Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service. On the podcast today, we have Dai Manuel. Dai, welcome.
Great to be here, Thomas, I’m really excited or as I said earlier stoked to be here, very Canadian term as you can guess. And as we’re talking, people probably pick up the Canadian accent everyone. So I want to get really excited. I talked a little bit faster in my boots and boots will start to fall out of my mouth. So I apologise in advance. And again, that’s another very Canadian trade, apologise for everything. But that’s it. I’m stoked to be here.
Well, I’m stoked to have you.
Yeah, that’s great. That’s great.
Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Well, thank you. Yeah, sure. Well, I’m 44 years young, I’d like to thank you. I’ll be here for another 100. Well, if all things go well, I’m not going with you know, I’m a dad of two teenage girls there now, 16 and 18, watch my youngest will be 16 after this weekend.
And uh, so that’s just a whole, another dynamic. You know, and I’ve been dating my wife for the last 21, going on 22 years, which, you know those two titles, dad and partner for life, those are things that actually get most excited. But as far as like, what do I do on the day to day? I’ve been an entrepreneur now for 25, years. I’ve had a number of businesses, most of them in the health and wellness space. I’m just about helping people get out of their own way. Whether that be psychologically emotionally, physically, usually a combination of all of those and I support them was just really leaning into their best version of themselves and providing lots of tools, resources to do so and do a lot of speaking recently, had my first ted x talk very exciting. Sure, we’ll talk a bit about that today. But uh, yeah, the last five years we’ve been traveling and now are back in our home base in Vancouver. Came back pre Covid and I’m sure I’ll come out in our story as well. But yeah, that’s, that’s sort of mean a snapshot as to what I’m doing right now.
But unfortunately, you know, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this Thomas, but you know, with the various lockdowns, you know, the flow, I feel like this has been my view for the last year and so not a lot of other exciting stuff to talk about, but you know, it’s all good. I know that this too shall pass. I can’t tell too much from here, but it looks like a pretty nice view. You know, it’s not bad. I’m not complaining. I live in an area called Yate Town, which is downtown Vancouver and I know you visited here before and maybe you remember downtown, there’s a nice little walk around the water called the seawall and basically it’s all around the downtown core along Stanley park, big park area. And we literally live right on the sea wall. So I feel very blessed and grateful for this view and to be able to call this home for sure, very cool. Yeah. Well you touched on the topic of getting out of your own way. I kind of feel like the people who have expertise maybe in those types of areas have gone through it themselves and have overcome it.
Sure. So, um, I mean touching on your story and through the lens of entrepreneurship, where would you say your story begins? Well, you know, it’s interesting, you know, when I think about all of us, right, just life humanity, a pretty cool thing about humans, you know, our existence just proves our resiliency as a species, you know, write down their DNA and you know, you call that evolution, you call it just sure will for survival, right? And of course it’s evolved into many other things and being that we’re pretty much the only species on this planet that can self-actualise, You can actually have that conversation and envision bigger than life kind of purposes, right? Like it’s amazing, right? That that sense of purpose that I think we all have deep down, you know, obviously that’s evolved over the millennia, but a little bit different today than they were 2000 years ago, but really right down to the core DNA.
I think it’s just that resiliency and our ability to adapt to change. And yet that being said as adaptable as we maybe we are quite change resistant. You know, at least I myself have founded many periods of my life. I’m just trying to fight the change that was coming. Even though deep down I knew I wanted to make some changes and I think that’s sort of a conundrum, right? Like we get into that space, we know there’s things in our, in our life that’s limited us and to sort of riff on joseph Campbell, I don’t know if you’re familiar the power of myth, But in marketing has sort of been riffed on some of his teachings. Now we often hear the hero’s journey referenced and that was something that he coined back in the 70s and you know, he was a historian and just someone that studied storytelling and through the Millennia because that’s how we learn is that we grow. It’s how we connect, you know, is that sharing of stories. But he talks about this idea of us as a human species all and individuals always wanting to follow our bliss.
You know, choosing to live a life that allows us to maximise happiness joy fulfilment. Now again, that’s different for all of us, we have different idea what fulfils us, but it doesn’t mean we don’t go after it, but usually going after it involves banging our heads up against a lot of challenges. Getting beat up a little bit, either literally or metaphorically, uh, and we challenge that resiliency, we challenged the change. And when I think back to my very first time where I really encountered that and had a completely different understanding of it was when I was 14, I was at that time classified by the doctor just because he pulled my mom out of his office, you know, the very and your son died is morbidly obese. Now again, I did not understand what morbidly obese meant, you know, and to be fair, you know, this is dating myself 30 years ago, childhood obesity, it just wasn’t a thing yet. There wasn’t like all these articles and publications talking about childhood obesity, you know, just there was me and one other kid in my entire graduating class that was in that state of health, so it wasn’t a norm, I was very much a minority, even though size wise I was definitely a majority.
So, uh, it was hard, you know, life was hard and anyone who has dealt with any health challenges, whether it be chronic or you know, fleeting, it’s never fun, you know, it really pushes on us in a lot of different ways and I was quite depressed and withdrawn and, you know, I, I just didn’t know what to do. I had parents, had friends, I had a lot of communities that cared about me, they loved me and, you know, every time they would come saying, hey, you know, trying to encourage me and support me and help me and getting healthier every time that would happen. I was like, you’re thinking I’m not good enough, you’re saying I’m fat, you’re saying I’m not worthy. Like this is my own inner voice, right? Like I don’t know if you can relate to this telling us, but you know, there’s those people that see us suffering and all they want to do is help us, they want to help us fix it, right? Help us be happier. And yet every time that would come, I was like, no, you’re attacking me, you don’t think I’m good enough. Like it was just really interesting space to be. And of course, I mean I didn’t have the awareness to be able to reflect on this at the time, but through life seeing things repeat itself.
I’ve been built a much more awareness around what was going on at the time. Plus I’ve done quite a bit of work around this time, long and short of it. I got to a point where enough was enough and I, I was very fearful a lot of fear, especially around me and living in life. You know, I was like, I remember getting to a point where I, I came to this real realisation that life probably won’t be any better than it is at this exact moment at 14, right at 14, I’m like, this is probably as good as it’s gonna get if I’m thinking I’m going to stay and continue to do what I’ve been doing up to this point, meaning that play a lot of video games, watch a lot of movies, eat a lot of calories, you know, and but not nutritious calories, these are empty calories, you know, very poor on the nutrition value. And so that was really feeding in part of the pundits, so that that state of obesity and it got to a point where I was like, jeez, maybe life would be easier if I just wasn’t here sure. And then that was really are, you know, to come to that place and to actually be thinking about like, how would I do it?
