July 21, 2025 • 36 mins
The brilliant James Carss joins the We Are PoWEr Podcast – this time sharing a story of trauma, transformation, and finding poWEr through purpose, discipline, and inclusion.
In this episode, James opens up about training daily as a teenager to moving to Hong Kong with just a suitcase, James’s journey is packed with resilience, humour, and heart. He shares the life-changing mentorship he found with a Chinese martial arts master, his unexpected stint in the movie industry, and how those experiences now guide his work as Chief Exec of Castle Peak Group.
From the dojo to the boardroom, James brings a poWErful message of mindfulness, integrity, and the impact of creating space for others to thrive.
In this episode:
Turning childhood trauma into a lifelong mission
Why martial arts became his anchor
Life in Hong Kong and mentorship that transcended language
From martial arts films to Geordie “Russian” lines
Founding Castle Peak Group and leading with fairness
Building inclusive workplaces that value difference
The importance of staying present
Find out more about We Are PoWEr here. 💫
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power
podcast.
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We release an episode everysingle Monday with listeners in
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(00:21):
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Awards, which celebrateshundreds of female role models
and advocates every year.
This is where you can hearstories from all of our awards
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Mpw Awards and we Are PowerNever imitated, never replicated
(00:42):
singularly wonderful,everybody's wonder girl.
Well, hello and welcome to thisweek's podcast.
I am delighted today to bejoined on our teal lovely teal,
isn't it?
Our teal sofas by James Carrsone R2S's, by the way.
Who?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
is the chief exec of Castle Peak.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Welcome.
Welcome to Liverpool, Welcometo the studio.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Thank you so much, simone.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Lovely to be here on the teal sofa Now we met
probably only just more than sixmonths ago at a rooftop bar in
Newcastle, didn't we, when wewere up?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
there on tour, man, we did, yeah, you know what I
love, what you do.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I want to partner with you guys.
It was, yeah, probably like yousaid the easiest sale ever.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I know, I know, I know the thing I mean.
The ironic thing is it's it'sdifficult for me, and what I do,
to close deals and I gave youthe easiest close to do, didn't
I?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I was waiting.
I was waiting for the camera tocome out.
I'm like what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
It's a setup, it's a joke.
It was a great decision and Ididn't have any doubt in my mind
.
I mean, that was the, that wasthe thing and it was.
That was the first time I metyou guys in person, but you were
all so great and authentic andthe conversations and so
welcoming to me because that wasthe first time that I'd been at
one of your events and it wasquite.
It was quite a small event, butthe quality of people that you
(01:56):
had there and the conversationthat was going on, I was like,
yeah, this will be good.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And you'd been nominated also at that point
because I think this was justbefore Christmas time.
I didn't know that, though.
No, and you've been nominatedfor the Northern Power Women
Awards advocacy list as well,and you are on the 2025 advocacy
list, so congratulations.
We'll get into all of that,we'll unpack all of that in a
second.
But how would you describeyourself?
I always like to say in oneword, but I think that's
flipping impossible forNortherners at the best of times
.
But give us a sentence or threewords, and how would you?
(02:29):
How?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
would you say who you are?
If it was going to be one word,I would just say a friend.
If it was going to be threewords friend, supporter, ally.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Wow, okay, and you've had such an interesting life.
You've lived over in hong kong.
You've lived a short period oftime in canada I think as well
in vancouver um, but it's safeto say that martial arts has
been fundamental to who you are.
Yeah, and the path that youhave trodden take us through
some of those like life lessonsthat you've learned, and across
(03:02):
those different continents aswell yeah, I mean it has.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It has been centric to my life.
It's also been centric to thedecision making on the places
that I've gone to, the placesI've gone to live and the the
paths that I've taken and thedecisions and it's.
But it's.
It's actually very centric towhat I'm doing now and a lot of
people don't know this.
Actually, I think I've talkedabout it once before, but I was
involved in a race attack when Iwas about 10 years old.
(03:29):
So myself and an Asian friendwere badly beaten up, as in,
like put in hospital, beaten up,and there's a bit of a story
behind that.
But it was in the late 80s kindof at that time when, you know,
when racism was a lot moreovert than it is now still here
now, but but, but it was, it wasmore violent from from some
(03:50):
perspectives and uh, and I wasvery young, so think events like
that to happen, a violent eventat that at that age, kind of
shapes you and what you do.
So so, um, so that that took meinto the martial arts, first of
all because I was like I'mnever gonna let that happen
again, um, and and started to totrain in multiple disciplines
(04:15):
from a really young age whichled to an absolute obsession and
I mean obsession that you know,at the age of 12, 13 I was.
I was training four or fivehours a day, every evening, and
my whole life revolved around it, and I knew very quickly at
that point that I needed to goout to the Orient and train and
(04:36):
that's what I wanted to, and Ibecame obsessed with the movies
and Bruce Lee was my herogrowing up, which still is my
hero now, who was, you know,somebody who faced massive
discrimination in his life, in,especially when he was in
america, when he was inhollywood, on trying to get into
, uh, the movie industry, andeverything that he achieved and
went through and and and did so.
There's massive story about himand also being part of a mixed
(04:58):
race family and stuff, so, um,so yeah, so it determined many
things, of course now.
Now, I suppose the the type ofmartial arts that I do, which is
predominantly Chinese martialarts.
We call it the internal school,things like Tai Chi, et cetera.
It's about mindfulness, aboutbeing in the moment, and that
does help you develop deeplevels of concentration,
(05:21):
connection between your mind andyour body, and things like that
, and I've I'm still learningabout being an entrepreneur and
a business owner.
It's only 18 months in right.
I've got a long background indoing what I've done in
recruitment and executive search, but actually running it as a
business for myself.
I'm a white belt, right, andthat's one thing I do.
Love is the white beltmentality in everything I do,
(05:43):
that you should never think likea black belt or a 10th dan.
You should always think likewhat have you got to learn?
What do you need to do?
And life is all about learning.
So no matter how experiencedyou are, no matter how good you
might think you are at somethingor a set of skills you've
developed, you're always a whitebelt and in our martial art we
don't wear any belts anyway haveany gradings.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So so you had this awful, traumatic incident that
you witnessed at the age of 10by the age of 12.
This you're training four timesa week.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
You're committed, you're all hours a day four
hours a day.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Sorry, four hours a day, uh.
At what point did you then takeyourselves over?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
take yourself over with your family to yeah, well,
I went by myself first, so whatage were you then?
I was in my late 20s so Istudied sports science
university.
So it took me academicallythrough that route.
I wasn't very good at doingGCSEs and A levels and things
like that because I just didn'thave an interest level in doing
(06:41):
that.
So I ended up kind of throughthe vocational qualifications,
did a BTEC in leisure and thattook me through clearing to get
into a university which wasn't agood university from uh,
academic point of view it was a.
It was the university of um.
Luton, which is nowBedfordshire, was the first year
they'd been a university butthey were running a really good
sport course.
So that was life-changing forme to get away from home for the
(07:03):
first time as well at the ageof sort of 18, 19 and uh, and be
in a town like luton which hasgot it's.
It's a, it's a, it's abrilliant town, but it's got its
own unique characteristics aswell.
If you've ever been, that'svery different from where I grew
up in north townside, um.
So, and then that took me tolondon, which I worked in
executive search for a few yearsand I was trying to find my
(07:26):
opportunity to get out to HongKong.
So I knew it was going to beHong Kong.
So I managed to get a role inbanking recruitment.
I started in finance firstbecause I knew banking would be
the easiest route.
Once I had that experience,hong Kong being a big financial
services hub, that would make memore employable over there.
So everything was kind of setout from that point of view.
Eventually eventually managedto get out there when I was yeah
(07:49):
, I was in my late 20s at thetime.
I went out with literally withone suitcase by myself.
I didn't have any kind ofrelocation help or anything like
that.
I had secured a role out therebut on a local package, not not
as an expat or anything likethat.
It was a really interesting timein Hong Kong at that point
because they just got over SARSand they'd been through this
(08:11):
terrible pandemic which was Imean, covid was awful here, but
SARS was, I think, fair to say,a more serious disease.
To get the.
The rate of fatalities from itwas was was much higher.
That had decimated theireconomy and, uh, and also the
(08:32):
recruitment industry, becausepeople wouldn't get together and
have interviews and havemeetings.
