Hi everyone and welcome to a swelteringly hot episode of Vet Chat and suffice to say, As a ginger, I'm not loving it. It's, it's hot, it's minging outside, like it's quite possibly gonna be a case of ginger down by the end of this episode. But today I am delighted to be joined by fellow scouser, beard aficionado.

And part-time interest in ridiculous challenges like running 15 million miles across America, marathon des Sables, etc. Someone who I'm delighted to call a friend nowadays, Mr. Rob.

Hope. So Rob, boss to have you with you, with us and, and bringing your beard with you as well. It's always, always good to chat, mate.

It's kind of weird to do it in an official capacity. It, it's one of the funny things and I just thought I'd start this with you. And I don't know whether you've ever had this.

But I just thought I'd, I, I'd start by saying, have you ever been in that situation where someone's turned round to you and gone, 00, you're a vet, it's like, but, but you're scouse. Mostly when I'm in Liverpool, to be honest. Like he was like, oh, like, are you are you actually the vet?

And I was just like, well, yeah, we are allowed to be here. I said, I, I've had it so many times, just sit there going, yeah, I know it was like this community outreach project where they let a few of us in every now and then and just sort of go, right, let's see what havoc breaks loose and, and look what happened, they let me and you in and this is we are, we're both, you know, years down the line. You've got your podcast for Red Bull, which is just, I mean that is so, so cool and we'll get onto that in a bit.

I'm running a slightly smaller operation here. But like it's important like it's just, but for me it's just cool to see people doing different things and the one thing I love about doing a podcast is you speak to people who've done all kinds of stuff throughout their career. I just wonder, I thought I'd maybe start, and, and I think probably one of the things I want to get out of today is seeing, you know, what being a vet means to each of us.

And I just wonder kind of like, how old were you when you wanted to become a vet and you know, what was that sort of journey like of of getting into vet school? I, I was 8. I remember the exact sort of moment as well, I was in what was older vets in Liverpool and my cat Henry.

As we know, as we now would know to be a cap by abscess had a huge swelling on his back, and then we went to the vets and he stuck a scalpel in it, and then he got me to give an injection of penicillin, which is for eight year old sons was actually really quite hard, you know, and then I managed it. And then I said to my mum and said like, so what's that job? And she said that's that's a vet, and I was like that's what I'm gonna do.

And so then that was it. I was cast. And I, that's the funny thing, isn't it, like, I, I don't know what it's like, and I can only speak for being a vet, but like in so many careers, there's not many people I think that can turn round and say, you know, I had this differentiating moment in my life when I decided I wanted to be an actuary, or, you know, I, I got, I got 5000 pounds in a no win no fee car crash, and that was when.

And I knew I wanted to be a solicitor. Like, you just don't hear them stories, do you? But I think with vets, for the most part, I'm sure there's some that don't have that story, but for most of us, there's that one defining moment is mostly as a kid, where we go, yeah, that's what we're gonna do, that's cool, and like for me, that was with I was I was watching like, I think it was vets in practise or Vet School, one of them shows.

And they were doing a cow with a, I think it was an LDA or an RDA. It was like, you know, two people up to the shoulders in cow abdomen. And my mum said she was a little concerned because my eyes lit up.

So she was like, either he's gonna want to be a vet or a serial killer, but, like that, that for me. Was, was my moments and then obviously, you know, you're, you're a scouser, you, you end up going to London vet school, which I mean it's, it's hard to get really past that as, you know, one scouser to another, like, you know, you're abandoning your home city, and Liverpool have me. But, but you, you, you made vet school into something of an adventure really, didn't you mate?

So I wonder if you could tell people a little about, a little bit about the journey to, to where you are now, from, from that sort of first day at vet school, you know, what's, what, what have you done, or perhaps, perhaps more appropriate, what haven't you done? Yeah, well, even getting into London was a, was like sort of a, a pretty much a decent, a decent story to say the least. So I found myself in Trafalgar Square about 30 minutes before my interview, not knowing where the I just didn't know what it was in London, didn't understand the tube at all.

