RWL228 How To Overcome Isolation and Succeed Remotely w/ Dipesh Pattni Founder, GravitasQ

FROM THE ARCHIVE: This replay focuses on my conversation with Dipesh Patni, Founder of GravitasQ. Dipesh shares his journey from a high-flying sales career to mastering SEO, revealing the challenges and skills required to stand out in a competitive industry. This episode gives practical advice for anyone looking for personal and business growth within digital marketing while maintaining productivity and mental well-being.

Learn from Dipesh's personal experiences, including his pivotal career change, which was motivated by a desire to spend more time with his daughter. We talk about the realities of starting a business, facing uncertainties, and leveraging networks to succeed. Dipesh's candid discussion on balancing professional aspirations with family life offers lessons for budding entrepreneurs and experienced professionals alike.

We also address the often-overlooked challenges of working from home, including isolation and its impact on mental health. Dipesh provides strategies for creating a productive home work environment and staying connected with your team.

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Episode Transcript

Alex Wilson-Campbell (00:00):
Hello everybody.
It's Alex from the Remote WorkLife podcast and I'm here with
Dipesh Patni.
Dipesh Patni is somebody I'veknown for a number of years and
he's had an influence in mycareer.
We'll talk a little bit aboutthat in a little while.
But Dipesh is the founder ofGravitasQ.
Having spent many years indigital marketing for a top

(00:26):
agency called PhD, he's now adigital marketing consultant.
He's gone from actuallymanaging a team of 70, I believe
it is to now setting up his ownconsultancy which deals with
helping digital marketingagencies as well as client-side
work as well, and I'm going toget a deep press to talk a

(00:49):
little bit more about that in alittle while.
But deepesh is also a partnerwith help for addiction.
So this is something that aswell might interest you as well,
and I think this particularpodcast will interest you.
If you there's a couple ofthings actually um, if you've,
if you've transferred from, ifyou've transferred or want to

(01:10):
transfer from a digitalmarketing scenario co-located
scenario to a remote scenario.
As well as that, if you arestruggling as well with working
from home, being isolated.
So those are two areas thatwe're going to cover in today's
show.
So I just want to really saythank you, dipesh, to you for
joining us today.

(01:30):
Thank you so much.

Dipesh Pattni (01:33):
No problem at all .

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:34):
Hey.

Dipesh Pattni (01:35):
Alex, thanks for having me on as well.
Appreciate taking the time.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:39):
No problem , no problem.
What I want to find out, what Iwant you to tell the audience,
first and foremost, dps, we wanta bit of a backstory about you.
How did you come to be becominga consultant, working from home
, having you know um, built yourway up through mainly seo,
digital marketing?

Dipesh Pattni (02:00):
just tell us your backstory yeah, sure, sure, so,
so actually like, so I think, alarge proportion of my career
was working at PhD and you knowthat was approximately nine
years.
Before I actually went into that, I was in sales and I actually
enjoyed being in sales.

(02:20):
It was exciting, sales wasexciting and I was exciting and
I loved going in for the saleand closing deals down and stuff
.
But then I kind of got to apoint where I was like, well,
I've got all these IT skills, Ilove the whole marketing aspect
of things, so I want to be a.
So I want to find myself, putmyself in a position where I'm a

(02:44):
full on expert at something andnot just detailed.
And that kind of led me down apath which actually initially
didn't work out really well,because I was trying to get an
SEO job.
I'd heard of SEO fromuniversity and things like that,
and do you know what?
Nobody would hire me for an SEOjob.
So, yeah, with no experienceyou know, it's that whole

(03:06):
chicken and egg thing you don'thave any experience, so we don't
think that you know you're theright person for the job.
Okay, fine, great.
So what I ended up doing waslearning SEO from searching on
Google and that led me on tosetting up my own you know small
SEO outfit.

(03:27):
Anyways, I don't want to spendtoo much time on that because,
to be honest, it was a terrible.
It worked out terribly.
I took on a few clients.
I was having problems gettingmoney from clients and things
like that.
Seo was in very early days thenand a lot of people still
weren't like you know, it wasn,it wasn't a thing to do yet on
the internet.
So what happened was that kindof.

(03:49):
I did do some freelancingprojects and PhD in freelancer
and I initially went tointerview this freelancer but
they offered me a full-time roleand said it's not a freelance
position, now, it's a full-timerole.
Are you interested?
You're going to get to work onclients like Sainbury's and back
then Cadbury's, um, and thingslike that.

(04:10):
And I was like, wow, true, yeah.
So I joined PhD on that basis,um, absolutely frightened on my
first day because I, you know, Iwent into a job where obviously
I demonstrated some SEOabilities, but I only knew my
SEO abilities on a smallerclient or somebody that can

(04:32):
self-taught themselves from home, thinking that, okay, there's
going to be people there thatare going to know way more than
me.
I get there and actually, youknow, the levels are pretty
similar, the skill sets arepretty similar and, if anything,
I had a slight advantagebecause I thought that SEOs

(04:52):
should know how to buildwebsites back then if you were
going to work in a big agency orsomething like that, and it
turns out, most SEOs didn't knowhow to build a website or code
or things like that, and I diddid because I taught myself that
at home, thinking that's whatan SEO should know.
So, you know, cut long storyshort, I had a very, very good
career at PhD, and PhD stillremains really close to my heart

(05:16):
as a business.
You know, I've always wanted tosee them going up and never
down, because you, they made mein many ways Whilst.
I did a great job there and I,you know, got a lot of value
recognition.
I got lots of exposure tobuilding my network, to, you
know, speaking publicly andthings like that.
You know they did a lot for meas much as, you know, I put the

(05:38):
hard work in.
So, you know, yeah, it'sdefinitely.
You know, a PhD is one of thehighlights of my life at the
time I spent there because Iwent from, you know, a very
junior SEO to becoming head ofSEO, running the team,
rebuilding the team, you know,taking that team into, you know,
a very high level of revenuefrom where it started.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (06:00):
How big was your team?

Dipesh Pattni (06:03):
So when I first got there, there was only
actually two of us or three ofus.
There was only three of us andwe didn't even have a head of
SEO.
A head of SEO and things likethat came afterwards and so that
initial team I was working inas a junior member was only a
team of five.
Yeah, a team of five, I think.

(06:24):
By the time we were done wewere a team of ten.
By the time when I became headof SEO, we were still a team of
five.
I kind of doubled that to ateam of ten until I was offered
the job to then manage theperformance digital channels,
right?
So the performance digitalchannels included affiliates,

(06:47):
paid search, social media andthe newly developed content team
which we had just startedbuilding.
So I spent two years runningthat team and, kind of you know,
that team significantly grew.
To be honest, I can't take thecredit for all of the growth,

(07:08):
because it was a joint effort.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (07:12):
Team effort, yeah massively.

Dipesh Pattni (07:16):
Firstly, I recognize that we had lots of
resource problems initially.
So I went and spoke to some ofthe you know, the heads, the
CEOs, that look, if we're goingto build the best team, then we
need X, y and Z and to theircredit, they signed off X, y and
Z and said, yeah, let's do itthen.
So you know, that led to growthand, at the same, time we were

(07:39):
winning lots of big businesswhich?
PhD still got and then won moreafterwards.
So you know, I imagine thatteam is bigger now.
But you know, running that teamwas, it was absolutely
spectacular.
I loved it.
It was the first year, was thehardest year I've ever had in my
whole career life, in my wholecareer, because it was stressful

(08:00):
.
Put it that way, it wasstressful.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (08:03):
Well, I suppose, when you're, I had a
similar kind of scenario to you,because when I actually dipesh
helped me out, let me.
Let me tell you a bit of mystory about how I met dipesh,
because there was a time when Iwas making a transition, uh,
into seo as well.
I also went the self-taughtroute, as as dipesh did.