There was no teams or zoom oranything.
There was skype, but if youremember what skype calls were
like, you know, trying to tryingto get a connection and stuff
on that.
So so I went out at this reallyinteresting time, which was
fortuitous timing for me becausethe economy was going like that
and recovering from it veryfast and so, yeah, but I was at
(08:57):
that point, I was by myself.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
But then I think that's something I read.
Was that you a mentor?
And it was your martial artsmentor who became you're like
your Chinese dad, I think if Iread yeah, that's what I call
him, and you became part of thefamily.
So you're there locally on thelocal package.
So you haven't got all thetrimmings, trimmings of an
ex-fight.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, I wasn't living up on the peak or anything like
that.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
But the power of that mentorship must have made all
that difference.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It did.
It's a very, very strong bondand relationship that we've got
and when I first went out toHong Kong, I wanted to.
I was almost like a kid at asweet shop.
I wanted to test out everymartial arts school, every
teacher.
I had a very looserecommendation for this one
school that didn't advertiseanywhere, didn't have any
website, so it was all inChinese.
(09:50):
It was really hard to find andit was in a.
It was in a rundown building inthe middle of Mong Kok, um, and
.
But I found it in the in thefirst week and this teacher was
in there who was teaching it,and straight away I felt like I
probably wasn't that welcome.
Uh, more from an inconveniencepoint of view, because here's
this guy who's just turned upfrom England.
(10:11):
This Westerner doesn't speakChinese.
We've got this well-run classhere.
We don't really want to sendhim away.
He's probably not going to stay.
They don't like Kung Futourists over there who come for
a couple of weeks and thendisappear, kind of thing.
So he kind of ignored me forthe first couple of weeks and
just sort of looked at me andgave me a couple of corrections
and shook his head and thenthought, wow, this is going to
(10:32):
be a bit of a waste of time.
And then after probably a monthhe realized that I wasn't going
anywhere and I was going tocome back.
But there was a bit of an issue,because my Cantonese at that
point I speak a little bit nowwas pretty much non-existent and
so was his English was prettymuch non-existent and so was his
(10:52):
English.
So, unbeknown to me, I didn'tknow this he bought himself a
load of books in English toteach himself English.
And I was like, when I foundthat out and we joke about it
now because I say to him Sifu,which is the Chinese term for
master, I said Sifu, you know,all those years ago, 20 years
ago, you were learning English,teach me Kung Fu.
Now my Kung Fu is still notvery good.
You speak perfect english.
So actually what's happenedhere if I've been your english
(11:13):
teacher over that period of timeand that and that kind of?
And he does speak good englishnow.
So that kind of like sums upour relationship.
And you know, when I got married, we got married over in tandy,
came up to the wedding.
I was at his family wedding.
I get invites for his kind offamily events and things like
that and uh, it's a, it's areally a really close bond.
Probably the most, I would say,almost heartwarming thing
(11:39):
anyone's ever said to me fromhim was what I was at his son's
wedding.
And we were.
We sat at the same tabletogether like chinese banquet
kind of style and um, and it was, it was after the wedding.
We're on the table and he'stalking to his son and his son
speaks good English Cause he'sum, he's a fireman.
He was and Sifu was saying youknow, it's one of my biggest
(11:59):
regrets that you, I'm reallyhappy and proud.
If you change your mind in thefuture at any point and I'm too
old you need to go to him.
And I was like for him to saythat to his son was like yeah,
yeah yeah, it was a big thingand I've brought him now to.
(12:19):
He's come to the UK um three orfour times, which which he loves
to teach seminars.
So he's now the seag Gong,which means like the grandmaster
in Chinese.
I have unofficially have a Sifutitle and so when he comes over
here my students call him SiGong and he loves that and he's
had a fantastic time.
So he needs to come herebecause he's also a massive
(12:42):
Liverpool Football Club fan.
So I've been telling him Ithink next year he'll be coming
back over again.
We'll go to Anfield, we'll goto Anfield.
I took him for the St James'part too, but his face was a bit
like when he saw my Kung Fu thefirst time.
It was a bit like.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Let's get him in.
We'll get him in on the couch.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
We'll do the reverse follow-up story.
That would be great.
Then we'll get all.
If I remember rightly reading,you also had some bit parts in
movies.
You wanted to be a movie star.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Your research goes deep.
Well, yeah, I mean it was kindof good timing.
It wasn't something planned onmy side.
I won't say that I didn't wantto be a movie star I mean, who
wouldn't want to be a movie star?
But I got the opportunity to doa couple and I would say, very,
(13:32):
very small parts in movies.
Like you know, blink, blink andyou'd miss, and I was.
I was in um two, two main onesOne was a, a Hong Kong movie
called True Master Um, and onewas an American movie called
Lady Blood Fight, which was aremake of Bloodsport with a
female cast, and of course, Iwas a bad guy in both of them.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
A face like this.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I'm not going to be like a leading hero kind of a
guy, right.
I mean Lady Bloodsport.
It's on Amazon so you can seeit on there.
It's like a 6.5 out of 10 kindof a movie, right.
The other one, even by Chinesestandards, is so bad, like
literally, if you, you wouldn'thave to pay to go to the cinema
(14:14):
and watch that, but you'dprobably have to pay to leave.
It's that bad, um, but theinteresting thing about that is
I play a Russian boxer in themovie, so it's a period movie
set in the 1800s and.
I play this Russian boxer andI've got like kind of the black
tie and tux on and stuff likethat.
I get killed fairly early inthe movie.
But I've got a few um, a fewlines in it and it's that
(14:36):
movie's been released in a lotof different languages and they
use somebody else to dub myEnglish lines, like in America.
So it's really weird to watch amovie where you're speaking,
it's the English version but itisn't actually me with the who's
saying the words.
That's odd, um, but thefunniest thing about that was it
was a whole chinese cast inchinese um director and they
(14:59):
said to me in the beginning canyou do a russian accent?
And of course I'm like, well,yeah, I mean what's a russian
accent?
But but I realized they alsoprobably didn't really know what
a russian accent was.
So me being a little bitmischievous at the time, I
thought I'm gonna do my lines inreally broad geordie.
So I did, and this is one scene.
So I've got a horse it's aperiod movie and I've got a
(15:21):
horse and I need to run out ofthis temple, right, I need to
shout, look at the camera andshout and go who's killed my
horse?
But in a Russian accent.
So I run out the temple and Igo who's killed my horse?
Like that?
And it's uh, it didn't make itin the movie, but I've got, I've
got an outtake of it, which isquite funny.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, you need that.
I need to see that on.
Linkedin what did you learnmost about failing at being a
movie star?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I.
I learned it's really hard work, especially doing fight scenes,
especially doing number oftakes.
I thought people would pullpunches and kicks At that time.
I was competitively fightingand I had to go to China to film
that Real Master one.
It was a few days in China andI literally it was harder than
any fight I've ever done,because all the Chinese stuntmen
(16:09):
want to beat up the Western guy.
So all these scenes you couldsee them all like no, yeah, it's
your turn next, it's your turnnext.
So it was incredibly painful.
I was black and blue afterwardsand I was like I'm never going
to do that again.
I'm never going to do thatagain.
It's boring because you're onfilm set a lot of the time, so
it's not like um, kind of highrolling and and and you know,
(16:29):
looking like it's going to be um, an amazing day and you're
going to get treated like goldwhen you do it.
So it's, it's arduous, it'stough.
So I think it gave me respectfor anybody who works in that
sector globally.
Um, and obviously you learn allof the different roles that
people do and and and the sizeof a cast it is to, to, to make,
to make.
You just don't know, when youwatch a movie, it's like kind of
(16:51):
eating in a restaurant.
You don't know what's going onin the kitchen in the background
and on how many people haveworked together to produce that
meal that you're eating.
So it was a lot of fun.
But it's funny that you sayfailing at movies, because I did
essentially fail and I remember, after we filmed the first one
(17:11):
and the, the director saying tome oh, you know, you've done a
really great job and I've gotall your contact details and
we'll be in touch for the nextone.
What do you like?
On these dates?
I was like, yeah, yeah, that'sfine, phone never ran, never,
never, never happened, neverhappened.
So but you know, I was reallylucky to have that experience
and, um, you know, I may nothave changed cinematic history
(17:32):
or or kind of um startedanything that was famous, but it
.