And so I was like, oh my God, and then I, I was basically spent that half an hour sprinting in a suit, asking people at pretty much every traffic like which way is it to Camden. And I legged it up the stairs, but I stopped to open the door for the lady who was behind me as I was going in, went to the toilet to just try and wash my face and stop the sweat coming through my shirt. And then when I went into the actual interview, the lady I opened the door for was sitting on the panel, and I was just like, yeah, thank God for that.

And so, that was like sort of, you know, almost my only hope because I've got an offer from Cambridge if I did a physics S level, and I was just like, I don't think so, that's just not gonna happen. And I'd exhausted, so I think I I'd maxed out my physics knowledge so there was no way I was gonna humiliate myself. I didn't really like the the look of Cambridge when I was there either.

I found it. Maybe it's just a scout thing, I found it a bit standoffish, so when I got London as after being rejected by everyone else, that was a bit of a godsend and to be honest, it was nice to, it was nice to go on my travels and so obviously it started in '96 at vet school there. I er went up to er 3rd year and I wanted to do the intercalation, but I did the vetPath course.

We were part of the inaugural cohort and the course wasn't quite ready yet, so I got delayed, so I ended up having to come out of the middle of my rotations to, to do my intercalation, which was probably not the greatest idea. And then went back into rotations with pretty much 3 months to go after having no like the normal veterinary education for the for a year. And and so we had a bit of a panic over finals.

Went to my cheer at the time. Can you hear that siren? Oh mate, you can tell from Liverpool.

That's just the guy, that's just the fellow dropping off the milk. Exactly, like if I get pulled out of this podcast, it's been great. And so, yes, we will be, yes, so I went to see my tutor and I said there's no way I'm gonna pass finals, man, and he just said, Rob, he said, you're not an idiot, you'll be absolutely fine.

Finals is just a safety net to weed out idiots. And he said, would you inject magnesium into a cow's vein quickly? And I went, no, he went.

Get out of the office mate, you'll be fine. So that was that was that. And I was so for I passed and I went and er.

Worked for 18 months in Anal in goodness under the great John Dinsdale, who was a very tolerant boss because I came out of at uni and into practise in full on party mode and I didn't stop partying until the point where I was told that I needed to maybe rein in some of my excesses if I wanted to continue in the job. And so, 18 months into the job, I told them I was going to go and do a PhD back at the RBC and . It had nothing to do with the fact that I was in a band down there and I was still playing football for the RBC every other weekend as a ringer, and I carried on my vet path journey, studying pes to petty ruminant virus, and vaccine development, so of course the current situation, watching a vaccine being made at speed.

Is of great interest to me seeing as my PhD took 5 years and apparently is was instrumental in what has been affectionately or maybe not affectionately known as the er the Scally rule at the RBC Scally being my nickname for those who don't know me. And that's and and that's actually it's funny cos we didn't meet until years later, but. It, it's almost like there's this subsection of vets who are scousers, and there's there's a, there's there's about 12 of us, I think, in the country.

And there's this mythical thing, and like I remember like those of you who've ever done ABS weekend. I remember turning up at London, I think it must have been, it must have been 2003 or 2004. That was 2003 it was London, yeah.

2003, it must be, yeah, and then we we got on and, and all you hear is someone going oh Scally and Scally and Scally and we sat there thinking, oh God, I'm, I'm used to this being me, and it's but it's someone else that people are talking about, . And all of a sudden like there's this cos I didn't, didn't your band play the stage or something on on ABS? That was our first big gig, man, yeah, and it went unbelievably well considering the shambolic group of amateurs apart from the drummer, but .

But like, so suffice to say you got the max out of the educational experience that any vet school can offer. So much so that I think pretty much they marched you off the premises at the end of your PhD to say right Rob, you know, short of having the Rob Pope wing, you know, we're we're, we're gonna have to, we're gonna, you're gonna have to go and broaden your horizons. So where, where did life take you next?

