we were looking at introducing Gallup 12, which is essentially a tool of how happy are your people, and that's a really it's really good way of putting a number on the team are this happy at the moment? And if they're not happy, what are we going to do to? What do we need to do to change it?

Speaker 2: 24:10

Yeah, interesting how you can use different tools within business as well. But, thinking along the lines of data and another one area that I know that you really love and we do spend quite a bit of time talking about AI and quite timely to be talking about AI as well. So I was just thinking about data and AI and I guess where do you see with AI is at the moment? Where do you see AI going in terms of how we might utilize that in business? So what's the impact do you think going to be on business and on sport?

Speaker 1: 24:42

Well, it's going to be huge. It's going to be like, I mean, the examples that have been talked about bit are things like to reality, cryptocurrency, blockchain, 3d printers and then kind of all things that have been the metaverse. There's been a lot of hype about them, but they've not really actually delivered. Ai, I think, is the massive exception to this and it's going to cause huge disruption. I mean, the best example I've seen through the podcast is when we were interviewing Mark Allen and him talking about Tridot, because what we see with that is we've gone from a world where the coach has got more and more data to look at. And let's face which coach is going to sit there and go right.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Okay, claire did that particular training at 6am. It was kind of minus two degrees that day. She was doing it on a hilly course. It was a bit windy that day. None of them.

Speaker 1: 25:36

And what's your heart rate variability? All of that stuff, stuff. It's way too much data for anyone coach to even deal with on the behalf of a professional, so you just got no chance. And yet what's the coach really most valuable for? It's the emotional intelligence piece, it's the coaching and the lead up to a race. It's the support around strategy and kind of yeah, actually you know what I mean. You did have a crap week. I think we had to dial down the training a little bit because otherwise you're just going to get injured or burn out or whatever it is. That stuff is where the coach really is. So delegate the mundane and the recurring tasks to AI and free up the coach to do the bit that they do best adds the most value, but the bit that they didn't have time for because they were spending all their time programming on training bits. So try, dot is the classic example of how AI can help a business accelerate or is a massive threat. If you're going to stick to building, programming athlete stuff on training peaks you are going to. You're going to find your business has got because AI is going to be way better at it than you are ever going to be. You know, if you're let's say, you're a decent coach, you might have the experience of a thousand athletes. So you're building your training plan based on a thousand athletes data. They'll be dealing with 200,000 athletes and they'll be dealing with athletes that are training in an altitude. They'll be dealing with athletes are training in the cold and the heat. You've got no chance. No coach stands a chance with that. So that's either a threat to your business or an amazing opportunity. An amazing opportunity like you've seen with Will and Rayya in Precision Coaching, embracing Tridot and going. Actually, we're going to do this because we know that this allows us to focus more on the stuff that we invest in, and it's the same with anything.

Speaker 1: 27:25

What I love about AI is there's a love of the analogy around the Tesla. So when Tesla first released autopilot, this guy was driving it back from somewhere like Silicon Valley. Torrey was trying to drive home in his Tesla, and every time it hit this sharp corner, it failed and he had to take over. And then, after we've been doing it for about a month, the Tesla took the corner, and every time they're after, it took the corner. Now, what's really interesting about that is not just his Tesla learned to take that corner that day. Every Tesla on the planet learned how to take that corner that day. So that's what AI can do. You get one learning here, but apply it to everything. And when you've got AI that is as smart as it's passing all the bar exams, all the medical exams, all the Harvard business exams, it's going to be way brighter than humans by 2030, it will be brighter than a human being, and that means that there is huge threat and huge opportunity.

Speaker 2: 28:21

What do you think people are concerned about in business at the moment? So what do you think their main concerns are in terms of using it? Do you think?

Speaker 1: 28:29

The acceleration of change. That is the biggest problem. So everyone is concerned that, oh my God, if we could replace. Actually, this is a societal problem as much as anything. You've got 10 million drivers in the US. Well, if AI, an autopilot gets a whole lot better, why, if you owned a haulage company, would you not have AI driving every one of your lorries? Why would you not have a driving every one of your taxis? Bang over the tractors Again? And that's the speed of change. That's the problem. I don't think AI will cause the problem in the sense of I think 15 years from now, this was all balanced out and people will have had more jobs. And we had an amazing talk by a guy called Scott Oskoski I'm sorry, struggle with your name, scott, but an amazing talk on AI at the trusted team and he actually made a point that the less, the more AI we use, the more valuable an individual employee will become. The problem will be the time it takes for people to retrain and do those new roles.

