Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter & Chris Donnelly

Cassie Holmes is a professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, where she teaches the immensely popular MBA course, Applying the Science of Happiness to Life Design. She’s also the author of Happier Hour, a new book that gives us the tools to be happier, some of which we’ll dive into later today. Cassie’s understanding of happiness was born out of a deeply unhappy period, sparked by an intensely personal failure. The failure of her impending marriage to her childhood sweetheart.What happened?--If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better? hello@secretleaders.com --Sponsor links:otta.com/secretleaders

Joanna Jensen is the Founder and former CEO of Childs Farm, a baby & child skincare brand.  The company began at home after Joanna grew frustrated with the lack of choice for her young daughter’s sensitive, eczema-prone skin, so she started to make her own products. When those worked she got a thousand bottles made and went up and down the country selling them at trade fairs, country shows, anywhere she thought potential customers might be. It was the start of something magical.They got their first listings in Boots in 2014 and then two years later the brand blew up. They went viral after customers started posting ‘before and after’ photos of their children’s sensitive skin.They went viral again the year after, and by 2019, their sales exceeded Johnson & Johnson in the UK. Quite an incredible thing for someone who started out making body lotion in a freezing cold barn.In March 2022, the company was sold for 40 million pounds to PZ Cussons Plc.How did she do it?--SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Brett Wigdortz is the Co-Founder of Teach First. He started the business in 2002 after seeing how the UK education system was failing miserably. The company has gone on to be a massive success but it was incredibly close to imploding because of how he operated in the early days. When Brett asked for feedback from his staff, a small moment turned into a big moment that would change the course of Teach First, the lives of its employees and its thousands of future teachers and students.What happened?Listen to find out.--If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better? hello@secretleaders.com --Sponsor links:otta.com/secretleaders

Dr Ben Maruthappu is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cera, a digital-first home healthcare company. In just over six years, Cera has established itself as one of the biggest providers of healthcare at home in the UK, as well as one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe. Cera currently makes almost 50,000 visits a day to people’s homes in the UK. That’s the equivalent capacity of around 50 hospitals. After launching in 2016, they have raised over $400 million and are generating over £250 million of annualised revenue. They’ve scaled, expanding to Germany, where they are growing over a hundred percent year on year. The care sector and healthcare in general were in a state of crisis even before the pandemic. Normally, if a sector needs change, entrepreneurs step in, disrupting the norm. But doing this in the care sector in the UK is notoriously difficult, even for well funded companies. Ben is well aware of the issues having worked in A&E and then spending three years advising the CEO of NHS England. He’s not just jumping on the hot medtech trends. And that’s allowed him to avoid the implosion in healthcare that has seen once lauded startups fall. That takes a lot of resilience and conviction. He is the first person from British healthcare to ever be included in Forbes' 30 under 30. What is it like to scale at that speed with no experience ever managing anyone before? And how do they use data to keep people out of hospital?Listen to find out. --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Christie Ellis founded one of the first human quality pet food companies, The Healthy Pet Gourmet. Her aim was to revolutionise how we feed our pets by helping them live longer and happier. She was going to build the next IAMS. The press went mad, customers loved it. She was on World News Tonight, the Today show, and top-end magazines. She had high profile clients, one who designed her kitchen for all her pet food. On paper, the business was doing well. The product was selling, and then Whole Foods expressed interest in stocking it. But the business failed… Why?Listen to find out.If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better? hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:otta.com/secretleaders

Shyp started in 2013 when Kevin Gibbon had the idea of taking the Uber model and using it for shipping. He created an on-demand service where customers would take a picture of what they wanted to send, a courier would come pick it up and then take it to a warehouse to be packaged and delivered using major shipping companies.  There was huge excitement when they launched. They were featured on the front pages of newspapers and Kevin was hailed as the ‘next Steve Jobs’. They were a hit with investors, raising their seed round within three months, their Series A the following year and their Series B the year after that. At their peak they were valued at $250 million dollars. But the company failed. So, what went wrong? Listen to find out.If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better? hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:otta.com/secretleaders

