Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2:EP 1 - Rob Bell - TV Broadcaster
48 Plays1 year ago
Rob Bell is a broadcaster, engineer, and adventurer.
You may recognise Rob from hosting various different engineering programmes for Channel 5 in the UK. Rob is fascinated by the machinations of what makes the world go round, from how bridges are built, to nuclear power stations, and everything in between.
In his spare time, Rob is a keen adventurer and endurance athlete, having completed 7 marathons, in 7 continents, in 7 days, and transversed different locations using only his body as a means of transport. In this episode, Rob and I discuss how the world of engineering has evolved, why bridges are so fascinating, the importance of male friendships, his experience in completing his challenges, the antidote to imposter syndrome, finding a career you enjoy, and much more.
You can find more about Rob here - robbell.tv, or listen to Sketchplanations, a weekly podcast done with his friends - sketchplanations.com
Recommended
![S2:EP 2 [VIDEO] - Tom Foxley: Mental Fitness Coach - "We grow by pushing our boundaries, take risks, and then coming back to a state of safety" image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/63de7bc76bdba1bc512995ab/611e3951-187c-4d9e-bef1-1079ac0ea610.png)
Transcript
Introduction to Rob Bell
00:00:00
Speaker
OK, Rob Bell, thanks very much for joining Perspectives. I'm very, ah very excited to have you on. Hey, Arisa, you going? Good to be here. Thank you. Good. Right. So normally you like to start with a bit of an introduction, um but that's getting the guests themselves to tell us a bit about themselves. So for anyone who isn't familiar with Rob Bell, who are you and what do you do?
00:00:21
Speaker
Uh, my name is Rob Bell, as you said, I'm a, an engineering and history TV presenter. Uh, so I've got my background is in engineering, my education and degrees in engineering, mechanical engineering. And I moved into television about 14 years ago. Uh, and through that I get to explore loads of different engineering stories, engineering history stories, and more recently some pure history as well which I never knew I loved as much as I do because at GCSE I did not enjoy history but now I really really do so that's my profession but then in my spare time um I love being active, I love being physical, I love being outside, I love ah challenging myself to see what I can do and more often than not I'll be doing that with at least one if not a group of friends because there's a huge amount of enjoyment in that and
00:01:15
Speaker
Even more recently, I've become a father for the first time as well. yeah Congratulations. Thanks very much. That poses challenges unique to the ones you've already faced, I'd imagine. It does. It does. But that's that's that's all part of the juggling act, and um I enjoy that really, so I enjoy that.
00:01:34
Speaker
ah yeah I've spoken to a few people and some people really love it. Other people you kind of come in and are like, oh, I don't have kids, I don't have kids. They love it really, but they're like, I'm just so tired. It's it's a challenge man. I like to be busy. I like to have loads of things going on. I like to be seeing people doing stuff with with people all the time. And it's... It it just forces you to re-prioritize a lot of stuff. and And my lovely little girl is a priority for me. So, you know, everything else has to shift around that.
The Journey to Mechanical Engineering
00:02:05
Speaker
massive So an engineer by by trade then, where do you think that i that sort of love for engineering came from? do Do you always want to go into it? Is it something that just there was a natural occurrence for you? I i need to be, so I got picked up on this once. I think I said I was an engineer by, did I say?
00:02:22
Speaker
My professional by trade. I got picked up. i'm an engineer engineer I'm an engineer by education. By degree. By degree. That's basically it. Sorry, sorry so what what sorry was your question? I got distracted by that. So yeah, it was more, and a you know, you're an engineer by by education. well yeah What sort of led you to get into engineering? Right, so to be perfectly honest with you,
00:02:46
Speaker
I, um throughout my secondary school of education, I just kind of followed what I enjoyed doing, what I felt I should be doing without any real goal or aim that was driving that. And that that continued on through into university. I ended up studying mechanical engineering at the University of Bath, probably more than anything else because my mate from the year above did that.
00:03:15
Speaker
And I was into similar things to him. I was i kind of good at maths and enjoyed maths and physics um rather than um English and history, those subjects and more technical subjects I'd always enjoyed and had been better at. So I just kind of pursued that and continued doing it without any real goal.
00:03:39
Speaker
um until I graduated and then didn't know what I wanted to do at all. But there was a throughout my degree, there was a massive enjoyment in learning what I did. It was hard, right? it was I found it really, really difficult. um Being an engineer can be... he went where I feel like studying engineering pushed me to the limits of my um academic capacity, shall we say. like The amount of maths involved I was not expecting, probably because I didn't read the prospectus.
00:04:08
Speaker
um but It was a real challenge for me, but I really enjoyed that challenge and I really enjoyed the subject matter. Not just the technical stuff, it's all of the kind of project management and let's call it real logical stuff, right? If if you're looking at it ah from an engineer's perspective, it's about about logic a lot of the time. um Weighing up your options and taking the the option that the way it comes out, um best weighted.
00:04:38
Speaker
That approach to life was brilliant to be learning and to be immersed in with all of my yeah engineering buddies as well. And that's something that I've continued to enjoy. But now, being a TV presenter for the last decade or so, and going out and seeing real engineers on the ground doing what they do,
00:04:59
Speaker
I've rediscovered this this love and the overused words, but I will use it, this passion that I have for it. you know I just get so much enjoyment. I'll be chatting to engineers sometimes for a TV program. This is off camera before or after we we've um we've actually done the filming. And I've i've got like the hairs on my understanding on end because I'm just loving what I'm learning so much and what brilliant people are doing.
00:05:26
Speaker
more often than not to make the world a better place. Engineering is bloody brilliant. Yeah, massively. I mean, I ah love engineering because there's so many, and I'd love to get your opinion on this because I love anything mechanical. I studied engineering as well. And it's one of the reasons why I love classic carts, why I love planes, why I love watches, you know, mechanical watches. I just have such a fascination with, you know, if I poke something, I want it to move. And if it doesn't move, then I'm like, well, something's wrong here.
00:05:55
Speaker
whereas i think now we're in such a digital age everything's become a lot more digital everything's become a lot more sleek when you poke something it you know it doesn't move it's it's it's very all in the ether it's uh what's that mcconaughey thing it's a wasy it's a woozy it's a you know it's a fairy dust thing but i you know i love buttons and i i would love to get your opinion on this but I feel like now we're in such an age of consumerism where things are not designed to last decades and everything's you know there's no buttons anymore there's everything's touchscreen and you know you look at the design language in cars for example, EV argument aside because I know everyone's very opinionated on the the whole rise of EVs and things like that.
00:06:38
Speaker
But I just love having a button. When I'm driving along, I know where everything is, I know where the temperature is, I know where the direction is, I know how much the fan's on. Whereas now, the design language of pretty much every modern car you get into, there's a screen, there's a digital dashboard, and you might have a gear lever, and you might have an automatic brake.
00:06:57
Speaker
and i'm just like oh there's just nothing to it and it makes me a little bit sad and i feel like it's quite it's a little bit boring but it's very much now it's very much function over form rather than you know making stuff beautiful and if you look back to i know you did a series on and you've got the the book behind you actually brunell you know look at like the yeah ss great britain you got the cliffton suspension bridge you look at some of the old the old stuff as well so how train stations were designed the architecture used to be very beautiful and now we're in these kind of very sleek very modern
00:07:30
Speaker
And I feel like it's just a bit, it's a bit soulless now. I dunno, what's your opinion
Mechanical vs. Digital Technology
00:07:35
Speaker
on that? No, um i feel I feel like we're probably um and very much on the same page with this, Reece. You know, when you're talking about when you push a button, you wanna fear to do something, you want some kind of positive mechanical feedback to let you know that yes, what I've demanded there has registered. And I don't know what you're like, but let's say driving in a car, in an older car, let's take my first my first car, Golf Mark II.
00:07:58
Speaker
um you know everything was very very mechanical and they're part of the beauty of it meant that someone like me who is not um um I'm not a mechanic expert on cars but you know I understand mechanics so give me enough time I'll figure out what's what's happening and maybe what's not happening and why that is something's blocked somewhere. I love when I push a button in a car in my Golf Mark 2 I really enjoyed the process of following what that button, the the chain of events that that button then sets off and so that's mechanical events in that in that car. What you've got now is the more touchscreen and ah I'm not interested to be perfectly honest, I'm not interested what happens when I do that because it's switches and software doing its thing, great. And, you know, partly
00:08:44
Speaker
Part of me goes, you should be interested interested in this, Rob, because this is the future. This is where everything's going. So if you want a future mate, you need to kind of yeah get out of yourself and um and understand how this stuff works and be interested in it. The truth is I'm not interested in it. so And I can't force myself to be interested in stuff. I'd learn that about myself. So um yeah, I'm very much in the world of of mechanical and it is a fascination.
00:09:11
Speaker
um he you know the um I think, is it in America or England? We call it, right. Rube Goldberg, Rube Goldberg machines. No, I think that's the American. What's the English version of it? You know, like Wallace and Gromit, you know, you press the button and see how you get out of bed in the morning. It's a series of, and right like a point, a pointless machine. What's the name for it? Hang on, let this up. Rube Goldberg in the UK. It's called...
00:09:43
Speaker
Here we go. Heath Robinson, thank you. A Heath Robinson contraption, that's the one I was looking for, where it's almost a pointless machine, but it's so visual and it's so mechanical that one thing that you've tripped leads to another thing happening which falls over and, you know, calls this string and then the pulley meant that I love all of that. I love all of that. For me, ah ah I want more of that in my life, but um that's not the way the world is going. So yes, in answer to your question, I miss it. I wish there was more of it and then and I sometimes feel like I've been born in the wrong age and maybe take me back a few decades and then I'd have been in my absolute element. Bring me a monocle and I'll be happy. Yeah, exactly. A pocket watch.
00:10:31
Speaker
But i think I do think credit where it is due as well, you have you do have some like amazing bits of engineering now. we have you know You just have to look as far as, let's take yeah classic examples, SpaceX, they've got their self-landing rocket. It's like, I never in my lifetime would I have ever seen anything like that. And it is just, every time I see it, it still blows me away. You've got ah the fan car, you've got, you know, Gordon Murray automotive, the T-50. I had the pleasure of seeing one of those this year actually, and went to one of the concourse events.
00:11:01
Speaker
and just everything is just engineered to precision. yeah Same with the you know the Aston Martin Valkyrie as well. Have you ever seen one of those in in the flesh? No, I have not. ah that ist is It looks impressive, but then you you go and see it and it's just so radical. It's very, very, very impressive. so is that that There's a fine line there, I think, Richard, in what we described earlier is something feeling quite clinical.
00:11:27
Speaker
to a real enjoyment of that precision. right um so yeah but but you know i've I've waxed lyrical there about you know mechanical and and decades and eras gone by, but yes, i'm it's impossible not to be impressed by some of the slick engineering um that we're surrounded by. So um I don't dismiss it at all. It just doesn't It doesn't engender a real love for me in the ah products or the mechanics itself, but and an impression and an admiration of what engineers are achieving.
00:12:09
Speaker
um That's not diluted at all. That's not diluted at all. It's probably an element of of awe, actually, because it is so far from my own capabilities. I love to understand it, but I think, God, I could never ah could never be on the forefront um coming up with those ideas. and um fulfilling that kind of precision and an operation that these um these projects are achieving. Yeah, massively. I mean, is it's been the same throughout you know throughout generations really, hasn't it? You've always had that kind of those outliers who have created stuff where everyone's like, no, it's not going to work. And you're like, oh, it does work. And now we're kind of, we're we're running the world in electricity and the light bulb's a common thing. And yeah, it is very cool. But do you think- It takes us back to the term Luddites. Yeah. yeah
00:12:58
Speaker
um do you do you think engineering is going to sort of continue in this way or do you think you know certain trends have been quite cyclical with other facets of life do you think engineering might go in that way or with the design language do you think we'll see more do you think we'll see more buttons again i think there's room for both um ah maybe not on mass scale maybe mass scale has has moved to digital in the digital direction and um for many reasons i totally understand that But you mentioned it recently as well. I've got some friends who not that long ago, within within the last decade, set up their own watch company and its mechanical watches. And it is an enjoyment of slower living, the enjoyment of actually winding up your watch.
00:13:44
Speaker
the enjoyment of they tend to have a glass back piece on on the back of the watches so that you can see all of the all of the cogs and all of the mechanics in action. I don't think the joy of that will ever disappear. So I think there's definitely room for for both, but I feel that maybe the the slower living mechanical side of things will become slightly more niche. But um you know niche in today's world could be a billion people rather than seven or eight.
00:14:18
Speaker
Yeah. It's only 8 billion, I mean. Yeah. No, I completely agree. And I, you know, I love the whole, I'd say watches are probably one of my biggest passions. And yeah I've harped on about it if you, and this podcast money. have you really Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I've some of my, bet my guests have been, you know, auctioneers, um, work for, you know, Phillips. So he was involved in the sale of the Paul Newman Daytona. So, you know, record breaking 17 million and went full back in 2017.
Career Transition: From Environmental Sector to Broadcasting
00:14:45
Speaker
yeah wow yeah yeah it's um it's cool okay so looking at your your transition then into into broadcasting what do you think will use a terrible pun here or um what what do you think the the catalyst for that was what what do you think the um the transition sort of state was Biggest catalyst for me changing career. So at the time I was working as a project manager. So I changed career when I was 32, 33. And I was working as a business development and project manager for a government funded environmental agency called the Energy Saving Trust. So I was kind of developing and running government programs to help homeowners save energy, save money.
00:15:25
Speaker
um And I still have a real passion for sustainability and for net zero and green economy. But at the time my role wasn't that exciting and there's a lot of risk adversity within the public sector and it takes a lot of time for nothing to happen was my experience.
00:15:49
Speaker
And I got a bit frustrated with that, having um worked there for for eight years. And I just started thinking, it's got to be more to earning a living than turning up to an office and just doing something that you've ended up in every day, which is kind of where I i was. I mean, I sought out a job within the environmental sector, but you know I didn't seek out a project management job.
00:16:10
Speaker
um So I ended up, the role that I was doing, I just ended up in it and I didn't love that. So that was my main catalyst. But going back to what I said earlier, I still didn't really have an idea of what I wanted to do. So um I took out a credit card at the time and engaged services of a career counselor. And so over a number of weeks, and it's not rocket science, right? It all comes from within your own head, but you just break it down and having somebody there to kind of hold your hand and make sure that you actually do it and go through some exercises and determine what is it you love doing? What is it you do if um money wasn't an object? What are you most proud of? There's questions like this and you start listing it out and then you start to, there's um there's some shapes and some similarities that start and some themes that start coming through and so you seek through that.
00:17:00
Speaker
And at the time I was also doing, I'd done hospital radio ah within London, voluntary radio. I worked on another volunteer radio station in London. I did ah student radio at university. I enjoyed, I really enjoyed making silly videos for YouTube and entering video competitions with my friends in my spare time. So all of those things, the career counseling, what was coming out of that, plus what I was actually doing in my spare time to start to come together and it's like, I actually know what, yeah.
00:17:28
Speaker
I've kind of known this for a while, but now I've got it down on paper. I formalized it in a way, ah which for me is important. I think broadcasting is where I want to be. And so that was it. That was the transition. um And then I quit my job. but And I remember the first day in my new role as a broadcaster, or I want to be broadcaster, sitting at home going like, right, what the F do I do now? Yeah. yeah yeah What have I done?
00:17:58
Speaker
What have I done? Yeah. What have I done? You mentioned the the buzzword earlier and I'm going to touch on this, the the idea of passion and finding passion in what you do. And I do agree that it does get thrown around like a you know bit of a the the hot potato, but I think it's been discussed quite a lot really. And this idea of finding, should you do a career because you're good at it or should you actually do something because you're passionate about it? And I think there's a bit of a trade-off between doing something you you can be good at always find that you could you know potentially reach a bit of a ceiling with that whereas doing something you're passionate about you may start off a little bit lower but then you I think the returns will be more exponential in terms of what you can do you because you you go past the point of actually I'm very good at it but you really want to do it as well so I think you're naturally more predisposed to
00:18:52
Speaker
push the boundaries a bit more and and learn and and go that extra mile, so to speak.
Career: Passion vs. Skill
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah. Do you think, you know, it it sounds like it was a conscious decision for you because you had that career coach, you went through the motions.
00:19:06
Speaker
Do you think that passion is something you really should pursue or do you think it's iss something that you kind of figure out as a as you go along? I think everyone's different in that sense and and you have to decide what motivates you the most ah because the other factor within that reach that I think was ah probably a third um third circle within this Ben diagram is money, right? And how how important is money to you?
00:19:31
Speaker
Because it's the the answer to that is different for everybody and the answer to how you know what's the sense of achievement you get from doing something that you're really good at and how much do you want to be challenged through your passion to get better but know that there might be a journey there. Those three things come together hopefully to to form your career.
00:19:51
Speaker
um Personally, I can say I think it's really, really important to, I get a lot out of improving something that I want to spend my time getting better at. When I get a real enjoyment from the activity itself, um kind of doing something you're good at.
00:20:13
Speaker
probably figured I was all right at presenting and and broadcasting, but you know there's no there's no exam to take. you know There's no mark that you get. I just enjoyed doing it. So yeah, for me, pursuing something that I really, really enjoyed, pursuing that passion um was at the forefront of driving the decision suit to start that career. It's not probably not until much more recently, so for the first probably eight, nine, 10 years,
00:20:43
Speaker
ah just I just followed that. I really enjoyed doing this. It's only more recently where I've started to appreciate the the journey of development that you go on. Because when I first started out, if I look back, the first job I did as a TV presenter, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. but No clue. I'd had no training. I'd never been in front of a camera with a number of people behind it before, with a professional camera operator and a director and producer. I didn't even know what those roles were.
00:21:12
Speaker
um So he just I just did as best i did as as good a job as I could at the time. So now looking back, I can see that there is a yeah ah development curve that I've gone on in in my presenting. um Although you could then possibly argue, and this is getting a little bit more into the profession itself, you could possibly argue that being aware of your development curve and being aware of your role as a presenter can be detrimental because ah the best presenters I feel are the ones who are most natural in their delivery and probably aren't thinking about I'm a presenter, I'm in presenter mode. They're just doing what they do.
00:21:47
Speaker
and they'd probably be the same whether they're on camera or or off camera or not too different a version between anyway. it's ah It's interesting you say that because there's this idea of, have you heard of the Peter Principle? Yes, indeed. We did an episode on it on a podcast. Yeah, the um ah we shout out to Sketch explanations as well. that some That's a really cool entity. We'll get onto that a little bit later, but the this idea of, what was I talking about? the pe experts Oh yeah. i um So i ah there was a great sort of, someone put it in a great sort of, he phrased it really well. It was a guy called Jamie Alderton and um he was very direct with it and he was basically like, everyone's fucking winging it. And I was like,
00:22:31
Speaker
Oh, ah sir that's an interesting way to put it. But you the more you talk to people, the more you see what people are doing. There is a lot of that. You you see people, they're just doing what they think is right. It's not necessarily a conscious decision. So a lot of the lot of things we you know fear and the stories we tell ourselves You know, people aren't thinking about us, they're thinking about themselves and then just trying to do the best. So you yeah you you take your example there, a they're really natural in what they're presenting, they're not switching on and off. They're probably like thinking, you know, they could be easily thinking, oh shit, like I need to make sure I'm you know putting this persona on or like I'm appearing great in my job.
00:23:11
Speaker
and so some people it may seem on unconscious but it is conscious and then you get this idea of the Peter principle as well where you kind of get these different levels of people in ah in a hierarchy or an organization and they they're competent enough up to a point where they're no longer kind of competent and then they get stuck at that position so you end up with the people that and this is why you end up with people in you know different companies and you're like how the hell have they got up to that position because they are terrible at their job and it's at all levels um but it's quite reassuring to that those two things everyone's winging it and the peter principle two great things i rely on quite a lot to go actually you know what i'm not doing so badly i'm doing you know i'm probably doing better than what they're doing even though you know it doesn't seem like it so it's quite a it's quite a cool little principle um
00:23:57
Speaker
And what I find, I totally agree with you, Recia, both of those things are really, really helpful to remind yourself in a number of situations in life, right but but particularly in the professional situation. If, for example, you're giving a presentation, you know, it's a really important presentation to the board or something, you need to remember those two things you just said.
00:24:15
Speaker
if um I know you might feel intimidated because you're going into a new team or into a new job, whatever. Just remember those two things you talked about as well. And it does just go, i you know, what yeah you know the every the the other thing I remind myself, which is less of a breath professional thing, but it does ah kind of ground help ground you is that everyone takes a shit in the morning.
00:24:38
Speaker
You know, it's, it's, you know, we're all just people trying to do the best we can, you know, and um ah it it helps me just, yeah, as I say, just keep stay grounded. And I can still get intimidated, definitely.
00:24:55
Speaker
but it it probably takes a shine off that a little bit, which is very helpful. Massively. It's that imposter syndrome, isn't it? and ah new there' Since I've learned that, I go into, if it's a new role, if it's a new challenge, I'll be like, well, as long as I can just you know act like I can do it, and you just you know kind of... you end up sort morphing into that role anyway. So it's, Imposter Syndrome I think is, it's very much an idea we create in our own heads. Whereas, you know, I mean, there are people that aren't, you know, they struggle at their jobs, but I think a lot of skills can be taught. There are things that are very innate for people, but yeah, I think Imposter Syndrome is one of those ones which holds a lot of people back when it doesn't really need to.
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah, ah agreed. um yeah I'd say there that there is probably um a flip side to that. If you get a number of people within a team who are all quite dismissive of, let's say, the PT principle and their own limits of capability, and they're all just winging it and bigging themselves up.
00:25:53
Speaker
more than they actually are. If that's working towards, let's say, an engineering project, yeah you probably do you do need some competency there at some point. um've I've taken that to the extreme, but um it's quite a thought exercise. Yeah. It's a good point. I think it's interesting with your role as well, because I've heard it said that One of the biggest fears for humans, you know, second to, you know, death is come second. but The first one is the fear of public humiliation. And I think being a broadcaster, you are literally, you are putting yourself in that position where everyone is looking at you. You are the sole reason why people are watching. Well, not sole reason, but you know, you are delivered that, you know, that bridge between the information between the consumer and the engineers.
00:26:41
Speaker
Have you ever thought about that? I don't want to ruin your career now if I think of that. Yeah, and no, it doesn't bother me. um It doesn't bother me ah because that's similar to what we were talking about earlier with Pete's principle and and such.
00:27:00
Speaker
sometimes Sometimes I'll say to myself, i do you know what, people aren't, wearing no no one's sitting there on the edge of their seat listening to every single word that you say. I'll caveat that with if it's an engineering documentary and you get something slightly wrong from a technical perspective, there are some people who are on the edge of their seat listening to every word you say and they will tell you what you've got wrong. And that's good and I welcome that. um I absolutely welcome that. But in terms of humiliating myself, I mean, what I do, um It typically isn't live. I do sunlight TV, but it typically isn't live. And as a team with you and your directors and producers and editors and execs, whatever, no one wants to make a bad program. Everyone wants to make it as good a program as possible.
00:27:46
Speaker
But you're right. you are you know You do put yourself out there and that's the decision you that you make. you know it's not yeah I don't think you can say, I know it's unfair. I'm getting low to stick because I've got something wrong or I look like a tit when I did that on telly. That's the decision you make. you know you You have to be conscious. You have to take that on the chin, um which I'm um'm quite happy to do. As well as with um Twitter is dying a bit of a death, but um you know I'd say if you're a TV presenter, then you can definitely get some of the sharper end of ah what was happening on Twitter. And you can let that get to you, and you can take notice of it, or you can just shrug it off and have a bit of a laugh, which is what I tend to do. Occasionally, if I've had a lot of my programs, I did loads for Channel 5, and they typically went out on Friday evenings. so
00:28:36
Speaker
So if you're at home on Friday evening, you think, oh, maybe people, uh, maybe having a drink and join a glass of wine or bottle of beer or a shovel, watching this. And so when they went out, that's, that's, that was normally the first time I'd seen them in all their glory as well. You know, completely finished. Um, so I, of most of the stuff I've done, I would sit and watch for the first time as well. And and if I had a beer and I'd seen some comments on Twitter.
00:29:02
Speaker
after a beer or two, I might just have a little dig back just for a bit of fun, but typically I just ignore it and and I don't ah don't let it get to me at all. That said, you know the level of scrutiny that I'm under with my programs about engineering, documentaries on engineering, engineering history, I totally appreciate. you don't I don't get half the volume. I don't get a fraction of the volume that some of the the the really well-watched stuff gets on on TV. So I understand how that... if with the If you were getting just a volley of abuse through social media, I can definitely see how that that could have an impact. But yeah, fortunately, i'm I'm not in that realm. But at the same time, um and to answer your question, it's a conscious decision and you have to be okay with it. Yeah, you just have to yes to be okay with it.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose it's probably the wrong profession if you feel a bit shy of of scrutiny and, um you know, being looked at. Possibly, possibly. But I mean, there's there's plenty of roles to enjoy, not on camera, within television as well, yeah as you all know.
00:30:03
Speaker
Excellent. So just talking about your shows and you've got, you know, wealth experience from massive structures, engineering structures, bridges, you know, nuclear submarines, war technology, wartime technologies. And in your most recent one, you've been looking at, um oh, you've popped up on my LinkedIn feed actually a few times with the aura, with the stuff you've been doing with EDF looking around the power station. Yeah, yeah.
00:30:29
Speaker
I'd like to ask, are there any real, you know, you've you've had a lot of experience with a lot of these different technologies. Is there anything that's really stood out to you in terms of when you did it, it really blew your mind? Yes. And it's probably not ah the answer that ah in ah in answering this, anyone listening, you go, hang on, that's not answering that question. That didn't blow your mind. Bridges.
00:30:57
Speaker
Right? How do you look at a bridge? You go, that's not mind-blowing technology, mate. That's ah structural engineering that's been going on for ah millennia. So what do you mean, bridges?