How would I end this? You know? And ultimately I was more afraid of that, you know, than the idea of change. And that’s really what it came down to, you know, I started to ask myself, well, OK, if I don’t make some changes five years from now when I’m almost 20 years old, do I actually think that life will be better than it is right now? No, so, I was more afraid of staying as I was getting worse and I wasn’t the idea of maybe trying to do something different, maybe actually embracing this idea of trying to change rather than being so resistance to everything. And you know, it was like, it happened so quickly, right? And I want people understand anyone is watching and listening to this and Thomas maybe you can relate to this if you think back to some of the biggest struggles that you’ve encountered in your life have been put in your way, you know when you make that decision to challenge that and to do something different, to change your perspective, to just you know, there’s that mental shift, it happens so fast, like literally in a split of a second, it’s like okay, I’m changing and then you got to follow that up with an action, right?
It’s great to have the choice and that decision, but unless you actually do something, it’s just a great idea, it’s a great intention, but it’s got plenty of potential there, but it won’t be realised until you start doing something. And so I went out and I talked to my dad, I remember I had this big cry session in the bathroom by my lonesome and I came out of there, I got you know, dressed and came and found my dad in the living room, I was like dad, I don’t want to be like this anymore, I don’t like who I am, I know I can change, I want to get healthy and I said can I get a mountain bike, you know 14, I remember being as a kid, I used to love riding my bike and there’s no way I was going to go to a gym. I was like, I am not stepping foot into a gym? I don’t know how to use any of those machines. People stare at me, I got to do this on my own. Like I was very intimidated. So I wanted something that would be very isolating something I could do on my own, not, not to be dependent on anybody else, like that’s just where my mind was. And so he was looked at me and he could tell there was a conviction in my eyes, you know, like he could tell that, whoa, there’s something here, you got to strike that iron while it’s hot part of the cliche, but it was really that moment and you know what, That afternoon we went and got me a mountain bike that afternoon, getting back from the bike shop, I went from around the first ride and every day after that I’d go up for a ride, I went to the library, also got books on it, to educate myself on nutrition and on fitness and health and really just started to feed my mind with good resources, you know, to help continue that change.
And 20 months later, I remember waking up one day and it just, you know, it just felt like everything was just in motion and I didn’t have to work anymore, do you know what I mean? Like, I just felt like things were flowing, this was now my lifestyle, but it was 20 months and I like people to know that like it’s, they’re like, well when did it become a habit? I’m like, I have no idea. It just, it just, there was no question in my mind, this is all I’m gonna do, I’m gonna do this, I’m going to get healthy and because I have those little winds along the way and I can elaborate on that a little bit later. But you know, there’s little things, little victories I had and being able to celebrate the changes that were happening and feeling very, very much I influenced these changes because of the choices and the actions I was making. So there was that instant connection that you know what change isn’t always bad and you know what, I can be a champion of change. I don’t have to fight this thing all the time. And that was the first real taste of that kind of a pivotal moment in my life. You know, like here in Canada, we have something called the Sports Network, they call it TSN, it’s our national sports network on Tv and they have a thing called the TSN turning point.
It’s that moment where the underdog, you know, might have that that quick break away and they store right and it’s like, whoa, upset and it’s like I think we all have those TSN turning points in our lives, right? We have those moments where all of a sudden it’s like something that we couldn’t do before we do it for the first time And you know, going from 0-1 is 100% improvement. There’s nothing as satisfactory is doing something for the very first time. And you know, because after that’s diminishing returns. So, you know, the first time is always the biggest win. And uh, so I’m a big fan of really trying to champion people’s victories. You know, like help them appreciate that. Hey, that first step you took. I know it was hard, but that is where it all begins and you should celebrate the fact that you took that action, you did it, you know, and, and so I’m sort of that guy that likes to celebrate just did it rather than just do it, you know, and I could probably kick my ass for that. But you know what I mean? Because really, it’s the act of celebrating.
I’ve already done it now. That is awesome. Right. Right. And I’m gonna motivate just do it, just do it. No, no, no. I want you to celebrate when you just did it, you know? So, um, that’s sort of that origin story. That’s where things started and obviously things that I’ve encountered many other challenges along the way. But the chronic autoimmune disease diagnosed with a few years ago too, to overcoming my challenges and my abuses of alcohol and certain narcotics, you know, like there’s been some very trying moments in my life, but it was that first one that gave me the confidence that change is always possible and I can influence it. I find a lot of sports achievements can carry over nicely into business. So I find that achievement probably helps a lot later on in life, I would imagine. But do you have, like, have any? I’m not sure if it’s the right word, but resentment over being put in that position at the age of 14. I, to be honest with you, Thomas, Yeah, I did. I harboured a lot of resentment. I had a lot of anger, frustration, but it’s probably actually better both with myself, but prior to me fully taking ownership of my situation, you know, like, really getting honest with the habits that I had at the time, nobody was forcing me to do any of that.
No one forced me to play video games to say no to hanging out with friends, to playing, you know, like, I was always presented with opportunity. I just was always choosing not and I was choosing to eat the way I was eating now, my parents, Yeah. Did they enable me? Sure, sure. But they were doing the best they could with what they had and they didn’t really know, you know, like, it’s not like today, like, we have so much more awareness just on nutrition on metabolism, like, just the science of nutrition. It didn’t exist 100 years ago, you know, and we’re still bigger and stuff out and so I I it took me a lot of years to get to that point where I could forgive, you know, but because it was never their fault, you know? But I did blame them, I blame them, I blame, I blame everybody but myself, you know, it to be quite frank, it was just but that’s where I was, I was 14 as well, you know, and everything, especially when you’re in that state of health, everything is just compounded, you know, it’s just so much more difficult, more challenge. I mean, I had classes on the third floor of my high school and I remember getting to the top of the stairs, I’d be huffing and puffing that light sweat on already, you know, man, that was so difficult, three flights of stairs, you know, being tying my shoes, just all the little list of things that we take for granted.