But for me, growing up andbeing obsessed with that and
watching those movies, thengetting the opportunity to be in
for it, from a personal pointof view, that's good enough and
you taught the ways of GeordieRussian right absolutely,
absolutely immortal of GeordieRussian right.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Absolutely Immortalized Geordie Russian.
Yeah, there you go, that's awhole.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Duolingo, it could be you could release it as an app,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So talk to me.
How did you get from being themovie star to being the Chinese
sun?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Like back over into the Northeast.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Oh, and, by the way, you were doing a job in
financial recruitment as well.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
So I was, I was, I was, I was working for um, an
organization across that bigcompany called Hudson, and uh
ended up ended up sort of umrunning a practice there,
running an office and thengetting a big.
I was you know what inrecruitment, sometimes if you
just don't move jobs too manytimes and you're half good you,
you will do quite well.
So I stayed in one company forabout eight years, which people
don't normally do.
(18:32):
So I ended up being aconsultant, going up to being
general manager and overseeing afew offices, which was really
good at a very young age.
I think there's a lot of that Ididn't do very well.
If I was doing that now I wouldhave done it.
I would have done it muchbetter.
So I was learning on the job alot of the time, but that was
still the day job and I was verycommitted to that and really
enjoyed doing that.
Well, of course, familyhappened.
(18:54):
So met my wife out there and weworked for the same company
initially.
But that didn't last too long.
It lasted longer than therelationship until she decided
to go and work somewhere elseand then pretty realized the age
we were getting to.
At that point we better start afamily, which we did.
And then, when we were two kidsin started to think Hong Kong,
(19:19):
living in apartments, not muchspace, pretty expensive place
for kids and stuff like that asmuch as we loved it, we probably
should start to think aboutanother place that's going to be
more suitable for us as afamily.
Loved Hong Kong, still do, andit was not an easy decision to
make.
But it was literally because offamily logistics at the time
(19:40):
that we did that.
And so there was a stint inCanada, first in Vancouver,
which I would say was all right,good and bad things about that,
great, great as a city.
It was a difficult personaltime because, as we were moving,
found out my wife was pregnantwith number three.
So not the best time to do thatwhen you're in an international
move and moving everythingacross Didn't have a lot of
(20:02):
support out there as well.
So I'd settled into a rolethere and then received a phone
call from an organization that Iknew very well, that was based
in the Northeast, called NRG, um, uh, from their founder, who'd
asked me to?
Would I?
Would I consider coming back toNewcastle?
And and the interesting thingis, when I left and I went to
(20:25):
London, then I went to Hong Kong, it was never to get away from
Newcastle, it was just to getother experiences and follow
like goals and aspirations inlife and stuff like that.
And when I actually did comeback to Newcastle, it's amazing
the amount of people who say whydid you come back?
And it's like, well, I didn'tgo to get away.
I thought I could have beenaway when I was in Hong Kong.
I could have been there for ayear.
I didn't have any kind of planon how that was going to pan out
(20:48):
and end up stay for more than12 years, come back with a wife
and family and all this kind ofChinese dad Uh, you know, I did.
I did not have that plan oreven have any idea around that.
It's just sometimes the waylife goes.
So this opportunity to come backto the Northeast was a great
one.
Um, my parents still beingaround, not in great health, the
chance to have my kids aroundtheir grandparents and things
(21:11):
like that.
So there was a number ofreasons.
It was a bit of a sell to mywife, if I'm honest to you,
because she'd only been back tothe Northeast a few times with
me, normally at Christmas time,not great weather, then dark
pubs, meeting mates, things likethat Hadn't really seen the
best of it.
So it was a little bit of asell to her.
But I tell you what, from alocation point of view and a
(21:32):
life and kind of what happenedafterwards, it's on a par with
going to Hong Kong.
It's the best decision I did,one going to Hong Kong and one
coming back to the Northeast.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
And I know that Northeast is so key to who you
are and I know as much as yourmartial arts.
One of the things that you loveis family time, food eating out
and walks with Bella.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Bella, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And that beautiful northeast landscapes.
It's a fantastic place and freeright.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, and it's got some similarities to Hong Kong.
It's a little bit colder and alittle bit wetter, but the
convenience because you've gotno matter where you live, you've
got.
You've got beaches, you've gotbeautiful coastline within 10,
15 minutes.
You've got world-class cityshopping center, you've got
fantastic people.
You've got a very mixeddiversity of of, of different
(22:27):
groups of people as well, withdifferent backgrounds.
You've got a friendliness therethat is quite unique to, I
think, to the Northeast.
I'm not going to say Newcastle,I'm going to say the Northeast
because we use Newcastle as acentric point.
But you know there's many greatcities there as well Sunderland
, durham, middlesbrough and thatthey've all got different
characteristics, but I love theNortheast, so I'm from newcastle
(22:56):
, but, um, it's it.
It's just an amazing place, andthen you'd never speak to
anyone who'd visit there and go.
I wouldn't go back there againand people are horrible and or
anything else.
You'll always get a very uniqueexperience and as a place to
bring up a family, it's firstclass because of, um, what
you've got around you and theenvironment, um, the schools and
everything else.
So it was, it was a, it was areally great decision.
I didn't quite know how it wasgoing to pan out um, but I'm
(23:19):
certainly glad I came back andtalked to us 18 months ago.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Uh, you set up castle peak right, and I think of the,
the story we've chatted throughtoday and your experience of
inclusion is the heart of whatyou do.
You go back to that awfulexperience when you were 10
years old and what you witnessed, that stayed with you.
It did.
It enabled you and motivatedyou to take on that real
(23:43):
commitment around martial artsto make the big move.
But where did Castle Peak?
At what point did you go?
I'm going to do this my waybecause I'm so good, passionate
about inclusion and fairness andequity.
I'm going to do this myself.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, I think it was like a perfect storm of
different things coming togetherat one point and I'd achieved
quite a few things inrecruitment.
One of the things I wanted todo was be involved in a business
that got sold and had beenthrough that.
I'd then taken on an MD roleagain, which was in the same
(24:20):
company for a few years, andwe'd gone through the pandemic
and all that type of stuff and Iwas approaching 50.
So it's that kind of honestlylike midlife crisis, starting to
go on thinking where am I goingwith this?
And as a let's be honest anolder dad, because my kids are
quite young there's threebetween 12 and 8, and I've got,
you know, mates I went touniversity with and in school
with.
My kids are quite young.
There's three between 12 and 8.
Um, and I've got, you know,mates I went to university with
(24:40):
and in school with.
The kids are all growing up andleft home and stuff.
Now, because we had them late,I'm in a slightly different
position.
That means, first of all, Ineed to work until I'm probably
about 110, the way kids stay athome now and all that kind of
stuff, but, but, but it does mapout what, what's in front of
you and what you want to bedoing and where you're
comfortable and where you canadd value.
And I did feel at that pointunfulfilled, I would say, in
(25:05):
what I was doing In recruitment.
It's very difficult to giveback because you can provide a
great service in what you do.
You can get somebody a greatjob, but they've earned that
role, they would have got itanyway.
You're just the person to makethe introduction, but somebody
else could have introduced them.
And likewise to a, to anorganization, you can find them
a great person, but if it's agreat job, they, they would have
(25:26):
got it anyway.
So you're not really, you'renot really making a difference
to the world and challengingthings.
So I was.
I was just thinking like what,what do I want to do?
It might not make businesssense, but how?
How can I put togethereverything that I feel
passionate about into my skillsand experience, which are pretty
much either in well, they're intwo areas, aren't they?
(25:46):
They're in martial arts andrecruitment, and I wasn't going
to be a full-time martial artsteacher.
I didn't fancy that.
So that really got me thinking.
And it was coming up to mybirthday, literally towards the
end of the year, in 2023.
And it was at the point ofbeing away on half term with the
(26:08):
kids being a little bitdissatisfied in the role I was
going, not in at that time, not,I would say, aligned with the
values of the organization I wasworking with as well, which is
a massive thing.
You put up with that whenyou're younger.
When you get a bit older, youjust think, nah, um, so so that
was the catalyst to, to, to seteverything up and uh, then, of
(26:30):
course, in january 2024, so it's18 months ago um, there, it was
first time ever, at the age of50, starting a business on my
own.
Uh, not a clue what to do, um,and in it and I had just done so
, it went down pretty quickactually and what have you
(26:50):
learned most about being anentrepreneur and being your own?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
well, I'm still learning.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I'm still I'm still learning.