So mostly I was, because one of the reasons sort of I was taking so long to do the PhD was that foot and mouth happened at Per right where I was doing my, doing my sort of, research, and some of it was because of the band and, getting the max out of the experience, and so I had to self fund the end of my PhD and got like sort of I was doing emergency work. And I really got into that and I just really enjoyed the fast-paced nature of it, er, as would sort of befit my character, and eventually that that emergency work took me all the way to Australia, where I was, became an academic tutor at the University of Melbourne under the, the guise of a dead shoes and sort of manner and the least bowler, so like working with the real cream of the crop. And I stayed there for 3 years before, like Nadine said of my now wife and a girlfriend at the time who's working as one of the nurses there, we decided we needed to come back to the UK to see, you know, where we liked better and as fate would have it, I ended up getting a job at Alder, the very place where I wanted to become a vet in the first place.

It's funny, isn't it, how a lot of the time, and with a lot of people's veterinary journeys, they do end up kind of going full circle. And, and like you end up, I mean, I remember I saw practise as a kid with John Adams, who's, he had another practise. I mean John passed away several years back now, but, but there's.

It's great to see that these practises still exist and they're still around and you know what, like people are, you see clients going, hey God, that's where I, that's where I like, you know, first decided I wanted to be a vet and go and sort experiences in that place, but I, I just think it's really, really cool how. This is a profession that can take you anywhere in the world and at the same place, you can still end up working at the end of the street where you saw stuff. Which I, I just think is, is really, really cool.

I think one of the things you touched on earlier and it's quite interesting, especially looking in times as they are now, obviously, every now and then you get these big outbreaks of of things that, Challenge the norm and obviously for a lot of vet students and a lot of vets throughout foot and mouth back in was it 2001 that was the first outbreak, I think, yeah, yeah, that'd be about right, yeah, I so I did my masters in infection and disease control. So I can't remember any of it, but it was a lovely year. You can spot Mar and Rob's theme about education at the minute and what it is that we went and had a lovely time and we got a qualification out of it.

I wonder if you've got any bits of sort of insight from your experiences there, cos of course there's a load of vet students now and and people who are maybe even just starting vet school and starting their studies. And it's a whole different way of doing stuff now, but did you take any, Learnings or anything from that kind of experience? Basically I think it just shows that the degree in itself is, you know, almost like I was just saying before about finals, it's more a, a case of, you know, showing that you are capable of digesting that information now.

You were saying about, you know, sort of seeing the the LDA and stuff like that. I, I loved all my large animal education and I really wish I could still recall it. Now I'd actually love to go and be a scuse large animal vet and that would, that would really.

They they'd be they'd be wondering about if you're there for the Land Rover. Oh, don't worry mate, we don't need the keys. Yeah And you know, sort of I, I sort of I was really keen with the PhD like I just thought sort of about, you know, I, I wouldn't mind going into the research thing, but then I, I sort of did find I missed the clinical side of things too much, er, to be in it permanently, but.

You know, we are able to adapt to these things and I would just sort of say to people, especially people who find they're really unhappy in whatever aspect of their job they're in at the moment, you know, you're not stuck there, certainly no sort of, you know. Everybody can be sad about their current situation, but don't let the fact that you're in that situation make you sad because you can change it, you know, you're not stuck in anything, and so, you know, feel free to you but as you know, I took a fairly major career break. And that benefited me in terms of education, not one job apart from the university of life.

But you know, you can retrain at any point, you can retrain when you're 40 or 50, it doesn't matter, just take that time out, you know, so you just need to be brave and, you know, you're bound to be more than capable of it. Yeah. What, what do you like about being a vet?

Like helping people, yeah, and sort of when I'm er when I'm having a really rubbish day because they happen and you know, everybody's working really hard at the moment, so er you know, heads up to everybody who's out there. But you know, if I'm having a bad day, I actually just sort of thinking, you know, the next thing I'm gonna do, I'm about to like help somebody and whether it's sort of, you know. You're giving somebody hope where none existed or even basically telling somebody that there is no hope in the nicest way possible, you know, by doing that you can't fail, but, you know, sort of feel like you're doing something, you know, so the little differences make a, make a difference too.

Yeah, and I think something that very much resonated was a post actually that you put out a couple of days ago on one of the veterinary Facebook groups where it was saying, actually, do you know what, we, we perhaps have a nasty habit as a profession of judging the people on the other side of the table from time to time, and of course that's human nature, and from time to time you will get that one person that you just sort like, what the hell are you doing here? Why have you got this animal, but of course, everybody's got their own journeys and stuff like that, and I remember, I remember. It must be, must be 55, maybe 6 years, 5 years ago when I, I moved back to Liverpool, and I was doing some work out of hours at the PDSA and I had these preconceived ideas about PDSA clients, you know, you're sort of like you have that, rightly or wrongly, I had this sort of like, you know, this is the type of client that will be using the PDSA and actually I, I got a real.

Eye opening experience from that, from like, you know, people that are properly, you know, pensioners that this is the last memory of their partner, you know, young people who've got a dog, both had good jobs and then, you know, lost, lost jobs or, you know, lost careers or had accidents and no longer able to work and don't have things like income protection. Stuff like that, and I think it's it's very easy when you're busy, when you're tired, when you're absorbed in all things that are veterinary practise, to, to lose that empathy and humanity. And I think the vast majority of us do that so well.

Like I, I, I cannot think of another profession that looks after people. As well as we do, which is almost quite ironic really when people's perception is that, you know, we, we're there to fix animals. But I, I, I just wondered sort of what your, what your take is on, on what our responsibility is as vets, and what do you see your responsibility as as as a vet yourself?

It's probably almost a bit like, you know, being a parent, you know, you, we've got like sort of, you know, owners who literally, you know, our, our golden child, you know, sort of come in and they'll just say whatever it takes and you know, and they actually need whatever it takes and they pay the bills, you know, you know, just please, please get him fixed and stuff and then you you know you have the sort of the clients. You've seen for the, you know, they're telling you for the 7th time this thing has come back again and you look through your notes and you're like, you've not followed any advice I've given you the whole time, you know, and so sometimes like, you know, I've got better as I've got further on and maybe I'm not seen as the, you know, the the new kid on the block although. They did swear I look 26, so I'll take that.

You know, you just sometimes have to tell people. You just have to tell people sometimes, you know, come on, this isn't sort of acceptable, you know, whether you do it in like a parently way or as a boss way, but you don't wanna be ever putting yourself in that situation regularly where people are going home, going, oh I went to the vet today. It was horrible, you know.

And you'll never know about that, and you might think that you've gone, well, I've delivered that news very firmly. They will, you know, respect. For for this and everything will be fine.

Well, you'll either ignore what you've said because as soon as you sort of, you know, let down the throat, they just, you know, they weren't receptive to you anymore, or they'll go somewhere else, you know, and so you have to be there and sometimes like like sort of, for example, we all get furious when we've got the rabbit owner that likes to let the rabbits sort of, you know, be consumed by maggots. And you know, I will give people a bit of a rocket for that, but then as soon as I've delivered it, I then sort of try and pull back and go right, I've got to do the compassion now so that they've had the sort of the the shop where you have to finish it with a positive thing because at the end of the day you're in the business of, you know, caring, you know, sort of, you know, you've you've got that that's at the end of the day, that's what it's gotta be about. Yeah.

I'm. The hard part, and I know for me when I started in practise, I, I've learned that you know, I've been in what practise 12 years now, more, more years than I care to remember. And, and you sort of look at stuff and go at some point we have that difference compared to our medical counterparts where we have to understand the, the business of being a vet.