It was also hard, you know, So it was a resentment absolutely was their anger, frustration yeah, but learning to harness that and shift it into creating something new for me, you know, there was a leap of faith there, it was just trust, like, excuse me, there was three questions that, you know, I love to share with you a little bit later because for people that are looking or feeling that urge to make some changes, you know, and I think it sort of starts like a little, well think about when you get an itch, right, like, you know, you get that little itch on the nose sometimes, right? It’s like almost the precursors with sneeze, but you know, it’s just sort of starting there and it’s like, oh yeah, you can feel, I can tell that there’s something there, Oh yeah, oh yeah, we start moving our nose around, trying to switch up our cheeks to try to pitch that itch. There comes a point we just can’t tolerate anymore. It’s like freaking, I want to ditch this thing, you know, like, and I look at some of the ways that I’ve encountered challenges and some of them have been so small that they’re easy to ignore, just change my focus, but they’re still there, I can feel it, there’s something there and it doesn’t feel right, I can tell it’s limiting maybe my happiness, maybe my joy, maybe my ability to do something that I really want to do for me and we ultimately have to get to a place where we just can’t tolerate anymore.
It’s like, no, and that’s enough. I’m not going to stand for this anymore. And I think we all get to that point at different times, you know, but we all get there eventually and I, anybody I’ve ever seen have major changes and shifts or pivots in their life big, big change, they usually, it’s not something that just happened on a whim it’s usually built up to that over time, you know? But we get to that point, it’s like, okay, well, I either except that I’m the one who’s gonna have to make some changes here to change my situation, or I’m not, but if I’m not, it’s like, better stop complaining about it, at least, you know, that was the way I had to get to. I had to get to the point where I just like, I can’t talk about my frustration anymore if I’m not willing to do anything about it. Yes. it seems a little unjust to happen at such a young age, but I also think learning that lesson at that time is probably very beneficial at the same time. So 20 months later, what’s next for you? What happens? Well, it was interesting because at this point in time in my life, you know, coming into my late teen years, I now Thomas between you and I, and everybody is listening and watching this, uh, when we hear the term intrinsic and extrinsic motivations right there, sort of those internal drivers as well as the external motivators.
So, you know, like, as an example, if you’re in a career and you’re being, you know, got a little bonus being dangled to hit a certain sales target. Well, that would be an extrinsic motivation, you know? But there might be an internal driving, you know, there might be something that’s very egocentric that’s driving the stores. I know for myself, my past sales experience, it was like, I want to be number one on the sales board, you know, like I want to be the definitely ego driving, that’s internal value system of mine was in my competitive nature, you know, was there? but what are we going to that, I was just thinking about what your question was about, what’s next for 17? Yeah, sorry, so here’s the deal at 17, I wanted a girlfriend, Okay, like I wanted a girlfriend actually at 14, almost 15, like that was my external motivator, I just wanted someone to want me, like, you know, as a teen boy, that’s just what I wanted. I saw my friends talking to girls, some girls interact with them and was like, I want some of that, I want to interact with some girls, I want to have a girlfriend and so at 17 I had a girlfriend now and but that was fun, but also the fact that I started to to grow my my social sphere as well, I started actually getting invited to go places because I was more outgoing.
I was actually willing to have conversations with people. Now we’re before, I would shy away, I would sort of avoid it, I would be very much on my own, you have some, some endorphins coming from the bike probably make you feel a bit better. Yes, absolutely, no, no, no, you’re, you’re, you’re spot on. And so there’s a lot of things that we’re changing, but I was still really young, very immature, but I started to really appreciate coaching now, I’ve never coached anybody prior to that, but what, what started happening was friends and my parents, friends of friends who had seen this transformation literally over this 20 months, like, I it’s like night and day, you know, like very different, of course, you can see in the face same person, but everything changed and so they started asking me questions, they come around, I’ll be like, my mom’s in the back, you know, it’s like, well actually we’ll stay hydrated, but we’re here to talk to you, I’m like, why do you want to talk to me why? And they said, well, we’re, we want to make some changes with our health and we thought you’d be great to talk to, we see the life that you’ve been living the lifestyle to see the results that you created for yourself, can you help us?
And I was like, okay, you know, I was excited, I was like, you actually care what I have to say, you trust my opinion, you’re looking for me to support you, I want to support you, this is awesome. And that was where I got my first taste of coaching and mentorship and I was like, wow, this is awesome. It made me feel really fulfilled, made me feel really good. But it also changed my level of accountability to myself to be honest, like because now it’s like, okay, well not, I mean I was doing a lot of these changes for me and also for a girlfriend, but I was doing it, you know, largely just thinking about me, we’re all of a sudden I realised that the things that I was doing the way I was living my life was actually becoming a positive influence in other people’s lives and I was like, wow, this is really interesting, this is cool. And so my own accountability to keep doing what I was doing obviously elevated and I feel really confident what’s also allowed me to just sustain that lifestyle for 30 plus years now and uh, so that’s sort of what happened and then eventually moved from Ontario to Vancouver for, for university and got into equipment sales and that just took off and founded a company and worked there for 17 years, you know, where I met my wife and my kids and grew my network and just, you know, it was, you know, I started adult ng right?
And figuring things out, but I learned very quickly in my early twenties because I still had uh, you know, some professionals have referred to it more as a social anxiety, that’s what they think it’s more sounds more like, but for me it was just get around large groups and I just, and I know that was influenced a lot from my early teen years, especially in that state of obesity. Like I avoided crowds. I just the amount of self-consciousness that I had and that that little self-opinion, you know, like just psychological, I couldn’t be around people and it really affected how I interacted with people and, and so all of a sudden now getting into my twenties moving out on my own, like literally across the country, you know, it’s like the two furthest points and because I wanted to go somewhere where no one knew my past, I’m just like, you know that I’m straight up. Like I thought, you know, everybody in my town, they remembered the fat kid, right? Even my girlfriends, I’d have to date a year or two up because they wouldn’t know me at that point. So they only knew me as the guy that I was now, you know, and so I was excited about this idea of starting fresh.
But then I realised very early on that yeah, I discovered that alcohol was a really easy way to get comfortable very quickly and to open up and have conversations with people that are quite frankly strangers or people I just want to connect and start making new friends and it just became really easy again, this became my, my lifestyle. I knew at the end of the day, after a hard day two, it was stressed and with people, couple drinks, I’ll feel better. I just numb things, I’ll escape for a moment. And this just continued onward for many years, over a decade. This was my normal up until about 33 and uh, and that’s where, you know, things just got really hard, really quick because now that lifestyle was really negatively affecting not only my career, but especially my family life. And uh, to the point that, you know, my wife and I were entertaining separating and ultimately divorcing and at that point my kids were both under the age of six and uh, it was really rough patch in our relationship and I was the one driving the challenges, you know, and based on my, my choices and based on my valuing alcohol and certain drugs over what I already had, what was right in front of me, these things that I, I worked so hard to, to achieve and create.
And yet I was compromising all that by these other choices. I was prioritising which were way outside of my value system. You know, like they didn’t even a line and you know, so you start getting into this sort of inner debate. It’s like, okay, I’m saying this one thing and then I’m doing this and oh, and you imagine me a guy in the fitness and wellness industry in this space, really, I have a, you know, I’ve made some really interesting connections over the years and, and put a lot of content out there and yet I felt like a fraud and again dealing with that negative energy and that negative thought pattern is like, oh well I knew I could go have a workout, I’ll do that, but then I’ll chase it with some drinks, you know, it was just like over and over and yeah, that’s sort of where the Ted X talk actually talks a lot about that period. Well, briefly, um, that little story, my, my wife ultimately asked me a question one day, those listening, this is the question if there’s ever been a question in my life that’s made the biggest change for me, like, and like I just said, my wife looked me in the eyes, you know, we’ve been crying for both bloodshot eyes at this point, you know, it’s about an hour into that conversation where we’re trying to reconcile, what are we going to do next?
And she asked me, she said, die, are you being the type of man you want your daughters to marry? And I don’t know Thomas, but when she asked me that question, yes, it was, I know it’s kind of upon here, but it was very sobering. Like it was in that moment, I just all of a sudden realised, you know what this person that I’ve been, if someone like me at that moment, you know, 11 plus years ago showed up on my doorstep and said, hey, I would like to meet your wife or meet your daughters, You know, of course not that age, but you know what I mean? Like if they were there and wanting to get to know my family, you know, at a deeper level, I’d be like, no, you’re not getting in here, man, like there’s no way, but that’s who I was, that’s why I was role model, That’s what I was patterning as being okay to my kids, which at the age of four and six, you know, my wife as well, that’s just what I was doing. I was role modelling those behaviours and that that was ok and uh, I made a commitment to them right then and there I was gonna go one year without drinking, it wasn’t just one year, like, that’s how it started, it wasn’t like, I got a great at and there was no thoughts like, oh, I’m an alcoholic, you know, like, again, I really struggle with that because I had any given time when I was making the choice to either not reply to my wife’s text message to say yes to my buds to go to the pub, You know, or stay a little bit longer on the 19th green after a round of golf, you know, I was fully aware of all my choices.
Yeah, I was where I was making the choice to consume at no point did I feel I was powerless And so I made a decision one year Thomas, that one year at the age of 33 was one of the most interesting years of my life. Only because as soon as I said no to alcohol, I realised how much of a crutch it had become in my life because it was crazy. The first few weeks were agonising, I had no idea what to do, no idea, you know, like, I was just like, I do not have the faculties to deal with this because all of my life didn’t change, life was still happening. I was still doing with all those other stresses, you know, building scaling my company, deal with a lot of people, you know, and my family, we had other initiatives, you know, charities that we were part of and the overwhelm was real and you know, of course my instincts like, oh jeez, I need a drink, like, and so here I am, I’m like, well what am I going to do?
And, and I’d like to share this openly because I want people to know there’s nothing wrong with this, even though I wasn’t open about this at the beginning, you know, when I was first going through this and I was very private and what I was doing and how I was coping and how I was learning to function again in a healthier way and you know, I found a psychologist, I worked with him for four months, I found a wonderful counsellor, relationships focus counsellor, communications counsellor and worked with her for about three months originally was going to be marriage counsellor for both of us. But that’s the first couple sessions are like, no, my wife’s good. I’m the one that needs the extra counselling. And so I really just dove into now doing inner work where everything before that was focused on either professional development or me working on the exterior. I didn’t do any other work. I didn’t do any of that stuff. No, I avoided it. I was always like, that’s woo stuff. No way. You know what I mean? Like anything that came down to the mindset, came down to the interconnecting. Like even discussing vulnerability, what does that look like?
Can I be honest and open with people, you know, especially people that are close to me and I struggled with all that. And, so that was what I embraced and in that one year I grew so much and my perspective and just as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as a husband, as a father, as a friend. And at the end of the year I was like, you know what, I don’t want to drink. And then at the end of two years it’s like, you know, I still want to have a drink. I’m like just growing, I’m loving this so much and so now it’s been over 11 years. It’s just keeps going and I just there’s not even a desire, do you know what I mean? Like it’s not even a thought, like I don’t I’ve learned to function without it and I love it, you know, and it’s very much in alignment with some of my health values, you know, my lifestyle is also having a chronic autoimmune disease, helps with also solidifying some of my choices that was released the health because there’s a bigger intention behind that. And so yeah, Anyways, I feel like I’ve been talking forever here, but that was sort of, you know, the twenties and my thirties was spent doing a lot of that and then, you know, your perspective changes as you change as a person.
Sometimes your belief systems get shifted, you know, sometimes you look at things differently, Sometimes you look at your own life differently and that’s what I started to do, started asking some big questions like, what do I want from my life? I mean, it’s almost, I don’t know, do you ever sit down and think, what do I want for my life? Yeah, there’s not like one of those conversations we sit down and think about every day or or create the time to truly answer what do I want to do when I get older? Well anything right? Like what do I want to be doing? How do I want to be showing up, like what is it I want to be remembered for, you know, like it’s just, it’s really interesting and those things really start to shift four years ago for me because my father passed from pancreatic cancer and we had the opportunity because at this point in time I had left my career of 17 years, my company that I co-founded and you know, because I was just like I can’t do this anymore. The things that I want as you started, as soon as I started answering the question what I want for my life, I started realising the path I was on Thomas, it wasn’t going to allow me to achieve those things that I wanted And that was scary.
It was really scary. I equated back to that 14-year-old boy looking in the mirror again thinking what am I gonna do? I know I don’t want to be here anymore. I know there’s other things I want to be doing with my life, but how do I do it and there’s a lot of fear that comes up with that, right? The fear of the unknown especially and yet I knew it was something I needed to do and so then it, you know, trying to reconcile how does how do we make that transition, how do we start going for more of the things that we want to go for and that was a whole another, you know conundrum, but it was worthwhile pursuing because we knew we want to change long and short of it is because of that, we had the opportunity. I had left that career. My father then got sick about a year later, we had the opportunity because we have been traveling to go spend those last six months with him, you know, during that end of life period, which was amazing, you know, Like I I feel very grateful that we had that time but had some of those earlier decisions and changes, not ever happens, that wouldn’t have been an opportunity. So that’s why I always, you know, and this is where I get into that what you think about the universe and like maybe things are just meant to happen in a certain way, and that idea of trusting our instinct and getting out of our own way has really been solidified for me, Do you know what I mean?
Because I’ve seen it happen over and over again my own life now, I’m like, I can’t argue is this coincidence or is it just trusting that inner person? That inner voice that is trying to scare us the right way most of the time. I don’t think it’s ever trying to be devious. I don’t think it’s trying, I don’t think we’re trying to sell sabotage, even though I know we do. I know I do too, but there is that inner voice that ultimately I feel knows best and so how do we trust it more? Right, well you mentioned one thing which I want, I thought might be variable was said that for a time, alcohol was a bit of a coping mechanism. What did you, because I know you did some hard work on yourself, but what did you replace that with in the short term, someone else is in that particular situation? Great. That’s an awesome question, Thomas, you know, back in the time because I’d already been quite active, but I did also find that my intensity with fitness, my intentionality, even with my fitness routine, my, I was just always active, I’d be going hiking, you know, I I like ways, I have gotten quite involved in the CrossFit community I still enjoyed cycling, you know, we were just active as a family most of the time, but I found the way I would show up my workouts was always diminishing because alcohol was influencing it negatively.
So even then I’d wake up the next day and not feel like working out, you know, like you know, I had a couple too many drinks last night and then I find that the foods that I would eat the next morning were always different. I mean we all know that, right? Like drink a little too much, we’ll have our bangers and mash right or what they call it, I don’t know, you know what I mean, like we have some pretty good grease experience here in Vancouver and I know that’s where we would hang our hat after a night of drinking, right? These big breakfasts that were full of grease and clearly not very healthy, but so, you know, certain other habits were starting to evolve based on that one habit. So as soon as I removed that one habit and just stopped doing it, I did realise I had to continue to do some of the other things that has served me well and start to refocus on those again. And so for me, it was just getting back to my fitness, getting back to my regular activity and being very purposeful with it. And, and, and what I found was, and what I experienced was, you know, at the same time I started taking an interest in CrossFit even more.
And uh, it was nice because there was a competitive edge to that, right? It’s, it’s really, it’s an individual sport even though they have other people competing against each other. I always looked at it more from the challenge individually. You know, how much faster can I do this work out? How much more weight could I potentially moving in a set period of time. Like I loved how they were quantifying some of the workouts because, you know, for me that wants that number, wants to be able to quantify something, wants to be able to see improvement. It was really good for me and I found that it was just what I needed as I was continuing to do that in her work, it gave me something to really focus on, get excited about, had a wonderful community attached to it. So it was the one piece that really was instrumental in helping my decisions to not drink sustain yourself, you know? And I got excited with that. I I loved it and I always recommend people, you know, like if there’s a habit that you want to replace, you know, replacement with the health focused habit is a good, good strategy, you know, because you said earlier, you know, the endorphins right?
You’re absolutely right that you get that feel good. Endorphins search when you exercise, you move your body, you know, and if you’re someone that loves to walk us out, like you can just get enough for a walk in the fresh air that is movement with a purpose and it has a benefit to not only our mind and our spirit, but especially our body and so you’re checking off a lot of boxes through one activity. And that’s why I always like that. I like to if I’m gonna invest a certain amount of time and energy into something, what’s just going to provide with the greatest sort of benefit. And that’s why I liked fitness and I like that kind of movement. So for me that was one of the habits are really just I hate to use the term easy, it’s not a matter, nothing was really easy, but it definitely simplified the process for me, you know, I’ve heard many times that people, I don’t know if this applies to you, but people with an addictive personality, if they apply it to something like fitness, that can be extremely rewarding. Like get all sorts of valuable results from that. Just coming back to where you were before you moved from one side of the country to another before you went to university, you touched on someone asking you for coaching.
Did that I know that was just one individual instance, but that didn’t go very far. Yeah, so, you know, they were friends of my parents and uh, so we wouldn’t see him that often, but I would guide them to tell them, you know, some of the books that I had read, I introduce them to the gym, I invite them to come maybe do a workout with me, you know, maybe go for a bike ride. It was more so just uh, it wasn’t a formal coaching arrangement, you know, but I was still coaching. So I used to bet, right, yeah, I was gonna taste it for sure. But I did see with some of my peers though, because I had started to put on mass, but you know, muscle mass and also being got at six ft one, you know, I was one of the bigger guys and my groups and, and you know, even though I was late to fitness, some of my friends are very athletic, like I was getting gains and you know, I feel very fortunate that I I have the body type that if I do want to apply myself to, especially some resistance training, I have put on mass pretty easily, you know?
And so a lot of my friends were like, dude, you know, I remember this one year I must put on 25 pounds of muscle. It was it was crazy how much weight I put on and in a good way, of course. And so I had a lot of these other guys, like, we want to work out with you, you know, and that was of course it pumped up my ego, but it also got me really excited because I was not able to help all of them, you know, and they actually valued what I had to say. And so that was really, yeah, I mean, it was fun, it was fun, you know, But when I referenced the ego, I do know that that’s drove a lot of my decisions for a long time, you know? And it is also a big part of why I was attracted to alcohol and how it made me feel and, you know, so it’s one of the things I’m trying to if there’s anything I can sort of clarifies that I’ve recognised how my ego’s influenced me in negative ways based on. Yes.
Yes, absolutely, and that’s just something that’s come with age and I know it’s it sounds so appreciate, I’m like, oh man, I think back to my parents, I’ll just wait to your age, you know, I can be like whatever, I’m never getting that old, and you know, of course, here I am, it’s amazing, right? Like when you do embrace that, that change and you start to really apply yourself, it’s wonderful what’s possible for anyone, you know? And right back to how I opened up, you know, talking about the resiliency of us as a species, like it’s already in us, our ability to changes in us, it’s just sometimes we have to give it a little boost a little a little bit of an initial push to generate some inertia to get that momentum built up. And you know, that’s what you get moving though, as long as you’re getting around the right people, I really feel strongly about community, you need that support, you know, we’re social beings and I look at all my shifts in my life and I’m very grateful that I had really strong communities to support unconditionally as well as for the accountability and so if there’s any one thing that people take away from today, it’s like listen if you want to make some changes just make some changes, I know it sounds stupid to say it that way, but if you find a community of people that are embracing this new lifestyle and you have it you want to create is, it feels like it’s less than half it really does.
But it’s also going to make it harder on those days where you’re like that little voice in your minds, like, you know, it hasn’t really become a lifestyle yet. It’s like, uh, you know, it’s not early morning, it’s like you’re looking at the running shoes and it’s like, oh, I’d rather stay in bed a little bit longer skies looking great. It’s gonna ring uh, maybe I’ll just go for a run later, right? And, and but if you’ve got a, you’ve been accountable to somebody else to show up for that runner, you’ve got a coach, you gotta report to that morning, log that work out. It’s just a lot harder to say no to somebody else, especially when we’ve made a commitment to them, you know, let alone a commitment to ourselves that we haven’t told anybody about. And I think everybody is probably on the other side and I’ve done that all right, continue to do that. I continue to do that too. Like it’s all good. I’m not here to criticise or to judge, but I do recognise it’s just a trait that, that many of us have and it’s just, again, another strategy to help you get through that and that’s why I love the accountability, but more than that, the community connection and it’s pretty cool, we have lots of community options online.
It’s not quite the same thing as the in person. Um, but for now, hey, it’s better than nothing, you know, another tool, isn’t it, that it is an accountability partner. You mentioned that you started your business, When did that happen? And what does it look like? Oh yeah, so, okay, my original business was fitness equipment and supplements, apparel. Gosh, we were doing commercial as well as retail, so we had eight retail stores as well as some B two B enterprises and uh, all across the country. And uh, so did that for 17 years, it was a lot of fun. I met some amazing people learned a ton, but you know, towards the end there, it’s just I realised it wasn’t fulfilling me the way I wanted to be fulfilled wasn’t allowing me to embrace some other things that I wanted more in my life. Like I wanted more time with my family, you know, that that was a priority because, you know, when you’re growing and scaling a company and, you know, and this actually almost sounds like an excuse I want to take that away because I, I know of other entrepreneurs at that, wow, that somehow they’ve been able to do it.
I struggled with it, you know, that that idea of balancing my relationships at home as well as my commitment to work in my career. I struggled with that. Not so much now, but I did and so I knew that there were some changes we wanted to make, and fortunately for me, I started blogging and creating online content about 14 years ago because I I it was a passion of mine, I always enjoyed writing, I like that creative aspect, you know, for me it was it was very cathartic but it also made me feel fulfilled and but it was something I could do on the side, it was a few years after that and I was still working at my previous company and I had a friend that was in the digital marketing space. I mean he asked me actually to come in and speak to his networking group that he runs this monthly mastermind group. And so I came in to speak and then after the talk we got to talking and I was talking about my blog and all this excitement I was having with building this sort of like online profile and just how I was able to help so many more people than just the people here in Vancouver.
You know, like I just shared with them how good I was feeling about that. And I remember him looking at my analytics because he has to look at him and I showed him he’s like dude, are you making any money with this? I’m like well you know what, you can make money doing this stuff, I had no idea to all of us know, like so green, right? And uh, and he was like, yeah, I was like really? And so he gave me a little bit of a brief education and I was like, wow, this is kind of cool and, and you know, I just kept doing that, kept building it and then brands started reaching out to me, you know, as well as other individuals and it was just, it was really interesting and some pretty big companies like walt, Disney, Nike, Microsoft, you know, like some really big brands were starting to reach out to me and, and so I was getting the opportunity to do some more speaking, I was getting the opportunity to do some brands campaigns, some spokesperson work. and I was like, wow, this is a lot of fun, but the cool thing is a lot of this is just online, wow, I know me being in the retail space, you know, it’s like, it’s brick and mortar and it might as well be called ball and chain because it’s really what it is.
I couldn’t ever get away for a long time because just, that’s the operations, it’s not built the way for me to be like a nomad, a digital nomad right? But we knew that that was more of a lifestyle that we wanted because it was aligning with a lot of our values and the things that we wanted, like more time with family, the ability to travel, the ability to meet people around the world. Like all these boxes were getting checked as we started to look more and more into the digital space. And so we transitioned, we started took a leap of faith. We’re like, well let’s don’t have enough income coming in from the online efforts to replace what we had with my current company and income. But we have belief, we know we can do this, you know, and at the same time I was writing a book and it was just getting ready to be published. So at the same time as the book is being published, I was leaving my past company so we could get rid of all our stuff. I literally quit my job, my wife quit her as a month later, a few months after that we pulled the kids out of school, gave away all of our stuff. No kept one car, whatever we could fit in the back of that SUV that’s what we took with us and we just started heading south.
We started traveling and we sort of called an impromptu book tour right? Was sort of that that that way that we were sort of positioning it even though we already knew well we’re going, we don’t know when we’ll be back. We had, there was no agenda. Like dude, a lot of people like you guys are nuts. Like what are you going? I don’t, I don’t know, we’re just gonna start driving. We had some friends in Seattle were like, well that would be our first stop, will go there and we ended up just hanging out there for a couple weeks and then we went on our way and continue down south. We were chasing the sun to be honest, like this was January, Vancouver in January, I’m sure Thomas knowing the weather that you’re accustomed to, it’s pretty much the same, you know, so it’s, that’s just, we were like, no sunshine, please, warmth please. And up with these parkas and uh, so we went south and uh, at the same time, you know, I started to embrace coaching because I had people reaching out that wanted support, I knew I could support them, help them. Um, it’s sort of evolved over the last six years, different services, different offerings online, a lot of speaking, not as much with the year that we’ve had, but that’s starting to pick up again.
A lot of them have been virtual events and just, you know, continuing to just try to support people, but I didn’t have a business plan, I didn’t have an idea of what’s the business going to look like. I just knew that I had some skills, I knew that other people out there were doing this and doing it in a big way and I knew I had enough knowledge that I’m very coachable, I can be taught new things. Remember, finding my first business coach, I get in this space, a business coaches started work with, well, we lived in Bali for 2.5 years during the six years that we were away and while I was there I hired a coach and developed some signature systems and programs and I know you’re feeling this in the space that you’re in and you know, we, we brought that out and we, we presented it and we had all these people that wanted to partake and I was like, whoa, this is amazing. You know, we, we sold out that very first program and then we sold it the next one, we sold it the next one and I was like, wow, this is fun. I get to help people just live their life the way they want to live in and can see that improvement and it was like, this is all I want to just keep doing this, you know?