I had lots of advice and Istill get lots of advice, which
is brilliant, and you have toalways validate that advice on
where it comes from as well.
I found that a lot of peoplegave me advice who hadn't had
their own business, and that wasinteresting.
And then, of course, you speakto other people who've run
(27:16):
successful businesses, but alsoyou want to speak to people
who've run unsuccessfulbusinesses and failed a few
times, because often you'll getthe best advice there.
Best piece of advice I ever hadin the beginning was hold your
nerve, because that is reallytough when you feel that kind of
pressure, when you know you'renot going to get the paycheck at
(27:37):
the end of the month.
Where's the next meeting comingfrom, where's next job, where's
the next invoice, etc.
Etc.
That is really really tough inthe beginning.
So, um, I would reiterate thatpiece of advice that you have
you have to hold your nerve andstick to your guns and not make
rash decisions on things.
Um, from that point of view, um, it's never going to be an easy
(27:59):
life the hours that you put in,and I probably didn't realize
how lucky I was before in termsof the lifestyle I had and the
time that I had around fromhaving a corporate job, from
having an exec corporate job,that you could, uh, offload a
lot of people, a lot of things,to other people to support you
and to help you as you do.
When you're doing everything byyourself, it's, it's really,
really tough.
(28:19):
Um, you know it finance, backoffice, marketing, all these
kind of things that you'd havegreat people to work with before
and so.
So you have to learn, but youalso have to identify when you
need help as well and realizethat you can't possibly do
everything.
Um, so I had a, uh, you know, atough few months when I was
getting going.
(28:39):
Darkest point for me wasprobably about six weeks in when
my email got hacked, uh, whichwas just unbelievable.
It was off a, a cv attachmentof a candidate that had opened
up, they had been hacked and itjust deleted everything off
across my system.
I was like six weeks in to tryand build a business.
It then went out to all myclient base at the same.
(29:02):
Now I had a high level ofsecurity as well, but once you
open one of these things, youknow, you, you, you and
especially it was a CV.
I thought it was pretty safe,so that that was absolutely
awful.
I had to contact all my clientswho I'd been telling them you
know, this is this, know this iswhat we're doing, this is the
organization we're going to bein working with and, yeah, we're
(29:23):
a small boutique, et cetera.
We can do this and suddenlythat happened, so embarrassing,
and so that was a massivelearning as well, and you can't
turn that into a positive.
I mean, I had a good level ofsecurity at the time.
Now I've literally got SWATteams standing around my
(29:44):
computer like that for anythingthat comes in.
So you are safe.
Now if you're dealing with but,but, but, but, uh, you know it,
it can happen to anybody.
But obviously that sort ofsituation where that goes down,
you're in a corporation, youcall up your head of IT or
whatever everything gets dealtwith really quickly.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Resilience.
I didn't have that.
Yeah, I didn't have that yet.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I need a lot of resilience.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
You're all in the business about finding
exceptional people.
What makes an exceptionalperson?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Oh, wow, what a question.
Many, many different things, Ithink, unique skills within a
particular area.
The market's always changing,so the market will always look
(30:26):
for different things atdifferent times.
An exceptional person issomebody who's got um a skill
set.
That's the top of the game onon what they do, but also they
can um put that across and theycan communicate around it as
well, to bring things to life,to help other people up.
And you see a lot of people whoare either very strong on the
communication side and they'regood at business, partnering and
things like that a lot ofpeople that are very technical,
but then you put the two thingstogether, um, I think that's
what makes somebody exceptionaland where, where, where people
(30:48):
can stand out, but but but alsoin terms of values and and being
able to um feel the good insomebody as well, in terms of
what they do and what theiraspirations are and who they
want to work with and trying toget that fit.
So there's an exceptionalquality around that as well.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
One of the things I really comes across about you,
james, is everything that you'velearned from your Chinese dad,
and your.
Chinese dad is passing over thebaton to his son.
Chinese dad is is passing overthe baton to his son.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
But I saw a beautiful post about you training with
your daughter and you've got twoboys and a girl, and I loved it
.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
It was the post, was you know?
I thought this would be one ofthe boys, and here's my daughter
and it's.
It's you doing exactly the same, isn't?
It Is passing on that baton.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, yeah.
And she's developing anobsession, like me as well,
which is which is unbelievable.
And of course you know I didstereo gender stereotypes.
Gonna be honest, always thoughtbe my boys who'd be interested
in um training me doing thisstuff.
Nah, not interested at all.
100 my daughter and she.
She's very, very good as well,but she trains by herself.
(31:55):
She's got that part of me inher to to go and work on
something and develop it andtrying to improve that
self-improvement all the timeand she's very, very dedicated.
I send her to other martialarts teachers as well to spend
time doing things.
But that, as a father, is me.
I've got a lot of students.
But to have your daughter wantto train with you, to come out,
(32:18):
interrupt my practice and say,dad, can I do some, can you show
me this and me not have to askher to do it Amazing, it's
brilliant.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
And you give back constantly because you do some
specific training for sort ofI'm not going to misquote this,
but I know you do different butyou also do training and give
back for Over 55's group as well.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I think as well, isn't it?
I teach a group of Over 55'sTai Chi.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
You're part of our mentoring program as part of the
NPW Awards for the wonderfulJoe Milne, who was only on the
podcast a few weeks ago.
That feels like an addictionfor you, this give back.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It is, and I kind of fell into it by accident, but I
love doing it because you get somuch out of it.
From the martial arts point ofview, I spend time with young
athletes who are competitive andwho are fighting in
professional rings and at thetop of the game.
That's brilliant.
Some of them come fromdisadvantaged backgrounds, and
(33:14):
being able to help them andadvise and coach them it's
nothing like a contact sport tobe able to do that to help
people boys and girls from thatpoint of view, and then to be
able to give something to topeople who are aging and not in
that category as well, to getthem moving, to get the benefit
of that.
So there's a diversity aroundmartial arts as well.
It can be fit for purpose, fordifferent groups, and I and I
(33:35):
and I love that.
It's fantastic.
And also, as you said throughmy word, to be able to do some
coaching.
I feel like, because I'mlearning so much, it's hard,
it's hard to coach around thebusiness, but I can coach around
some of the recruitment, aroundsome of the EDI stuff, so I do
things around unconscious biasas well.
So there's a lot oforganizations often that can't
(33:56):
afford to partner with anexecutive search firm.
So rather than just thinking,oh well, that's not my client
base, I always think what, whatcan I do?
Can I do something pro bono tohelp them?
Can I do some coaching?
Can I point them in thisdirection, can I spend some time
with them as well, rather thanjust saying, nah, that's not for
me, but, and I and I and I lovedoing that, it's really, really
good.
And to see the benefit of that,or or to sometimes connect
(34:18):
other people that might be outthe realms of an official
recruitment introduction.
We do that all the time.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
But that's just being thoughtful and intentional,
isn't it?
What's the big ambition.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
There isn't one.
Honestly, there isn't one Sinceday one, and people don't
believe me when I say this, andanyone who's got any business
sense goes like that Neverworked to a business plan in
terms of what I do Never workedto one, the reason being I spent
25 years in the corporate worldbeing rigid, sticking to
(34:51):
business plans.
You never stick to them.
They cause more problems aroundthem.
You're trying to fit a roundpeg into a square hole Doesn't
work.
Being in the moment, trying toseize opportunities when they
come out, trying to be reallygood at what you do, trying to
improve people's lives, tryingto give people opportunities who
wouldn't have opportunitiesbefore.
See where that goes.
(35:12):
I don't have an ambition.
I'm not thinking about buildingthis business up to be X, y and
Z or X headcount, x revenue, Idon't know.
Just take each day as it comesand put 100% of myself into it.
That's it.
That is the ambition.
And do good stuff.
Do good stuff all the time,good stuff behind every
interaction, every conversation,every meeting, and try to
(35:35):
challenge people in a good wayas well.
So often I'll sometimes comeacross organizations that might
even reach out to me.
They don't realize the EDIstuff that's behind it and I
like that because then I canstart to sort of suss them out a
little bit and see wherethey're motivated, and that's
when you can really evoke changewith someone who's actually not
(35:56):
on board with things like thatand try to push them beyond the
limits, but in a subtle way.
