#271. LadBible & UniLad Founder Wins £40M in 5 Year Court Case - Alex Partridge

And I remember running downstairs to my flatmate and I said, what do you think of the name Unilad? And he looked at me and blew out this puff of my ******* smoke and said, yeah, that's really cool, man.

You got up built up to a million followers. And how long do you reckon that roughly took? Probably about four months. Be honest, I was scared of losing it. And because I had a male audience on Unilad, I thought, well, let's create something similar. And that's where LadBible was created. The growth of LadBible made Unilad quite insignificant. LadBible went from zero to two and a half million within the first week because of this. The first week? Where did it go from from there then? Did you get yourself into any trouble at all?

I ended up meeting these two people in Brighton. I signed the bit of paper that they put in front of me and I woke up the next morning and I had been removed from the Unilad. It would joke in me. Completely booted out the business and then six months later I was up against this huge legal fight. Did you see your mental health really deteriorate? Oh, it nearly killed me. What I didn't anticipate was the consequence of what I did next. What I did next was

Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host, Dodge, and I'm the founder of Bournemouth Sevens, the world's largest sport and music festival. On this podcast, I speak to proper characters who have all lived eventful lives. Do us a favour and hit that follow button and be sure to check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Dodgewoodal, where we've now had over 100 million views.

Alex Partridge is a social media phenomenon known for founding the online giant's lad bible and uni lad. In this episode Alex talks about how he built up the world's most viral media company and how it has suddenly stolen from him overnight that turned into a five-year court case. We also discuss the ups and downs of entrepreneurship and we share the secrets to building your dream business.

This is the eventful life of Mr. Alex Partridge. Alex, welcome to the show, mate. Dutch, thank you very much. Yeah, really looking forward to this one. This role will be back. How did you end up going on one of the fastest social media brands in the world? Gosh, what a question. I mean, it's a great question.

Yeah, I ask myself that sometimes as well. I think to understand how I got to that point, I think I've got to really be honest with the behaviours that I did that were

unusual. I think if I go back in time, I've always felt different. I've always had a intrinsic feeling of being different to everyone else. And I think the earliest memory I have of that is probably when I was six years old in school. And a kid in the playground said, you could be one of the cool kids, Alex, if you weren't so weird.

The reason I'm sort of laying the foundation is because I think it's fundamentally important to how I got to where I was when I started Unid out in our Bible.

It was the following year I sat in a classroom and that racing mind, that internal hyperactivity, I had my first panic attack in a classroom. I now look back and I reflect, I've got this fear of confrontation, this overwhelming fear and phobia of being put on the spot.

And I remember sat at the back of a classroom and I happily minding my own business daydreaming, staring out of the window. And out of nowhere, the teacher said, Alex, he pointed at me. He said, Alex, do you know the answer to this question? And all of the other kids in the classroom turned around and looked at me.

And I remember that moment, my heart rate accelerated and my palms went sweaty and I abruptly stood up and ran out of the classroom. And I found someone in the corridor and I said, please call an ambulance. I'm having a heart attack. And by the time the paramedic turned up, I had calmed down and they reassured me that I wasn't having a heart attack. I was having my first anxiety attack at six years old. And

It was this racing mind, this internalized hyperactivity that when I was at school, led me to be incredibly anxious. When I was at home in an environment that I sort of thrived in and felt comfortable in, I was creative, I was starting businesses. When I was seven, I started my first business, which was a board game company. I went through my parents' board games, found all of the companies that manufactured them, and I was fascinated by the concept of making my own one.

And I spent the summer designing my own board game, creating all the pieces, writing the instructions. And I sent them all off to these companies. And nothing went past. Nothing. I didn't hear anything at first. And then I got one letter through the post and it said, Alex,

And I think they could tell I was six or seven because of my handwriting, but they said, please always lean into that entrepreneurial spirit that you have. They're not looking for new designs at the moment, but always lean into that entrepreneurial spirit. And really that continued, that sort of contrast between how I was presenting at school, which was incredibly anxious and very quiet and low achieving compared to how I was presenting when I was at home and in an environment that I was comfortable with.

That continued, when the time came to go to university, I didn't, I went to university because I thought, well, that's what everyone else did. So I applied, I went to university. Which you need to go to? Oxford Brooks. Okay. Party, uni. Well, yes. I used to have a nightclub there on the Cowley Road. What was it called? There was Fuzzy Ducks. Fuzzy Ducks, yes. Fuzzy Ducks. No, no, no, we used to throw parties there for years. Party O2 Academy, right? Yeah, O2 Academy. There was another one in town called Park Lane, was it?

We had a Monday and a Wednesday for about four or five years in the 2000s. I think that's the bridge nightclub there. Yeah, things changed. I went to my first lecture, I remember in Oxford, and the lecture didn't even need to point at me and say anything. That anxiety came back. Did it? And I remember standing up and walking off this anxiety attack around the streets of Oxford, but I went back to my room, and I

impulsively spent half my student loan on this six foot giant freezer. It was like massive. I thought you were going to say blow up dull then.

It was about half the size of this table, and I set up a Facebook page called Quick Pizza, and the idea was if a student wanted a pizza in the middle of the night, and all the shops were shut, they'd send the Facebook page a message, I'd throw a pizza in the freezer in the oven.

And I had about four people cycling around Oxford delivering these pizzas to students at the middle of the night. But then the university shut me down because I didn't have a food safety hygiene certificate. So all back then, you know, the creativity on the entrepreneurialness was there, but the sort of attention to details lacking.

It was the following year I got into a relationship and she was the editor of an online magazine called View from the Afternoon and I remember being absolutely fascinated. Was that a uni magazine? Yeah, an internal digital magazine fascinated by watching her write and design the website and

build the social media for it and to cut a long story short, she broke up with me. I was genuinely devastated and I remember going back to my university room and thinking, what can I do to make her think we've got something in common? Get her back. Get her back.

And what can I do? So I thought, if I start something similar to what she's doing, that might actually impress her and win her back. So I remember her university digital magazine was sort of directed at one type of students. And so I didn't want to tread on her toes too much. So I wanted mine to be directed at a more sort of male demographic. And I remember running downstairs

to my flatmate and I said, what do you think of the name Unilad? And he looked at me and blew out this puff of marijuana smoke and said, yeah, that's really cool, man. Quality. So really it was a focus group of one. But I bought the domain, you know, and the really. So what rough are we talking here?

2010. Okay. And you're in your second year of uni. Second year of uni. Yeah. But the thing is that I've completely forgot about the breakup because I became obsessed with social media, the whole process of building this brand completely consumed me. I said to my other flatmate, I said,

I was getting impatient. I wanted to grow it faster than the competition. I said, I won't say his name, but I said, can you teach me how to hack into the university database and get hold of all of the email addresses of the students? And he said, I can't.

That's a legal, Alex. I'm not going to show you how to do it, but I could probably tell you how to do it if we just keep it between us. And I said, OK, we won't tell anyone about this. And over the space of about two, three hours, he showed me how to hack into the database of the university. And I had all these thousands of email addresses of all of the students.

And that was the first sort of moment where Unilad went from a couple of hundred to thousands, and I started hearing people in the pub talking about it in the supermarket, like, are you getting these Unilad emails? Who's behind this website? So there was his buzz on campus. And I remember that feeling of this was the moment where it could potentially be taken off. Amazing. So where did it go from from there then? Did you get yourself into any trouble at all while creating this brand, early doors?

any trouble with the university, any trouble with putting in the content. What's all content were you putting on, you new nerd?

So straight from the get-go, really, it was a bit of a Wild West and a bit of a free-for-all. It was myself, another student. We wrote the first 10 articles, and really it was sort of like light-hearted, best kebab shops to go to in Oxford, that kind of stuff. The issue came, I think I got incredibly overwhelmed with the demand for content, because with this new influx of users,

it needed like a consistent amount of content every day. So what I did was I've made, in reflection, the mistake of allowing it to be almost like a Reddit-style website where anyone can submit a bit of content. And really that unleashed it and turned into the Wild West and allowed the worst type of content to actually end up when they're in the end.

So who was protecting the website? Well, as the content was going on, were you saying, no, you're not allowed to put that on or become too much content for you to manage? Well, this was, if you go, this was slightly forward in time. So.

The Unilad, after I got a whole of the email addresses, Unilad was getting thousands of visitors every day. And I wasn't enjoying my university course. And then I got one email from... What were you studying at the time? Hospitality management? Okay. I got one email from one of the largest pizza companies in the UK saying, we want to offer you X amount of money to be promoted on the Facebook page. And I thought,

That is the same amount that I will get if I stay at this university course for three years and get a graduate job. And I left university the next week, went home. That was the validation and the sort of the reassurance that I needed that this was more than just the Facebook page, but it was a very

My parents wanted me to stick at my degree. Your parents' traditional saying, go and get your degree, go and get a job. At the same time, you were at uni going, you know what, I've got something here. I've got something. I don't know where this is going to take me, but I'm on to something here. This rhymes. It's kind of like, at a smaller level, parallels to Facebook being created here.

Because Facebook really, I remember obviously throwing the festival, we were always promoting flyers, posters, flyers, posts, and 2008, Mark Zuckerberg landed Facebook on our laps. That must have been pretty much the same for you, right? 2010, two years later.

Yeah, there's certainly parallels. I think that the issue I had was I had unwavering commitment and certainty that this was going to be a viable business in the long run. But there wasn't any precedent. There weren't any case studies for me to go to my parents or anyone really to say, I'm sacrificing this degree that A, I've worked hard to get into the university. A, I think,

is the sort of traditional expected route that I should be taking. I'm sacrificing all of that for a silly Facebook page. That was the sort of narrative at the time that I was dealing with. So there was pushback, there was, I mean, I can't blame anyone for not having confidence. I just had this unwavering confidence and

I know how this Facebook page was going to be more than just a silly Facebook page and was going to justify the decision to drop out of university. What was that? What was that feeling like you go, I know I want to say I don't know what it looks like. I don't know how I'm going to earn money from this. I know this sponsorship to be head of this or advertising. What was deep down the fire in your belly at the time to say I know I'm on to say I know I'm going to make this a huge success.

just being in the pub and seeing people obsessed with their phones. And seeing people not being able to take their attention away from this new thing that was social media. And no one had made pages. People had personal accounts and they were saying, you know, you could poke so and so or you were in a relationship or you're single, whatever. No one had made a brand on there. And I

People were desperate for entertainment and some kind of attention and thing to fill the boredom, but no one was doing it. Everyone was desperate to be hooked in. There were a few people doing it and seeing some success.

Look, I think with these things, you have to have some humility and say, you were in the right place at the right time. I think I had the, there was something inside me that made me leave university and to stick at it. But, you know, the timing was on my side. I had the metaphorical surfboard when social media and Facebook pages, the wave was coming in and I was there at the right time with that board. And I, and I rode it and

I went back home and continued to grow Unilad and I mean the thing was I got home I had Unilad and it was on about a million followers and I had all of these. So you got you got built up to a million followers and how long do you reckon that roughly took? So it was on probably about four months.

Oh my God. But there was one thing that catalyzed it. It was on about 20,000 when I got that email from the pizza company, but what really catalyzed it was what I did next, which I looked back and laughed at. I decided to make this sort of like safe sex campaign and do, I called it the free condom campaign and I changed the branding on the Facebook page to promote it. And essentially it's that anyone who likes the Facebook page will get a free condom. A free job through the post.

Very, very basic style, quality. Why did you get the condoms on? Well, I went down to my local sexual health clinic in Eastbourne, and I said to them, I've got this Facebook page, I'm essentially, can you give me thousands of condoms because I anticipate this will, they actually really love the idea. They genuinely love the idea, they're all behind it. They gave me these three massive industrial sized boxes of condoms. And I was walking over,

with these massive boxes of art under each arm. And I think anyone who saw me that day. Bloody optimistic, isn't he?

But that's what happened and I had these all thousands, probably 20,000 condoms. Of course, what I didn't anticipate is the envelopes and the stamps. But I funded in it in the end, but it was fine. But the actual campaign was a huge success. And I ran out of condoms. But what it did create was this mass awareness and virality. And it created this snowball effect that took Unilad from the 20,000 to a million within that four month period.

What a feeling. What was that feeling like seeing the numbers waking up in the morning seeing your numbers? You probably didn't sleep. I'd imagine you'd be on it the whole time. But seeing your numbers rolling, what was that feeling like?

I mean, it was really overwhelming. I remember I lived quite near a shop and I remember going for a walk to get something from the shop and I would come back and refresh it and it jumped by 5,000. And it was that crazy period. And to be honest, I was scared of losing it, terrified of for whatever reason, Facebook taking it down or something changing and it not being as lucrative as I thought it was. So I thought I've got to replicate this and create another one. So I have not all my eggs in the basket. And because I had a, you know,

a male audience on UniLoud, I thought, well, let's create something similar. And that's where LadBible was created. And again, that was it was a very easy launch because I had a million and a half now on UniLoud. And the reach on Facebook back then in 2011 at the stage was huge. It was like everyone who liked the page would see the posts. So it was quite easy to then actually grow and get that similar

What did you say to you built up a million and a half on uni-led? Were you just grabbing them saying, guys, I've got another page here, go and check this out. It was as simple as that.

It was a little bit different. So there was like a list of sort of rules to have a, to rules for sort of meant to live by back then. And I sort of put it behind a like gate and the default, the default land is quite like, unless you know the jar is the, it's the first page. You clicked on the lab Bible link, it would take you to this list of commandments, but you would have to like the page in order to see it. Cause it was a bit of a hack to go and a lab Bible really spiraled.

Laid Bible actually dwarfed the growth of Laid Bible made Unilad quite insignificant. Laid Bible went from zero to two and a half million within the first week because of this. The first week. Because of this sort of like gate hack that I look back on now and I think it was one of the pivotal moves that launched Laid Bible and actually propelled it at that time ahead of the original, which was Unilad. Yeah. So just a breakdown, when you were at your peak with Unilad, what content were you putting on there?

It was a mixture, really. I had a friend of mine in Oxford who was writing sort of a uni-ladette section. It was all kind of tongue-in-teak. I mean, the slogan at the time was tongue-in-cheek solution to library boredom. So it was reviews of kebab shop, nightclub reviews. All quite basic, really. Drinking games was a big one. Things like that.

And then what was the difference between Unilad and LedBible? So LedBible was a Facebook page. There was no website or articles for LedBible. So Unilad, you had a separate website as well, did you? But LedBible, you just kept it on Facebook. Yeah. And what was the thinking behind that?

Because I could see that that's where the attention was. The Unilad website was getting some traffic. I actually took the Unilad website down because the advertisers were more interested in the social media promotion because that's where the people were.

like the growth and the engagement and the attention was on the social media pages. I mean, you could post a link and get the traffic through to the actual websites, the www.ladbible.com, unilad.com, but it almost seemed counterproductive. You're sort of, you know, you're taking advantage of this boom in social media and then you're trying to direct people to the old school website, the old school internet, which is a www dot. So eventually I kind of just dropped the websites and just focused on the concentration on the Facebook page.

What was your mindset? You obviously got an entrepreneurial spirit. What was it actually about how you were monetizing it now? Obviously, you just left uni, your mom and dad are looking at you, probably going, Alex, what are you doing? What are you doing? But I can see you're building numbers here. At that point, you must have thought, I know I can monetize it, but I'm not sure exactly how I can monetize this. Was that going through your mind? I was learning really fast. It was very overwhelming because I had, fast forward six months, I'm still sat in my room.

One computer screen with Unilad on it. The other one with LabBible on it. Unilad on two, three million. LabBible had it rocketed past it. It was on about six, seven million within the first six months. And each one had their own separate inbox. Each one had their own separate emails coming in from brands wanting to have exposure on these. I was having to keep up with content, trying to moderate the content emails. I was completely frazzled. Yeah. I was just sat there thinking. Will you buy yourself any support?

I was all by myself. Wow. And also, by yourself, also having the fear that they could get blocked at any point or taken down while trying to juggle everything that's coming in the inbox, while trying to juggle sponsors coming in someone a piece of this or random promoters. I remember back in the day, I think we approached you. We had student nights all around the UK. Well, we need to jump on this. Who is this? What is this? Do you know what I mean? How are you managing that?

Well, I'm really badly, you know, and this is where things, firstly, I, I, I, I, I, I, you knew that was my baby. That was the one I wanted to, to take to the next level. It was the one I had the personal connection with. For me, in my head, Lad Bible was kind of a short term, little side project. I think what I did next was I essentially sold Lad Bible at that early stage. And I think that's looking back.

was a mistake because my solution to the overwhelm at that stage was to just get rid of one and to take the money for one and focus my attention on one. I mean, at the time, it made sense. I had no idea how the trajectory of both of these things were going to go. And in hindsight, it would have made sense to maybe keep equity in lab Bible and let it go or bring in a team and grow both. But I decided at that stage to sell lab Bible and put the money into uni lab, which I did do.

And it was just sort of bad luck after bad luck at that stage because I'd now had Unilad on one screen and I was still feeling that overwhelmed, that anxiety, that inability to focus on enough things to manage the business as efficiently as it needed to be managed. So I put out this advert and I said looking for people to help with say marketing and finance.

and I had quite a lot of people apply to help me and I ended up meeting these two people in Brighton and

I tell you, Dodge, my intuition that day was screaming at me. It was telling me, these two people are not on your side. These two people do not have your best interests at heart. But because I was such a massive people pleaser,

and terrified of confrontation. I signed the bit of paper that they put in front of me. I remember I was we were on Brighton Pier and I signed it and we were having a pint of Guinness I remember specifically and

I remember going home and thinking, what have I done? Why did I sign that bit of paper? And I woke up the next morning and I had been removed from the Unilad. He would joke in me, kicked off the Facebook, completely booted out of the business, completely removed from everything. So the bank account, Facebook pages, the website, everything, the email, I've been completely locked out of the entire company that I had started myself three years ago at university. I had been completely kicked out of my own company.

And I didn't know what to do. I did not know what to do. And I remember burying my head in the sand for two, three months, just unable to think about a step forward out of this.

Eventually my friend, I went for a drink with my friend and he had some legal experience and he looked at the bit of paper I had signed in Brighton with them and he said, they're not allowed to do what they've done. This bit of paper does not give them entitlement to do what they've done to you. You need to go see a lawyer and he dragged me to a solicitor

And my solicitor looked at what I had signed and looked at everything that had happened subsequently. And he agreed. He said, it's unlawful what they've done. You're still a partner. You still own uni-lad. But if you want to fight this, this is probably going to cost you a lot. And it probably take two, three years if they fight it back.

Um, and that was the start of a five year legal battle. My God. Well, first of all, how much did you sell led Bible for? So that's confidential, but it was way less than I should have done. Are we talking hundreds of thousands or less? Less. Less. Okay. So that was the first one. Who bought that? So I sold it to a guy called Solly who still owns it now. Yeah.

What was your relationship with Soli before you sold it to him? We were messaging, we were helping each, he had a sort of student website at the time, friendly, completely friendly. What friendly, let's go out for dinner, stay at my house, online friendly. Online friendly, I never met him at last day. And then what did he do? He said, Alex, I'd like to buy this off you.

you were like, well, make me an offer. And he made you an offer and you went, well, you can have it because it's headache for me because I want to concentrate on this one. Well, yeah, that's a condensed version of it. Essentially, yeah, there was some negotiation and there was paperwork, but yeah, essentially. How old were you when you sold it, roughly? 22 or 23? 23, straight out of uni was maybe of second year coming in and you went, just have it. That's probably the dealer's century for him.

when you look back and see where it is now, with Unilad here, the two people who you signed the deal with, who are they? So I can't name them because the subsequent court case ended in a settlement where they had clauses where we can't talk about each other. To say you can't talk about each other. It's all on the internet. Okay. Those people who you met, how did you meet them? How did you meet the two lads who bought Unilad or did the dirty on you of Unilad?

Did you meet again online? And they said, oh, how did it work? So we were, we were communicating, emailing, sort of, I put out this post asking for help. I need help. They don't want to come and essentially work for me. And we met up in Brighton and what turned out to be, what started off as can you work for me, ended up in sort of a proposal to go in together and work together and split equity.

And did you meet them only once, at the first time you met them when you bought them? No, no, I had met them a couple of times prior to that. And then you're negotiating whatever you were. And then did they come back and then the next time you, third time you met them, they said, there's a contract. Did you, had you read the contract before you'd had that last meeting with them, before you signed? But at that time, you're like, yeah, I think this works. Well, I guess, what was it, a third, third, third? Yeah. Yeah, okay. And at that time, you're like, well, this works for me.

Yeah, at the time, yeah, I mean, I just didn't, I, there was, like I said, there was something inside of me that was telling me not to do it. Your gut was talking to you. My gut was telling you. I completely ignored it. Yeah. Because I was, it was, I can look back now and reflect and see that it was this fear of confrontation. Was that, well, the main thing was it, back down to anxiety and the fear of comfort. Why would you have confrontation with them?

saying no. Inability to say no and put boundaries in place. And that was the most expensive inability to put boundaries in place I've ever done.

You know, saying no to signing a contract is the same as me saying not being able to say no in other situations. It was a lack of awareness that I could not assert boundaries and stick up for myself and tell these two people that my gut was telling me that went on my side to bugger off. But instead, my hand signed a bit of paper because I was terrified of the alternative, which was to stick up for myself. Wow.

Were they the same age group as you at the time? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, maybe one or two years. And were they at uni at the time? I can't remember. Are they kind of uni students who kind of saw what you were doing and go and we can take this to another? What was their chat to you when they first said what come on? Let's go. Let's all go thirds.

We were all friendly. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there was on the surface, it was all very nice. But you know, when you can just, your intuition is telling you that they're not being genuine. Yeah. That was what I was ignoring. On the surface, it was all, if you just had a transcript of the conversation without having any sight of the body language or the slight fluctuations in tone of voice that my subconscious picked up on, and that was my intuition screaming at me. If you just saw the transcript, you'd be like, well, they're, you know, they've got your interests here.

was what they're saying is perfect is all amicable and that's why I signed because I didn't, well, my intuition was telling me the opposite but I ignored it. But what happened next was, you know, I think the solicitor told me that this was going to be a long process and an expensive process and that's when my

The anxiety and the fear of confrontation that took me out of that classroom when I was six came back and now I was older, I knew that the way to deal with the anxiety and that fear of confrontation was alcohol. And I remember leaving my solicitor's office

after him telling me that this was gonna be a fight is what he said. I went straight to the petrol station, bought a bottle of vodka and I went back to my parents' house and I drank it. I've drank about half of it in about two hours. And it's the worry that you put your family through that I look back on with regret.

My parents, my family, they had never ever seen me in such a state. It unlocked this mental health battle that I had never anticipated coming. I was so happy in my room building uni-lad. And then six months later, I was up against this huge legal fight.

my, I remember I was stood in my brother's bedroom, desperate for more alcohol. And he was trying to, I was trying to jump out of the window to get more alcohol. He was blocking me because he knew what I was trying to do. And if I, that's the insanity of it. If I was, if I jumped out of that window, I would have broken my legs. And I was, I was that desperate to get out of the pain in my head that I was going to throw myself out of a window.

I remember at first it was manageable, the core case, because it was a letter sent to them and then three, four months went past and we would receive a letter back. And that was manageable. But it was about a year and a half into it when it was a case of going up to court and going for hearings and encountering them again. That's when the drinking got really bad. Everyone was trying to protect me.

I was at a car. My brother was driving me somewhere. I can't remember where, but I got an email from my solicitor. I remember when I was a passenger at my brother's car. And the email was from my solicitor saying, they're not backing down. You're going to have to go for a hearing in London next week. They'll be present. The solicitor will be there. And I tried to

I remember opening the door of my brother was going about 40 miles an hour and I tried to throw myself out of this car just to escape the agony that was in my head. The thought of being

in a courtroom with these guys, and being on the spot, having all of the attention on me and the confrontation, I can't explain it. It's my Achilles heel. It's the one thing I desperately always try to avoid, confrontation, and this whole situation threw me into it.

I remember the solicitor said to me, it's about four months later, when it was clear that they weren't going to back down. And he said, Alex, I'm really sorry.

But I know I said that 99% of court cases get settled before trial. You won't have to go on the witness box. And he sent me an email and he said, they're not backing down. This is going to be the trial is set for January 2017. I remember. And when I got that email, I drove again to the petrol station, bought this bottle of vodka. And this time, Dodge, I can only tell you what this nurse told me when I woke up in hospital the next morning, she said that,

A couple had found me, it was about two, three in the morning clutching this bottle of vodka, and they tried to help me. I tried to get away, I tripped, hit my head on the wall, and they called an ambulance. And the shame and the guilt and the anxiety that came flooding back to me when the nurse was telling me this.

And I, at that in that moment, just thought I need more alcohol to cure this feeling. And I remember, this is the insanity of ill. I remember standing up with my hospital gown on and running out of the ward, past the nurse. And I remember her saying, Alex, where are you going? And I just ignored her and went straight for the x-x. I knew there was a petrol station over the road and I tried to run out the front door of the hospital

and the police have been called and they've rugby tackled me to the floor and next thing I knew I was in the back of a police car and my parents have been called and I remember looking up and seeing my mum looking at me through the window of the police car with this just look of fear and desperation in their eyes. No one knew how to help me. No one knew what was wrong with me.

Fast forward two, three months, and it was the trial. And I had to be chaperone from the hotel room in London to the courtroom. I didn't trust myself not to go to the petrol station and get more booze and ruin the entire thing. I was due on the witness box.

at 9 a.m. in the morning and I didn't trust myself to not go to the petrol station and get absolutely annihilated because the thought of being on that witness box with the judge looking at me, their defense lawyers looking at me, my legal team looking at me, my family were there, the press were there, it was the six-year-old kid me in the classroom but amplified and I remember

I took so many breaks. I was on the witness box. They cross examined me for seven days. Even the judge said it was excessive. They tried to make me look so bad. Who did? Their defense was trying to quote the judgment, trying to come in with the legal jargon, but try and make me look bad in front of the judge. And it was horrendous. Did you feel intimidated?

Oh, massively. They had a, they had a, I remember they had a QC, you would now be a KC, but you know, QC lawyer, barrister, the most expensive type of barrister you can get. And there are two of them. And just, and it was me on this witness box.

It was funny, actually, because they didn't know I was telling them, teaching them about social media in the end. They were trying to trip me up. The one thing I know a lot about social media, and they were trying to trip me up, but it was so scary. I had to take about five, six breaks.

The judge was very good and he did let me, because otherwise I wouldn't have done it. I had to walk off anxiety attacks around the courthouse, go to the toilet, throw up, put my fingers down my throat to be sick just to try and snap me out of it and to make me focus on the line of questioning.

I remember one time I was one of these walks around the courthouse. I got lost. I got lost and I was running around asking all the taxi drivers, like, where's this courthouse? So I had to be back on the witness box in 10 minutes. I couldn't find my way back. And I was just so scared. I remember bursting into tears, screaming at this taxi driver saying, where's the courthouse? Where's the courthouse? And, but I got through it, you know, I really got through it. And

The couple of months went past and my phone went. And it was my solicitor. And he said, I remember the soap phone call. So well, I never forget it. Never forget it. It was a brief phone call. It was 2015 seconds. He said, Alex, are you on your own? And I said, yes. And he said, you've won everything. He said, you've won the judgments come in. You've won everything.

And I remember, it was always had a lot of slave motion. I remember falling to my knees, falling to the floor. And it's almost like a cliche and ridiculous, but I remember I felt my knees and I burst into tears. And I couldn't tell anyone at this stage because it was all embargoed and it hadn't been announced officially, but my solicitor knew it because he was allowed to know it and therefore he told me. And it was the biggest, it was a mental, it was a legal battle. Of course it was a five year legal battle, but it was gone for five years, did it?

my god. The first three years was letter letters and then big delays and then letters and then it was like a year and a half of hearings and then the trial happened and then it was a delay before the judgment came in but from first meeting to winning and getting the cash five years. What was their argument? The first line of the

Judgment was the defendant's cases without foundation. And it was 30, 40 pages of similar, completely debunking everything that they had said. Not a bad word about me. And it's a public judgment. I'm not being biased. You can go have a look at it. Not a single bad word about me.

Their arguments was that I was inconsistent and not professional and would say stuff that I didn't do and all this kind of stuff. That's it. They attempted to introduce me in the eyes of the court. That's what the judgment said unsuccessfully. It was an absolute car crash for them.

Did you feel confident from day one, knowing you're going to have a court case, even though it went on for a year, three years, five years, were you super confident? You got nothing to hide and you were going to win this. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it was, it came down to money. That's what it was. And I can't speak on their behalf, but I think that they knew that they were trying to

financially outplay me. They knew that if I was able to finance it and to get it to court, I would win. But they didn't think I was able to. So they were throwing stuff at us that would raise legal costs and just strategically drain the pot. How much did you end up spending in total on legal fees? Caught for a million. You're joking. So they were really pushing you.

How did you know, did you know that they were, they had the money to afford quarter of a mill? Not many 20 year olds can afford quarter of a mill and it's got backing from parents or someone around them. Did you know they had money to take it this far? They had bank of Unilad. They had the business, which I know was doing exceptionally well. How much do you think Unilad was bringing in at that time?

I wouldn't like to guess. I mean, at that time, it was doing incredibly well to have, you know, a quarter of a million over five years. It's not affordable for them. Yeah, affordable. Okay. So at that point, they had uni-lad. Well, I can't get my head around how a piece of paper was signed.

Obviously passwords were given in that contract or whatever, and they just blocked it and cut you off. How do you react? Cause I don't know how I would react. And it'd probably be very different maybe to how you reacted in there. Cause the first thing I'd want to do is go and see them and try to find an amicable way of sorting it out. Was your way of reacting or closing the door, burying your head and thinking, Oh, I don't want to deal with this. Cause I don't like confrontation. It's bringing that six year old up in me. It must have been, you must have felt trapped.

massively. Trust me, I had people around me, I had a friend of mine saying.

Do you want me to go visit them with a hammer and some nails and put a nail through their hands until they give me the password to get you back into the, you know, people would have done it differently. I'm not like that. I'm not a gangster. I'm a, I'm a, I was, I know what my strengths are in life. My strengths are being able to focus on building social media brands, looking at analytics,

looking at patterns, predicting trends, actioning that and seeing success in there. I think you're one of the best in the world at that, by the way.

I'm not good at fighting confrontation, being argumentative. And I've always been that way. Now, I think I am better now. I think the court case taught me a huge lesson. And I've got strategies now to assert boundaries and to really stand my ground. I'm still no way near what some people are.

But at the time, it was the path of least resistance. I think I'm very good. I think a lot of human beings are very good at avoiding uncomfortable situations. In that five-year period, did you see your mental health really deteriorate? Oh, it nearly killed me.

The court case started with a letter sent and then three months would go past and we'll receive a letter from them. And it was kind of enough to make you forget about it. I was busy working in a social media marketing agency to pay for the legal fees. So there was enough time went past for me to be distracted to kind of forget about it. It was when it escalated. And there was shorter time between the letters and then there was court hearings. And then there was an awareness that this was going to go to trial. That's when

the drinking really escalated. The sad thing is, as I said, it's what you do to your family in the last couple of years, in the year leading up to the trial. The story of me waking up in hospital and running out and getting arrested, that was one of three hospital trips. In the months before then,

There was another binge where I was told that it wasn't backing down and it wasn't going to reach a settlement. And this was, this confrontation is more likely now to be face to face in the courtroom. And, you know, on that occasion, I ended up in hospital and I'm there, not conscious with why, with tubes sticking out of me and, and, but conscious enough and aware enough to hear the nurse tell my mum and my dad that, that his little boy, their little baby,

if he had one more drink, then alcohol poisoning would have finished him. That's the reality. That's how I dealt with the... It wasn't stress. I didn't... It wasn't stress and not how I would describe it. I can't explain the fear of confrontation that I have. And fighting in a legal battle against two people that I, in my head, was very intimidated by.

It was the scariest thing. That fear of confrontation has always been there. Why were you scared of those two people? Because they represented everything that I've tried to avoid my whole life, which is standing up for myself and standing in my ground and being confrontational. I've always been a massive yes man, people please.

That was the biggest trouble it got me into.

They represented, I always thought business was terrifying. I always thought the idea of being a business man was absolutely terrifying. I now don't think that, because I've met so many businessmen, and you realize that they're just humans, and they've all got their weaknesses, and they've all got their Achilles heel, and they're all just people. But at the time, I thought a business man was this really scary, intimidating person in a suit. And me, the 22-year-old back then, was up against two of them with

And it was almost like a David West Goliath story. I didn't have much money, had no self-esteem, had no awareness of ability, had no confidence in myself, up against these sort of two. The perception I had of there was... Where did they live? What area did they live? You were in what Eastbourne at the time, do you say? Is that where were they? I think Manchester.

When's the first time you saw them? Was it in court? After you signed that piece of paper? After you signed the contract? What did the contract actually say? It was a very simple partnership agreement. Did they knock it out themselves?

No, it was a template. A template, was that okay? And the moment you signed that, was your gut before your sign and said, don't sign this, don't sign this, don't sign this, or was it afterward? You're going, why did I sign that? Why did I sign that? Or both? It was, it was, I remember going home that day and just thinking, what have I done? Because I read it. And I did actually,

The whole thing just fell off. The entire thing fell off. But the reasons I've sort of stated is it was just, it was a knee-jerk reaction of avoiding an uncomfortable situation which was confrontation. So I just recoiled from it. And the easiest way to recoil from it was to just give them the signature. And then dash home, which is what I did. And go numb your mind. Yeah, okay.

When you sign that piece of paper, was it five years until you next saw them physically in court? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. And when you club them in court, what went through your mind when you first saw them? Gosh, yeah. I mean, I saw them outside the courtroom first, having not seen them for five years just is all through lawyers and slisters.

It's the same thing I feel when I meet people now. It's the irrationality of it all comes crashing home. It's the contrast between my perception of someone, which in their case was scary businessman, someone I'm terrified of, someone that's making me so scared that I cannot stop drinking, compared to the reality of meeting them and they're just a person which instantly disarms them.

If I was forced to be in a room with them for five years, I probably wouldn't have drank, because the perception of them being so scary would have been completely disarmed. They're out of course, Sesman, how much they pay you? So again, I can't really say, but it was enough for me to never work again.

That's where Van Shake will really be. After what they put you through, for you to never be able to work again and get in your own brand that you first set up back in your hands again, what was that feeling like? That was brilliant. Of course it was. I know I'd be a liar if I said that I wasn't euphoric. Of course I was euphoric. I remember because it was the win of the court case, that phone call, you've won the company back.

And then it was the realization, which happened over time, what the money would actually meet and how that would change my life. But I think it's with a lot of these things. What I didn't anticipate was the consequence of what I did next. Because what I did next was, I thought,

Well, I've just retired. I'm 30. Boring. I've made... How long will it take to eat your board? Well, it took two years. Yeah, okay. It took two years before I realized I got bored. I didn't stop. I thought I go to Vegas and celebrate. Black or red, the lot. That's the thing, because Vegas was

terrible. It was absolutely terrible because I thought I was celebrating, but I was in again, the alcohol came back in Vegas. And that was when I realized that perhaps the drinking need to be looked at. But it was funny when I came back and I couldn't stop playing computer games. It was so weird. I couldn't stop playing computer games for about two years. And I didn't realize I had this like addictive attention

issue in my head. And now the business had been taken away from me. I'd sold it. I had no channel for this attention. So when they did that, of course, when they won the court case, they paid you north of 10 million quid. So I can't say how much it was. Is it online? There is a figure online, but it's not accurate. How accurate is it? Is it close to it or?

The millions is correct. The millions are correct. I won't put a number next to it. I'll be talking north of 10 mil. It's enough for me to never need to work again.

And if I say a number, I'm going to have a list of them. Yeah, OK. So that feeling there, you had a big lump pay to you. Happy days and congratulations. Amazing. And you got uni-led back with all your login details. What did you then want to do with uni-led? Could you actually sell it on again?

Did you sell it on again? Well, I had to. Straight away. Bear in mind, I had been out of the business for five years. Really, it was five and a half, closer to six, because it took me six months to first see my solicitor to initiate the court case. So that went on for five years. It was about six years, they round it up. So I couldn't just march in.

And be bang on the ball. Okay. Yeah. I'm the boss now. Yeah. You did that. You did that. But I didn't even want to because I had an awareness then that, look, Unilad then was 250 staff offices in five offices around the world. And I wasn't in a position to go and manage that. I was advised to essentially sell it, which is what I did. We put it on the market and we had offers from various places.

and that's where the exit happened. So the court case gave me control and then the decision to say it. So you've got to pay off and you sold it.

No. So what happened was the, the, there was a settlement agreed. Yes. And then we ended up putting the company into administration because there was an issue with them owing the tax man. Yes. A big tax bill. But we put the company into administration. And then during that process, we, we put, we marketed it to package that up and sold it. Yeah. Wow. That's unbelievable.

I was 30 at the time and I thought, brilliant. That's me retired. But then the board, I'm saying, which was something I didn't anticipate. It was like that Everest moment where you get to the summit and something you've been working towards. I didn't realize in hindsight, I was obsessed with the core case. It was my hyper focus and suddenly it was gone and I bought a nice car, went holiday, whatever, did load of fun stuff for a year. But it was all quite meaningless. About a year went past and I thought,

I need to do something now. I started, I wanted to start a podcast to, to go up against, die of a CEO, all the big podcasts. And I remember I had the idea to do it, Dodge. And it was about 11 o'clock at night. And I said to my partner, I'm going to start a podcast called walk away wiser. And it's going to be a business podcast, because that's what I'm known for the businessmen, apparently.

And I impulsively spent, honestly, about 20,000 pounds on five cameras. I dismantled my bed, turned my bedroom into a soundproof room, similar to what we're in today. Hired a producer, hired about, booked about seven guests, something quite high profile. I did all of this in about three hours. And the postman delivered

all of this equipment about three days later. And I remember him knocked on the door, he said delivery and I had about 20 Amazon boxes with these cameras and tripods and running tracks and all this tech stuff. And I'd had no interest in doing the podcast anymore. It completely evaporated. It was gone. And I remember just sat there on my sofa looking at all of these boxes.

Confused. Absolutely no idea how my interest, which was nothing in contrast to what it was three nights ago when I thought, this is my new life's purpose, buying the domain, done all the branding, ordered all this stuff within three hours. How was that possible?

And the producer who I had hired, he observed this entire cycle, this behavior. And he said to me, when did you get your ADHD diagnosis? And I looked at him and I said, what do you mean?

ADHD. I'd never ever, I'd heard of it, but I'd never considered it. He was explaining to me this like boom and bust cycle that's quite common with the ADHD community of getting incredibly excited about an idea, staying up all night, hyper focusing, you know, jumping out of bed at three in the morning because you've thought of this business idea.

And then the crash that comes afterwards, you lose interest in it and you've got another domain to go into the graveyard of domains that was ever growing. And that was the real, that was the moment for me that started, that was the catalyst that made me aware of ADHD and actually led me onto the path to seek and to get diagnosed. And what year was this?

That was semi-recently, that was 2022, end of 2022. And how do you, how do you, our age, go and get diagnosed with ADHD or not? Well, there's two options. So I can relate to a lot of stuff you're saying here. I looked it up and I was

I mean, like many people, very disheartened by the waiting lists on the NHS at the moment. And really that's a bit of a postcode lottery in where you, if you're lucky, you'll get an assessment within two years. If you're unlucky, you'll get an assessment within eight years. So it's horrendous situation at the moment on the NHS. I paid 750 quid and went private and was seen and diagnosed within about three months. What did they say?

Well, my long-term partner, who I've been with for five years, filled in a very lengthy questionnaire. She knows me incredibly well. And my mum filled in a questionnaire, and obviously she knows me very well. And I had a two-hour Zoom meeting with the psychiatrist. And it was very nice. You know, we went through a lot of stuff. But at the end, she said, she's reviewed everything and she's never seen

a case of ADHD so severe. That's what she said. And then she's finished off by saying, I was going to get this quoted and put on a plaque. Your ADHD is clear as hell. That's what she said. How did it make you feel knowing you've actually been diagnosed and goes, that's me. That is my character. That's who I am. That's what I am. That's just what I am moving forward. And I can now speak about it because you've now got a podcast ADHD chatter.

Yes, ADHD chapter and I've just written my first book, Now It All Makes Sense. Now It All Makes Sense. Now It All Makes Sense, yeah. Which I wrote, hyper-focused on and wrote in two and a half months as coming out in January the 16th. But when I got the diagnosis, I googled, what is ADHD? Because I had no idea. And it said ADHD is struggle with

Focus, struggle with attention, struggle with disorganization. It was all struggle, struggle and more struggle.

And without discounting those, I mean, those struggles are there, but I think ADHD when understood and managed can also be creativity and pattern recognition and being great in a crisis and being able to spot patterns and zoom out and see the big picture and spot things that other people miss. Is that what they say in ADHD? That's why I thought the podcast, that's what I want to say. And the more people I speak to,

They agree with it. I think the official narrative of what ADHD is needs to catch up. If you had a doctor or a psychiatrist here, they would tell you that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by traits of impulsivity, forgetfulness. And it can be that, but I think it's so much more than that. I think ADHD is for many people, I think it's a lifetime of being told that you're too much and you're too sensitive.

or that you're not enough and not understanding why you have to put on this mask and change your entire personality to be more palatable for whoever you're stood in front of on any given day. It's not understanding why you're so sensitive to rejection. People with ADHD are exposed to 20,000 more negative criticisms in their early years.

micro-corrections. Stop fidgeting. Stop doing that. That's naughty. 20,000 more than an average child. So when they grow up, they're primed to act defensively in the face of criticism, even perceived criticisms. It doesn't even need to be a real criticism or a rejection. If they perceive the slightest change in tone of voice,

or a little micro facial expression. We're so good at sensing changes in vibes and changes in atmosphere. I sense that because we're so primed to, it's like a hyper-vigilance. And it's such a big topic, rejection sensitivity dysphoria. It's this hyper-awareness and hypersensitivity to criticism. And it's such a big topic for me because when it's not understood,

It can cause havoc in the workplace, in relationships, family dynamics, explosive responses to little comments that might actually have no malice to them. But because we are so in tuned to assuming everything is negative about us, we take it negatively and we can explode with rage or internalized sadness. And you can see how that shutdown in a romantic relationship can cause huge problems. Are you happy you found out that you are ADHD?

I mean, of course, yeah, it certainly gives a, you know, a lens of validation and forgiveness. I can look back through my early years and I'm convinced that the six year, the reason I had that panic attack when I was six is because of that.

internalized hyperactivity. It's one of the big misconceptions about ADHD is that it's a physical hyperactivity and that you have to be running around the room and physically hyperactive to have ADHD. We now know that that's not the case, actually. A lot of the time it's inattentivist inside. It's like seven, eight highly caffeinated squirrels. Borrowing around inside your head.

I must have HDHD, I'm sure. Do you think you have it? I don't know. I don't know. But people around me say, well, you're going to get tested. And then I literally don't know. But there's a lot of stuff you're talking about. I can relate to it. How do I go? Where do I go? What do I like? You've had 100 plus people on your podcast. And they all got ADHD or they all wanting to find out whether ADHD.

So most of them have, so I have two types of guests. One is essentially a sort of a doctor or a psychiatrist or an academic and the other is a life story. So all of the life story episodes, they've had a diagnosis and the other half is the psychiatrist, the psychologist who actually, funnily enough, a lot of them do have ADHD as well, but they come at it from a psychological academic medical perspective. The others sort of lived experience and lessons learnt. Before you came today, were you anxious?

Yeah, so much. Yeah, it's weird. The anxiety that you would think would not be there anymore because of, on paper, certain achievements, lad Bible, uni lad, my podcast is just one podcast of the year. But I was hoping that I had a car crash.

on the way here today, to give me a valid excuse not to do this. It's that insanity that comes back. It's call it imposter syndrome, whatever you wanna call it. It's, I'm always living in the now, the past, because of, I call it object permanence. It's this out of sight, out of mind phenomenon that I really suffer with. If something's not in my immediate proximity in my now, it ceases to exist.

So all of the things I've done, all of the bits of evidence that should suggest that I'm qualified and capable to come and talk to you today about ADHD, they didn't exist today. And because my now is on a motorway coming to see you, I have nothing to reflect on that gives me confidence in my ability to come and speak to you about ADHD today.

borderline having a panic attack in the car driving to you. And as a consequence of that, it's that it's the mad thoughts of how do I get out of this? I can't. I'm not going to cancel because that's unprofessional and that would give me incredible guilt and shame and anxiety. But if I had a valid excuse to cancel this, then that would be fine because Dodge would understand.

I could have a car crash. It's that insanity. I do a lot of public speaking on ADHD. I speak in companies, schools, businesses, workplaces, a lot, a couple of times a week. And I spend nights in hotel rooms because I travel doing it and never sleep in those hotel rooms. Every single talk is the same.

But what I do do now, and I advise other people to do, is to try and be so intentional about documenting and cementing those achievements into your subconscious. I do a talk, whatever it is in your life, that will give you evidence of ability.

don't just do something and move on, really pause after an achievement and document it. Whatever that looks like to you, meditate, journal, but really spend time to intentionally cement that into your subconscious. So when the time comes for you to do that task again, you have that evidence base, you have that stored in your subconscious for you to reflect on. And that should be enough, can be enough to just silence that imposter syndrome, which can be a cause of so much anxiety.

What were you actually anxious about today? I want to break this down. Is it when you came in the room? Was it the thought process meeting someone new? Was it the thought process of being live on a podcast? What was going through your mind? I think it's just saying the wrong thing.

saying something that is going to get me into trouble because ADHD is such a trendy conscientious topic at the moment. Trendy is the wrong word but there's a lot of people talking about it and it's such a people ring fence narratives and opinions around ADHD and if you step out of that then you can get a lot of kickback online.

I come at ADHD as a very lived experience perspective. I have no qualifications. I'm not an expert, but I have lived with it. And I've spoken to 150 people on my podcast that have either lived with it or are qualified and thousands of people at events. And I very much come at it from a lived experience perspective. I can see the damage that undiagnosed ADHD can cause.

shame that pretending to be someone that you're not for years and years and years can create in someone, that lack of awareness that you are masking. Because I think if you mask your entire life,

you don't have an awareness of who you really are. And if you don't have an awareness of who you really are, it's very difficult, almost impossible to have any self-confidence. Because you may have a confidence in a version of you, but if that's not the real you and that's not connected to your intrinsic

internal character, then you'll find huge clashes in situations that pull you out of the narrative that this fake version of you has created. I think to answer your question, I'm still trying to figure out who that is. What is me and what has been a coping mechanism? What has been a mask? I only got diagnosed a year and a half ago, really.