And that’s sort of just how it’s involved, you know? And I still, people still ask me to say, well what do you do, exactly, I’m like, I do this and this and this and that, but and I tell you, they were always very quick, wow, you sound super busy. I go, well actually I’m not, but my days are very full, you know, they are full, but they’re full of the choices and the commitments that I want to make, you know, like I’m not doing anything. I don’t want to be doing right now. And that’s a very freeing feeling. And it’s only recently I I gotta be honest with the other Thomas because I get this fast for people like, well how do you see this? I’m like, you know, there’s been months where it’s just month to month man and we’re making just enough to make it by very, very straight up, you know, and but we’ve become very aware of our finances were very good at planning now, especially a special forecasting them incomes and what’s coming in, what’s going out, A couple of kids, they need embraces. They needed, oh man, just kids like they’re, they’re a big investment, They’re worth it, big investment, you know, and uh, so you know, there’s been all these things that we’ve had to learn and embrace and get really good at doing.
Uh, so we could sustain this lifestyle and it’s only in the last year I replaced my original income. So it’s only now, you know, almost 56 years later that I’ve finally got to a point where, you know, my previous incomes now been replaced and uh, but now it’s on my terms, I could do what I want to do. So it’s a nice thing to celebrate, you know, and I do realise it didn’t come overnight, but it was worth it, You know, all that work, you said you were co-founder of that original business, did you, did you exit that business? But did you sell your part of it in order to fund you? No, I wish. So what ended up happening was I left and my business partner was 20 years my senior and so I came on was working with a previous company that he was a joint venture partner in and this is actually pretty interesting. So here is, he’s already got this part of this national company, a national chain candidates, the largest chain of candidate for fitness equipment.
And he was a joint venture partner for Western Canada. So I started working with him while I was still going to university, was still going to UBC, but I was working part time selling equipment and I loved it. I sell really, really quickly because again I was very coachable, I was hungry. It was also the first time I was ever in a position where it was before performance based pay. So the more people I served and helped basically, the more people I could help get healthier, more money I made and I was like, is this legit, this is real like this is awesome and I was like, I love this, this is great. So I mean what happened was I ended up you know, school was winding down, I, I went on full time and I got promoted to manage really quickly, which is great because it was a different bonus structure, more potential and I was like, wow, this is awesome. And I was debating whether I wanted to go back to school to be a lawyer or a teacher. I was really my only option, I mean with philosophy and English Lit that you’re kind of limited with choices. So I then started to make more money than teachers and I was very close to two lawyers that we’re partners, you know, in firms.
And I was like, But my lifestyle was awesome. I was like, you know, it’s a 40 hour work week and I’m working during the days and my days off are typically, you know, during the week because I worked on weekends and you know, it just, things are really good. They were great. And uh, there came a point where he had this partner that I was working, for he had a falling out with his other partners and they end up separating going off his independence and so he had to start again and I, he was my mentor, my first real business mentor and I felt very loyal to him. And so when the opportunity came about to go off and start something new, I was like, yeah, I’m in, Let’s do this. And so fortunately for me, 20 years more in business, 20 years, my senior, I eat, he had all the equity, okay, I didn’t because I was still in my early twenties at this point and still very early on in my career and but he was the money guy and I could be a workhorse and I knew what to do and I knew how to do it really well, but I also had to learn new skills as we went, you know, like I was just a really good manager at that time, a good trainer, good sales guy, but I had to learn a lot of new skills as we started to grow the companies, you know from one location to aid and unique.
Um And all that stuff, you know, it was all stuff I had to learn and long and short of it, I was a junior partner. All right, I didn’t know the majority of the company, it’s not like a 50 50 year. And but my I was paid really, really well. The bonuses were well, like it was, it was awesome, no complaints. I was, and the intention was for me to start buying down more of the company as he was going to exit over time and but I didn’t want to be there anymore, you know, and that’s the scary part you get to this place where it’s just like, you know, I just don’t wanna be here anymore, I don’t wanna be doing this anymore. We were in a down market at that time, it wasn’t a good time to sell And he knew it. I knew it. Plus you know that extra equity to come out to buy out my shares. It just wasn’t feasible for the company. And from a casual perspective, so we made an arrangement to just maintain my shares. I’ll just go off and do my own thing. So I’ll basically be a silent partner, non-voting rights. Just have that equity tied up. Well, a few years ago, you know, we got to a point where, you know, we just got to deal with this.
We’ve got to get rid of this one. It’s kind of like a liability. They had some expansion plans and they had to clean up the shareholders arrangements. And uh, so I had to take a buyout and it wasn’t what it was worth, but it was enough for me to just say, okay, whatever to be done with this and be free and clear of it. Not have to deal with any of the stress or any of the other attachments that were with that. It was very free. But it wasn’t any amount that I could retire on or anything like that. And we didn’t have any of those finances for our travels. We had actually started traveling for that. We had very minimal savings because most of my equity was tied up in the company. But we made it work. And like, so this is why I say, people are always like, well, I I would never want to go travel with my family for porn period unless I had the money in the bank and I’m like well if you look at your lifestyle like we eliminated our overhead, we downsized to one vehicle. You know like we when you eliminate a lot of your overhead and over the costs that are just part of what your normal life looks like and you start to reallocate that you realise and we realised that we can maintain that travel lifestyle on a fraction of what our monthly overhead was living in downtown Vancouver.
You could just, it was really clear to us when we started to plan it out and yet I mean we wouldn’t be staying at five star hotels okay we’re not going over the moon but we were going to travel modestly and just have experiences, you know and you a counselling yourself at that time, would you have advised you yourself to do anything different at the beginning of that arrangement or are you fairly happy with how it all went? Yeah, I think well for me, you know there came a period of time that where we did dip into a line of credit and really I became quite overextended, there was a bit of stress. They’re like just you know there was a fair bit of stress and we were fortunately we had a couple good launches and so that wasn’t really a problem anymore but we still had these liabilities outstanding and we wanted to just be free of all the debt and I think it would, I would advise myself to have a clear debt repayment plan, you know, a way of servicing the debt because for us we had some of that, we were just like, well we’ll get to that later once we have, you know, a more stable income source, we’ll start to service that debt rather than bare minimums.