(08:23):
You know, I built websitesmyself and dabbled with
different wordpress blogs toexperiment with how I could
boost, boost traffic organically, um, but I came to dipesh
because I was at a time where Iwas reaching out to my network
and dipesh was on my network andI asked Dipesh you know what

(08:45):
what his thoughts were on onagency as opposed to working
client-side.
And Dipesh gave me so muchadvice, which is which really
steered my career along thecourse of SEO and the way he
gave advice and I thinkeverybody needs to be like
Dipesh in the network the way hegave the advice.
It was totally impartial.

(09:07):
He didn't sort of have any biasone way or another and he gave
advice in such a way that was hewas well, for one, he was very
busy, and so he was very kindand very, you know, very good,
generous with his time.
But two, he had so much interms of his own experience to
give and to share.
He was a he's a very much asharing person.

(09:27):
So, dipesh this I wanted to saybecause I mean this is the
first time I've met Dipeshactually face to face I just
wanted to say thank you to foryou for that no, that's.
Okay, mate anytime you know, youknow I'm here.

Dipesh Pattni (09:41):
Um, I think it's important to help people out in
their career anyway, because youknow like we're talking now you
do podcasts and I'm here.
I think it's important to helppeople out in their career
anyway, because you know likewe're talking now you do
podcasts and I'm on your podcast.
I probably wouldn't be on yourpodcast, you know, had we not
had conversations in the past,right, true?
So you know everything goesround in circles and the other
thing is there are lots of kidsand stuff out there who are just

(10:01):
starting their careers, orthere's people who want a career
switch right and they needsomebody to go to that as
impartial and offer them goodadvice and I never had that when
I was starting my career.
So you know, and I wish I didand, to be honest, credit to you
because you had the initiativeto say, oh look, I've got this

(10:21):
guy to pay.
He's on my network, he's an SEO, let me reach out to him.
You know, I wasn't asforthcoming as that when I was
younger and when I was, you know, looking at career changes and
stuff.
I wish I was more open andhonest back then.
But it's because I kind ofbelieve that I've just got to
get on with it.
I've got to do it myself.
That's not how it works.

(10:43):
You've got to tap into yournetwork.
People will do it, I'll helpyou out and you help them out.
I think that's the best way todo business and that's the way
you enjoy it the most.
I agree.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (10:55):
I agree.
I'm intrigued actually, dipesh,because you've gone from being
really successful with PhD.
You've built a goodrelationship with the people
there.
You've had a good stint there.
You've had 9 years there.
You built up a team.
How big was your team?
Did you say 70?

Dipesh Pattni (11:14):
Yeah, it was about 70 by the time I left, so
you've built all that up now whyswitch right.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (11:22):
What made you want to switch to working at
BESO?
This is the hardest decisionI've made in my life.
Why switch right?
Yeah, what made you?

Dipesh Pattni (11:24):
want to switch to working for yourself.
This is the hardest decision Iever made in my life, and even
when I decided that I'm going toset up on my own, I wasn't
totally convinced in my own head, and even my wife was like look
, if you're going to do this,you do it now All right.
So why I switched?
Okay, I loved everything aboutmy job and stuff, but there was

(11:48):
always that something at theback of my head telling me that
you know, I still want to set upon my own.
I still want to set up on myown and I had attempted it
before and failed, and thatnever left me.
Because I tried to set up a seobusiness and I failed.
That part never left me.
Because I tried to set up a SEObusiness and I failed, that
part I'd never left me.
It was always still there thatyou know, I tried to do, that

(12:09):
didn't work out.
And so I said you know, I'mgonna give it a go again.
And the other big reason for itwas my life had changed.
I had a door right.
My door was yeah, my door wasapproaching one, yeah.
So the month that she was goingto turn one in is the month I
basically I think that's themonth I resigned or left,

(12:32):
because that first year of herlife, what was happening was, by
the time I got home, she wasalways in bed.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (12:39):
I know that feeling.
Yeah, not a good feeling is itwhen you get back home and she's
asleep or they're asleep.
So I hear yeah absolutely, yeah, exactly um.

Dipesh Pattni (12:52):
And so that's what was uh, that's what was
actually really like um.
It started, it was starting toaffect me because I was like I'm
not even getting to see mydaughter grow up.
So I said something has tochange.
And the time just presenteditself where, actually, all
right, let's set up.
I just decided that I'm goingto set up a mom at that point

(13:12):
because I said that that way,initially, I can work from home,
I'll be able to watch mydaughter grow up.
Okay, I might not make the samemoney I did, and you know it's
going to be tough and I'm goingto have to build the business up
and things like that.
But at least I'm not going tomiss out or regret, uh, the
decision of um, of, of, you know, of spending time with my

(13:34):
daughter.
And you know I won't have thoseregrets when I grow, you know,
when I'm old or when I'm likelooking back and they're and
she's 20 years old or somethingand I don't want to feel like
man.
Why didn't I spend more timewith her as a baby?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (13:47):
And you can never get that time back,
can you?

Dipesh Pattni (13:50):
No, you can't, because I think the older kids
get the less time they want tospend with their parents until
they hit about 30 or 40, andthen they kind of gravitate back
to their parents.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (14:01):
Yes, yes.

Dipesh Pattni (14:03):
Yeah.
So it's really weird like that.
Um, so I I just didn't want tomiss that, so I said, okay, I'm
going to make a decision, I'mgoing to give it a go and I'm
going to see how I get on, andif it gets really bad, then I'll
look at contracting, I'll lookat other options and go from
there.
Um, so, yeah, and the otherthing, what?
At the time when I was quitting,I didn't know what my

(14:24):
proposition for Lee was, and itkind of developed because what
GravitasQ does essentially isit's not just digital marketing.
Yes, we can deliver your SEO.
The SEO is usually delivered byme as well, as you know the
front man for that.
We deliver PPC, we do socialmedia as well, and everything is

(14:46):
based on performance.
So it's about the types ofclients that will come to us,
the people that want to drivesales and want to do lead gen on
something like Facebook.
They want to do lead gen on PPC.
They're doing SEO because theywant more sales.
It's not necessarily a brandingexercise, and the best way to
deliver performance is havesomebody that has been around

(15:08):
and somebody that has got theexperience and knows what is
going to work and what isn'tgoing to work.
So the way GrabTaskQ works isthat I basically have built a
network of a lot of freelancerspeople I've worked with in the
past, people I've trained aswell in the past, as well as
some newer people I've met alongthe way.

(15:29):
Now these freelancers, theyhave five to ten years'
experience.
They have more experience thanyou would get at a bigger agency
.
So if you're a client and youhire an agency, a lot of the
time that agency is gonna havesomebody that either that is a
grad working in your business,that has one years experience
working in your business, or twoyears it's working.