Did you know that looking after your brain is one of the best ways to be more productive? And your gut is central to the decisions you make? This episode brings insights from two professionals at the cutting edge of their fields, to give actionable steps on how to be more effective, improving your life at work and at home. Dr Tara is a world-leading neuroscientist and best selling author of ‘The Source’. She has a PhD in neuropharmacology, was a medical doctor and child psychologist, having trained at Oxford University. She has spent the last decade coaching leaders and CEOs from across the world and is also a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan, where she teaches classes on how understanding the brain and neuroscience can lead to better business performance. She doesn’t just understand the brain inside out, she knows how to communicate what you need to know about it - to help you build better habits and have a bigger impact.Sophie Medlin is one of the UK’s most respected gut experts. She’s a medically trained nutrition professional, a senior lecturer at King's College, the Chair of the British Dietietic Association for London and star of Channel 4s new show ‘Know your Shit’. She explains how looking after your gut can enable you to be the best leader you can be.They are both colleagues of our host Dan at his company Heights. We talk about:  How you know when your brain isn’t being looked after What is neuroplasticity? How our brains actually work. The best habits for your brain to start doing The non-negotiable priorities for looking after your brain What is the gut microbiome and why is it so important? Why looking after your gut can keep your immune system healthier and stop you getting sick How, cell for cell, we are more bacteria than human How drinking diet sodas might mean you actually consume more calories Their tips for optimising the brain and gut for peak performance. --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Dom McGregor co-founded Social Chain with Steven Bartlett, host of the hit podcast Diary of a CEO. Their business didn’t fail, in fact, it sky-rocketed. When they exited the company after six years in 2020, they’d built it to hundreds of employees, with clients like Apple, McDonald's, the BBC, and Boohoo, and taken it public the year before with a value of about £250 million. But the pressure on Dom was immense, and the way he coped left him feeling like he’d failed. He had turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal with both the highs and lows of being a young founder in a fast-growing business. Exacerbated by his feeling of imposter syndrome, this toxic relationship with alcohol ended up nearly costing him his role in the business. Drinkline is the national alcohol helpline. If you're worried about your own or someone else's drinking, you can call this free helpline in complete confidence. Call 0300 123 1110 (weekdays 9am to 8pm, weekends 11am to 4pm).You can find more information on alcohol support on the NHS website. If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better? hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:otta.com/secretleaders

What do you want to do with your life? Do you have a plan?Bryan Johnson knew from a young age he wanted to have a big impact on the world and set out to do it. His plan was simple, he wanted to make enough money so that he could focus on really making a difference to the world. And he did it. Not by doing anything flashy but by building a payments platform, bootstrapping it for years, and through understanding a hell of a lot about human psychology he got it to the point where he sold his company, Braintree Venmo , for $800 million to Paypal. He personally got $300 million.With that money he went on to found Kernel, a company that designs and manufactures brain-scanning technology with the aim to improve life expectancy by combating age-related issues, in 2016. Since then, Bryan has continued to look at how human beings can be and do better, including himself. In 2021 he started Project Blueprint, where he is working to reverse his body’s ageing. It involves measuring his seventy plus organs and then using that data to try to reverse the biological age of each as much as possible. He follows a strict diet and gives up all of the decisions around what he eats to this algorithm. As well as diet the regime also involves taking 25 supplements a day, and a strict exercise, skincare and sleep routine.We talk about: What it was like growing up in a Mormon community  Why learning about compounding at 7 years old was key to his success What he felt the day he sold Braintree Venmo to Paypal for $800 million How being rich has changed how he parents What he is doing to reverse his body’s ageing  Why he believes we must improve human intelligence His advice to entrepreneurs --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

What are your new year’s resolutions? Is money on your mind? Being an entrepreneur can be a bit of an all or nothing game when it comes to money. You're into the creation process and are willing to sacrifice a lot. It can cost you much more than you earn, especially at the beginning, and often you have nothing for a long time. But, admitting that you want money and understanding how to take control of it can be difficult, it can feel like a taboo. That’s why this episode features bestselling author of 'How to Own the World' and Founder of Plain English Finance, Andrew Craig. 'How to Own the World' is in its third edition and rarely out of the top books for personal finance on Amazon. Andrew originally self-published the book after becoming frustrated with the fact that so many people don’t understand the nuts and bolts of personal finance. He says we can all grow wealthier by developing some simple habits over the long term. A founder himself, Andrew understands the pressures entrepreneurs face but believes that everyone can better control their finances. What does it mean to ‘own the world’? What is the ‘100 minus your age’ rule? And why does Andrew think it's better to rent rather than buy?Listen to find out.--SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes