Yaron Assabi: 8 thriving businesses, 3 cancers, the world's first mobile commerce transaction - and he's just getting started.

When your doctor gives you 3 months to live, what do you do with the company you spent 23 years building? What do you do with your life?

What would crash most people resulted in another successful business venture for Yaron.

What kind of person can do that?

Let's find out!

Yaron Assabi built 1 of South Africa's first e-commerce businesses in 1998 — before most of the country had ever been online. He rode the dot-com wave to a FTSE listing, watched it crash, bought his own company back, and spent the next 2 decades quietly building Digital Solutions Group into 7 specialist businesses serving brands like Nando's, KFC, DStv and Coca-Cola across Africa, the Middle East and the UK.

Then, in April 2021, everything stopped. 3 cancers, diagnosed at once. A family history that had already taken his mother at 39 and his father twenty years later. Doctors gave him 3 months without chemo. He chose to fight it his own way instead — and rebuilt his health, his mindset, and eventually a whole other business, from the ground up.

This episode is the rare kind of conversation that moves fluidly between "how do you scale 7 companies" and "how do you sit with your own mortality and choose to do your own thing" that only Yaron could pull off so well it feels.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Yaron decides what to say yes to 
• The shared-services model that lets DSG launch new startups faster every time, without founders having to be good at everything
• Why he believes a business that depends on its founder is a business that hasn't really been built yet — and how to design yours so it can run without you
• The exact morning system Yaron credits with his recovery and the energy that carries him through his day
• What changed in his mind the day he was diagnosed — and why he says fear is just "a false experience appearing real"
• How losing both parents to cancer shaped his relationship with risk, intuition, and not postponing his life
• Yaron's take on AI in the business 
• Why Yaron believes you don't have to sacrifice your wellbeing to build something great — and what changed his mindset

Whether you're building a company, rebuilding your health, or trying to figure out how to do everything - this episode will be your inspiration, breaking many limiting beliefs and fears that are stopping you from Doing Something Great with every day of your life.

Tune in, get inspired - Do Something Great!

About Yaron Assabi

Yaron Assabi is the Founder and Group CEO of Digital Solutions Group (DSG), a South African-founded, globally active group of seven specialist digital businesses spanning customer experience, digital marketing, telecoms, cybersecurity, data and AI, and digital commerce. Since founding the company in 1998 as one of South Africa's first e-commerce ventures, Yaron has grown DSG into a 600+ person group serving 60+ enterprise brands across Africa, the Middle East and the UK, with clients including Nando's, KFC, DStv, Coca-Cola and Unilever. He built and launched one of the world's first mobile commerce transactions in 2000, served as ICT strategist for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and designed the 46664 global HIV/AIDS awareness campaign technology. A 3-time cancer survivor who chose to heal through lifestyle transformation rather than chemotherapy, Yaron also founded Chilled, a plant-based wellness and lifestyle brand born from his own recovery journey. He holds a degree in Economics from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• DSG: www.dsg.co.za
• Chilled: chilled.mobi

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shorina. I'm your host. I'm your partner in personal and collective transformation, in unlocking more of our potential every day to create the most positive impact we are capable of while living the most extraordinary life experience. And today, guys, I'm super excited to be again sitting down with a really just out of this world fascinating human, someone whose journey reads a lot less like a traditional resume, even by entrepreneurial standards, and more like five different lifetimes stitched together in one. So much the guest of today's podcast was able to accomplish and live through. Yaron Asabi, the founder and CEO of Digital Solutions Group, a business he started in Johannesburg in 1998 as one of South Africa's very first e-commerce companies. 28 years later, this SG has grown into seven businesses, over 600 people, and long-standing partnerships with brands like Nando's, KFC, DSTV, and others. Yaron built the first mobile commerce transaction in the world back in 2000, listed on the FTSE during the dot-com boom, watched it all nearly disappear when the market crashed and then rebuilt from there. But this entrepreneurial resume is not the reason why I wanted to sit down with Yaron and talk to him. It's the human on the other side of all of that that interested me the most after I got to talk to Yaron at breakfast in one of his newest businesses, uh Chill, which I'm gonna talk in a second here. It's the human on the other side who lived through all of these crashes in business and endured quite some crashes in personal life, you might say. And then he rebuilt himself into a more amazing human who seems like he's just getting started. In 2021, at the height of building his group of companies, Yaron was diagnosed with three cancers at once. His doctors told him he had three months to live without chemo. And Yaron said no and decided to pursue his own path to healing, to rebuild his health from the ground up. He focused on nutrition, on sleep, on meditation, on cold exposure, and more, all the you know, good stuff, all the healthy lifestyle stuff that we are such fans of on this podcast. Out of that came another business, a wellness brand called Chilled, and we where we sat down for our breakfast together, and a completely different relationship with success itself, which could be put into this motto that Giron uses quite often: do something great. In this conversation, we go deep into both worlds, Giron's entrepreneurial path and his life's path as a human being. You'll hear how Yaron decides what to build and what to walk away from business-wise, and why being open to opportunity doesn't mean saying yes to every opportunity. You'll hear Yaron's philosophy on building a business that runs without you, so you make money while you sleep instead of the business running you into the ground. We talk about Yaron's exact morning routine that he uses to show up energized before most people have finished their first coffee. And of course, we're gonna go into the mindset stuff, mindset shift that got him through all this health crisis and business uh crashes that would break most people in pieces. And instead, all of that, Yaron was able to build it into something even bigger and greater, starting from himself, of course. This is a master class in building life, business self that you are really proud of and excited about. So let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Yaron Asabi. Yaron Asabi, welcome to Change Wired Podcast. Uh, I'm very excited to have you here because of uh what I learned about you of your like extraordinary journey of uh transformation in all the domains. So welcome to the show. So super excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Nice to be here. Thank you so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

At the beginning of the podcast, I always like to ask my guests to tell our listeners a little bit of a background,

From London To South Africa

SPEAKER_00 5:35

like where you are in life, in business, and uh how did you come to be here? Like maybe a little bit of a journey arc. So our listeners again.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

So I was born in London and I grew up in Israel and I came to South Africa when I was like 15 and I studied at the American International School here and then Witz. But then when I moved to the US, I worked uh for a South African guy, actually in telecoms. And that's when I my my career started in telecommunications and ICT when I was in Miami, Florida. I then moved to the UK and continued with that career and worked for a public company there. And when I came back to South Africa on holiday, I missed South Africa so much that I decided to come back. And I must say, one of the best places in the world to live in, really love it here. And for a while I was working for some corporates, and circa 95, I started my own business in consulting and telecommunications called UC Solutions. And then when I was consulting, I found that whenever I was traveling and not being at the office, you know, because you sell your own time, you know, it wasn't a very, let's say, consistent form of income, right? So I wanted to make money while I sleep. And I decided, okay, how do you create an UT income and make money while you sleep? And I bought a book on Amazon.com. It was an incredible experience. And I thought nobody's doing e-commerce in South Africa. This is 1998. Maybe I should get into the e-commerce space. So in the late 90s, I started digitalmall.com. That was my first company in what's called today the Digital Solutions Group. And I, Amazon, I felt the South African internet market was quite small. Let me rather focus on helping big brand retailers launch e-commerce to be able to get closer to their customers, understand them better, and give them the convenience of buying online. And because there were so few people on the internet, if we create a shopping mall where everybody shares traffic just like they would in a physical mall online, it'll make a lot of sense. And that's where the name digitalmall.com came from. My first customer was Incredible Connection. I built their first e-commerce stall and then Macro, Steinicor, a lot of big brand retailers. And two years into the journey with digital mall, I was approached by another South African company called uh from Cape Town called iTouch. And they were a mobile content company that were taking content from newspapers that were owned by independent news and media and delivering that content via mobile. And they felt that mobile commerce will be quite big and they wanted to get into mobile commerce. So they wanted to acquire our company because we already had all the payment gateways to all the banks. And together we launched the first mobile commerce transaction in the world in March 2000. Um, I don't remember the black and white phones. It was WAP, which was the dream of the internet, very slow, the worldwide weights, as they say, you know, 9.6 kilobits per second on your phone on WAP, where modem those days was 56k. So it was a fifth of the speed on your on your mobile. Whereas you know today the speeds, it's 5G is very, very fast on your on your mobile. But it was the early days of mobile internet and mobile payments and mobile commerce, and we were fortunate to be the pioneers. But as they say, sometimes pioneers returned with arrows in their back. And uh, although we were first to market and we listed on the footsee, it was a very successful listing. You know, the famous dot-com crash happened. Yeah, and when the company was trading below the value that I actually offered shares to my staff, it didn't make sense to remain listed. And my team decided to do a management buyout, and we refocused our business on South Africa and started growing what's known today as the digital solutions group. So we decided we're not focused on e-commerce. We had a great customer experience, business to support e-commerce, and we decided to help organizations with their customer experience as a standalone offering, whether they're doing e-commerce or just customer care or they want to do net promoter score and CSAT and make sure that their customers are happy. Obviously, that's the foundation for success in any business is great customer experience. So we what's known today as the customer experience group, CXG, and in that business, we really look after a lot of big brands, whether we have a lot of clients in retail and quick service restaurants, so brands like Nando's and famous brands and KFC all outsourced their customer experience to CXG, which is part of the Digital Solutions Group. And then we also took our software development capabilities and didn't just build e-commerce sites, but we also built software. And we started brought a different software development and we spun off a business called digitalize.com, which focused on digital transformation and we helped businesses with their digital transformation. Obviously, today it's more about AI and how could I adopt AI to transform my business and things like that. So we do a lot of that kind of consulting and built a lot of tools, and we're very early adopters and digital natives, if you like, because we started so early. So we we we set up the software business. And then over the years, in the last 27 years, it's almost 28 years since I started Digital Mall, we've been building new businesses. So in uh 2013, we launched a business called MVNE, Mobile Virtual Network Enabler, which enabled, which sits between the mobile network operator and the MVNO, the mobile virtual network operator, and acts as the glue and provides all the systems. So, for example, in South Africa, DSTV Internet is a great example of some of our work. We designed, up with a concept, we manage it and run it on behalf of DSTV. We're launching a lot of different MVNOs across Africa and across the world now, not just in South Africa. So we also work with Jersey Telecom in the UK and Poland now. We recently did a deal with one of the operators. And we're growing and taking this business global again, just like we were initially with digitalmold.com. We also have a business that focuses on cybersecurity, because as you know, as people are getting more and more connected, crime is shifting to online, and identity theft is a huge issue all over the world. Yeah.

Early E-Commerce And First Clients

SPEAKER_01 12:10

In South Africa, I think it's less of a problem right now, but a growing problem. But in the US, every second person had their identity stolen. Over 50% of people had their identity stolen. So it's a very big issue. So we set up a business called Digital Resilience. And then we also designed a very unique cyber insurance product called eensure that if you mitigate the risk and you actually look after your posture, we'll also ensure it for SMEs, for corporates, and for individuals around identity theft, theft of funds, and things like that. And we also set up a business that looks after marketing. You know, a lot of companies need help with their marketing, especially with digital marketing and performance marketing, you know. And I think as the technology environment has evolved, and for example, Meta and Google have become dominant players in media, you know, a lot of companies saw their budgets shifting from traditional media to digital. They needed a lot of support. So in South Africa, that business is called broad brand as opposed to broadband. And broad brand works with a lot of different uh organizations in South Africa, a lot of the big brands like Coca-Cola, Unilever. But we also do work with publishers, for example, like Arena Publishing in South Africa, as the Soweta Newspaper and uh, you know, Financial Mail and Business Day. And when they sell advertising to their customers in their print magazines or in their radio or TV, they're able to incorporate a digital component in partnership with broad brands. So they created a product called ADA, AI digital advertising, and ADA is actually fulfilled by our group. So we've got lots of interesting partnerships, but together, all these different companies actually offer a very powerful integrated solution. So some of our clients use all of the companies in the group, some of them only use one or two. You know, it all depends on where they are on their digital transformation journey and what their requirements are and where they need support, you know. So we also say that DSG Digital Solutions Groups, thanks for doing great. And uh that's that's why you always see me posting with love doing something great. That's almost like our peripheral for the company. When you work for us, it's about it's the other way around. It's not DSG, it's GST, it's get stuff done, you know. So when you when you work for us, it's all about getting stuff done. And I think that doing something great started because for us, it's very important to also do corporate social investment wherever we work. And we work across Africa, Middle East, globally, as you heard. So wherever we are, we like to give back to society, and that's the doing something great. So, for example, I had the privilege of being appointed as the ICT strategist for the Nelson Mandela Foundation in 2000. Yeah, and we we donated all of that work, you know. It was quite an interesting story about how I got to uh meet Nelson Mandela and and work for the foundation. But uh I landed up working for them between 2004 and 2012. I was very active, you know, and then obviously post post my deeper passing, you know, that I'm still involved with the foundation, but on a very, you know, not as active as I used to be because they're not as active as they used to be, you know, and yeah when my deep was alive. But we designed the 4664 campaign. I don't know if you're aware of it, but it was a very big campaign and all the music concerts, you could send a text to 4664. Yeah, you'd see your name live on the screen from from the text. So everybody when picture phones came out in 2004 wanted to do that, take a picture with Beyonce's stage and their name on the screen. And and that little gimmick actually created tons of SMSs. Like it was in the first concert we did, I think there were 20,000 people and we did 38,000 SMSs, so more than like 1.6 SMSs per person. And each SMS was 20 Rand, so it raised a lot of money for the for the Nelson Mandela Foundation. We also did work with United Against Malaria, which is now called Goodbye Malaria, and we've done work with Maurishi Institute around sponsoring students and getting them to work in our environment and setting up a contact center inside the university so the students can learn. And so doing something great is part of our ethos and part of our culture. We like to do great innovative digital work, but we also like to do great work that have high impact, you know. And I think some of the best work that we've done has been actually for impact and not for profit, you know, which is which is really yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