(15:51):
You know it's very effectiveit's rare that they're gonna get
that person that's five to tenyears working on their business,
because you know that personwho's been in the game for ten
years is is.
You know, I'm gonna be managinga team of 78 people like myself
right.
So the way gravitas q works isthat I'm tapping into all the
people that no longer want to bein that um in that space or

(16:14):
working for an agency and theywant to contract and they like
the execution side of things,they like working on clients,
businesses and you know,campaigns and stuff like that
and they're not that concernedabout the management and
managing people side of things.
So those are the people I'venow tapped into because I'm
bringing a lot of experience tothe table for a client that

(16:36):
they're not always going to getthe right recommendations and
the right answers from someonethat only has one or two years
in the business versus somebodythat has five to ten years in
the business.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (16:44):
And I guess you, because you've also
built up your networks, you'vegot a great network yourself of
not only people who you'veworked with on other projects
while you've been at PhD, butthrough the years you can vet
those people.
Having worked with themAbsolutely, yeah, you can
actually say, you know, I couldput my hat on this guy or this,

(17:07):
this person here, because I I'veseen their work, I know what
they're all about and I thinkthat that's that as well.
It's it's, it's really it'squite difficult, I I believe, to
find um, good people at thelevel that you want them,
because often you lots of peoplethese days, people who may only

(17:31):
have one or two yearsexperience in marketing, and
claim that they've got, you know, they're a marketing expert,
sort of thing.

Dipesh Pattni (17:37):
So you know it's a huge problem actually, because
so a lot of the clients thatcome to me, um, you know,
because I'll be honest with you,I am not the cheapest person to
come to if you're a smallerbusiness, but I do have smaller
business clients and the onesthat have come to me are usually
people that have been burnt indoing their hire to do their SEO

(17:59):
and their PPC and stuff.
What usually happens is smallerbusiness.
They can't afford tonecessarily pay big, big money
for having PPC delivered forthem or SEO delivered for them,
and there's nobody that's evermanaged the expectations in SEO
because SEO takes time.
You know, you gotta, you gotta,you gotta say that, okay, I'm

(18:19):
gonna, I'm gonna do SEO for ayear, six months and I want to
look at the results over thatperiod of time.
When you initially start yeahbut there's no.
No one ever manages theexpectations.
So with the smaller businesses,what happens is they get burnt
and then they either decide SEOis no good.
Yeah, exactly.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (18:40):
Absolutely yeah, yeah.

Dipesh Pattni (18:42):
You know, this is the fight I'm in, because
that's what a lot of people willbe like SEO doesn't work
anymore and they keep seeing allthese ads on Facebook about
Facebook advertising and so thenthey start blocking off there
and stuff like that.
But actually to do digital,well, you should be doing SEO,
you should be doing someFacebook, you should be doing
some PPC, you should be evenlooking at affiliate programs

(19:02):
and things like that.
All of that combined these daysis what drives business growth.
And so, yeah, they decide SEOdoesn't work.
That's one side.
Then there's the verypersistent ones that say, no, my
mate did it and he did reallywell out of it, or my competitor

(19:22):
did it and they did really wellout of it.
I've clearly not got the rightperson in here, or I've clearly.
This is how I actually became.
One of the ways I became apartner in Healthful Addiction
as well was we met through thefact that he had had a bad
experience with previous SEOcompany and we kind of did a
partnership where I would joinand work on the website and you

(19:44):
know, we would kind of monitorthat partnership and it's gone
really well.
But you know this is I get alot of people that have been
banned and how comes, and I haveconversations with them.
I can't always sign them all upbecause some clients will still
be a little bit hesitant.
Yeah, of course, some clientswill still they won't want to
spend the amount that Iestimated it's going to take.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (20:10):
Because they want immediate results,
don't they usually?

Dipesh Pattni (20:12):
Yeah, immediate results and low cost.
So some clients it doesn't workwith, but with many clients it
does and this is where you know,to be honest, I've been doing
quite well out of the fact thatpeople have been a burden.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (20:27):
Not that I like that fact.
Yeah, of course I know what youmean.

Dipesh Pattni (20:30):
It's just a common story that's coming to me
all the time.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (20:33):
It's so hard, though, to find.
It's hard to find good SEOs,and I suppose, now that you've
gone remote as well, especially,obviously you've built your
network.
But how is that going?
What are the challenges nowthat you face with your, with
your remote team?

Dipesh Pattni (20:49):
Yeah, so you know , there are a lot of challenges
from working remote and I think,obviously, this is all quite.
I think a lot of the country isworking remote currently due to
current circumstances, sothere's going to be a lot of
challenges in the workplace aswell.
The biggest challenges I faced,from going from a big agency to

(21:11):
suddenly sitting in a room bymyself, um, was a few actually.
Firstly, you know that thatfeeling of loneliness I'm I've
got four walls around me.
The only person that ever comesto talk to me is my little girl
.
Right, she'll pop in and she'llbe like daddy, you got food and
she'll bring her fake food andstuff.
So, yeah, and you know that wasthat's a highlight of my day.

(21:36):
It still is.
She still does it so, um, andshe'll only disturb me once or
twice.
So you know it's not even adisturbance.
I'm happy for it of course, um,yeah, so you know, like that
loneliness really kicked in, umcabin fever became quite a big
thing and, um, you know the factthat I've got nobody to bounce
ideas off.

(21:56):
I'm somebody that bounces offother people and I always was,
I'm always going to be a peopleperson.
So I've had to adapt a lot tohow I now operate because of the
fact that it's against my brain.
You know, my brain has alwaysbeen I need to be around people,
I need to be social, I need tobe social, I need to be.
You know, I I perform best whenI'm around others and I'm very

(22:19):
good at you know, I believe I'mvery good at getting the best
out of others as well.
So, um, when I transitioned tothis, it was suddenly I'm lonely
, what it's almost that wholeyoda effect, you know.
Uh, fear leads to anger and itleads to sadness that sort of
thing.
So yeah you know the lonelinesskicks in, that loneliness needs

(22:42):
to frustration.
Your frustration then impactsyour productivity and that
productivity once you start yourproductivity is not as good
your self-esteem or yourself-worth yeah, you start
questioning your self-worth, sothere's knock-on effects, isn't
it?
Yeah, yeah, and that's when Istarted kind of I started asking
myself have I made the rightdecision here?

(23:03):
About setting up on my own andremember I wasn't initially, I
wasn't making the same money Iwas making when I was working
for an agency because I'd I'dworked my way up to quite a good
level.
So you know, all of that startedimpacting my self-worth and how
I feel about myself and youknow what I kind of recognized
from them.
You know, this is obviously thisis a little bit difficult to

(23:24):
talk about on a podcast yeah but, um, you know, the moment you
start questioning what yourself-worth is, you're in a
little bit of trouble because,um, that means you're not in the
right state of mind.
And what I realized?
That actually the wholeloneliness, the cabin fever, the
productivity slipping, the um,you know how the linkage to

(23:47):
self-worth all of that wasactually wasn't the problem, it
was the result of, it was theresult of um, the bigger problem
and that was mindset.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (23:59):
Yes, yeah, you know mindset.

Dipesh Pattni (24:01):
Having the right mindset is the most important
thing, and I think anybody who'sworking from home and
struggling right now with thecoronavirus stuff going on and
being locked in the housemindset is the is the most
important thing that you need tohave right to then deliver.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (24:17):
I mean, you know obviously don't get me
wrong you can't just have agreat mindset and then sit on
your sofa and do nothing yeah,you have to have the right
mindset and process as well toum do well working at home no, I
see, and I also see as well,like a little picture in my head
, because I, I went through this.
But when, the more you talkabout this is, the more I

(24:37):
recognize the, the symptoms thatI had in myself when I, when I
first started working from homebecause, like you said, I, I, I
used to blame my productivity interms of my you know why I
wasn't sort of achieving thegoals that I was.
I didn't really look at mymindset until, you know, until I
realized I was actually I don'tknow how to describe it much

(24:59):
further down right yeah, kind oflike.

Dipesh Pattni (25:01):
That's almost like your last assessment yeah
first you, yeah, first you'relike I need to get an office and
so then, you say, okay, well,you're still not making that
much money, but you're thinkingabout getting an office yeah,
yeah right, and but just so thatyou can make the money you need
to make right.
And that was you know.
These are the thoughts I wasgoing through.
And then I almost like startedsaying well, you know what I'm
around?
My wife too much, and my wifeand kids too much, you start to

(25:23):
blame everybody else.
Yeah, it's just, you know it'sthe wrong, because that's where
the problem is gonna lie can Iask you something?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (25:41):
what did you do?
Because when, when you're inthat frame of mind, right, it's
almost like things are, it'salmost like there's like lots of
pressure on top of you and youcan't I suppose some people,
they may not be able to thinkstraight, so how do you pull
yourselves up by your bootstrapsand think do that
self-assessment?
How do you even do that?

(26:02):
You know, do you see what Imean?
Yeah, so.

Dipesh Pattni (26:04):
So that's a really good question and one of
the biggest things that Irealized that when I wake up in
the morning, I need to, I needto set myself up right, so, um,
so to do that, I did a couple ofthings.
First of all, I put some I likethere's, there's a couple of
things that motivate me.
Like there's a pic, there's aportrait, that has always

(26:26):
motivated me.
So I bought that portrait and Iput it in my study.
So when I walk into my, thefirst thing I see is that
portrait right.
And then the other thing is youknow what, like, what happens
is sometimes you almost startthinking too realistically, and
you can't do that when you'reworking from home and you don't

(26:47):
have people around you toreassure you or, you know, to
give you recognition or, youknow, tell you you're doing a
great job.
You almost have to just stepout of realism and just say that
, look, being realistic is notthe way that someone like Bill

(27:07):
Gates did it, and I'm not eventrying to become a Bill Gates or
a.
Steve Jobs, but that's not theway they did it.
Or, you know, rupert Murdochyou think that he went home to
his family and told them listen,I'm going to stick some
satellites in the sky and we'regoing to get all this news
information and we're going todo all this.
What do you think his familysaid?

(27:28):
His family probably thought itwas completely extraordinary
right.
Yeah, so you.
So you have to take thoseexamples, and I think that's
important as well.
Motivation is important becauseyou should be looking at quotes
of what some of these toppeople are saying, just like how
you do podcasts with CEOs andstuff.
The information they offer isvaluable.

(27:49):
Whenever you face a dark timeat home, you should be referring
to that stuff.
Whenever you face a dark timeat home, you should be referring
to that stuff.
That is one exercise you can dois, you know, if you don't want
to sit there and you know,meditate or something, go to
YouTube, put some motivationalvideos on and go see what some
of these guys are saying,because they will tell you some
very, very important things,which not all will apply to you,

(28:10):
but many things will apply toyou, but many things will, and I
, I think, I, I think in somecases, they'll say things that
will set off like little um,actually, yeah, I've been been
in that situation myself.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (28:23):
That's what I'm going through right now
.
And you, you, you begin torealize that it's not just you,
right, yeah, that's goingthrough that particular thing or
that particular issue.

Dipesh Pattni (28:32):
No, I hear that, I hear it, and yeah, and the
other thing that's really goodis affirmations.
I don't know, have you evertried affirmations?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (28:39):
yes, yes, I do, yeah, yeah, what which
ones do you suggest?
Are there any particular onesthat you you would use?

Dipesh Pattni (28:46):
I, I, I wrote my own because, um, so I've got
about 11 and remember what I wastelling you about.
I was having some challengesbecause I started questioning my
self-worth.
So I basically, you know,started building affirmations,
really short ones, they might befour or five, um word sentences
, and I'd have about 11 of them,and in the morning, you know, I

(29:06):
just start the day like that,and what happened was I then
suddenly stopped reading them,um, you know, and what like for
anybody that doesn't know whatan affirmation is, is basically
just a one-liner.
You might say to link yourself,um, to remind yourself of who
you are, um, or where you wantto be, like you might say that
you know, I love myself, uh,remind yourself, I've had a very

(29:31):
strong career, um, and I willcontinue to do so yeah.
I will deliver success,regardless of how long it takes,
like these are the types youknow you have.
You have to have affirmations,and you might even have some of
something you're already not yet.
So you might say that I am amillionaire already.
Do you see what I mean?
So yeah, you have to have theseaffirmations, because what

(29:53):
happened to me?
Actually, I was doing thatformation for quite a while and
then I stopped reading them.
So then I I kind of said so, Irecorded them on my phone okay,
now I just have to press playright when I sit down at my desk
and that's it.
That's good enough.
That's a good idea that's agood idea.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (30:10):
It's a good.
That's actually a good becausewhat you get on you've got quite
a lot of these things onYouTube, but you get other
people saying them.
But I think if you've done whatDipesh just suggested there in
terms of writing down youraffirmation and recording
yourself saying it and also therepetition as well, like you
said, you can't just sort of doit for one or two days and then

(30:31):
have a month off and then comeback to it after that it's a,
it's a thing that you, that youshould do, I think, um, on a
daily basis, you know is do youdo it daily?

Dipesh Pattni (30:42):
so I I generally do it on a daily basis.
There will be days, there aredays missed, and I'm going to
talk about process in a minuteactually, because okay um,
because you know the way, when Italk about process, I talk
about how do you split up yourday and how you operate now at
home versus how you operate inoffice.
Really, I think that's reallykey.
Um, but, yeah, affirmations Itry to do every day.

(31:03):
There are days that I missed,but I do regret that I missed
that day afterwards.
Yeah, um, look like the way Ilook at it is every little thing
that helps and there must be areason why people say it helps.
I tried, I tried the meditationthing.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (31:18):
It doesn't work for me right, I tried to
do meditation didn't work for me.

Dipesh Pattni (31:22):
So I said well, rather than meditation, why
can't affirmations be mymeditation?
Um, and that's you know.
That's why I kind of went downthat path, because at the time a
lot of my friends are talkingabout meditation, a lot of gurus
are talking about meditationand I was like I can't even like
sit there and, like you know, Ibasically get ants in my pants
when I want my eyes.

(31:42):
I am in, I am trouble sleeping,like it takes me ages to fall
asleep and you want me to sitthere and meditate I can't.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (31:49):
It's not a one-size-fits-all, is it?
It's not.
It's not a one-size, one sizefits all.
You have to figure out what,what works for you, and I'm the
same.
Meditation, um, I mean, I'vetried meditation myself, um, and
I, yeah, I think I prefer tojust get myself in a zone by
this, either listening to acertain music or um reading

(32:12):
about a certain somebody who I,I really sort of respect, or,
you know, affirmations or acombination of those things, and
those are the things thatreally sort of motivate me and
sort of get me in the rightframe of mind for the day going
forward.

Dipesh Pattni (32:25):
You know, see, you, you have a unique.
You have a unique method whichactually is built around what
you like yeah, yeah so you knowmeditation might not work for
you know, meditation might notwork for you.
Affirmations might not work foryou.
The method that you're using,alex, might not work for someone
else, right?
so you know, it's very good thatyou've built one that is
specifically geared towards youand people.

(32:46):
That's what people need to do.
They can't just say, oh, I'mgoing to meditate like you know,
uh, bill gates does, or youknow whoever else, um, or you
know richard Gates does, or youknow whoever else, or you know
Richard Branson, I'm not goingto do it that way.
You have to find your own wayof doing things and you know,
I'll tell you a really goodstory about that, because, so,
this is more about process.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (33:06):
Yes, please.

Dipesh Pattni (33:07):
Process is really important with working from
home, because one of the otherthings I realized was so
productivity haven't like thiswasn't my productivity sleep I
had.
There were times where I wouldbe doing proposals or pitches
for new business and things likethat, and when I did this in

(33:28):
the office, when I worked in anagency, I was very, I was very
quick, putting something backtogether.
I always knew the story Iwanted to tell to the clients,
the information I wanted to showall of that.
When I suddenly started doingit at home, I would be staring
at a blank PowerPoint and I'd belike I swear I'm really good at

(33:49):
this.
Why am I struggling with it?
And that's because when you'reworking from home, if you're not
sitting at your desk, you'renot working.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (33:58):
Or if you're not typing, you're not
working.

Dipesh Pattni (34:00):
If you're not sending an email, you're not.
That's not how working fromhome works at all.
Right, how it works is so I'lltell you how I discovered my
process.
So I basically got frustratedlooking at that blank powerpoint
.
I went and turned on theplaystation during the working
day, started playing fifa forabout an hour and a half my wife

(34:23):
.
My wife comes in and she's likewhat the hell are you doing?
We've got a mortgage to pay.
And I'm like, and I said towhat you're talking about.
And then she's like, how canyou be playing playstation when
we built, like you're buildingthis business and you know, like
you're saying how important itis, and you told me just last

(34:45):
night how you've got a proposalto get done by the end of today,
right, and um, and I was like,look, basically I was like just
leave me alone.
I'm thinking and uh, and that'sactually when I discovered my
process, because so when you goto, when you go to uh work, you
always have to get on the train.
I had one hour for me on atrain there's a set way of doing

(35:06):
it, isn't there?
yeah, so.
So what would happen is is thatI've already started planning,
I've already done the audits andthe downloads and I already
know what information I need,right.
So on the train, I've alreadystarted planning what my slides
are going to look like, right?
So by the time I've then gonethrough that process for that
one hour on the train, I thengot to work and said I need to

(35:28):
knock out this proposal, mm-hmm,and I need to get this proposal
done so that it's ready fortoday or tomorrow or this week
or whatever.
I'm very quick at it becauseI've already visualized what
it's going to look like in myhead.
And so that time, when I satthere and I played FIFA, I had
basically gone through thatprocess.
I went and sat down at my deskand within two hours that
proposal was done right, becauseI hadn't done that process,

(35:52):
process, yeah.
The thinking bit yeah and yeah,and you know, because I was
sitting on my desk staring atthe slide, thinking what should
I do, rather than not beinganywhere near my desk and
processing everything that Ineed to do and visualizing it in
my head and recreate andcreating it in my head before I
go recreate it physically.
Yeah, um, so that that, yeah,my wife was like my wife

(36:15):
realized that wow, that is aprocess like I get it like what
you did.
There was fairly impressive yeahthat's how I discovered what my
process was, so suddenly now,how, if I have a proposal or
something like that, I'll do Imight turn on the playstation I
might go to the gym and I will.
We can't go to the gym right now, um, yeah, they're closed,
right, so you know.
But I would go to the gym and Iwill.
We can't go to the gym rightnow, um, yeah, they're closed,

(36:35):
right, so you know.
But I would go to the gym andbasically I'll go for a run.
So on the day I've got aproposal, I'll pick specific
things like a run, becausethat's long, you can only think
you're in a run because you'reon a treadmill and of course,
there's nothing to yeah, justdon't don't hit the Netflix
buttons or anything like that,right, um?
so I'll'd go for a run, then I'dgo in the swimming pool and

(36:56):
then I'd go in the jacuzzi, andin that time I would have
processed what I'm supposed tobe doing when I get back on my
desk.
So then you know, 10.30, I goto the gym, I'll be back at
11.30, and bang.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (37:07):
That proposal will be done over the
next few days.
Right, it's a couple of thingsthere, isn't it?
It's?
The first thing is, um, youknow your, your mind, when
you're, when you're at work, andyou have to have that commute,
your mind is almost, like, getsused to a rhythm, doesn't it, of
going through the pro.
You know the process of thatgap, of going through work to

(37:28):
work, which, in your mind, isworking and thinking about what
you've got to do when you getthere.
But when you're at home, youdon't have that sort of um, that
commute, so to speak, so thatthat journey is you on your, on
your playstation playing fifa,isn't it?

Dipesh Pattni (37:41):
and yeah, yeah, exactly, and you know, as I
started to, as I started todissect that even more, what I
realized was that there weretimes where I would go sit in
the canteen at work and I wouldjust sit there with a coffee and
maybe a piece of toast, or youknow, in the morning, or like
I'd be sitting there atlunchtime, after lunchtime for a
little bit longer, and what Iwas doing at those times was

(38:01):
processing how um, processinghow these things work.
I need to blow my nose no, gofor it.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (38:08):
Why are you doing that?
I'll just say as well.
Um, I'm gonna say right now theworst thing to do is cough or
blow your nose, or something,but at least we've got our
distance, at least you knowwe've got a two-meter distance
between us.
I was going to say the otherthing Don't be you, go ahead, go
ahead.
No, no, no, go on.
I was going to say the otherthing is you talked about

(38:31):
sitting at your computer, that'sthe first thing you talked
about where you're just sittingat a, and it can become
frustrating, can't it?
I don't know about you, but ifyou sit at a computer and
nothing is sort of coming to you, I become more and more
frustrated.
So I have to then take myselfaway physically, usually away

(38:54):
from that situation.
And it might mean I go out andI don't know, I sit on, go and
sit outside with a pen and paper, or I might just I don't know
go for a go and sit outside witha pen and paper, or I might
just I don't know go for a runaround the block or a walk or
just do something thatcompletely takes me away from
the scenario of sitting down.

(39:15):
And that's when my thoughtsstart to gather themselves and I
start to think, you know.

Dipesh Pattni (39:18):
Yeah, it's so important, and everybody that's
working from home and stuck athome right now, they'll be going
through some of these stages.
So what you know, the biggestthing you can do is identify
when you do your thinking andhow you do your thinking.
Yeah, I love that you'resitting at a desk I love that
you know for you that mightbecome something like hitting a

(39:39):
tennis ball against the wall foran hour yeah yeah, whatever it,
it is right, it's still working.
That doesn't mean you'resuddenly not working, as long as
you're still focused on whatyour task at hand is and you're
basically trying to figure outhow you're going to do it.
You're still working, so youknow.
That is very important forpeople to understand.
I like that.
Yeah, I saw this video wheresomebody's using a fan or

(40:04):
something to move their mousearound at home, so it looks like
they're working and I'm likethat's not how it should be.
Companies shouldn't be sittingthere monitoring.
Are people still logged in?
Are people still logged in?
That's not how working fromhome works and people work
differently, don't they?
Yeah, exactly, everybody worksin different ways and I think

(40:25):
that everyone has toself-reflect to find what that
process is.
When do you do your thinking?
When do your best ideas come toyou?
Um, you know what do youactually do at your desk when
you're sitting there, and whyare you?
You know the times you're mostproductive, why are you that
productive at your desk?
Um, and you know again, if wecan tie this all back to mindset
, because if you accept all ofthese things, suddenly you're

(40:46):
already in a better mindset anda frame of mind, because you
know how you operate in adifferent condition.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (40:53):
No, I love that going into an office, yeah
, delivering, deliberate.
On the.
On the flip side of that, ifyou're feeling at your lowest
point, you you probably need toassess yourself and look at
yourself and think to yourselfwhy am I feeling like this right
now?
What, what's causing me to feelthis way?
And then, when you, when you'remore aware of the things that

(41:14):
help you to do your best work,or you're aware of the things
that are causing you to be in aslump, then you can actually
begin to think about remedyingthem right.