00:31:10
Speaker
I was blown away with by how much I loved making programs and learning all the nuances about bridges. So I never did civil engineering within my mechanical engineering degree. I don't think we ever looked at bridges. We didn't really look that much. No, we didn't. We didn't do much civil engineering at all. I didn't even know what a civil engineer was when I was doing my degree, unbelievably. A very personable engineer.
00:31:37
Speaker
yeah ive What, a civil engineer? Yeah, yeah very good, very good. But yeah, in film film and bridges, there's the engineering side of it, which there's so many things, there's so many beautiful little aspects that get engineered into a bridge that's You know, your average hunter who uses that bridge won't appreciate and you know there's no reason why they should have never been told about it, which is partly the joy of making these programs. You can bring fascination. but Hopefully you can yeah muster some fashion fascination in the everyday objects around us that we all use.
00:32:13
Speaker
um But it's also what bridges do for societies and communities as well, that just kind of blew me away. But there was ah there was a particular moment. I think this is in the world's greatest bridges. We went to the world's tallest bridge. It's called the Meo Viaduct. It's in kind of south of France, or two-thirds of the way down. And it's in this beautiful green valley. And it's this slick, cable-state bridge that crosses that valley. And it's a French autoroot bridge.
00:32:42
Speaker
It's beautifully designed, designed by Lord Norman Foster, or architecture behind it, and the French ah bridge engineer, who's a chap called Michel Villarauge, a very experienced bridge designer.
00:32:54
Speaker
Um, and we got to go all over the bridge and we climbed up pylon two, which is the tallest of the, I'm going to say nine pylons that crossed the valley. And I got to poke my head out at the top and look down on the bridge as it curved its way across this beautiful green valley. And I had a real moment of.
00:33:17
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, it brought a little tear to my eye. In fact, a director friend so ah was watching when it went out and um he texted me and said, have I just seen you cry on top of a bridge? ah And I kind of did. I was so overwhelmed by what I saw beneath me and this beautiful structure that had been designed and engineered by people, by humans, and that fit in so beautifully with the surroundings and they were so functional for the local communities. Basically building this bridge meant that traffic would now didn't have to go through this small town down in the valley, which was an absolute nightmare in the summer months when everyone's on their holiday town south of France.
00:33:58
Speaker
um and And I've learned a lot about what I've gone into designing this bridge and what was so special about it as well. And yeah, I was i was blown away by it. So yeah, bridges, Rhys. And to this day, I am fascinated by bridges and i whenever I see one or cross one or ah come across a new bridge, I will, no matter what the situation, I will just spend even a minute considering that bridge in a level that's slightly more than, oh, it's a bridge. but what kind of What kind of bridge is it? How old is it? What materials are used? Okay, great. I can move on now.
00:34:33
Speaker
excellent We learned a little bit about it in vibrational, we did some vibrational dynamics and the effect of you know putting dampers and making sure the right damping. So a good example I think is the millennium bridge as well as to what happens when you get it slightly wrong. So when it when that first opened it was had to shut it fairly quickly because they were getting these and this was a there's a great video on YouTube of of something slightly different but it was the um you know you start seeing sort of the oscillations of when people are walking over it this bridge is moving all over the place and so they had to shut in and put some more damping in and the one I really like to show people to uh direct people to is the Tacoma narrows that was you know that is a classic video of just
00:35:14
Speaker
when you get it slightly wrong or when you don't consider the engineering how badly wrong it can go and for anyone who's not seen it it's very much a video i'd recommend going to have a look at and i think it was it was still with the wind wasn't it so yeah essentially i don't know if people have seen when you get like opera singers who you know can break a glass with their voice when they can sing about certain pitch so it's the same sort of principle but applied to bridges where the wind was blowing at the same frequency as the the natural frequency of the bridge and so you were getting this like a massive oscillation between um either side to side and this whole this bridge was just twisting like nothing you've ever seen there were cars flying around um and eventually obviously it broke down and crumbled but like
00:36:00
Speaker
If anyone hasn't seen it, that is just a great example of just how how much you'd appreciate the engineering with the massive bridges that you get now. You've got the small bridges like Clifton, you've got the ones that go from you know over to Wales, and that's why they tend to sort of shut them when theyre and there's really high winds and things like that, isn't it? so ah Absolutely. So one of the most amazing things about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is the fact that we have this footage because I'm trying to remember what decade it was. I'm going to say like fifties. It's the bridge over in America. I think it's fifties. We've got footage and as you described, Ruth, yeah. the thing was that earlier than I think was I think was I think there was like Ford. oh i love Let's have a look. Let's look it up.
00:36:44
Speaker
Oh, 1940 film. Okay. Okay. So if you think back, that was its nickname, yeah, the Galloping Gertie. So well the bat so we we we touched on both the Millennium Bridge ah in the documentary did on the Meo Viaduct, because that was designed by Lord Norman Foster as well, the Millennium Bridge that wobbled.
00:37:05
Speaker
And I interviewed him about that and he was very humble about it and saying how embarrassing it was. um But yeah, the what I love is how now when I go across that, I love pointing this out, I'm such a bore. If and if I'm with anyone, I will point out the dampers along the bridge that have been retrospectively fitted. um But equally, when I did an episode on the Humber Bridge um in the the Northeast of England, I learned about how the shape of the deck was a result of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Because the shape of the Humber Bridge is now like an aerofoil, like on an aeroplane wing, which means that when the wind blows across it, instead of um instead of the the the deck getting blown about and oscillating around by ah by the wind and going into what we had at Tacoma Narrows, which was called Flutter,
00:37:59
Speaker
it almost the stronger the wind, the more resilient the bridge is because the aero foil, it drives the bridge it brought drives the bridge back bridge deck down and puts more tension in all of the cables and the hangers. So the stronger the wind, because Tacoma Narrows, the design of that bridge deck was amended and now engineers create bridges that the stronger the wind, the more stable they become. um Just brilliant.
00:38:24
Speaker
This is what I mean about bridges and it's all so visual, right? It's there in front of you. You can see it. um yeah it's ah It reminds me of the, there was a story about in World War II when there were bombers coming back from ah from the front line and the there was loads of bombers being shot down and they were coming back and there were the engineers were looking at where they need to reinforce these aircraft with So they were coming back, they were riddled with bullet holes, and they were looking at where oh how can we where we put the armour to make sure that we're getting more back, and they were saying, oh well all the bullet holes, we'll make sure we put armour there. And I can't remember who it was, but there was a there was some aircraftman, whoever it was at the time, forget his name, but... they came over and they were like well actually we shouldn't be worrying about the places that there are bullet holes because these are the aircraft that are actually coming back it's the ones that are being shot down it's the bits where you know there's there's no bullet holes and is is the bits where we need to kind of reinforce it so
00:39:20
Speaker
So as a result, they actually brought back more bombers from the front line because it took someone to kind of, you know, reverse logic and learn from what had actually happened. And I think it's great that we're still applying yeah what we've learned from the Tacoma Narrows to modern day bridges to go actually, we've learned that how not to do it. This is how we should do it.
00:39:40
Speaker
And and you know you could argue that's what engineering is all about, isn't it? You know, you test, you learn, yeah redesign um you Sadly, some of some engineering disasters um have occurred, but when they've occurred, there are all a always lessons that come out of that.
00:39:59
Speaker
um to the point now where like the aviation industry is you one of the safest industries there is. and it you know If there is a learning to be taken from an aircraft disaster, that learning is not just kept within the aircraft manufacturer itself, it's shared across airlines, across airline manufacturers, across ah aviation authorities around the world.
00:40:22
Speaker
it's good ah am That's That's what everyone says, I'm really scared of flying. It's the safest way to travel. You talked earlier about your your love for the outdoors and adventure as well, and there's obviously ah it would be remiss of me if I didn't mention your unbelievable challenge of yeah your seven marathons, seven days, seven continents.
Seven Marathons, Seven Continents
00:40:44
Speaker
I've had some pretty pretty phenomenal guests on. They've done, you know, I've got 36 marathons, 36 days was one of them. She's done Kilimanjaro. There's and another guest I had on. He's just done Manaslu in Nepal, climbed that mountain. So with each guest I get on, I wouldn't have to stop getting these guests on because I started to feel very lazy and in what I'm doing. so ah But I wanted to wanted to ask you about the challenge really. What was the what was reason behind the challenge?
00:41:12
Speaker
ah The reason behind that challenge was it was January. and So i did I did that, seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. I did it with a group of five mates. And it was January, you know, quiet time after the ration, the the fun of Christmas and new year and then everything settles down. And um one of the guys was reading Ranoff Fiennes' autobiography and he read it in there. He thought,
00:41:37
Speaker
You know, it's January. i need to set we need to we need a challenge here We need to set ourselves challenge. So he he brought this up in the pub ah when we met like a week or so later. And at that point, you know, whenever you decide to do this, it's always going to be months away, if not, you know, years. So it's very easy to say, yeah, that sounds amazing. Let's do that. Yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
But we did and then but slowly things started happening to the point where every Friday morning, two two of the lads lived in Singapore and and the rest of us here in the UK. So early Friday mornings was when we'd all check in and do ah video conference calls to um update everyone on everyone's actions and what was happening with logistics, what was happening with route planning, what was happening with the website, blah blah blah whatever it might be, um with charity and and fundraising.
00:42:26
Speaker
ah And slowly but surely we pulled it all together. And it became this, it it became about more than just the running. It became about this shared project that we all really, really cared about and that we're all really committed to. And that if we didn't ah pull our weight, then we'd be letting down the project, we'd be letting down our friends. So, you know, I was doing the training, but there was, there was,
00:42:53
Speaker
there was that kind of project side to it as well, and that shared experience amongst friends that became so, so important. um And then the training was was fine. you know i've i've at the At the time, i was I was trying to run faster and faster marathons. So my training was all about some speed work and track work and and really trying to be able to up my speed over a long distance.
00:43:17
Speaker
That had to stop. ah that was That was one big difference that I did find quite frustrating, and you'd have to go out and run similar or longer distances to what I was doing for my fast marathon training, but just at a slower speed, which meant that it took even longer.
00:43:32
Speaker
And I don't love running. um I find it quite dull, unless I'm with somebody again. is All of these things come back to to shared experience. If I'm running with someone, great. We're having a great chat and I'm really, really enjoying it. And so even if it gets really, really hard, I enjoy sharing that hardship with but someone. um But going out, I couldn't couldn't do all my training runs with with um with friends. and So yeah, having to drag yourself out. It was it was tough. It was tough.
00:44:00
Speaker
But some yeah, hell a hell of a thing to have done. I can't quite believe it now. um But at the time and during the week that we did it, it was just a question of, right, right, what's next? You're running marathon, right, what's next? We've got to get to the airport. Right, what's next? We've got to make sure we get on that plane. Right, what's next? Right, we've got to go out and run another marathon. Or you need to eat. And it was just a series of things that needed to do, needed to be done um that was on repeat. Seven times over, really.
00:44:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's incredible. Well, congratulations. That's ah it's quite ah quite an achievement. um I was reading that you found the last one the hardest because you said you almost kind of like switched off because you're like, I'm here now. I only got one more to do. Yeah, that's exactly that is exactly what happened. And that that's part of it. That's one thing I really love about um endurance and pushing oneself in a physical way is the the interaction between body and mind.
00:44:53
Speaker
And your mind is, from my experience, and there's lots of research on it as well, how how much in control your mind can be over your body and what you're experiencing through um through through what you feel and any pain in your body. But yeah, for me, the our last one was in Sydney, in Australia, and it had been quite a week up to that point, running and flying. And we we just made our flight.
00:45:20
Speaker
ah to get to um i know that was fine no we just made our fight to singapore for the one before getting to australia was fine and so we we kind of done it and felt like great we're here which i just need to run one more marathon now i've been doing it all week you should be fine it was really hot it was about 33 34 degrees in sydney uh it's january time i wasn't worried about that it was j yeah yeah but after about 10 kilometers uh out of the 42 i realized this is a slog and i'm hating every second of this i i don't know if i can do this
00:45:51
Speaker
because my mind had switched off. I'd stopped focusing. i was already i I'd already crossed the finish line in my mind, um which meant that my body suddenly had a lot of things to say that it wasn't happy about. But up to that point, I feel like my mind had probably switched off a little bit.
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. you You see these figures that are like, you know, just, just blast through it anyways. You've got, you know, typical one, you know, David Goggins. I like looking at Ross Edgley and his, good his mindset because he's not about brute forcing it at all. He's more about, he's got this idea of stoic sport science where it's, he relies very much on gratitude. So he's like, every time he gets given a bit of food, he's, you know, really great. for his site Yeah. Thank you so much. i and he saw it throughout his great british swim and he's just done he's just swum the ukon river i think it was like 50 odd hours straight he did like 300 miles solid never touching a boat just this guy is a just next level machine he's machine yeah
00:46:53
Speaker
But place he he's always super positive. he's always And it's not like blind positivity. it's it's ah is He says it's gratitude and that's a really interesting thing. So I've never done any sort of ultra endurance bits um and I'm still kind of, well maybe I should do one of those at some point, just take it off. um But I'm doing some training with a coach at the moment and we're looking at you know how I can build a bit more connection between what I'm doing and the stories I'm telling myself as well. and I'm looking forward to seeing, yeah know it's only week two, but I'm looking forward to seeing how I get on with that and what sort of comes out of the other side. That's brilliant, Rhys. I'd love to i'd love to yeah and know how you what you notice and how quickly it takes for you to notice anything different by trying to have a different mindset or trying to adopt a mindset that can hopefully help the and on the physical side of things.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah, massively. I mean, I've always, I've been training on my own for quite some time now and the most enjoyable time when I trained was with other people. That was when I was at my fittest, that's when I was enjoying it most, but circumstances have meant I do spend a lot of time training on my own. So it is just a case of having a bit more accountability now. And so and seeing actually, I didn't even notice it at this session I did the other day, there was like, I had about four or five rounds of these these exercises to do. And I kind of got there and I was like,
00:48:13
Speaker
shit I've got a lot to do and I don't really feel like doing it but then like a couple of rounds later it's like actually this feels all right now so it's there's always a barrier and then you kind of if you just kind of get over that little barrier then it's normally eases off a bit and it is very much psychological but yeah very interesting would would you would you break that down so you know, once you get over halfway, it's like, right, great, I'm over halfway now. And then I've got, I know, the run home for me, I've got Commons and Parks quite, I live in south of the sun and there's Commons and Parks I can go and do a lot of my training in. But when I start to come home, the last three kilometers, I break down, I think there are seven or eight different sections that I break it down in my head, and they're not the same distance.
00:48:57
Speaker
It's just, oh, that's to the end of the park. And then that's to the corner where the me roundabout is. I break it down. I can just count them off. um I find that really helps me just so when, just to help me kind of track progress and make me feel like, oh, great, you're great. Yeah. I've only got three left to do now. It it depends sometimes.
00:49:16
Speaker
Sometimes I think it's better not knowing. I'd rather not know, I only have like, if you're doing like rounds of something, oh, you know, you round four of ten and you're like, dying. And you're like, ah, shit, I'd rather have just not known that at all. It depends what it is, but yeah, I don't know. It's always, I think it's a very unique experience for everyone who's doing it.
00:49:36
Speaker
It is, whether in which case, if you do start to go towards endurance stuff, ah whether that's on the bike or swimming or running, I'd be really interested to know ah if you would adopt a sports watch or not to constantly beep at you and say, oh, that's another kilometre done, or oh, that's another 100 metres down in the pool, whatever it might be, because if you don't want to know, the the the watch doesn't help with that.
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah, i find I've had an Ironman athlete on and she said she only checks her style once, a kilometre. And this the guy I'm having coaching with, Andrew Day, she used to be sort of a professional rugby player and he's a coach now. um He's doing as many kilometres as he can, I think, in November. um but I'm not sure what he got up to in the end. but Yeah, he he said what run it running? Yeah, but he said it's it's better to ah He says I feel like they're with a lot these face driven elements sport watches you kind of lose that connection that human connection So it's like how am I feeling in the morning? Am I relying on my whoop band to tell me I'm green or am I actually feeling green? Yeah, so um it's it's very interesting the different perceptions on how they use technology um Yeah, yeah, we can have we can have another chat about that. I think yeah. Yeah. Yeah ah yeah one so one quick one thing on the kind of body of mind. I enjoy playing golf and I read a sports psychology book or a golf psychology book and um it's called ah Golf is Not a Game of Perfect by a golf coach called Bob Ritella.
00:51:03
Speaker
And I now adopt a different approach ah to to to golf because I was getting quite frustrated with it. I have a pre-shot routine now that I go through and part of that is reminding myself how much I love playing golf and how lucky I am to be out there right now playing golf with my mates. Isn't this brilliant?
00:51:22
Speaker
That's part of my pre-shot routine for every shot I take. It's just a little reminder that this is brilliant. No matter what just happened, I might be really effed off about just slanking it into the bushes. When I'm in the bushes trying to get out, I'm like, this is brilliant. I love this. And that that really, really helps. It just relaxes your whole, and your body reacts to it, I find.
00:51:40
Speaker
Yeah, I always say I'm just getting my money's worth out of the course when I end up in the cabbage. You mentioned before about how you did your your seven marathons, seven days, seven continents with your friends. so we just wanted to you know we We had a pre-chat before this where we were talking about you know the importance of friendships.
00:52:01
Speaker
So I want to stay on that topic and we it's a topic I think has been discussed quite recently, you know maybe over the past year, it's become more prevalent in in podcasts and and social media as to as to why friendships are important.
The Importance of Friendships
00:52:18
Speaker
And there's some stats I read earlier that were saying 27% of men have fewer than six close friends and 15% have no friends at all.
00:52:30
Speaker
One thing you said to me was how you've come to really appreciate the friendships as you've sort of gotten older. Talk me through that. What, why has that been important to you? I think those stats are specific to men. Um, ah and I can see how that happens. I think what, so I, I haven't suffered from that. I feel very, very lucky, very, very blessed that I have a really strong network of supportive friends around me. Um,
00:53:00
Speaker
But I've become conscious of this now as I'm um you know well into my middle age. And I've started to reflect on how I've managed to maintain that network where, as we hear through those stats recently, many men don't manage to maintain that.
00:53:20
Speaker
um I think part of it is I've started a family but quite late on in life and so I've had time up to this point to dedicate to my friends, which I love doing and I feel that's been really, really important.
00:53:33
Speaker
That said, a lot of my friends within that net group who all I feel would say the same thing that we have a really supportive network of ah friendship. There've been some things over the last 10, 15 years that I think have helped that. and and And one of those was this club that we had running for 10 years um where every Tuesday evening after work, we'd meet in a local park and do a fitness session for one hour and then we'd go home. We wouldn't go to the pub afterwards. You could hang you can go to pub afterwards if you want to be. There's no expectation around that. You turn up, you exercise with each other, and then you go home. And it was just us. And we'd take it in turns to run a session every week. um In fact, you got find a fiver if you didn't turn up.
00:54:20
Speaker
Because the commitment was that no, we're going to be here. We're going to be here and see each other as life gets busier. And having that scheduled in every Tuesday, there was no excuse. You you know, you fit other things around it. Um, occasionally you couldn't turn up and I was finding any, any money that, that was, um, uh, that was brought together through people not being able to turn up and went into a pot. And then we'd spend that on a meal and some beers social at the end of every quarter.
00:54:46
Speaker
I feel that having something scheduled in really helped maintain those friendships throughout that period. And that was 10 years or more. Then the pandemic hit. And even then we started up another little club online where three times a week at 6 AM, we'd go and do 20 minutes outside in the garden, doing a fitness session together. And you're not getting, you're not having deeper, meaningful conversations with each other during any of this, but you're seeing each other, you're staying connected and you're yeah you're staying connected, you know what's going on in each other's lives. And if you need a deeper meaningful at point, it was very easy to do because you'd seen the guys last week. Now I do that through what one of the mechanisms I have to do that. It's through a podcast I do with two of the chaps who Ashley is at uni with and both engineers and who were part of this club on Tuesday evenings as well.
