Lessons from 'losing' in business - applied to life
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the one day at a time podcast. Today's one's a bit different. I'm closing down the clothing brand, rugby warfare that I built over the last ten years, closing it down. And I wanna share a bit about the story, some troubles I had, stressors, and maybe how they can be applied to our everyday living.
Speaker 1:And just to give it a bit of a tribute, you know, and what are lessons I learned. I think it's important. But if you're watching us on video, this is a t shirt, Rugby Warfare, cool brand, 10, but it's closing down 2026. So I can refocus my energies and time on other more important projects in my life right now, such as this one. Anyway, rugby warfare, why did I build it?
Speaker 1:What's it about? From Wales, love rugby. In university, thought, you know what, gonna build a rugby brand. I built a fitness website before this when I was 17, 16 years old, built out three, four years, spoke to some of the top nutritionist trainers in the world over email, viewing them, it was amazing. My mom wanted a buyer off me, sold it, so I could have more Nando's, know, as a student, and drink more, obviously.
Speaker 1:Then I thought, I'm bored now. Need to do something else. Let me do it for rugby. So, did it for rugby, built the website, entered a university competition on it, and I was like, Oh, there's something to do in this clothing department. This was just before Gymshark launched, it was kind of this new wave of, want to look cool in the gym.
Speaker 1:We want to wear stuff that actually fits nice, not this old, ugly bodybuilding stuff. So, I decided I wanted a brand to represent rugby performance, not in the mirror, pausing. I wanted an opposite brand. I didn't like that type of stuff. I wanted to be focused on performance and power, strength.
Speaker 1:So, I built it. No money, got on somehow. And it enabled me to quit my full time job. I moved to London for a full time job in 2016, and I quit that job to go all in on rugby warfare. And it was scary.
Speaker 1:I had to make a lot of money in a sense to pay my rent and bills and stuff. And rugby warfare has given me ten years, well, I know I've been doing other things as well, but it's given me those years of freedom to grow the brand. It wasn't a huge money making thing. It wasn't a huge money making thing. I was I was able to make money, grow the brand, pay myself, live in London, go around the world doing things I loved.
Speaker 1:And I want to get on to the failures in a minute, but, you know, it's scary starting something. I had a lot of doubters when I was starting my fitness website in school that go, Go and play with your stupid website, or what's this brand in me, just printing t shirts for you, you know, mocking it and no one believes in it until all of a sudden they do. And then they might want to buy something or they usually don't or they want something for free. And you always notice, right, when you start something, a business. And I'm from Wales, I'm from a valley where there's 10 plus rugby teams.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people who play rugby. I would say not even 1% of those boys bought my brand. They would rather buy Under Armour, Nike, Gymshark, but it's something about small towns that they do not support. It's not the same for all small towns. They just don't want to support it.
Speaker 1:It's something really you come to realize, and even your friends even, you know, sometimes they might support it, sometimes not. Of your friends will be super supporters and they're amazing, and sometimes not. And that's something you have to come to deal with when you start something new like a business or a new career that not everyone supports you. And maybe they show support when you're shown to be successful, but it's a bit too late. Leaves a sour taste.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I went all in on it, right, full time. I was learning about the stoicism, the stoicism. I had a fitness background, nutrition, rugby now, worked with coaches from across the world, professional rugby players, sponsored in professional rugby players. The Rugby World Cup Sevens was on in America, 2017, 2018. I decided to go out there.
Speaker 1:Didn't know what was going to do. Ended up in San Francisco. Love Steve Jobs. Love Apple. I thought, Hey, this mixes my love for rugby and tech and Apple, and let's see what happens.
Speaker 1:Went up to Well, walked into a decathlon shop on the high street and said, Hey, boys, I know we're French like, but you failed launching here ten years ago. You want to partner up on a launch during the Rugby World Cup Sevens? I can help drive some people to the shop by saying we're doing a pop up and maybe you can let us host our stock year. So we decided to do that. It didn't go through in the end because my ESTAR ran out, so I didn't actually have enough time in The US to do it then.
Speaker 1:But I came back later by year with a vengeance and I had an idea. Why don't I put on a touch rugby tournament between the employees of Apple, Google, Facebook and Tesla? And I got this idea because one of my customers was from San Jose, which is near Silicon Valley. He noticed I was in America. He messaged me, said, I love your stuff.
Speaker 1:Do want to meet up? Started speaking to him, I was in one of those, where was I, Panera Bread? I was in a Panera Bread in San Francisco and he said, Yeah, man, I go to supplement shop and I usually see a lot of Apple employees give them discount and I just went ding ding ding ding. You know Apple employees? Really?
Speaker 1:He's like, Yeah, on Tesla. I was like, Man, what? Really? And I thought, Right, why only can't touch with these people? Who plays rugby?
Speaker 1:Who wants to do something? Anyway, idea got in my head and like usual, I got to get to work on Messaging people on LinkedIn that played rugby, worked at Facebook, Google, Apple, Tesla, saying, Hey, there's a team entered. Just have a chat. Do you want to do it? Do you not want to do it?