I'm trying to disconnect and disassociate from the person that I've been trying to be for so many years. I think particularly the whole lad Bible, Nunilad story, which was a huge part of my life and I'm incredibly proud of, really pigeonholed me into this kind of the idea that I'm this business man and that serious person who

knows a lot about business, but I think that's so far from the truth. I'm just a person who is so I think understanding now of this condition called ADHD, which can be so beneficial to business. And I think that's why that narrative happened. But the idea that the stereotype of a business man is so separated and disconnected from who I really am. So when I come on these podcasts, there's a huge amount of anxiety around where I'm going to land, what version of me is going to come out. And

wanting to be true to myself and not slip into the business jargon that I've put myself into before, which is so disconnected to actually who I am. Who is Alex Partridge today? I am a 36 year old man who's just been diagnosed with ADHD and is trying my best to

Look, I can't go back in time and put my arms around my six year old self and tell him that

you're not broken, you're just different and that everything is going to be okay. I can't, of course I can't do that. But what I can do is I can speak to as many people and create a platform and to have as many conversations about around ADHD as possible because there will be a six year old version who hears that and it will change their course and stop them from getting into the situations. And so many of us who have lived a life unaware that they live, that they have a brain that is wired slightly differently

I'm someone who is on a mission to create as many conversations and to create that balance narrative around what it actually means with ADHD. Because I think ADHD is a lifetime of being told that you're too much, being told that you're too sensitive.

But also, when understood, it's all those positives I mentioned earlier. It starts in business and creates new businesses. It's being fearlessly resilient and being a problem solver. But all of those massively outweigh what you just mentioned before. Emasively outweigh. The positives. There's such huge positive critical thinker, creative mind, deal with problems, deal with high levels of pressure,

They're superpowers. You know, superpowers suppress all those other ones, I guess. Well, you can only access them if you aren't, if you're aware of the pitfalls. Yes. Because in anxiety, this hard trying to assert boundaries, being a people pleaser, they're all our Achilles heel. They're those things that get in the way of accessing and harnessing the positives. Where did you, where did you become a people pleaser?

When you look back and say, oh, I'm a people, please, I'm a people, please, what am I? Is that stem from mum and dad? Is stem from any brothers and sisters? Or is it just you? For as long as I can remember, I've always struggled to say no. It's been so difficult to say no. It's like a physiological, visceral,

response when I'm confronted with a position where I should be sticking up from myself. And my default has always been to lean back and just to take the path of least resistance. Did you ever get bullied at school? Not massively. I was very much a recluse at school.

I would turn up and I would go straight to the library, read a book, look at the stock market listing, really, I remember, and very much just isolated myself in the playground. I was never sociable enough to allow myself to be bullied. When I did have interactions, it was interactions and comments like the one I mentioned at the top. You could be one of the cool kids, Alex, if you weren't so weird. Lots of comments like that which compounded to create someone who I think is very

The whole people please, I think, it stems from this fear of confrontation. That's what comes back to that, doesn't it? It all comes back, I can see that. Alex, today, what are your hobbies today? What do you enjoy doing? You've got enough money to last your lifetime, which is a lovely feeling for you. What do you like doing today, apart from your podcast? Oh, I mean, look, when I, I've got a dog, I love walking my dog, I run, I love running. I enjoy,

I still enjoy computer games. They're all very boring. If I'm honest with you, Dodge, I wake up and the first thing I think about is ADHD and is how to make the podcast more accessible, better, give more value to the community. I think you must relate to this. The people that do things that seems to

take over other people and to get chart-hopping podcasts or to create big businesses, you have that obsession that makes it very difficult to have anything else around it. And I'm not, I love that. You know, I, I, I forced myself to try and create balance and to create. It's hard.

I've tried to join a GM, I've tried to take a cookery course, but they drop off because they're not aligned with my true authentic internal intrinsic motivations. And at the moment, that is the podcast. I can't stress enough the obsession and the laser focus that I have towards this podcast. And I think that's why in a year and a half, it's gone from

a start up in my bedroom on a webcam to where it is now in a year and a half. Good for you. It's just that relentless. Do you not think it's an amazing, amazing business? Like just like from a hobby, we both started as hobbies and look where we both are now. And like you're saying, I'm obsessed with the podcast. I didn't know what podcast was four years ago. We started. Now I'm obsessed with it because I can see where it's going. You can see it going warm.

You know, the amount of views you get, the amount of subscribers, the amount of everything that comes along with it. And like most businesses, it takes time to create a successful business. And where we're seeing it now with YouTube, the algorithms on YouTube, picking everything up that we're doing, and across all these social media platforms, and then, you know, podcasts are the way forward. I'm just so glad we both got in at the right time. Because how many podcasts do we see who are, who are podcasts, and they last?

20 weeks or 20 episodes or seven episodes or 25 episodes and they realized that it costs money and it's not easy to do. It's not just a recording here with you and I go, okay, put it up, away we go. Editing, thumbnails, cutting it all up, putting it across that social media platform has got to be changed to that social media platform, short version, short, it just goes on and on.

Yeah, and you've got to have, you know, it's relentless. And if you don't have that internal obsession with it, you're quick when it gets hard. It's so easy to start a podcast on short term dopamine and think that looks easy. I'll just buy two mics, have a chat. How difficult can it be? I wish I wish it was. You know, my podcast.

And I'm sure this one does the cost it takes financially to run, but not just money, like attention. And if your attention isn't on it, 100%, that money's wasted. I'm constantly thinking about who would make the good guest, what could make the episode, is there a new segment we could try? Are you opening question?

a new closing question. I love diving into the analytics, the retention graphs and seeing where people dropped off. Why? What question did I ask? Did the guest go flat for five minutes? And that's why the retention dropped off. That's where I'm in my best element. Alex, I've absolutely loved this mate. Likewise, Dodge. I've really, really enjoyed it. What a fascinating character you are.

Thank you so much. Likewise. Yeah, really nice character. You've got a massive heart on you to see where you come from, an idea at uni in your bedroom, to taking it all the way through. And I've got a huge amount of respect for you for not backing down. Now, we're talking here about you being, you know, your character is quite gentle, non-confrontational. I don't want to get involved. For you having the balls to stand up for yourselves against those two lads, I'm going to find out their names as well. I can't wait to find out their names.

and fought them all the way to the end, because this sort of stuff normally gets out of court settlement, and you fought them all the way to the end to win. There's a huge amount of respect for me to you for that. Appreciate that, George. Thank you very much. Proper gentleman, you are, you're a good man, and I appreciate making the effort. Thank you, man. Good man, Alex. Thanks for making the effort coming down. Cheers, Doctor. Good man. Hi, guys. I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Can you do us a favor and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show. Cheers, guys.