You're in like wow, it's a lot of things, right? My eyes were kept getting bigger as I was listening to all of these projects and initiatives that you worked on and developed um, you know, to a really like successful level. I have a lot of questions, but I'd like to start with how do you choose what you work on and what you don't work on? Do you do you have any system decision-making process? So how does it work for you?

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Yeah, so uh, you know, in the digital space, because we solutions oriented, often we started building a product for a client, you know, and then solving their problem, and then approach other similar clients and said, look, this is what we need for this client, would you be interested? And then productize the solution. So often it starts with a problem statement from the client, you understand their issues. And if you're thinking that it's a really great idea at when you solve it for them, if you've got innovative customers, you know, then you tend to grow that way. But generally with clients, we we're quite selective because you don't want to go too wide and you want to make sure that you know the customers that you're working with, you can add value to the business. I think that what one of the things that I really enjoy about the way we've designed Digital Solutions Group is that we've had clients for a very long time. And the reason we're successful in retaining them for a very long time is because we build very close partnerships with our clients. It's part of our mission statement. Our mission statement is we partner with our customers to build comprehensive solutions, which yield mutual return on investment, and our people and diverse technology enable anywhere, anytime access to products and services, ensuring a customer-centric focus. So in our mission statement, we say we partner with our customers. And often what we do is we share the risk and the success

First Mobile Commerce And The Crash

SPEAKER_01 18:55

with our clients. So, for example, in the MVNO space of MVN, MVE, our company that builds MVNOs, we get paid per subscriber that the company actually manages to acquire. So obviously, their success is our reward because the more subscribers they have, the more money we build on a monthly basis. And that way, it's quite nice for our customers because we're very aligned around their strategy and we're very much an enabler as a group. So we're enabled to do certain things, and because we lower the barrier to entry, we can share the risk of success, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah. It seems like you know, I often hear as an entrepreneur, in order to be successful, you need to focus. A, do you agree with that? And B, what's your framework for maybe saying no to some opportunities or to some clients? Or do you say yes to every opportunity to explore and then you know cut if they don't exactly work?

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah, with us, I agree 100% focus, relentless focus is very, very important. And you know, when we started, we were only doing e-commerce, but then we realized no, you need to support it with custom experience, strong customer experience, and you need to support it with fulfillment. Fulfillment is look at the top e-commerce companies in the world right now, they rate logistics companies like Amazon, you know, amazing warehouses and systems to manage stock and things like that. So I think when you solutions-oriented, you've got to you've got to do a commercial viability up front. So to make sure that it's gonna be a win for the customer and a win for you. So you've got to understand numbers. So we're one of the unique companies where we actually start building a technology solution on an Excel spreadsheet, you know, making sure that the commercial viability is actually there. You know, customers will only buy from you if you're gonna save the money or make them more money. Find those areas where you can add value. So I think understanding your customer requirements, understanding their challenge, coming up with the right solution and making sure that it's commercially viable for you and for your customer is really, really important. I think businesses sometimes make mistakes for being too aggressive with their pricing and having too much of a thin margin, you know, and not looking after the numbers. And I think understanding your numbers, understanding how to engage with your clients and making sure that it's a win-win and both of you are in a happy relationship is very, very important. If you want to build a long-term relationship, you know, like we're very fortunate, for example, we're turning 28 and we'll be celebrating 26 years with Nando's. Nando's has been our client right from the beginning. And when we started with Nando's, I actually wanted them to sell Nando's on digitalmall.com. And Robbie Brosen, the founder at the time, was saying to me, Iran, I'm not sure that my chicken is going to travel very well, you know, and I'm not sure that I want to sell on, which is quite strange to hear it today with Uber Eats and Mr. doing so well, and most people ordering. Online. But those days, you know, the logistics infrastructure was not as sophisticated. And it's still difficult to deliver hot meal and all of these things. So he wasn't completely wrong. But, you know, I had an intention of getting them on the online shopping mall, but they said to me, actually, we see that we've got you've got this contact center here and we have issues managing our complaints. Would you be interested in managing our complaints? And I said, No, sure. And and we had a look at it. And at the time, they didn't have many complaints because they didn't have a lot of restaurants in the late 90s, and it was primarily a South African business. As a joke, I said to Robbie that he could have a shared seat in my call center or a quarter chicken, you know, to use, you know, so he doesn't have to pay for a full chicken. He can have a quarter chicken. And we had a big, big laugh about it. And that's where we started. Today we have over 80 chickens working for Nando's dedicated. And we don't only do South Africa, we look after Nando's in Africa and Middle East. Uh, we do some work for the UK and Canada and Australia, you know. So we're more looking after Nando's globally. And because we've been in this relationship for 25 years, we do a lot more than just customer care. We look after HR, we get involved with the online ordering and supporting that from a customer experience perspective. So we've diversified and grown. And one of my favorite kind of quotes that my team often quote me on is that a company's business design has got to be reinvented over and over again in order to remain customer relevant. And I think that's very important. You know, it's part of our ethos at DSG, is that we were early adopters of AI. We build amazing things with AI, and we've reinvented the whole organization over the last year around AI and the capabilities and how we can do things faster and better and more efficient. But at the same time, we're also quite cautious about relying on AI too much. We always talk about human talent amplified by AI. You know, it's still, you know, it's about making humans work smarter and get better productivity, but it's not to necessarily replace it completely. And I think creating a fine balance between these things is quite important.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah, what I'm hearing, you know, also there from I I asked you about focus. And what I'm hearing is focusing on adding value to your customer, to the business, it's that's your primary focus, and that's what defines what you then focus on and how you do things in your business or business.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Exactly. In fact, I spent 50% of my time in front of customers and 50% of time in front of my management team because learn a lot about where the industry is going and and and the challenges that my clients are having, and and maybe design a lot of the businesses that were brought in to the group a bit later, we're about solving a problem, as I said earlier, for one customer, and then think if I solve it for this customer, a lot of other customers also want the same. So very much as you say, you know, and and that's why I spend so much time in front of customers, because you can learn the most about where you need to make the changes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah. I I feel like, you know, in a startup uh ecosystem where I spend a lot of time, it's uh that's where a lot of mistakes and a lot of failures come from from falling in love with the idea, with the solution, or even with the problem, but not actually listening to the customer and what they need, what they're ready to pay for, what they are actually ready to engage with as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