Dipesh Pattni (41:25):
Yeah, and you know there's already signs of it
, because so I think I mentionedthat I've partnered with a
gentleman named Nick on hisbusiness Help for Addiction, and
we did an equity deal where Iwould basically take equity of
the website.
And you know, we've beenworking together for over a year
now and you know, due to allthe current circumstances, we're

(41:46):
literally launching onlinetherapy next week, because we've
had an influx of demand foronline therapy and everything
seems to be related to moremental health, with the idea
that you've got this virus outthere and that virus scares
people.
It's frightening, right, yeah,and then, like, people are

(42:08):
working from home now, sothey're not only dealing with
the pressure of I need to learnwhat my processes are working
from home, how I operate fromhome, um, the boredom of not
being able to leave your house.
Um, then they've got this virusout there as well that they're
scared, they're frightened of,they're scared that something's
gonna happen to them or theirfamily member or their friends,
right, um, so there is, you know, that's going on in the back of

(42:30):
their mind as well.
So you know, that's why, likethis whole online therapy we're
doing with that is, the reasonwe're launching online is simply
so we can deliver it via zoom,so people can have that while
they're at home.
Um, but the, the only reasonwe've done this is because we've
already had inquiries about um,about, you know, having therapy

(42:51):
from home.
Can you give us therapy fromhome?
And we, you know we've gottherapists, so we're like, let's
just deliver it online because,you know, I I think that, as
this develops and depending onhow long we're in lockdown,
there's going to be a lot ofpeople are going to start
struggling with working fromhome.
So, you know, I hope that theylisten to this conversation
because you know you've saidsome really useful stuff um,

(43:14):
about um, you know about theprocess, about, like, um, how
you found your way how I foundmy way and I think that's
everybody has to find their way,uh, at this time and find
something that works positivefor them.
I come from the school ofpositivity and I'll tell you
something when I set up on myown that all went out the window

(43:34):
.
I thought I was immune tofeeling negative about it, but
yeah it's easy to be positivewhen everything's going right,
absolutely right it's.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (43:41):
It's not so easy when everything's going
right, absolutely.

Dipesh Pattni (43:42):
It's not so easy.
When everything's going right,it's still easy when a little
bit's gone wrong, but wheneverything, suddenly, all the
pressure is on you and you haveto deliver, positivity is you're
not sitting there thinking.
Let me just be positive aboutthis right now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (43:57):
It's one thing you need to have that
positive mindset.
Yeah, it's one thing being amanager or a founder or an owner
of a business that's co-located.
There's pressures that arebrought to bear on somebody who
is that person, because theyoften talk about being, you know
, wondering who they should talkto.

(44:18):
But when it comes to being thatperson that founder or that
manager, and then workingremotely, I think it's even more
.
The pressures are even greaterbecause you don't have that
contact.

Dipesh Pattni (44:32):
Yeah, absolutely Alex.
Because, alex, if you're amanager right now, you're
probably thinking uh, not justabout yourself, you're probably
thinking how, if you're a goodmanager, you'll be thinking how
am I going to manage my team?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (44:47):
absolutely yeah, yeah they are mentally
okay as well and how I meanactually on that point, how can
you recognize sort of symptomsin your own team as well?
I mean, as much as it's, it'sprobably.
I don't know if it's easier.
I I mean not to say I found iteasy to look for the symptoms in
myself, but it can sometimes bemore difficult to look for

(45:09):
symptoms in people you'remanaging, because people I don't
know unless you've got a reallyreally close relationship with
somebody.
You know them inside out it's.
Sometimes people might maskthem or I don't know what what
can you do?

Dipesh Pattni (45:23):
well, that's really, that's a really good
question.
Um, there's, you know whatthere's a lot of.
There's actually quite a lot youcan do as a manager.
Um, first, when you first sitdown and think about it, get
yourself right, make sure thatyou're comfortable and you've
found your process at home, andhow you're going to basically
continue to be productive, andhow you're going to make sure

(45:46):
you have the right mindset everymorning, and stuff like that.
So, once you've looked afteryourself, now you help your team
.
Right, but you've got to bequick with it if you're a
manager, because you can't takeweeks to find your own process
and stuff, you've got to bepretty quick.
So, in the meantime, what youshould be doing is implementing
something that creates a littlebit of normality to what your

(46:07):
staff has in the office.
Now, what?
What does staff love most inthe office?
Well, they will enjoy the factthat they get to have banter
with their colleagues.
They will and I'm taking thework out of it like, whether you
enjoy your work or not, it'sgot nothing to do this right now
.
Right, you need to.
Basically, as a manager, youshould be focused.
If you want the best out ofthem at this time, you should be

(46:29):
focusing on their mindset andhow, what you create that keeps
them in a strong frame of mindright now.
So the biggest thing that weall have right now is we can all
relate to the fact that we'reall locked in our houses.
So, as a manager, if you didn'thave anything that you could

(46:49):
relate to with your staff before, you've certainly got something
now, because you're going to behaving the same challenges as
your staff is Absolutely yeah.
And what I would suggest is, ifyou're not always going to
recognize when somebody isshooting down because they might
pretend, but what you willnotice is that if they're more
frustrated on web conferencemeetings or on the phone, you'll

(47:12):
be able to sense frustrationfor sure, because somebody who
normally contributes a lot willsuddenly contribute less, will
suddenly contribute less.
Somebody who, um, somebody whodoesn't contribute as much
anyway, but will suddenly becomevery quiet or very distant, or
when you've asked them something, they might not necessarily be
as focused on their work.

(47:33):
You know you want it's good toask, it's good to ask your staff
details at this time, becauseif they're not in the detail
when they normally are, thenyou'll be able to.
It's another tell, right?
But I think that rather thantrying to identify, okay, which
one of my team has got anxietyand which one hasn't.

(47:54):
I think that what you're goingto be more better off doing is,
as a manager, ring them up, ringup everybody, ring up, whoever
your team members are.
I mean, even if you've got ateam of like, when I had a team
of 70 people, I still had fivedirect reports right, and then
it kind of like filters out.
So at least ring up, yeah, ringup your direct reports and maybe
bring up a couple of peopleunderneath them too and, just

(48:17):
you know, have a conversationwith the house.
Things you know, like you talkto them about some maybe you're
some of your frustrations.
Let them talk about some oftheir frustrations, because
letting it out is going to helpas well.
Yeah, um, we've got things likezoom as well, where you can
have a whole group meeting.
So you should be setting one ofthose, you know, every every
two or three days, I think, atthis moment in time, just not

(48:40):
necessarily to do work, right,but just so all the staff are
still talking to each other, soyou might talk a bit about work
but then talk a bit abouteverything else going on.
Don't just let it all go back towork because, if you're just
going to talk to your staffabout work at this worrying time
, then they are not going to bementally, mentally prepared or

(49:02):
mentally safe, because what youneed is you need to be creating
some normality about what theyhave in their workplace.
You know that fact that ifyou've got a Zoom and
everybody's on it andeverybody's having a laugh about
something, then that's great.
The other thing is you couldeven do evening drinks, right.
You could say that, oh, let'sall have a team drink together

(49:22):
um this evening it's friday orit's thursday remotely, yeah,
yeah, let's do remote drinks.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (49:28):
Yeah, yeah , why not exactly yeah?