And I think it would’ve been much more responsible had I had a really tight repayment plan or had eliminated most of that debt before we went travelling. That would have been a much more sound and smart idea and I would advise other people because if you’re gonna use debt and then create more debt to go and chase your dream, it’s just, there’s a lot of risk and you know, I have a family, I got a couple of kids, it’s not like I was a solo dude, it’s like, but my wife and I just, so you’re aware of this and listen, as we had conversations about this too, we knew the risk and we actually got to that point where we’re like, well what is the worst that can happen? And this is sort of, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Tim Ferriss Ted X talk where he talks about fear setting, but that is this exercise where you can basically just ask yourself and you just let your imagination go and you know, you’re ready to embrace maybe some big big changes like, well what’s the worst thing that can happen? So what’s the worst thing we can happen? We go through with this, we start traveling were like, well, we’ve run out of money, the vehicle breaks down, we don’t have two nickels to rub together, What do we do?
You know? And we’re like, well we have family that cares for us. They already told us they’ve got spare bedrooms, we need to crash that we can crash. There were very employable, like the skill sets that we have between the two of us were very employable. And I know that without a doubt. And you know, I feel the head-hunter calls quite regularly. So I know that there’s opportunity if we ever needed it. So I know we’ll be okay from that standpoint now. Of course there’s the other stuff like going to Southeast Asia, it’s like, okay, do we need some shots? You know, do we have to get some vaccines is what’s it like to travel there? What’s like for money where we’re gonna live? You know, like there’s all those little things you got to worry about too, but we really wanted to think what’s the worst and that was sort of the worst thing that we could really imagine was that that was the most real thing that we thought was realistic realistically possible, right? Was this idea of just running out of money and not having money coming in and just kind of being stranded, you know? And fortunately never happened, but it was good to have that conversation because then we sort of knew what was the risk going into that, even knowing that wrong, we have the spirit of debt there, we don’t have a plan to service it, but we’re going to go do this anyways, you know?
And so that’s, you know, if I’m perfectly honest with you, that’s sort of the biggest concerns we had right around that time when we were leaving. So what does the business activity look like now and what are your goals for it? Yeah, I love that you asked that because, you know, I think like many of us, we’ve experienced a fair bit of change over the last year, I was forecasted, you know, we were moving back to Vancouver, so our kids could finish high school here. My family moved back six months before I did, because I still had retreats and speaking engagements and I was doing some work for some brands over there. So I had a six-month commitment to maintain before I could relocate back to Vancouver with them. this is all pre covid, like literally when I returned back, it was a month and a half later, full lockdown happens. So it’s just, you know, I mentioned earlier, sort of, the universe is trying to tell you something, things work out for a reason, it was like, it just worked out that way. I was back and I feel very grateful that we were back and situated back here in a very comfortable, safe way.
When all that happened, bye. I had already booked out a lot of talks and a lot of other opportunities were booked in for my year. It was actually, I was on track projecting a freaking best year. I was like, it would be great, that would be awesome. Coming back to Vancouver, I’ll be back in north America because I was a sticking point for a lot of brands and opportunities I was presented with was I needed to be in north America, a lot of people weren’t willing to pay the extra travel costs and expenses and that’s fair, I understand people with the budget. So, uh, so being back in north Korea, I was like, yeah, okay, well now I can reconnect with everybody, can just really re-establish what I was doing before, but do it in a bigger way and I had to change all that because 80% of my revenues that was forecasted for the year one way literally in a matter of weeks. And uh, and you know, and I’ve heard this same sort of story from a lot of other people, especially people that are in event based businesses, you know, or, or a lot of the revenues come from participating in events, which for me, a good chunk of that. I was doing a lot of key noting and uh, and so I had to adjust.
So I sort of, I launched a couple new programs, um, started doing a bit more, I was very focused on the social I was putting out as well. You know, I was just, I like to tell a story. I’m someone that would rather show than tell. So when I’m telling a story, I’ll often ask the question because that reflection, but then I often will explain how that answer is showing up for me right now. You know, my answer, how I’m experiencing the answer that question and invite people to join me in that conversation and it’s been wonderful. But because of those conversations, I was able to identify some other needs very real in my, my audiences and, and so I was very quick to sort of pivot and create some options, create some conversations and, and brought on a lot of new clients and uh, I was able to sort of offset that. So now my business, you know, I coach, uh, 1.5 days a week. So typically Wednesdays and Thursdays and my coaching days Mondays, like Monday, Tuesday is sort of a creative day and then, uh, I take Friday through Sundays off and with the exception today you’re my only commitment this morning and uh, but, but that’s sort of what it looks like and I’m again starting to do a lot more talks.
I do trainings like the leadership trainings as well as lifestyle trainings for corporations and organisations. And you know, I just listen, I’m all about having fun and all about supporting people to really live their healthiest life. And I mean that from you know, being physically fit, emotionally fit, financially fit as well as psychologically fit and so I incorporate all that element into what I do and it’s just fun, man, that’s what I like to do. Well, thank you very much for telling your story. I loved it. Can you tell us where the best place for people to find you is? Well, thank you Thomas like this has been a wonderful conversation, even though I feel it’s been very one sided and I, but I love your questions. I love how you hold space. I just, I really, you know, you make it really easy to talk. I just want to commend you and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share a bit of my story today. And I really hope that people resonated with this and pick it up on something, but you know, so when I’m sharing about where you can find me, please find me.
Have a conversation. And when it comes to social media I’m most active on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. All you have to do is type in my name. Dai Manuel and you’ll find me, that’s the nice thing about having a unique name. All the social platforms were unencumbered. So every time a platform pops up, like even, you know, clubhouse as of late Dai Manuel. Well, you know, it’s like really easy but I have a website, diamanuel.com, as I told you earlier, I’ve been blogging now into my 15th year And there’s 1800 content articles on there that are all geared towards what I’ve been talking about today as well as a ton of free resources. The sites being redesigned right now. So we just got a working piece up there, but it’s functional so you can get into the content. You can just sort of dive in and look into other ways of maybe working through some of the challenges or some of the changes that you want to make. There’s lots there. I apologize a little bit because I know people will criticise like I go there and it’s like I get stuck.
You know, it’s like the article, but you know that its value added content. You have questions about it,reach out to me. I’m always around Dai Manuel.
Thank you very much.
Thank you Thomas.