00:55:39
Speaker
We don't have that club anymore, but I still get to see my mates Tommy and Jono every week because we spend an hour and a half talking about something that we're all really, really interested in and it's scheduled in. So I do feel if when I look back and reflect, I feel very blessed, very, very lucky. And I feel there's been some mechanisms that have been put in place, and not necessarily by me, but some mechanisms that have really helped maintain a friendship. And I know now, again, in a period of reflection, how much I've got out of those friendships, how I feel supported in anything I do when I change career, so much support from my mates to do that.
00:56:18
Speaker
um ah When I got married and had a kid recently so much support that have come through and it makes such a difference to how I feel. um Because I know that if you start to become isolated and start to feel quite lonely the world can be a much more difficult place.
00:56:37
Speaker
Yeah, massively. And I think it's nice that idea of having something scheduled in because we're all very busy people, aren't we? And we and before you know it, you've kind of been like, oh, yeah, we'll meet up. And then ah another year has gone past and you've not you know ah got in touch with that person. So it's no one's to blame. It's just more of a case of you need to just find something that works for for all of you to be able to do that.
00:56:57
Speaker
um I listened to Robert Greene the other day on a podcast, I don't know if you're familiar with with some of his stuff. I'm i'm not, no. So he's ah he's an author and he does a lot of, he's got a book called The 48 Laws of Power and he's a lot to do with like power, strategy and sort of influence as well, but he was talking about um just being yourself being uniquely yourself and i think this is important for people who maybe are struggling to make friends or you know sustain friendships he says all of the you know he's talking about all the little quirks that you have the down to the you know the things you do before you eat your dinner or your the music tastes you like the you know the hobbies you have you know the way you dress all these little quirks that you have make you very unique and they make you you
00:57:45
Speaker
so try not to dilute that and try and stay authentic to what you're trying to do and you know i'm quite into like menswear and and i'll go to work and i'll wear a tie sometimes and people are like well i've got to see a tie age is like why do you wear a tie and i do it because i like doing it and i like how it makes me feel and i've actually got i've made a lot of friends who are doing that through the menswear space it's the same with the watches as well you know i've got you know watch groups i go to i've got friends in the industry now, and it's all little things that I've kind of geeked out over that have actually led me to develop some of my most powerful friendships. And so I'd say for for people who may be struggling with building friendships, the best thing I did was
00:58:25
Speaker
uni i found sports groups i found clubs that were um you know that had a common interest with people in and the same with the like the your hobbies so if you if you like you know board games there's plenty of there's plenty of people that like board games there's societies now there's clubs that are set up if you like um coffee you know going down to the low cafe there's you know people really geek out over this stuff now so if you find your you enjoy certain things have a look around your area and look at if there's a club you can get involved in because you know there's no reason you're not like going into a room blind and you don't know what to talk to people about you're going in with a mutual interest with people you know already there they're there for the same reason you are because they love coffee or the because they love watches or something so
00:59:10
Speaker
That would always be something I would recommend doing if you have ah have a hobby, is go and have a look and and see if you find clubs surrounding it. um Is there anything you would suggest as to how people might sort of build a you know build friendships and help that? It's a sense of belonging, isn't it? it ah It's ah <unk>s a sense of um not feeling isolated, a sense of belonging, a f sense of being part of something, a sense of community, right? You are part of of that community, whether that's physical or virtual. I mean, we're talking right at the top, but ah least we're talking about our love of things, and mechanical.
00:59:41
Speaker
but
00:59:44
Speaker
something to embrace within the digital age is um access to the world, right? And you can't, well, you can get that mechanically, that's planes and stuff, but it's it's a lot more difficult um then than finding someone who's also into coffee or who's also into something that you really, really love geeking out. You can find your tribe so much more easily through social media, which I think is an absolutely fantastic side of it. um So yes, i would I would echo what you've said there to go and find your tribe, whoever that is, and start geeking out about starting to enjoy geeking out about whatever it is that I don't feel it's slightly more difficult if if if you are isolated within that your physical in in real life in your physical space and there's nobody else who's into what you're into and I'm thinking particularly like around school kids perhaps you know who are what we didn't have said on this the other day everyone's a geek about something who didn't episode on the podcast about that the other day so I can speak quite fluently about this
01:00:41
Speaker
At school, if if in that space, nobody else is into the music that you're into and that you're seen as a bit of an outsider, I understand how that is that could be quite difficult during that time at school.
01:00:53
Speaker
But hopefully there is a sense of connection, a sense of belonging to be found virtually in the world. um Because there there is so much going on within each of these geeky topics, and everyone's a geek about something, with each of these geeky topics to go and geek out with those who enjoy doing what you enjoy doing.
01:01:14
Speaker
That's that sense of belonging. That's that sense of connection that I feel we all need. um You just sometimes need to find ways to do it, but I feel that it is possible. And and I would echo what you said there about considering your interests, considering what you enjoy, what you love, what drives you. What what are you a geek about? Go and find your fellow geeks because there will be a always guaranteed connection to be found there.
Conclusion and 'Sketchplanations' Podcast
01:01:45
Speaker
Rob Bell, everyone. Thank you very much, Rob. That's, you know, really enjoyed the conversation. um I think there's some, yeah, it's it's nice to have someone I can geek out to as well. I think we've got some quite, ah quite common interests there. And yeah, it's really interesting topics we've discussed. So thank you. Thank you once again for your time. um If people want to find out a little bit more about what you do, ah maybe have a look at the podcast you're doing as well. Where is the best place to find that information?
01:02:12
Speaker
Um, so podcast is called sketch planations, the podcast. Um, it's a project my mate Johnny set up 10 years ago, where he does a sketch every week that explains something in the world around us. It's about curiosity. It's about an enjoyment of that curiosity with friends. Um, so has to search for sketch planations, the podcast, and we're on all podcast players, we'll turn to be on, on, on Instagram, uh, on my websites, robbell.tv.
01:02:36
Speaker
Brilliant. Sketch relations is awesome. I do a regular deep dive and I find myself going down the rabbit hole over like 15, 16 different ones. I'm like, I need to go and do some work now. Nice, Aris. You know, Jono recently celebrated his 900th sketch on Sketch Relations. So there's plenty of material for, with the podcast has only been going for a year, so there's plenty of us, plenty of material for us to get diving into. Awesome. Thanks so much, Rob. Much appreciate it. Thanks everyone, mate. Cheers.