So I'm a little bit mischievouslike that, but I like doing
that.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
James, advocate, martial arts mentor, movie star,
linguist.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
We'll put all the informationabout Castle Peak Group and all
of the other good stuff.
I even want to put a link tothe Geordie Scouse, the Geordie
Russian.
We need that out.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Geordie Scouse could be another one.
That could be the next stage,couldn't it?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
That could be the next bit.
James, thank you so much forjoining us.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Thank you, really appreciate being here.
Thanks for the invite.
Great talking to you.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Thank YouTube, apple, amazon Music, spotify or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Leave us a review or follow uson socials.
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Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power
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We release an episode everysingle Monday with listeners in
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(00:21):
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(00:42):
singularly wonderful,everybody's wonder girl.
Well, hello and welcome to thisweek's podcast.
I am delighted today to bejoined on our teal lovely teal,
isn't it?
Our teal sofas by James Carrsone R2S's, by the way.
Who?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
is the chief exec of Castle Peak.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Welcome.
Welcome to Liverpool, Welcometo the studio.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Thank you so much, simone.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Lovely to be here on the teal sofa Now we met
probably only just more than sixmonths ago at a rooftop bar in
Newcastle, didn't we, when wewere up?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
there on tour, man, we did, yeah, you know what I
love, what you do.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I want to partner with you guys.
It was, yeah, probably like yousaid the easiest sale ever.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I know, I know, I know the thing I mean.
The ironic thing is it's it'sdifficult for me, and what I do,
to close deals and I gave youthe easiest close to do, didn't
I?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I was waiting.
I was waiting for the camera tocome out.
I'm like what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
It's a setup, it's a joke.
It was a great decision and Ididn't have any doubt in my mind
.
I mean, that was the, that wasthe thing and it was.
That was the first time I metyou guys in person, but you were
all so great and authentic andthe conversations and so
welcoming to me because that wasthe first time that I'd been at
one of your events and it wasquite.
It was quite a small event, butthe quality of people that you
(01:56):
had there and the conversationthat was going on, I was like,
yeah, this will be good.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And you'd been nominated also at that point
because I think this was justbefore Christmas time.
I didn't know that, though.
No, and you've been nominatedfor the Northern Power Women
Awards advocacy list as well,and you are on the 2025 advocacy
list, so congratulations.
We'll get into all of that,we'll unpack all of that in a
second.
But how would you describeyourself?
I always like to say in oneword, but I think that's
flipping impossible forNortherners at the best of times
.
But give us a sentence or threewords, and how would you?
(02:29):
How?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
would you say who you are?
If it was going to be one word,I would just say a friend.
If it was going to be threewords friend, supporter, ally.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Wow, okay, and you've had such an interesting life.
You've lived over in hong kong.
You've lived a short period oftime in canada I think as well
in vancouver um, but it's safeto say that martial arts has
been fundamental to who you are.
Yeah, and the path that youhave trodden take us through
some of those like life lessonsthat you've learned, and across
(03:02):
those different continents aswell yeah, I mean it has.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It has been centric to my life.
It's also been centric to thedecision making on the places
that I've gone to, the placesI've gone to live and the the
paths that I've taken and thedecisions and it's.
But it's.
It's actually very centric towhat I'm doing now and a lot of
people don't know this.
Actually, I think I've talkedabout it once before, but I was
involved in a race attack when Iwas about 10 years old.
(03:29):
So myself and an Asian friendwere badly beaten up, as in,
like put in hospital, beaten up,and there's a bit of a story
behind that.
But it was in the late 80s kindof at that time when, you know,
when racism was a lot moreovert than it is now still here
now, but but, but it was, it wasmore violent from from some
(03:50):
perspectives and uh, and I wasvery young, so think events like
that to happen, a violent eventat that at that age, kind of
shapes you and what you do.
So so, um, so that that took meinto the martial arts, first of
all because I was like I'mnever gonna let that happen
again, um, and and started to totrain in multiple disciplines
(04:15):
from a really young age whichled to an absolute obsession and
I mean obsession that you know,at the age of 12, 13 I was.
I was training four or fivehours a day, every evening, and
my whole life revolved around it, and I knew very quickly at
that point that I needed to goout to the Orient and train and
(04:36):
that's what I wanted to, and Ibecame obsessed with the movies
and Bruce Lee was my herogrowing up, which still is my
hero now, who was, you know,somebody who faced massive
discrimination in his life, in,especially when he was in
america, when he was inhollywood, on trying to get into
, uh, the movie industry, andeverything that he achieved and
went through and and and did so.
There's massive story about himand also being part of a mixed
(04:58):
race family and stuff, so, um,so yeah, so it determined many
things, of course now.
Now, I suppose the the type ofmartial arts that I do, which is
predominantly Chinese martialarts.
We call it the internal school,things like Tai Chi, et cetera.
It's about mindfulness, aboutbeing in the moment, and that
does help you develop deeplevels of concentration,
(05:21):
connection between your mind andyour body, and things like that
, and I've I'm still learningabout being an entrepreneur and
a business owner.
It's only 18 months in right.
I've got a long background indoing what I've done in
recruitment and executive search, but actually running it as a
business for myself.
I'm a white belt, right, andthat's one thing I do.
Love is the white beltmentality in everything I do,
(05:43):
that you should never think likea black belt or a 10th dan.
You should always think likewhat have you got to learn?
What do you need to do?
And life is all about learning.
So no matter how experiencedyou are, no matter how good you
might think you are at somethingor a set of skills you've
developed, you're always a whitebelt and in our martial art we
don't wear any belts anyway haveany gradings.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So so you had this awful, traumatic incident that
you witnessed at the age of 10by the age of 12.
This you're training four timesa week.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
You're committed, you're all hours a day four
hours a day.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Sorry, four hours a day, uh.
At what point did you then takeyourselves over?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
take yourself over with your family to yeah, well,
I went by myself first, so whatage were you then?
I was in my late 20s so Istudied sports science
university.
So it took me academicallythrough that route.
I wasn't very good at doingGCSEs and A levels and things
like that because I just didn'thave an interest level in doing
(06:41):
that.
So I ended up kind of throughthe vocational qualifications,
did a BTEC in leisure and thattook me through clearing to get
into a university which wasn't agood university from uh,
academic point of view it was a.
It was the university of um.
Luton, which is nowBedfordshire, was the first year
they'd been a university butthey were running a really good
sport course.
So that was life-changing forme to get away from home for the
(07:03):
first time as well at the ageof sort of 18, 19 and uh, and be
in a town like luton which hasgot it's.
It's a, it's a, it's abrilliant town, but it's got its
own unique characteristics aswell.
If you've ever been, that'svery different from where I grew
up in north townside, um.
So, and then that took me tolondon, which I worked in
executive search for a few yearsand I was trying to find my
(07:26):
opportunity to get out to HongKong.
So I knew it was going to beHong Kong.
So I managed to get a role inbanking recruitment.
I started in finance firstbecause I knew banking would be
the easiest route.
Once I had that experience,hong Kong being a big financial
services hub, that would make memore employable over there.
So everything was kind of setout from that point of view.
Eventually eventually managedto get out there when I was yeah
(07:49):
, I was in my late 20s at thetime.
I went out with literally withone suitcase by myself.
I didn't have any kind ofrelocation help or anything like
that.
I had secured a role out therebut on a local package, not not
as an expat or anything likethat.
It was a really interesting timein Hong Kong at that point
because they just got over SARSand they'd been through this
(08:11):
terrible pandemic which was Imean, covid was awful here, but
SARS was, I think, fair to say,a more serious disease.
To get the.
The rate of fatalities from itwas was was much higher.
That had decimated theireconomy and, uh, and also the
(08:32):
recruitment industry, becausepeople wouldn't get together and
have interviews and havemeetings.
There was no teams or zoom oranything.
There was skype, but if youremember what skype calls were
like, you know, trying to tryingto get a connection and stuff
on that.
So so I went out at this reallyinteresting time, which was
fortuitous timing for me becausethe economy was going like that
and recovering from it veryfast and so, yeah, but I was at
(08:57):
that point, I was by myself.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
But then I think that's something I read.
Was that you a mentor?
And it was your martial artsmentor who became you're like
your Chinese dad, I think if Iread yeah, that's what I call
him, and you became part of thefamily.
So you're there locally on thelocal package.