Speaker 1:Found a rugby charity, Rug Play USA, they would help me organize a tournament. There was a touch rugby scene out there, and and it all just came together very quickly. Even a videographer there loved rugby, played around the world. He's got tattoos. There's a video on YouTube.
Speaker 1:He joins in. All of a sudden, we've got a touch rugby tournament going. And I'm like, Jesus, this is cool as hell. I bring my stock down. You know, there was a wildfire, so maybe people wouldn't turn up, but they did in the end, and it was a cool day.
Speaker 1:And the lesson from Art really is we think there's such a big mountain to do for these big things that we're to happen in our lives, you know, like, wow, there's no way you can go San Francisco. Then how would you do touch You just show up and you just start being curious, you ask questions, you just start one step forward, you ask one person on LinkedIn, Hey, would you be interested in a touchdown? Then it moves on. Anyway, this is the story of Rugby Office, all about that type of stuff, you know, and then we grew as a brand, I grew too fast. I think I'd try to do too many products at once.
Speaker 1:And we had a huge shipping bill from DHL, which was like $40 plus, and you just, well, how am I going to get out of this hole? Then Ralph Lauren seized my products. You imagine now, Ralph Lauren, they own the trademark for rugby globally. Can you imagine? That's so stupid.
Speaker 1:They do. The legal firm they got it from is based in The UK, so I spoke to them and they said, You're never going to win this. So I thought, Oh, shit, that's great then. All my stock's stuck. In the end, again, what's the simplest option here?
Speaker 1:Phone Ralph Lauren, New York. Hey, can I get through to someone in your exports department? Yeah, I'm trying to get my goods to the country. I'm a small rugby brand. You think I'm some like fake Ralph Lauren products.
Speaker 1:I'm not genuinely just got rugby on it because that's the name of the brand. And then you were like, Yeah, yeah, we'll release it. So instead of going through a massive legal battle, you just go direct to the step, just humanity, I suppose. And there was another story from some guy after The US, I came back and he was like, I can get you investors. I'll speak to them for you.
Speaker 1:We can launch in The US. He ended up like stealing, ripping me off like £12,500 because he was just fake. He was like, Yeah, I'll get you investors. Yeah, I'm speaking to people and speak to people. As a young man, was like, Wow, this is cool.
Speaker 1:Someone wants to do it. Obviously, pay for the time. Means good. Anyway, those are a few lessons for you. When shit hits the fan, as they say, the cool head is the most important part.
Speaker 1:So when you get a bill of 42,000 from DHL, which you don't have the money for, well, you can't panic. You have to get a plan together. And the plan is, okay, how much stock we got? How much do we have to sell by X date? Phone them up, ask for extension, when can we pay her off by and get to work.
Speaker 1:You know what mean? Systems, get it done. Same with the goods are seized. What do we do? All right.
Speaker 1:Legally, who do we phone? Okay. That's not a no go. Okay. Why don't we just phone the company that's actually responsible for seizing the goods?
Speaker 1:They might help. They did. Oh, okay, we're in The US now. What should we do? Mold the brand.
Speaker 1:Well, touch rugby tournament would be cool between the tech giants merging. Okay, how do we get started? Well, I suppose you just message one person. And then that morning when there was a wildfire, I was like, Well, what can we do? We can turn up and whoever turns up, we'll play.
Speaker 1:And if not, we'll try and find another place to play. It was always thinking like simple, really obvious thinking, but obviously doing it from a cool, calm head was the key thing. Then, yeah, you develop this kind of character. So I would say that building that brand is what developed my character for sure. It's what led me to build Turtle Method, which was the company I co founded in 2018, 2019, because I met a fitness couple out in The US when I was building the brand and helped them out with their marketing and advice and stuff.
Speaker 1:It turned out that their service was suboptimal and I thought I could do better job in this. We need to get the expert advice out to the masses because at that time, remember now, influencers were quite new and everything was about skinny tees and detox and all this nonsense. And I thought, now there's a better way. Why don't we get to help people with macros and help people with structured strength training? They can do a home or the gym.
Speaker 1:The basics need to be spread out there. And yeah, teamed up with Louise and Ryan, two influencers, to spread that message. The company grew fast, helped over 100,000 people, but all of this links back to the original path of rugby warfare because if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have led into that because at the same time I sponsored Ryan through Rugby Warfare back in 2015, 2016. That's how I got introduced to Ryan, who was my co founder eventually. So you have all of these dots you can connect looking backwards, but never forwards, as Steve Jobs said, and they do give a lot to your life.
Speaker 1:So I think when you look back at things, there doesn't have to always be a bump or exit, huge amount of winning. The winnings are in the small things you developed over the time. So whether it's a job you've done now, you've left over another one, we tend to get a lot of stuff from things and we can't connect what we get from them until we look backwards, but a lot of the wins you get tend to be leaps of faith you make. And that's where the message is from this really, the leaps of faith I made with the brand helped me develop connections that led to another brand, Turtle, which then made we were exposed to 100,000 plus people we helped, our amazing experts we brought in, and all of our learning knowledge equities formed the new philosophy. It's an ancient philosophy, but obviously the one day at a time philosophy, but really looking at the fundamentals even more.