100%. And because I've done a lot of startups, which are now mature businesses, when we launch new businesses now, it's much easier because what we've done at DSG is we build shared services for all the group companies. So you'll find we've got our CFO is shared between all the group companies, the HR team, marketing, some business development, some are dedicated to a business unit, some of them sell at group level. So the entrepreneur within the group, the CEO of the business, can focus on what they're good at. And they don't need to be good at the other things. And I think a lot of the time in startups, what happens, because you you know you worked in this ecosystem, you know, the founder needs to do everything. And when the founder needs to do everything, it's very difficult for them to scale. If you want to scale businesses, you need to have proper processes and systems, and you've got to have shared services that even though you can't afford a full-time CFO, you can get a fractional CFO from the group, or you can get a fractional CMO from the group, which is more affordable for you. And that's what Digital Solutions Group, which I primarily work at group level, you know, is doing for all of its subsidiaries.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

And that's probably you're so successful with all of this adventures.

Reinventing DSG Around Customer Experience

SPEAKER_00 27:05

And speaking of successes, it feels like it's been a success journey from like day one and off your never that easy.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Look, looking through the dot-com pipe and the dot-com bomb, um, I was surprised that my health stayed intact because you know it was crazy times. You know, the expectation from the shareholders of the time that bought into digital mall for me to open in seven countries, you know. I had offices in Australia, which is quite far to travel, and New Zealand and Ireland and the UK. Uh, it was head office because we were FTSE listed, you know, it was crazy times, but that was the dot-com hype, you know. And when the market crashed, imagine seeing all your wealth disappear and starting from scratch again and having to borrow money again to build again. I think that was the biggest school fee and the biggest kind of roller coaster ride that one can go through. So it hasn't been that easy. And I think that it was good school fees, though. Okay. So I paid good school fees early in the development of the business. And it made us stronger. As they say, what doesn't clear you makes you stronger. So uh it made us stronger and more resilient, and we should certainly showed resilience. I mean, a lot of people at the time when the dot com crashed just left their companies and when it started new companies. I took the hardware, I decided no, I really like digitalmold.com and the concept that we built, and I want to hold on to it. And I've built quite a strong that I'm gonna buy it out of the FTSE listed company and there. That's what I did. And I think that now, you know, the group is very different, and digitalmold.com is not even live anymore, but the capability is there. We more build e-commerce facilities for other companies that then would white label it. And our business has transitioned to be more relevant. You know, there's a plethora of platforms now. It's it's it's much easier to do e-commerce, you know, with Shopify and e-commerce and all of these things. So the platform is less important. It's more the services and the strategy and the front end and the customer journey and how you help the customer really deliver the integrated solution. And that's what's so unique about Digital Solutions Group is that as a group, we offer an incredible, you'll have to work as a client, you'd have to work normally with four or five companies to do what we do as a group, you know, and and that's what's so essential about the group. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Superpower view you you developed while going you know through this journey and paying school fees, as you said. I am curious though, that you mentioned, you know, with the companies, how you know you learned certain things and because of that grew stronger and improved. On this podcast, I I am also very interested in hearing about the inside game. Like, how did you manage that from the inside? I'm sure as you as you mentioned, there were challenges and setbacks and all kinds of unpredictable things that were in the way. Like, how did you manage that personally from the perspective of mental minds at and emotions?

SPEAKER_01 30:14

So, you know, being in technology, you generally, it's quite funny. My my development team, one of my development team leads, it's on the wall at one of our offices, used to say that CEOs think that caffeine turns into code. Okay. Whenever I used to come to them with a deadline or whatever the case may be, the team would say, Well, I we don't know if it's possible. And you you tend to do the impossible and work late. And you know, generally technology is associated with lots of coffee, working late, and all of that. And I guess I used to say that I'll sleep when I'm dead. I used to work long hours. And until 2021, when I was diagnosed with uh three types of cancer, I had two colon cancers and a kidney cancer all at the same time. And I had quite a history of cancer in my family. My mom died of cancer when I was quite young. I was 12, she was 40, my dad 20 years later from cancer, my grandfather, my uncle. So I guess it's something that I was always scared of in my life because I was quite traumatized from the loss of my parents. But anything you give energy to, whether it's positive or negative, manifests, you know. So if you put a lot of fear into something, then you might actually cause it to manifest. And when I actually was diagnosed, I said, okay, well, now I have it, so there's nothing to be scared of anymore. And let me rather deal with it. And it was a very huge transition for me just over five years ago. I was diagnosed in April 2021, and I needed to really change my lifestyle and remove the stress, you know, because let's say that disease is, if you break it down, is this ease, right? So you know, disease stands for. And you need to be more chilled and and and and more relaxed. Because actually, when you do things when you're calm, you are in your power. When you do things when you're stressed, some people enjoy stress because it helps them, you know, get things done. But I actually think it's very negative. And being able to manage your work-life balance and the ability for you to put your health first and put your own your own well-being first has become really important for me out of necessity, right? You can't pull from an empty car, you know. And if you if if you know, when when the doctor said to me, look, because of your family history and everything else, we don't believe you're gonna make it beyond three months if you don't do chemo, it's quite a frightening thing to do. And I decided not to do chemo because I I saw that my mom did chemo and it didn't really help her. And you know, I decided to try and do it naturally, and I wasn't sure I was gonna make it or not five years ago, but I I tried this part, and actually transforming the breakdown, if you like, to a breakthrough was incredible. And within a year of cutting out sugar for my diet, gluten, lactose, really prioritizing my health and my sleep. I used to say I'll sleep when I'm dead. Now I really sure for recovery from all the operations because I had quite a big colon operation, and then they removed my right kidney. Unfortunately, lost that to cancer in September 2021. So the sleep became really a priority for me, you know, to for for recovery. And I also didn't want too many people to know what I was going through and I wanted to have business continuity. So I really focused on my health. And actually, as a result, because I'm so grateful to be around, I decided

Cybersecurity, Marketing, And Doing Good

SPEAKER_01 33:40

to actually help other people. And I started a new business called Chilled about three years ago, drama-free lifestyle, to teach people. And I've got a blog called Love Doing Something Great, and I wrote about why Chilled is a superpower, and you know, help people create this balance in their life and and actually prioritize their wellness and not make the mistake that I made. And I actually work with a lot of people that have cancer, and a lot of the time it's stress-related or emotional trauma related, or bad eating, or bad lifestyle, or things like that. And the the system that I created for myself around the healing journey, I share with a lot of people now, and it's expressed in chill drama-free lifestyle as a brand. Okay. Chilled is is provides plant-based food, which is incredible for you. And you know, a lot of people think it's a cliche, but it's really true that food is the true medicine. You know, food nutrition is so important to help the body heal. I think we've created so many other interpretations to food, and there's so much variety of food and so many different things that we lost the focus on nourishment, you know. And what chilled is trying to do is explaining to people that food is actually about we we coined the phrase it's nutritious and delicious, you know. Because the perception is if you're going to eat food that's healthy for you, because there's so many options that are not so healthy that are full of sugar, let's take ice cream, which is one of my favorite things, you know. That's where actually I started chilled, was with ice cream. Ice cream. You know, ice cream is 85% sugar normally, you know, which is really not good for you, but everybody loves ice cream, right? So why don't we create a natural ice cream that's really good for you, that's nutritious and can be delicious. And instead of using pine sugar, you could use honey or garve or dates, which are a really great source of sugar and very good nutrients to put into your body. So my first rule when I was diagnosed was I won't put anything into my mouth unless it adds value to my system. Yeah. The moment you make that decision, 90% of the foods that are available on the grocery store are off-limits because they have additives, preservatives, colorants, a whole bunch of chemicals that the body's not used to taking in. So you've got to change your mindset first, and then you've got to put systems in place that give you a discipline that allows you to emerge from this scenario that we you in and put you on a healthy lifestyle. And apart from eating, I also paid attention to obviously meditation to be more relaxed. I start my morning, my morning routine is like I get up at 4, 5 a.m., depending on the day and what time I went to sleep the night before. In winter, maybe five and summer, maybe four, you know, when the when the light comes up, I meditate, uh exercise, I fast 16 hours of the day, and I only eat eight hours. So I only eat at 10 o'clock, you know. I do hydrotherapy most days. So after the gym, I'll go into the sauna, jump from the sauna to cold pool, especially now winter, and then from the cold pool back into the sauna. So the body gets reactivated and re-energized. So by the time I get to my first call at like 7 a.m. or 7:30 in the morning, I'm like wide awake. People are still drinking their first cup of coffee, trying to find themselves. And I've got lots of energy and I've got a lot of um a lot of value already that that is energized in me and I'm prepared for the meetings. And I think that preparation for your day is so important. And and my advice to your listeners would be that, you know, if you can create a discipline of some meet time first thing in the morning, you know, and and getting your exercise, like when we met for breakfast, you went for a hike before we met, and you know, I think you're similar to me. You also start your day energy than doing exercise and everything else, it just creates a better day for you. It's creates it basically creates the the rhythm for your day for the rest of the day, and that's why I really, really like it. And I think discipline around fasting is really important because the reason I stop eating generally at 6 p.m., sometimes it goes beyond 6 p.m. to seven, you know, circumstantial or whatever. And then I'll eat the next day at 10. So I like to fast for 16 hours, is because A, I want to get a decent sleep, so I don't want to eat too late. If you fall asleep and you're still digesting food, you're not getting a proper rest. Your body's still digesting, and your digestive system takes energy out of your body. So I try and eat way before I go to sleep, and then also I want to get seven to eight hours sleep. Okay, so I I go to sleep quite early, okay, because I get up quite early, then get on with my day and only start eating again at like 10 o'clock, because then I've given my body 16 hours of re-energizing. You know, there's a lot of repair that happens at night, your body repairs itself and and all of these things. And then I have better energy throughout the day. I limit coffee now to two a day because it's very acidic. I'd want to have more than two coffee, and I'll never have coffee after 4 p.m. because then it disturbs my sleep, you know. So my whole focus has changed around how do I put the right nutrients into my body and work with my body to get the value so I can be super productive, especially because my business is all about intellectual property and it's all about me as a team. So it's very important, you know, we are the product, you know, it's the way we think that actually generates work. So it's really important to look after yourself.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Yes, thank you so much for you know sharing the system. And I'm gonna ask you uh quite a few questions, but first I would like to actually ask you a question around you mentioned that you know, now you have this lifestyle after you know the health challenge and you transformed your started putting first your health and well-being. And you mentioned that you know, you you feel like what was before was a mistake. And I'm sort of on a challenge, uh, asking you, do you think what you achieved back then, before you know health crisis and everything, you had, as you mentioned, a lot of late nights, etc. Like, do you think what you achieved was possible if you back then prioritize yourself first? The reason why I'm asking is that's what I hear from entrepreneurs, right? They're like, well, now I have to hustle, and then once I'm there somewhere, I'm gonna take care of myself. Like, what's your take on that? What's your thinking?

SPEAKER_01 40:09

No, I think I think that's that we say that to ourselves, okay, maybe when we're starting up and and things like that, but there's no need to do it. Like, you've got to enjoy the journey. Like where I'm at right now is that I'm still building new things. I've got different businesses in the group. I've got a business that's very mature, that's like 26 years old, 27 years old. Then I've got startups, like uh the cyber insurance is a startup, it's new. But I don't think that putting yourself under stress levels that people put themselves under, not getting enough sleep, not eating well is is productive. Okay, I don't think it's necessary, and I don't think it's productive. And I think that if I look at my daughters, for example, they're both working now, they have done really, really well. They've learned from my my personal experience and they are managing their sleep and eating well. And I think that, you know, when we grew up, maybe it was all about work hard and play hard, you know. And now I think a shifting, there's a shift in the energy from people to realizing that actually you'll do your best work if you also relaxed, you know, and that's very, very important. And also if you're feeding your body with the right books that you're reading, podcasts that you're listening to, interesting articles that you're reading, you know, like I think that spending time in your business is productive, but spending time outside of your business doing other things will feed your business as well. And if as I said earlier, you can't pour from an empty cup. So if your cup is full and your life is good, you'll generally produce great work, you know? Yeah, and and we're all about doing something great. So we want to produce great work. And my most creative look, I I've designed amazing businesses in my career while I wasn't as attentive, maybe to myself in the process. But I think running until the battery's flat, like on the phone with your body, okay, is just not so healthy. You know, I know you can recharge, but sometimes, you know, you can cause so much damage, like I did. You know, I'll end up losing my kidney and yeah, you know, and make it. You don't need to to to drain your battery to that level, let's put it this way. So try so finding a balance in your life and in your career is really, really important. And prioritizing what's really important for you is is also very important, you know. So I think I think that's that would be my advice to entrepreneurs that are are doing startups. I'm seeing a big trend right now of people working from home post the pandemic, having a a really digital nomads, as you mentioned, that you were doing, you know, people are prioritizing the quality of life.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Okay. And they know that if going to prioritize their quality of life and they're gonna look after themselves, they're gonna produce great work. You know, I think finding that balance is really important.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

And I think also, you know, it speaks to this idea that I read about your uh philosophy about um hard work, achievement, and but also well-being, is that yeah, you achieving great things, it is important, especially if somebody, you know, you you value it. But then also feeling good enjoying the journey is I don't know, if equally as important, but maybe even more so important because short, you never know when you're gonna, you know, when is gonna be your time.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

So you've got to really enjoy it. I think you spend two thirds of your life at work, and then you spend quite a lot of time sleeping, you know, if you think about it. So the amount of time that you have for yourself, and that's why I started prioritizing my Me Town early in the morning. So at least my day is fuller. And then in the evening, I'll do a hard stop, let's say at a certain time, you know, I'll sit down and eat at six, maybe. And then sometimes I'll do a little bit of work, but I'll try not to do more work because I started so early

Focus, Pricing, And Saying No

SPEAKER_01 44:15

previous day. I can leave things to the next day. So I can enjoy my life, go out, do different things, spend quality time with my family, my friends, and things like that. So life becomes really enjoyable and beautiful. It shows in your work, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Yeah. Because ultimately, yeah, I loved what you just said. Yeah, you never know how many days you have left. And also to be very transparent, you never know what you're going to achieve, whether you're going to achieve it, and whether like what you sacrifice in the process is even worth it and whether you arrive at there or not.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

Try to live every day as if it's your last. You know, it's a good way of doing it, you know, because then you're not leaving too many things that are open-ended and you know going to be difficult. If you have that kind of attitude, I don't know if you know, let me let me get as much done today and enjoy today and not postpone my pleasure or postpone my holidays or postpone my quality time with my family and sacrifice that for work. I think I don't think you need to sacrifice stuff. I think you can do. And if you can find a happy medium, I think you will be a happier person. If you're a happier person, you'll do great work.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yeah, you know, I love this idea, this philosophy that you also have is not postponing things. And I feel like it's one of the key sort of mindsets to have a fulfilling life journey, to not postpone anything. Like, you know, if you decide to work on things and enjoy things, then do it to the extent that you can today. Because whether that's you know, your work or your relationships or your health, it's like you're not guaranteed to get anything tomorrow. And so invest in like what you believe in. Also, would I would like you know to highlight what I noticed when you spoke about different things that you didn't like is that also mindset of philosophy, like not being sure, like whether you know, your cancer journey or starting all these new businesses, but believing into something and giving it your best effort, right? Just like you said, you know, I you didn't know if the natural healing would work. Probably there were a lot of unknowns with your businesses as well. I'm gonna ask you, like, what were you always like that with that attitude? Like, I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm gonna believe and give it 100%.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Yeah, I've realized that that life is quite short, quite early, you know, because there was you know a lot of incidents that happened. And I and I I've I've I've had very I've very fortunate, although I didn't have a lot of time with my parents, they they taught me to have a lot of confidence in my abilities and trust myself and my intuition, you know. And I think your intuition is very important in business. Like sometimes, you know, you can walk into a business meeting and intuitively you don't feel comfortable, then trust your intuition and maybe just don't do business. And you asked me earlier, just wanting to do business with anybody, the answer is definitely no. We qualify, we only work with certain people that are aligned with our strategy and we feel that we can really do something good for them and help them. If we can't help them, then we'd rather not do business because then it will be a short-term engagement, you know. Sooner or later the relationship will fall apart. You don't want to sell something to somebody, you want to get involved with them and building something together, you know. I think that's more of our attitude and and provide solutions. And I'm fortunate now to be very selective. But you know, when you start up, you make the mistakes of choosing the wrong customers. And I've had to fire customers sometimes. If they I felt they spoke badly to my staff or they were paying late and I wasn't enjoying their behavior and I had to carry their overhead or whatever, then I'd rather extract myself from that relationship because it could cause too much stress and unhappiness. And and luckily I and I can choose, not everybody can, but my recommendation is don't compromise your own values in order to do business. You know, if you're certain that your values are correct and you spend time defining them. I don't know if you read the book Value Through Values, but it's a great book. It's old, it's about 15 years old, but it's a great book. It's about how to teach. If you want to build a business where everybody in the business, I'm over four, 1500 people now, you know, you want all of them to understand what they're representing. You've got to spend time building our internal course, it's called I am the brand. Okay. And we teach what the brand ethos is, you know, like our brand ethos at DSG is serious fun. We're very serious about what we do, but we like to have a lot of fun, you know. We have a lot of kind of values like open and honest communication. We all mad, for example. Mad stands for MAD for meticulous attention to detail and brackets. So we're all mad. I'm crazy, you can see that I'm crazy, but we all, you know, so we've made it fun. We we created a whole bunch of values that will be the guiding compass for people when they join our group. This is how we do things differently to other companies. And I think not enough founders are spending time on their values and what they want to represent and the problems that they solve and making it easy to scale and for other people to understand it. And sometimes they can grow bus because of that, because as they grow, they lose their north. And when they lose their north, you know, things start falling apart. So you've got to have your purpose, you've got to understand your light and what you're gonna do differently, and it's got to reflect amongst your team. So I spend a lot of time. So I said I spent 50% of my time in front of customers and 50% of my other time in front of my management team.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

And making sure that they're great leaders, that people love working for them, that they translate everything. And then one of the biggest uh achievement for me was that before I actually got sick, I already decided that I don't want the business to be dependent on me for anything. So I've got to be able to get the business to work for me. I don't work for the business. Okay. As the shareholder and as the entrepreneur,

Building A Business Without You

SPEAKER_01 50:20

I want to be able to make money while I sleep, make sure that whether I'm there or not, things can run without me. And the moment a lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake that the businesses are too dependent on their performance. And then you actually are working for your business. You the business is not working for you. If you can build a business that runs without you, like chilled, for example, maybe gets 10% of my time, and there's great people there that run the restaurant, run the skin product, run the supplements, they do everything they've learned. You know, you've been there, you had breakfast, you saw there's a good vibe. You know, I don't have to be involved. So the secret of designing businesses is designing them in such a way that they're not dependent on you, and that other people can manage them, and that there's good processes and good values that guide the people on how to do their job well.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

You know, yeah, processes systems, as you mentioned before, gotta be in place, uh, whether that's business or your personal life. You seem very like in tune with your intuition, have a lot of you know, trust in yourself, confidence, you're very clear. Is it your natural state? Like you mentioned that your parents played quite a big role in that. Like I guess, even better question. Um I'm trying to ask you do you struggle with your inner state ever? Like mindset, emotions? Is there anything that turbulent from time to time? Or yeah, tell me how does it happen for you? Because I hear from a lot of entrepreneurs like, how do I deal with imposter syndrome or with uncertainty or like with all of this you know difficult things in life? Do you have any of those uh challenges?

SPEAKER_01 52:06

And if you do how everybody's got challenges and different levels and different things, it's your reaction to the challenge. So before I used to, when I started and I was younger, I guess it's a bit of age and maturity, I used to take everything very personally. Okay. But I think that as you grow older, you realize that sometimes your relationship with somebody has got nothing to do with their relationship with you, you know, and and sometimes customers or partners will do silly things that in the past would I would get very frustrated about. But when things are out of your control, rather stay focused on what what's in within your control, what's outside of your control, you've got to surrender to because you're just gonna frustrate yourself. So if you can do something about it, great, you know.

3 Cancers And A New Playbook for a Great Life

SPEAKER_01 52:55

But if you can't do something about it, don't let you let it eat you up. Rather, take a step back, look at the situation, you know. And I guess, you know, my my journey with meditation from a very young age, I did a lot of plant medicine, my spiritual inquisition of understanding, you know, the spiritual world and all of that I brought into a lot of my life, and I'm very fortunate that I've tried a lot of different things because I've got a very inquisitive mind, and I've built my own kind of playbook, if you like, okay, that allows me to catch myself when I'm getting stressed, or and say, Hey, do you want to get sick again? Or do you want to rather step back, react better for it, and just ignore it and and and don't let don't sweat the small stuff. You know, sometimes we sweat, we sweat the small stuff too much, and and it could be things that we're carrying or frustrations from the past that are coming up again, or things like that. Another big thing for me is is letting go of the past, you know, the ability to give every day is a new opportunity, you know, to start again and reset and enjoy it. And and being able to have that kind of mindset helps you because people get stuck in things that happened in the past or they're too stuck about what's going to happen in the future, and then they forget to live in the present. And the reason the present's called the present because it's a gift. So don't waste it. Focus on the present and do what you can do today, yeah. But that doesn't mean that you should be short-sighted, you know, or long-sighted or whatever. You can be focused on the present, but build things for the future, you know. But I I know that I'll build amazing companies if I put all the right foundations in place. I find the right CEO, I'll invest in them. Sometimes one of my challenges in business has always been starting too early. Like I started with e-commerce in 98. There was maybe 50,000 people on the internet. You know, today e-commerce is booming, but it's 26 years later. So, you know, now when I'm starting businesses, you know, I'm starting it with that attitude that I know it's coming, but I don't have to rush. There's no rush. I don't have to overinvest now while there's still an adoption curve. Let me rather wait for mainstream to catch up, and that's when I'll accelerate my investment, but let me be ready for what's coming next, you know. So it's it's just a different way of whether you're pressing the gas really, really hard, or you may be slowly moving into it in a more relaxed manner and and understanding that that's where it's going, but you don't have to try today have all the right answers, as you said. You know, uh I'm not scared of the unknown. I'm not scared of what may happen because I'm sure of myself and I'm sure that what I'm doing is correct, and I trust the process. You gotta learn to trust the process as well.

SPEAKER_00 55:52

Well, uh, speaking of uh your playbook, you know, you mentioned that you have certain either practices or systems that allow you to not be, you know, caught up in maybe an unhelpful thinking patterns or emotions. Like what is your playbook? What do you do maybe daily or weekly or thing when things don't go as well? Um, what are some of the practices?

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Well, I I I surround myself with some amazing people that I can always bounce ideas off because sometimes you know it's important to also integrate what happened and understand it better. So always step away. My my first reaction is not to immediately react, but pause, you know, take another look, discuss it with other people, and then try again. You know, come in from a different angle. I'm very solutions-oriented, you know. It takes you for any invention, any new product that you develop, you know, you gotta fail fast. You gotta you know that failure is actually part of the process. And when you accept that, you know, that you may lose money when you're gonna do something, or you know, but when you've taken the the risk, it was a calculated risk. You knew that you potentially would lose money or that potentially you're too early or whatever, and you gotta adjust. You know, it's like when the wind changes, what do you do? You adjust the sales. Okay. So as the wind changes, as things happen to you as a person, you've got to be able to adjust your sales and say, okay, if this is happening, let me rather do this. Not get caught up as to what happened and get yourself into a state because of what happened. You just adjust sales a little bit, and the next thing you're going fast again, you know, and that's and that's the way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

Yeah, I'm hearing, you know, I read you know in one book recently, engaged, not attached. That's what I feel like if I were to sum up your sort of navigation system. Yes. And what I also hear a lot from you is you learn how to stay in the zone of your control, meaning, okay, this is a situation. What can I do here? Let me not worry about what you know can be or could be, and instead, okay, what is here and what can I do?

SPEAKER_01 58:04

Get your power back the moment you you actually decide that you're gonna do something about it. And and taking massive action generally is really, really great, but taking it in a thoughtful manner, you know, like like how like saying, okay, that didn't work. Okay, so how do we try again? So we do this and how do this, and maybe we do this. And look, sometimes situations are negative and there's nothing you can do about it. And at that point, okay, what you do is you either delegate to somebody else if you don't want to deal with it, okay. Attorney or somebody else, if it goes legal, or an HR person if the employee is just not willing to learn, or whatever the case may be. I always try and resolve it in the easiest way possible and do it myself, but then you also got to learn to let go and let other people sometimes deal with the things that you don't want to deal with, so you can have what you want to deal with on your plate, you know.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

Yeah, yeah.

Nutrition Rules And The Chilled Brand

SPEAKER_00 58:56

Delegation.

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Also learn my, I guess another point there, sorry, yeah, is is the fact that you learn about your own weaknesses. So I know what I'm good at, what I'm not good at. For example, I'm great at the startup phase of a business, but I'm not a maintenance person. So I always build new businesses around a CEO or managing director or an operations person that will run the operations. And I give them the vision, the funding, the marketing, the idea, and we execute it together. And to a certain point, I like to actually move away, step away, let them run it. And then I must be able to accept that they might make mistakes. But that's part of teaching them on how to do it. And you've got a budget for those mistakes. You actually got to say, okay, well, they're not gonna be perfect from day one. And as you let them kind of like, you know, drive, you know, they will learn themselves. And when they do, don't get upset about it, rather deal with it and teach them how to grow. So I think I think what was what was really important for me is to build amazing people around me and the right talent around me to manage the businesses. And that's why I can do a lot. I have a lot of companies, I have a lot of different things that I do because I've realized that my role is what I'm good at the vision, the strategy, seeing the idea, planning it, writing the business plan. I'll get involved in the business at a startup level and be very intense in it. But when it gets to a certain point where it's starting to perform, I step away and somebody else will take over because I like to start a new thing or to get involved in some. I'm a creative. I like to be creative in business, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

Yeah. And um a lot of clarity and self-awareness uh shines through what you just said. One question to you here, that how did you develop it? I'm, you know, you told me about meditation, which is for sure is helpful with developing self-awareness. Were there any other tools, I don't know, teachers, books, strategies that helped you to become that, you know, acutely aware of like this is what I'm good at, this is what I'm not, that is what I like to do and what not to do?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

Yeah, I've I've done lots of different courses over the years. I've walked over hot calls with Anthony Robbins. Done uh I walked over hot calls after meditations. I I've done a lot of things that were interesting to me, you know. My grandfather owned a bookshop, so I used to read three to four books a month. So I've always been a bookworm. Now I'm spending a time researching on the internet because I enjoy doing it and I work a lot with AI these days because the information is just available in your fingertips. So I guess it's something that you acquire this, the the the the the the acquisitive mindset constantly, you know, wants to acquire new knowledge. And I really enjoy, you know, creating beautiful solutions for clients or beautiful businesses, you know, and and I take a lot of joy and pride in my work, you know, and and uh I also manage now in the last

Morning Routine, Fasting, Cold Exposure

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

five, six years to work the way I want to work, which is great, you know, work from home a lot, travel a lot, go to different conferences. So I keep it exciting and and and I've seen that the people are very engaged in our business because of that, you know, and and that culture kind of like is very, you know, everybody gets it, you know. Like I find people join DSG, they either make it during the probation period and then last for a very long time, or during the probation period, we already know they're not a good culture fit because there's such a high performance culture in the business. You know, we have a sign outside one of our offices that's it looks like a cleaning sign cautioned as wet floors, but it actually says you're about to enter the high performance zone, you know. So, you know, so so it's it's it's it's all in the kind of like attributes that you create and the way you allow people to visualize the environment that they're in. And I've been very fortunate to work with amazing people. And you know, I think when once you set your values and your culture, a lot of the time you'll attract the right people that resonate with what you're doing. And that's why your your your your matching of the people is is is is quite an important aspect of everything that you're doing, and learning to work in a group environment and sharing with other people and let them express themselves in the environment and giving them the opportunity to do that is is very, very important.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Well, uh, I'm glad to ask this question, you know, otherwise we wouldn't even learn that you learned so much and read so much and put so much into uh you know personal development because they also want to demystify that this thing that or somebody is just talented. Like usually when you see a person who is really good at something for a very long time and they're great, you know, in self-um the awareness and leadership and lesium, it's because they invest a lot into them. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

I think sports teaches you a lot, you know. I don't know if you played sports, but I yeah, I was competitive with sports, you know, and I think you learn an amazing team discipline when you play basketball, volleyball. You know, I played those two sports primarily, but I also played handball and football. I loved anything with a ball. And because I was also into my sports, I knew that you know, the I always say to my teams that I work with in the different businesses, you know, the best football team in the world still practices five to six hours a day. Okay, part of that daily ritual. So you don't get to the best and stay there. You gotta every single day, you know, put the effort in to remain the best and to remain ahead of everybody else. And I think you learned that in sports. And if you bring that kind of discipline from sports into your business, I think it's it's a very, very important discipline to learn,

Values, Intuition, And Leading People

SPEAKER_01 1:04:55

you know, is that you put the effort every single day and don't rest on your laurels. Like a lot of businesses reach a peak and then they start losing their north. I think one of the things that I wanted to do with this business always is to build something for the long term. And I've been very fortunate to have done that, and I'm now having a lot of fun because of my efforts in the early years of building the right culture and the right group structure and seeing the right ideas and attracting the right talent, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:23

No, you know what? I I loved also that you highlighted this idea of a long-term investment in yourself, your business people, because a lot of times people are like, Well, I'll achieve the results and then I can rest. And I always tell them, you brush your teeth every day to keep them, you know, healthy for your whole life. You take a shower every day to clean to keep yourself clean. Like most of the things in life that you want to maintain and keep and grow, they're the same thing. You gotta invest daily to keep getting the ROI on your investment and better results. Yeah, well, Yaren, thank you so much for such a rich interviewer in insight and all just so much value in it. Is there anything else that at the end of our interview you'd like to leave our listeners with? Maybe a truth, a principle, or a practice, something that you believe can uh impact their lives in a positive way.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:23

Yeah, I I I think there's two parts fear or love, you know, and love is the real energy, you know, and fear stands for false experience appearing real. So it's a lot of the time fears in your head, you know. So don't be scared to do things, jump into the to the water and just learn how to swim and and and experience life and live it to the fullest, because as we said earlier, we you don't know how long you've got, you know. So say life is short, play naked, you know. Don't find, you know, dress too much and and worry too much. And and sometimes you just gotta jump in and do things and then uh work it out as you go along, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

Yeah, build a plane while flying.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:02

That's exactly, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:05

Yeah, um and the the last uh small question where can listeners

Fear Versus Love And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_00 1:07:10

go to learn more about your work, your business, or connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

So the the DSG website is wwwdsg.cr.za, dsglimited.com, and that's well, you'll have all the group companies and all have different websites. And we're always looking for great talent. And if you're inspired by what we discussed today, feel free to reach out. I'll direct you to the right environment or personally meet with you. And then chilled is chilled.moby because we couldn't get chilled.com, chill. And chilled.mobi. And we have restaurants in Mojo Market, one in Table Bay Mall. We've got one in Johannesburg and Parkhurst and in Santon. And we're opening more in Bryanston and other areas, and we obviously online got a great app. And yeah, I'd love to connect with anybody that's listening in your audience and and learning more about how we could work together or do things together. I'm very open.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

Amazing. Yeah, thank you so much again, Yoran, for your time, your work, your inspiration, and wishing you the most beautiful day and I don't know, week of that as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

Being a Friday, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Thanks so much for having me. All the best, and and we'll speak soon. Okay, take care. Thank you so much. You too. Yeah, bye bye.