Speaker 1: 29:33

It's the acceleration of change that is worrying. It's an amazing opportunity, but it's how quickly could disrupt society and business. But it's why every business and sports got to be looking at well, how can AI help me? It's incredible. I mean creating bespoke experiences. You could create a unique video for everyone of, let's say, 100 prospects that's personalized to that prospect. You've done one video and AI has changed the content to add the bespoke bits in, so it will also empower people to create incredible opportunities with their marketing, with their product development, with personalization. So I think it's really exciting, but also very scary, and if your competition is the one that's accelerating ahead with AI, you're going to get washed out pretty quick.

Speaker 2: 30:27

I think that's the key, isn't it? Making sure that you are again, what I've just said about not sticking your head in the sand and actually, if you don't really know enough about it, is actually to go and find out about it and actually see where you might be able to use that within business and within sport. But yeah, it's both exciting, I think, but also I can see why there are fears that exist as well, but, yeah, some great opportunity. So one of the things that we always do on the podcast is we always ask the question that somebody might have asked. Our last person that we've interviewed, but what we've done today is we've taken a question from Dario the CEO. Charlie, I'm going to ask you a question that Sir David Bralsford asked, so are you ready for your question?

Speaker 1: 31:11

I'm ready. I'm slightly nervous, but I'm hey good one.

Speaker 2: 31:16

If you've had a twin, what is the most important advice you would give to them?

Speaker 1: 31:21

Oh dear, I think I've touched on one, so I'll mention that already, and then there's probably one more that is relevant. So the one I touched already is that it's actually the little things that you do often that create the biggest impact. It's not like you think, with hitting goals, it's the big things you do occasionally, but actually it isn't it's the little things you do often. And if people are listening to this, do Ironman, they understand it, because it's not about going out and doing one massive bike ride and one massive run and one massive swim session. It's about consistency, isn't it? It's about building up and doing it consistently, so that ultimately comes back to the habits that we form and the things that we do often. So I think that's one thing.

Speaker 1: 32:04

I think don't be afraid to fail is probably the best. The worst decision you can make is no decision. Get on, do it, step outside your comfort zone. You won't succeed at everything, but I did an exercise recently in a workshop I was attending where it was looking at the guesses and the bets that I'd made. And I looked at all of the guesses and bets that I'd made in life and business and which ones went really well and which ones went really wrong, and the worst ones, the ones that went really wrong. If you added all of those up, they were nothing like the least effective bet that I did win on, so it just made me think you just got to take more.

Speaker 1: 32:44

It's when we step outside our comfort zone that the magic happens, and I think that I would have encouraged my twin to do it more often and earlier, because actually that is. There's a saying I love, which is ships are safe in the harbor, but ships weren't built to stay in the harbor. It's the storms that make us stronger, and actually I completely buy into that. I think that's the advice I would give them is you know, go out, step outside your comfort zone, do more, go earlier, because there's things I look back on. I think if I had had the balls to do that earlier, I'd have got to where I got to now a lot quicker. So, yeah, that'd be the advice.

Speaker 2: 33:22

I love those two pieces of advice and actually the first piece is something that I always talk about as well. It's not the tight, you know, not the big things, it's all the little things and the consistency, and I love that, you know. That last piece of advice, I think it's really valuable in terms of, you know, just getting over yourself and actually just being confident just to make a decision about something and just go and do it and kind of making something happen. So, thank you, great advice. So thank you very much, charlie. It's been amazing to hear your story again and actually hear it in a bit more detail than I've heard it before, and also great to hear about the goal setting and where that came from and your thoughts around data and AI, and I think it's a really exciting time in terms of the utilization of data with AI as well. And thank you for all the nuggets of information and advice as well. So it's been brilliant to chat to you.

Speaker 1: 34:10

Well, thank you for having me on the podcast. So I talked quite a lot in that interview about our power of goal setting and that we don't rise to level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. Every year, I take myself through a complete goal setting process to ensure that I've got incredible goals for the year ahead. If you'd like me to take you through that process, we have a free online workshop called the limitless life workshop, which you can register for and attend. Like I said, it's free, it's on wwwthetrustedteam and also put the link in the show notes. So join me at the limitless life workshop and you can create some incredible goals for the year ahead.

Speaker 1: 34:57

If you want us to keep getting amazing guests onto the business of endurance podcast, we don't ask you to pay for us. We don't ask for patronage. All we ask for is that you subscribe to the podcast, ideally on Apple. Give us a five star rating because it shows us you care and, if you've got time, leave us a comment. One word is fine, something like inspiring or amazing or something like that, but we really do appreciate it and it will help us to continue to deliver amazing guests on what we hope you find to be an amazing podcast. Thanks very much.