Speaker 1:So when AI came out, was able to focus on the fundamentals even more, meaning that we could track easier with voice. We could just get on with focusing on the essentials, and then the rest of your energy could be used to looking at the rest of your day, not just, you know, tracking every gramme, spending ten, thirty, forty minutes on your phone trying to track everything, just like, let's get the tracking done easily with voice and let's move on to more important things, mainly psychological. And then, yeah, that was how that developed from all of that expertise and insight. I knew exactly what to build with PowerPal and how simple it needs to be to help with weight loss and weight management. And now that's led to where we are today, working with Cambridge University, Nick Wareham, his top 30 scientists cited in the world, working on LeanShield to make sure that we can help you lose fat and maintain muscle mass, all sorts of amazing stuff, you know, with a team working with big brands now as well and helping even more people.
Speaker 1:So it all connects up. It all adds up. Not everything has to be this big, glorious end. Rugby Warfare's end is like a dying black dwarf in the sky, like it glowed and then it's kind of dimmed over time for other things to glow. And that's really the story of it.
Speaker 1:It enabled me to get to where I am today. And I want to just share that kind of quick arc of that story with you guys, because I remember sharing something like this before with a turtle membership and it helped a lot of people make different changes in their career. And some people changed from corporate life to charity life. Some people left a job, they didn't fulfill them and started their own business and stuff. And really, the only way to do it is to find out.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it's coming to an end, but it means my energy can be refocused. And a big part of this actually, and I wanted to do it for a while, but I was rewatching some of Johnny Ives' videos. Johnny Ives is the lead designer of Apple. So when Apple was reborn in the late nineties when Steve Jobs returned, basically, Johnny Ives was his head designer there, believed in the culture and the vision of Apple. And he said, Steve used to say that he was the most focused person in the world.
Speaker 1:He used to always say to Johnny and other people, What have you said no to? How focused are you? What have you said no to today? And you think, Oh, I said no to maybe a Mars bar or something. He's like, No, no.
Speaker 1:What have you said no to that really excited you that could have taken you down another path? That's when you know you're focused. So, you might have loads of amazing ideas, you've got to say no to them even though they're in the back of your head because you are super focused on the thing you're doing. And this is kind of this scenario where, yes, there's potential for the brand to keep growing, to make an app and bring in the rugby community more and work with. Of course, there's a lot of that potential.
Speaker 1:And that is quite exciting to an extent, but saying no to that is what means for this focus. So, the focus is coming back here. So, you've got to basically let go of a few things, even though you've bought into them and they've been a big part of your identity, I suppose, over a long time. This doesn't mean you have to hold on to everything. You don't have to stick around because it's something you've had for a long time.
Speaker 1:Just because it's a business you've had for a while doesn't mean you have to always try and keep it going. Sometimes letting things go is the best thing for that thing as well. You never know what opportunities come your way when you say it's letting go. Someone might be listening to this saying, Hey, want bite off you. Who knows?
Speaker 1:Maybe some rugby fanatic is listening, but yeah, that focus message, like what are you saying no to that really does excite you and that's why you know you're focused. So, sometimes letting go. And it's the kind of the Bruce Lee philosophy as well of the addition via subtraction. So, you add into your life by subtracting things as opposed to always trying to add things, add things, add things. Or if I have more and more things on my plate, more and more businesses, more and more things, then I can be better.
Speaker 1:No, it spreads you out too thin. Once lost that spark for something and it's been lost for a while, there's no point trying to keep it going because of the ego. You know, the ego says, keep this and that. No, be humble, let things go and crack on. So hopefully there was something in that for you guys.
Speaker 1:I don't know what really in terms of health and fitness, but in terms of lifestyle, maybe for sure. Any of you in new positions, new careers, starting a business and stuff, just know that you don't know where it's going to go. Some days it feels like it's going nowhere, and then some days when you look back, you can connect many, many dots. And sometimes it's okay to say, That's enough. And thanks for what you've given me, and I'll move on with character traits and battle wounds that really do help and not just any financial stuff you gain.
Speaker 1:A lot of people say it's in their career, like you gain a lot of stuff from different jobs. It's not financial, but definitely career building or character building. Good old, like I saw Hercules on Friday. Hercules, the famous story of Hercules and the 12 labors. You had to go through the 12 labors of hell to be Hercules.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, he wouldn't have been Hercules at all. No, I'm not saying I am Hercules, but the journey of rugby warfare has been up and down many times and the downs really do give you some insight, let me tell you. Lucky enough to come out of it with, we learned a lot from all losses and to tie it all up. That's why Jiu Jitsu is amazing. And to tie all my game dress up into one podcast.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's why losing every day in the mats helps you and that's why people get addicted actually because you just lose all the time and you learn to lose, you learn to survive, you learn to defend, you learn to do attacks, you learn to do submissions, but you are losing most of the time and it really humbles you. Yeah, that's the journey, but give it a go. Many of you guys listening, you want to give it a go business wise, career wise, just do the next one obvious step and that's all it takes to start a snowball and then you just build from there. But I'll see you back in the podcast tomorrow.