Dipesh Pattni (49:32):
the other thing, there's a great app.
It's called um house party.
Have you heard of?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (49:35):
it.
No, I haven't.
I'm gonna write that one down.

Dipesh Pattni (49:37):
House party yeah yeah, house party, yeah, so so
what you can do in house partyyou could set up.
You and your team could set upon house party.
Yeah, so, what you can do inhouse party, you and your team
could set up a house party andlet's say, you decide to
FaceTime one of your teammembers, so you might be having
a conversation with that teammember, but somebody else from
your team can then intrude andjump in on that call.

(49:59):
Okay, so if you leave the roomopen, so somebody else from that
team, from your team or yourfriend list can jump in on that
call and suddenly just randomlyjoin the conversation.
Um plan spontaneity?
Yeah, it's like it's a banter,isn't it like in?
the office as well it'd just bea good laugh to do something
like that.
Um, you have to be delivering.
I just think you need to rightnow, at this moment in time.

(50:22):
You should be delivering moremindset stuff.
Then how far are you with yourwork?
Can you hit the deadlines andthat sort of thing?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (50:29):
yeah as long as you've got a team that
hits deadlines, then you shouldbe focusing on on the people and
what their state of mind is andhow the communication is
flowing, more than anything elseyeah, I, I agree, and I think
in this because, I mean, I'vespoken to people who who've been
in the world of remote work,who work remotely for 10, 20

(50:49):
years, and some, some of them,it took them six months a year,
two years, to get to grips withworking from home and forget
about the the day-to-day workthat they have to do.
It just it just took them likethat length of time to just bed
in.
So I agree with you, I thinkit's so important to talk about
things other than work, but it'salso important to have that

(51:12):
empathy and have that patiencewith your team so that you, you
can give them, as you know, asmuch time as possible to
actually acclimatize to this new, this new sort of uh, you know
way of life that we're having atthe moment.
You know, you have to get, getready for it, prepare them for
it.

Dipesh Pattni (51:31):
I completely agree, because businesses are.
You know, businesses areworried as well right now,
because obviously profits aredown, sales are down.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (51:48):
So for somebody that's leading that
business, it's difficult becausethey need to worry about the
patience of their employee andthen they need to worry about
their bottom line.

Dipesh Pattni (51:55):
But I think that if you can focus more on the
people so that that bottom lineimproves, and that that might be
one way to go about it, or youdo need to split your time by
saying, okay, well, clearlywe're going to need more clients
, clearly we're going to needmore sales, so you put things in
place for that, and then yousay how am I going to carry on

(52:15):
making my people deliver as wellas they?
They've always delivered andyou have something in place for
that?
You can't.
If you, if you as a business,and if you now suddenly just
focus on the sales bit becausethat's where the emergency is,
then just put this side thepeople think is going to dip.
Without doubt it's.
You know, you're going to haveto be that leader that you you

(52:36):
thought you was or you are whenyou started this business and
you're going to start jugglingthings you know again and make
sure your focus is split in twoplaces yeah, it's a different
kind of leadership, isn't it?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (52:48):
it's really.

Dipesh Pattni (52:50):
Yeah, it's more of a business owners right now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (52:52):
Really feel for them I do, um, I do too
.
It's, it's and it's difficult.
I think those business ownersalso or business owners,
managers, founders they alsoneed to have that support
network themselves becausethey're taking.
What you have to realize isyou're taking on being that, I
suppose, coach, I suppose youcould say they're almost being

(53:12):
becoming coaches, um, and beingmore sort of that.
All that empathy it's gonnahave, it's gonna probably take,
it's take a sort of toll on onon you as well, because you're
having to, like you said, you'regoing to have to acclimatize to
working remotely and gettingyour team all in place and
dealing with all the dailypressures that it takes to

(53:32):
actually run a team or run abusiness.
But who is looking after you?
So you have to figure out whothat person would be, or bring
people into your network, yoursupport network, to look after
you as well, so that you're inthe best possible position to
look after your team.

Dipesh Pattni (53:48):
Yeah, great, and I think you know you just
stumbled on something reallyimportant Like who's looking
after you, um, and and so like,I think that you should still be
trying.
Just like we talked about remotedrinks with your work
colleagues and stuff like that,I think you still should be
doing some remote stuff withyour friends.
Um, so I've actually gotsomething planned, you know,

(54:09):
today, um is I'm going to beplaying a poker game on poker
stars, and you know it's not fora lot of money, it's a very
small amount of money, uh, butI'm playing in a private room
with friends and simultaneouslywe're all going to be talking on
Zoom as well while we play.
And that's something I've gotplanned tonight, because I can't

(54:32):
go in one of the houses andplay a poker game.
So we said we're all stuck inthe house.
Should we have a game of poker,like we would normally like
once every couple of months?
But we'll do it from home andwe'll do it on PokerStars,
because you can have a privateroom and we'll come and zoom at
the same time.
Um, and this is you, this is allof that stuff is what helps
your well-being as well, becauseyou've got to see your friends

(54:55):
and all your family and stufflike that, and you know this is
just how you have to functionfor a little while.
But you've got to embrace allthe technology that we've got,
because we've created all thistechnology that allows us to be
remote.
And aren't we lucky we createdit.
Yeah, exactly why we should beusing it because we've built a

(55:18):
world where you can stay at home.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (55:20):
Literally yeah, yeah, no, I agree, it's
about also thinking outside ofthe outside of the box.
I suppose I wouldn't, I'd neverhave thought of, actually.
I mean, I don't, I don't knowmuch about, um uh, poker or well
, gaming is not something I dothat much, but I know that, for
example, places like twitch, ifyou are a gamer, twitch is a

(55:42):
place where you can sort of hangout.
You can create private spaces,can't you, and game on there.
I don't know, just like yousaid, just having on for
something like Skype.
If you've got people in yournetwork, you can just gather
together and just talk aboutwhat went on.

Dipesh Pattni (55:59):
Yeah, exactly.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (56:00):
And lots of these apps now, for example,
google.
Now they've stepped up andthey've been.
They've improved um hangoutsand they've got meat.
Now, haven't they?
And you can have, I don't know10, I think, up to 20 people, 25
people on there at a time.
So it's, there's all kinds ofdifferent tech.

Dipesh Pattni (56:17):
So I didn.
But I've always used it justfor like um, you know, like
almost like a FaceTime orsomething.
Yeah, Uh, when I'm only havinga meeting because I didn't know
that actually they're doingsimilar things, that's quite
good, yeah.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (56:29):
But I think that interaction we're
human beings after all we needinteraction we need to separate
work, uh, from, like yousuggested, uh, depe, separate
our work from our, you know, ourdowntime.
We need to have that downtime.
We have to have that that sortof baked in to, yeah, to the you
know, the daily, daily life, orat least once or twice a week,

(56:51):
you know, especially now.
So, yeah, yeah definitely nowyeah, um so yeah, I was gonna
say what, what.
What are the plans for you now?
What are the plans for you now?
What are the plans for you andGravitasQ?