So you haven't got all thetrimmings, trimmings of an
ex-fight.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, I wasn't living up on the peak or anything like
that.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
But the power of that mentorship must have made all
that difference.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It did.
It's a very, very strong bondand relationship that we've got
and when I first went out toHong Kong, I wanted to.
I was almost like a kid at asweet shop.
I wanted to test out everymartial arts school, every
teacher.
I had a very looserecommendation for this one
school that didn't advertiseanywhere, didn't have any
website, so it was all inChinese.
(09:50):
It was really hard to find andit was in a.
It was in a rundown building inthe middle of Mong Kok, um, and
.
But I found it in the in thefirst week and this teacher was
in there who was teaching it,and straight away I felt like I
probably wasn't that welcome.
Uh, more from an inconveniencepoint of view, because here's
this guy who's just turned upfrom England.
(10:11):
This Westerner doesn't speakChinese.
We've got this well-run classhere.
We don't really want to sendhim away.
He's probably not going to stay.
They don't like Kung Futourists over there who come for
a couple of weeks and thendisappear, kind of thing.
So he kind of ignored me forthe first couple of weeks and
just sort of looked at me andgave me a couple of corrections
and shook his head and thenthought, wow, this is going to
(10:32):
be a bit of a waste of time.
And then after probably a monthhe realized that I wasn't going
anywhere and I was going tocome back.
But there was a bit of an issue,because my Cantonese at that
point I speak a little bit nowwas pretty much non-existent and
so was his English was prettymuch non-existent and so was his
(10:52):
English.
So, unbeknown to me, I didn'tknow this he bought himself a
load of books in English toteach himself English.
And I was like, when I foundthat out and we joke about it
now because I say to him Sifu,which is the Chinese term for
master, I said Sifu, you know,all those years ago, 20 years
ago, you were learning English,teach me Kung Fu.
Now my Kung Fu is still notvery good.
You speak perfect english.
So actually what's happenedhere if I've been your english
(11:13):
teacher over that period of timeand that and that kind of?
And he does speak good englishnow.
So that kind of like sums upour relationship.
And you know, when I got married, we got married over in tandy,
came up to the wedding.
I was at his family wedding.
I get invites for his kind offamily events and things like
that and uh, it's a, it's areally a really close bond.
Probably the most, I would say,almost heartwarming thing
(11:39):
anyone's ever said to me fromhim was what I was at his son's
wedding.
And we were.
We sat at the same tabletogether like chinese banquet
kind of style and um, and it was, it was after the wedding.
We're on the table and he'stalking to his son and his son
speaks good English Cause he'sum, he's a fireman.
He was and Sifu was saying youknow, it's one of my biggest
(11:59):
regrets that you, I'm reallyhappy and proud.
If you change your mind in thefuture at any point and I'm too
old you need to go to him.
And I was like for him to saythat to his son was like yeah,
yeah yeah, it was a big thingand I've brought him now to.
(12:19):
He's come to the UK um three orfour times, which which he loves
to teach seminars.
So he's now the seag Gong,which means like the grandmaster
in Chinese.
I have unofficially have a Sifutitle and so when he comes over
here my students call him SiGong and he loves that and he's
had a fantastic time.
So he needs to come herebecause he's also a massive
(12:42):
Liverpool Football Club fan.
So I've been telling him Ithink next year he'll be coming
back over again.
We'll go to Anfield, we'll goto Anfield.
I took him for the St James'part too, but his face was a bit
like when he saw my Kung Fu thefirst time.
It was a bit like.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Let's get him in.
We'll get him in on the couch.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
We'll do the reverse follow-up story.
That would be great.
Then we'll get all.
If I remember rightly reading,you also had some bit parts in
movies.
You wanted to be a movie star.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Your research goes deep.
Well, yeah, I mean it was kindof good timing.
It wasn't something planned onmy side.
I won't say that I didn't wantto be a movie star I mean, who
wouldn't want to be a movie star?
But I got the opportunity to doa couple and I would say, very,
(13:32):
very small parts in movies.
Like you know, blink, blink andyou'd miss, and I was.
I was in um two, two main onesOne was a, a Hong Kong movie
called True Master Um, and onewas an American movie called
Lady Blood Fight, which was aremake of Bloodsport with a
female cast, and of course, Iwas a bad guy in both of them.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
A face like this.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I'm not going to be like a leading hero kind of a
guy, right.
I mean Lady Bloodsport.
It's on Amazon so you can seeit on there.
It's like a 6.5 out of 10 kindof a movie, right.
The other one, even by Chinesestandards, is so bad, like
literally, if you, you wouldn'thave to pay to go to the cinema
(14:14):
and watch that, but you'dprobably have to pay to leave.
It's that bad, um, but theinteresting thing about that is
I play a Russian boxer in themovie, so it's a period movie
set in the 1800s and.
I play this Russian boxer andI've got like kind of the black
tie and tux on and stuff likethat.
I get killed fairly early inthe movie.
But I've got a few um, a fewlines in it and it's that
(14:36):
movie's been released in a lotof different languages and they
use somebody else to dub myEnglish lines, like in America.
So it's really weird to watch amovie where you're speaking,
it's the English version but itisn't actually me with the who's
saying the words.
That's odd, um, but thefunniest thing about that was it
was a whole chinese cast inchinese um director and they
(14:59):
said to me in the beginning canyou do a russian accent?
And of course I'm like, well,yeah, I mean what's a russian
accent?
But but I realized they alsoprobably didn't really know what
a russian accent was.
So me being a little bitmischievous at the time, I
thought I'm gonna do my lines inreally broad geordie.
So I did, and this is one scene.
So I've got a horse it's aperiod movie and I've got a
(15:21):
horse and I need to run out ofthis temple, right, I need to
shout, look at the camera andshout and go who's killed my
horse?
But in a Russian accent.
So I run out the temple and Igo who's killed my horse?
Like that?
And it's uh, it didn't make itin the movie, but I've got, I've
got an outtake of it, which isquite funny.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, you need that.
I need to see that on.
Linkedin what did you learnmost about failing at being a
movie star?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I.
I learned it's really hard work, especially doing fight scenes,
especially doing number oftakes.
I thought people would pullpunches and kicks At that time.
I was competitively fightingand I had to go to China to film
that Real Master one.
It was a few days in China andI literally it was harder than
any fight I've ever done,because all the Chinese stuntmen
(16:09):
want to beat up the Western guy.
So all these scenes you couldsee them all like no, yeah, it's
your turn next, it's your turnnext.
So it was incredibly painful.
I was black and blue afterwardsand I was like I'm never going
to do that again.
I'm never going to do thatagain.
It's boring because you're onfilm set a lot of the time, so
it's not like um, kind of highrolling and and and you know,
(16:29):
looking like it's going to be um, an amazing day and you're
going to get treated like goldwhen you do it.
So it's, it's arduous, it'stough.
So I think it gave me respectfor anybody who works in that
sector globally.
Um, and obviously you learn allof the different roles that
people do and and and the sizeof a cast it is to, to, to make,
to make.
You just don't know, when youwatch a movie, it's like kind of
(16:51):
eating in a restaurant.
You don't know what's going onin the kitchen in the background
and on how many people haveworked together to produce that
meal that you're eating.
So it was a lot of fun.
But it's funny that you sayfailing at movies, because I did
essentially fail and I remember, after we filmed the first one
(17:11):
and the, the director saying tome oh, you know, you've done a
really great job and I've gotall your contact details and
we'll be in touch for the nextone.
What do you like?
On these dates?
I was like, yeah, yeah, that'sfine, phone never ran, never,
never, never happened, neverhappened.
So but you know, I was reallylucky to have that experience
and, um, you know, I may nothave changed cinematic history
(17:32):
or or kind of um startedanything that was famous, but it
.
But for me, growing up andbeing obsessed with that and
watching those movies, thengetting the opportunity to be in
for it, from a personal pointof view, that's good enough and
you taught the ways of GeordieRussian right absolutely,
absolutely immortal of GeordieRussian right.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Absolutely Immortalized Geordie Russian.
Yeah, there you go, that's awhole.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Duolingo, it could be you could release it as an app,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
So talk to me.
How did you get from being themovie star to being the Chinese
sun?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Like back over into the Northeast.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Oh, and, by the way, you were doing a job in
financial recruitment as well.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
So I was, I was, I was, I was working for um, an
organization across that bigcompany called Hudson, and uh
ended up ended up sort of umrunning a practice there,
running an office and thengetting a big.