Dipesh Pattni (57:05):
So you know, as I said, I feel sorry for business
owners because, to be honest,right now is a difficult time
for GravitasQ as well.
You know, we've had a couple ofclients turn off their PPC ads,
so that's going to impact as abusiness.
That's going to impact mebecause, um, if they're not
advertising, then obviously I'vegot less to do.

(57:26):
Um, I'm very lucky in the factthat seo clients they, they
continue to do what they do.
Um, and they should, becausewith seo it's you know, you
can't just suddenly stop becausewe're on lockdown for a little
while.
Seo is something you've got tokeep doing anyway.
I think with pvc and mediabecause it's real-time, there
are pockets where a couple ofclients have turned up because

(57:48):
it doesn't make sense for themto be live If you're on a venue
and you're doing PPC ads whenyour venue's closed.
There's no point in running ads.
Send people to ask them to cometo your shop or anything like
that, right?
So you know it's going to be atough time.
I mean I'm confident thatpeople get through it, but it's

(58:09):
going to be a tough time and, um, going forward, I mean like, um
, you know we've it's, it's,it's almost business as usual
otherwise.
So I'm lucky in the fact thatyou know I've got a um, a good
uh client book, in the sensethat I've got a variation of
clients so they're not allpeople see where everybody has
to turn off or anything likethat.
So I'm very lucky in that sense.

(58:30):
So it's business as usual andwe've got to skews.
Just, the plan is to continuegrowing it and kind of like one
of the biggest things thatdoctors Cuny's is exposure and
the fact that we're bringingpeople with five to ten years to
the table, with five to tenyears experience to the table,
you know, and what they can doand how good they are is very,

(58:53):
very important to how a businesscan grow.
Whether you're large or small,you might be a very big brand
and you've just never managed toget your performance right.
Well, what if I told you we cangive you people that have been
around and have worked on a lotof brands and managed to get the
best out of some big brands aswell yeah.

(59:14):
So you know, that is the messagewe're putting out there,
because I think that a lot ofbrands are now kind of becoming
a little bit hesitant withagencies and things like that,
and this is the whole reason theconsultancy was started up.
And even if you want somebodyto review whether you're doing
the right stuff, then that'sanother reason to give us a call

(59:35):
as well.
But yeah, for us it's businessas usual.
As I said on Helpful Addiction,we're going live on online
therapy this week, so that'sgoing to be big because there's
a lot of people out there whoare not going to be able to get
to rehab to deal with theirhealth or drug addictions.

(59:55):
There are people that might behaving anxiety and depression
issues.
So the fact that they'll beable to get therapy at home from
their phone or tablet orcomputer, it's going to be
really big, and that's deliveredby a registered therapist from
our clinic anyway.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:00:11):
So you're still busy, then You're still
keeping busy.
Yeah, still busy Still busy.

Dipesh Pattni (01:00:16):
It's a bit like the hard bit is not being able
to go out.
So I haven't been able to go tothe gym and today I was feeling
a little.
This morning I was feeling alittle sore, um, like my muscles
, aren't you know?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:00:26):
they're not active.
Yeah, yeah, they're not active.

Dipesh Pattni (01:00:28):
So today I'm going to go for a run, probably
about four or five o'clock aswell, because I just need, I
need to.
I'm gonna have to go out and atleast have a run in the fresh
air well, at least we're allowedto do that.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:00:40):
We're allowed to do that.
We're allowed to do that.

Dipesh Pattni (01:00:41):
Yeah, we're allowed to exercise once a day,
and I haven't been taken theopportunity to do that either.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:00:49):
Again, that's another.
I mean that could be a wholeother podcast, couldn't it On
how to sort of keep physicallyin shape?
Because I actually did apodcast about that.
In terms of the, because lotsof people, people, we talk about
the mindset and the mental, themental aspect of working from
home.
Rightly so, because it affectsa lot of people.
But sometimes that's the wedon't.

(01:01:11):
We neglect the physicalconsequences of working from
home as well, because obviouslyyou have to have that discipline
, don't?
You have to be able todiscipline yourself to get up,
and just get up, and walk up anddown the stairs or go to the
gym or go around the block.

Dipesh Pattni (01:01:26):
So that's a whole different story which we'll
cover at another time, I guessyeah, mate, that there's
definitely a podcast in that,because when I when I first uh
set up on my own, I was thinkingyou know what?
This is brilliant, I want to goto the gym every day.
And, um, it did not last.
I was very bored when I was inthe workplace, right?

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:01:45):
so I was like something's not right here.
Yeah, I thought that, you know,I thought this would be easier.

Dipesh Pattni (01:01:50):
Yeah, and your fatigue does suffer a little bit
.
Yeah if you're not exercising,then you know what happens.
Your productivity um change.
I started intermittent fastingas well, where I don't do
anything till one o'clock aswell.
Um, and I find that really goodbecause, uh, in the morning I'm
not like rushing around to uhto have.
I'm not not rushing around, butI'm not worried about what I'm

(01:02:12):
having for breakfast.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:02:13):
All I'm going to do is I'm going to come
in the kitchen, get a coffeeand get on my desk, and it just
made me a whole lot moreproductive as well so yeah, you
probably have a podcast on that,yeah, there's definitely a
podcast, but this one has beenreally eye-opening for me and
it's like I said, it's been goodto have some face time with you
, having written to you allthese these years.
And, um, I just want to wish youall the best with gravitas q,

(01:02:35):
I'll be keeping obviously up todate with that.
What I want to do as well is,um, is make sure that we we get
get help for addiction in theshow notes so people can
actually link to it from theshow notes and you know if, if,
if, any of this has chimed withyou today.
If you're experiencing I don'tknow slumps in your mood, you

(01:02:57):
know if you, if you're feelingnot yourself, if you're feeling,
if somebody you know is is notfeeling themselves, then don't
keep it to yourself.
Whatever you do, at the veryleast talk to somebody.
But, um, it may be that, uh,help for addiction could be
something that could help youout definitely reach out,
because on the website you caneven have there's instant web

(01:03:19):
chat.

Dipesh Pattni (01:03:20):
Um, there's a consultation form, so you don't
necessarily have to come and,you know, buy online therapy
before somebody is willing tohave a conversation with you.
If you just put a littlemessage in the web chat and, um,
you know, nick or one of thesecolleagues will um have a
conversation with you.
Uh, less likely to be me, asI'm probably not the most, I'm
not the best suited to it, butyou know people that have got

(01:03:42):
experience in therapy, peoplethat have the experience of
addiction.
You know you can have aconversation with them on web
chat on up for addictioncouk.
So, yeah, definitely if you arestruggling with remote working
then yeah, definitely, but Ihope, like you know the
conversation today that we'vehad, you know that will help
people.
Um, that will help peopleanyway so I'm sure it will.

Alex Wilson-Campbell (01:04:02):
I'm sure it will and we'll be keeping up
to date thank you for having meon as well pleasure.
It was my pleasure and we willspeak to you soon and thank you
everybody for listening, andwe'll catch you with another
episode very soon.
So all of you take care andwe'll speak to you soon bye, bye
.