I was you know what inrecruitment, sometimes if you
just don't move jobs too manytimes and you're half good you,
you will do quite well.
So I stayed in one company forabout eight years, which people
don't normally do.
(18:32):
So I ended up being aconsultant, going up to being
general manager and overseeing afew offices, which was really
good at a very young age.
I think there's a lot of that Ididn't do very well.
If I was doing that now I wouldhave done it.
I would have done it muchbetter.
So I was learning on the job alot of the time, but that was
still the day job and I was verycommitted to that and really
enjoyed doing that.
Well, of course, familyhappened.
(18:54):
So met my wife out there and weworked for the same company
initially.
But that didn't last too long.
It lasted longer than therelationship until she decided
to go and work somewhere elseand then pretty realized the age
we were getting to.
At that point we better start afamily, which we did.
And then, when we were two kidsin started to think Hong Kong,
(19:19):
living in apartments, not muchspace, pretty expensive place
for kids and stuff like that asmuch as we loved it, we probably
should start to think aboutanother place that's going to be
more suitable for us as afamily.
Loved Hong Kong, still do, andit was not an easy decision to
make.
But it was literally because offamily logistics at the time
(19:40):
that we did that.
And so there was a stint inCanada, first in Vancouver,
which I would say was all right,good and bad things about that,
great, great as a city.
It was a difficult personaltime because, as we were moving,
found out my wife was pregnantwith number three.
So not the best time to do thatwhen you're in an international
move and moving everythingacross Didn't have a lot of
(20:02):
support out there as well.
So I'd settled into a rolethere and then received a phone
call from an organization that Iknew very well, that was based
in the Northeast, called NRG, um, uh, from their founder, who'd
asked me to?
Would I?
Would I consider coming back toNewcastle?
And and the interesting thingis, when I left and I went to
(20:25):
London, then I went to Hong Kong, it was never to get away from
Newcastle, it was just to getother experiences and follow
like goals and aspirations inlife and stuff like that.
And when I actually did comeback to Newcastle, it's amazing
the amount of people who say whydid you come back?
And it's like, well, I didn'tgo to get away.
I thought I could have beenaway when I was in Hong Kong.
I could have been there for ayear.
I didn't have any kind of planon how that was going to pan out
(20:48):
and end up stay for more than12 years, come back with a wife
and family and all this kind ofChinese dad Uh, you know, I did.
I did not have that plan oreven have any idea around that.
It's just sometimes the waylife goes.
So this opportunity to come backto the Northeast was a great
one.
Um, my parents still beingaround, not in great health, the
chance to have my kids aroundtheir grandparents and things
(21:11):
like that.
So there was a number ofreasons.
It was a bit of a sell to mywife, if I'm honest to you,
because she'd only been back tothe Northeast a few times with
me, normally at Christmas time,not great weather, then dark
pubs, meeting mates, things likethat Hadn't really seen the
best of it.
So it was a little bit of asell to her.
But I tell you what, from alocation point of view and a
(21:32):
life and kind of what happenedafterwards, it's on a par with
going to Hong Kong.
It's the best decision I did,one going to Hong Kong and one
coming back to the Northeast.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
And I know that Northeast is so key to who you
are and I know as much as yourmartial arts.
One of the things that you loveis family time, food eating out
and walks with Bella.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Bella, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And that beautiful northeast landscapes.
It's a fantastic place and freeright.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, and it's got some similarities to Hong Kong.
It's a little bit colder and alittle bit wetter, but the
convenience because you've gotno matter where you live, you've
got.
You've got beaches, you've gotbeautiful coastline within 10,
15 minutes.
You've got world-class cityshopping center, you've got
fantastic people.
You've got a very mixeddiversity of of, of different
(22:27):
groups of people as well, withdifferent backgrounds.
You've got a friendliness therethat is quite unique to, I
think, to the Northeast.
I'm not going to say Newcastle,I'm going to say the Northeast
because we use Newcastle as acentric point.
But you know there's many greatcities there as well Sunderland
, durham, middlesbrough and thatthey've all got different
characteristics, but I love theNortheast, so I'm from newcastle
(22:56):
, but, um, it's it.
It's just an amazing place, andthen you'd never speak to
anyone who'd visit there and go.
I wouldn't go back there againand people are horrible and or
anything else.
You'll always get a very uniqueexperience and as a place to
bring up a family, it's firstclass because of, um, what
you've got around you and theenvironment, um, the schools and
everything else.
So it was, it was a, it was areally great decision.
I didn't quite know how it wasgoing to pan out um, but I'm
(23:19):
certainly glad I came back andtalked to us 18 months ago.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Uh, you set up castle peak right, and I think of the,
the story we've chatted throughtoday and your experience of
inclusion is the heart of whatyou do.
You go back to that awfulexperience when you were 10
years old and what you witnessed, that stayed with you.
It did.
It enabled you and motivatedyou to take on that real
(23:43):
commitment around martial artsto make the big move.
But where did Castle Peak?
At what point did you go?
I'm going to do this my waybecause I'm so good, passionate
about inclusion and fairness andequity.
I'm going to do this myself.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, I think it was like a perfect storm of
different things coming togetherat one point and I'd achieved
quite a few things inrecruitment.
One of the things I wanted todo was be involved in a business
that got sold and had beenthrough that.
I'd then taken on an MD roleagain, which was in the same
(24:20):
company for a few years, andwe'd gone through the pandemic
and all that type of stuff and Iwas approaching 50.
So it's that kind of honestlylike midlife crisis, starting to
go on thinking where am I goingwith this?
And as a let's be honest anolder dad, because my kids are
quite young there's threebetween 12 and 8, and I've got,
you know, mates I went touniversity with and in school
with.
My kids are quite young.
There's three between 12 and 8.
Um, and I've got, you know,mates I went to university with
(24:40):
and in school with.
The kids are all growing up andleft home and stuff.
Now, because we had them late,I'm in a slightly different
position.
That means, first of all, Ineed to work until I'm probably
about 110, the way kids stay athome now and all that kind of
stuff, but, but, but it does mapout what, what's in front of
you and what you want to bedoing and where you're
comfortable and where you canadd value.
And I did feel at that pointunfulfilled, I would say, in
(25:05):
what I was doing In recruitment.
It's very difficult to giveback because you can provide a
great service in what you do.
You can get somebody a greatjob, but they've earned that
role, they would have got itanyway.
You're just the person to makethe introduction, but somebody
else could have introduced them.
And likewise to a, to anorganization, you can find them
a great person, but if it's agreat job, they, they would have
(25:26):
got it anyway.
So you're not really, you'renot really making a difference
to the world and challengingthings.
So I was.
I was just thinking like what,what do I want to do?
It might not make businesssense, but how?
How can I put togethereverything that I feel
passionate about into my skillsand experience, which are pretty
much either in well, they're intwo areas, aren't they?
(25:46):
They're in martial arts andrecruitment, and I wasn't going
to be a full-time martial artsteacher.
I didn't fancy that.
So that really got me thinking.
And it was coming up to mybirthday, literally towards the
end of the year, in 2023.
And it was at the point ofbeing away on half term with the
(26:08):
kids being a little bitdissatisfied in the role I was
going, not in at that time, not,I would say, aligned with the
values of the organization I wasworking with as well, which is
a massive thing.
You put up with that whenyou're younger.
When you get a bit older, youjust think, nah, um, so so that
was the catalyst to, to, to seteverything up and uh, then, of
(26:30):
course, in january 2024, so it's18 months ago um, there, it was
first time ever, at the age of50, starting a business on my
own.
Uh, not a clue what to do, um,and in it and I had just done so
, it went down pretty quickactually and what have you
(26:50):
learned most about being anentrepreneur and being your own?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
well, I'm still learning.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I'm still I'm still learning.
I had lots of advice and Istill get lots of advice, which
is brilliant, and you have toalways validate that advice on
where it comes from as well.
I found that a lot of peoplegave me advice who hadn't had
their own business, and that wasinteresting.
And then, of course, you speakto other people who've run
(27:16):
successful businesses, but alsoyou want to speak to people
who've run unsuccessfulbusinesses and failed a few
times, because often you'll getthe best advice there.
Best piece of advice I ever hadin the beginning was hold your
nerve, because that is reallytough when you feel that kind of
pressure, when you know you'renot going to get the paycheck at
(27:37):
the end of the month.
Where's the next meeting comingfrom, where's next job, where's
the next invoice, etc.
Etc.
That is really really tough inthe beginning.
So, um, I would reiterate thatpiece of advice that you have
you have to hold your nerve andstick to your guns and not make
rash decisions on things.
Um, from that point of view, um, it's never going to be an easy
(27:59):
life the hours that you put in,and I probably didn't realize
how lucky I was before in termsof the lifestyle I had and the
time that I had around fromhaving a corporate job, from
having an exec corporate job,that you could, uh, offload a
lot of people, a lot of things,to other people to support you
and to help you as you do.
When you're doing everything byyourself, it's, it's really,
really tough.
(28:19):
Um, you know it finance, backoffice, marketing, all these
kind of things that you'd havegreat people to work with before
and so.
So you have to learn, but youalso have to identify when you
need help as well and realizethat you can't possibly do
everything.
Um, so I had a, uh, you know, atough few months when I was
getting going.
(28:39):
Darkest point for me wasprobably about six weeks in when
my email got hacked, uh, whichwas just unbelievable.
It was off a, a cv attachmentof a candidate that had opened
up, they had been hacked and itjust deleted everything off
across my system.
I was like six weeks in to tryand build a business.
It then went out to all myclient base at the same.
(29:02):
Now I had a high level ofsecurity as well, but once you
open one of these things, youknow, you, you, you and
especially it was a CV.
I thought it was pretty safe,so that that was absolutely
awful.
I had to contact all my clientswho I'd been telling them you
know, this is this, know this iswhat we're doing, this is the
organization we're going to bein working with and, yeah, we're
(29:23):
a small boutique, et cetera.
We can do this and suddenlythat happened, so embarrassing,
and so that was a massivelearning as well, and you can't
turn that into a positive.
I mean, I had a good level ofsecurity at the time.
Now I've literally got SWATteams standing around my
(29:44):
computer like that for anythingthat comes in.
So you are safe.
Now if you're dealing with but,but, but, but, uh, you know it,
it can happen to anybody.
But obviously that sort ofsituation where that goes down,
you're in a corporation, youcall up your head of IT or
whatever everything gets dealtwith really quickly.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Resilience.
I didn't have that.
Yeah, I didn't have that yet.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I need a lot of resilience.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
You're all in the business about finding
exceptional people.
What makes an exceptionalperson?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Oh, wow, what a question.
Many, many different things, Ithink, unique skills within a
particular area.
The market's always changing,so the market will always look
(30:26):
for different things atdifferent times.
An exceptional person issomebody who's got um a skill
set.
That's the top of the game onon what they do, but also they
can um put that across and theycan communicate around it as
well, to bring things to life,to help other people up.
And you see a lot of people whoare either very strong on the
communication side and they'regood at business, partnering and
things like that a lot ofpeople that are very technical,
but then you put the two thingstogether, um, I think that's
what makes somebody exceptionaland where, where, where people
(30:48):
can stand out, but but but alsoin terms of values and and being
able to um feel the good insomebody as well, in terms of
what they do and what theiraspirations are and who they
want to work with and trying toget that fit.
So there's an exceptionalquality around that as well.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
One of the things I really comes across about you,
james, is everything that you'velearned from your Chinese dad,
and your.
Chinese dad is passing over thebaton to his son.
Chinese dad is is passing overthe baton to his son.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
But I saw a beautiful post about you training with
your daughter and you've got twoboys and a girl, and I loved it
.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
It was the post, was you know?
I thought this would be one ofthe boys, and here's my daughter
and it's.
It's you doing exactly the same, isn't?
It Is passing on that baton.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, yeah.
And she's developing anobsession, like me as well,
which is which is unbelievable.
And of course you know I didstereo gender stereotypes.
Gonna be honest, always thoughtbe my boys who'd be interested
in um training me doing thisstuff.
Nah, not interested at all.
100 my daughter and she.
She's very, very good as well,but she trains by herself.
(31:55):
She's got that part of me inher to to go and work on
something and develop it andtrying to improve that
self-improvement all the timeand she's very, very dedicated.
I send her to other martialarts teachers as well to spend
time doing things.
But that, as a father, is me.
I've got a lot of students.
But to have your daughter wantto train with you, to come out,
(32:18):
interrupt my practice and say,dad, can I do some, can you show
me this and me not have to askher to do it Amazing, it's
brilliant.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
And you give back constantly because you do some
specific training for sort ofI'm not going to misquote this,
but I know you do different butyou also do training and give
back for Over 55's group as well.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I think as well, isn't it?
I teach a group of Over 55'sTai Chi.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
You're part of our mentoring program as part of the
NPW Awards for the wonderfulJoe Milne, who was only on the
podcast a few weeks ago.
That feels like an addictionfor you, this give back.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It is, and I kind of fell into it by accident, but I
love doing it because you get somuch out of it.
From the martial arts point ofview, I spend time with young
athletes who are competitive andwho are fighting in
professional rings and at thetop of the game.
That's brilliant.
Some of them come fromdisadvantaged backgrounds, and
(33:14):
being able to help them andadvise and coach them it's
nothing like a contact sport tobe able to do that to help
people boys and girls from thatpoint of view, and then to be
able to give something to topeople who are aging and not in
that category as well, to getthem moving, to get the benefit
of that.
So there's a diversity aroundmartial arts as well.
It can be fit for purpose, fordifferent groups, and I and I
(33:35):
and I love that.
It's fantastic.
And also, as you said throughmy word, to be able to do some
coaching.
I feel like, because I'mlearning so much, it's hard,
it's hard to coach around thebusiness, but I can coach around
some of the recruitment, aroundsome of the EDI stuff, so I do
things around unconscious biasas well.
So there's a lot oforganizations often that can't
(33:56):
afford to partner with anexecutive search firm.
So rather than just thinking,oh well, that's not my client
base, I always think what, whatcan I do?
Can I do something pro bono tohelp them?
Can I do some coaching?
Can I point them in thisdirection, can I spend some time
with them as well, rather thanjust saying, nah, that's not for
me, but, and I and I and I lovedoing that, it's really, really
good.
And to see the benefit of that,or or to sometimes connect
(34:18):
other people that might be outthe realms of an official
recruitment introduction.
We do that all the time.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
But that's just being thoughtful and intentional,
isn't it?
What's the big ambition.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
There isn't one.
Honestly, there isn't one Sinceday one, and people don't
believe me when I say this, andanyone who's got any business
sense goes like that Neverworked to a business plan in
terms of what I do Never workedto one, the reason being I spent
25 years in the corporate worldbeing rigid, sticking to
(34:51):
business plans.
You never stick to them.
They cause more problems aroundthem.
You're trying to fit a roundpeg into a square hole Doesn't
work.
Being in the moment, trying toseize opportunities when they
come out, trying to be reallygood at what you do, trying to
improve people's lives, tryingto give people opportunities who
wouldn't have opportunitiesbefore.
See where that goes.
(35:12):
I don't have an ambition.
I'm not thinking about buildingthis business up to be X, y and
Z or X headcount, x revenue, Idon't know.
Just take each day as it comesand put 100% of myself into it.
That's it.
That is the ambition.
And do good stuff.
Do good stuff all the time,good stuff behind every
interaction, every conversation,every meeting, and try to
(35:35):
challenge people in a good wayas well.
So often I'll sometimes comeacross organizations that might
even reach out to me.
They don't realize the EDIstuff that's behind it and I
like that because then I canstart to sort of suss them out a
little bit and see wherethey're motivated, and that's
when you can really evoke changewith someone who's actually not
(35:56):
on board with things like thatand try to push them beyond the
limits, but in a subtle way.
So I'm a little bit mischievouslike that, but I like doing
that.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
James, advocate, martial arts mentor, movie star,
linguist.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
We'll put all the informationabout Castle Peak Group and all
of the other good stuff.
I even want to put a link tothe Geordie Scouse, the Geordie
Russian.
We need that out.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Geordie Scouse could be another one.
That could be the next stage,couldn't it?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
That could be the next bit.
James, thank you so much forjoining us.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Thank you, really appreciate being here.
Thanks for the invite.
Great talking to you.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Thank YouTube, apple, amazon Music, spotify or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Leave us a review or follow uson socials.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!