Necessarily need to have a full grasp on it, but we do have to grasp the, actually we need to make money, otherwise there's no business, and then actually I can't do any of what I want to do, which is helping people and helping animals. And I know early on I struggled with valuing myself. As a vet and sort of saying, well, look, you know, well, I can't charge this person 70 quid for that.

I haven't got a damn clue what I'm doing. And, and you know, I wonder if you've ever had that sort of struggle yourself where you're looking at stuff and of course our, it's a real, I don't know whether we're unique, I'm sure we're not as professions, but we, we want to help people, but we, we don't necessarily charge them appropriate. I just wonder what your thoughts were on that.

Yeah, but I, I also approach this because maybe with a, not a unique insight but certainly different to what many practitioners might do as a result of my own background, you know, sort of, you know, I came from a single parent family where my mum ended up on benefits. I've had the thing of, you know, hiding behind the couch when there's been a knock on the door and seeing like, you know, piles of bills just not touched cos we knew it was gonna be awful news. And so whenever whenever I come in.

That I am awful, awfully careful to make sure I, I offer the gold standard because I like doing, you know, cool stuff as much as an ex vet, maybe more, you know, but I'm also aware that you just have to offer the whole sort of compass of things because, you know, it's all well and good saying well we can't, we can't treat your epileptic dog if you don't do an MRI and we all know that's rubbish and stuff, you've just got to be a good sort of explain and . I work for a chain sort of down south a few years ago and they were obsessed with ATVs, obsessed with them, and they would send them biweekly and I was continually in the bottom 3 or 4 of the 30 vets on the ATVs. I said, future.

To that I take me off their list now, but I just I was saying to them, sort of, you know, if you, if you ever start to find me in the bottom 3 or 4 of vets who aren't fixing things, then we can have this discussion, but you know, like I find that sometimes the the drive for an ATV. Is actually dulling people's clinical instincts and skills and preventing people from backing their own judgement because they'll go test, test, test, test, test. And eventually, sort of, you know, if you were in a job for the short term, I'm sure that sort of, you know, you're boss would be pretty happy with your business.

Eventually that's just gonna lead to dissatisfaction, you know, and so like I've been in a, in a place now for, you know, over a year and the amount of like repeat sort of customers who are coming in, not because I'm the cheap vet, because I'm not, I I just I I treat their their pets as I would treat my own. And you know, sort of, if they can't do something, you know, I will just sort of, you know, try and try and find whatever means to get the best bang for the buck, and I think that's what vets need to do. We need to really use our clinical judgement to to basically make sure we value not necessarily precision on diagnoses all the time.

And I think that's it, isn't it? And that's where I know you and I have very, very similar styles with our, with, with our clients, and I dare say that that's possibly again due to, you know, backgrounds and, and sort of, you know, the way we, we grow up in a, in a sort of, maybe it is a northern city thing, who knows. But, but I think for me it's the vets sometimes will do, and it's not critical of anyone, but I've, I've watched it and you watch them and invariably we will do amazing jobs.

And 500 quids worth of work, and actually if that owner understood what they'd had for that 500 quid, they wouldn't bat an eyelid. But actually it's the, I've done a dental, it's 500 quid. The jaw hits the floor, and, and you know, the, the this this sort of, I, I do wonder, I know, I know sort of when we, when I started vet school there was this big drive and, and, and I know that's continued on communication skills, and you know, you and I are both lucky because frankly, most clients have to shut us up rather than the other way round.

But, but it's, it's fascinating to think that actually so many vets, if we communicated what we did better. I dare say that the perception of cost would be very different from an owner point of view. I don't know, it's, it's speculative, but I would think that would maybe make life easier for us all across the board.

Sure, that's right, it's, you know, it's been shown by sort of many a er, you know, sort of veterinary sort of, you know, business sort of advocate that that longer consults will generally lead to a higher average income because it's all well and good saying, well, Mr. Sweeney, your dog needs, you know, X, Y, and Z. And that is 700 quid, you know, I, I just go, why does he need this, why does he need that and just go, oh well, I'm awfully sorry because we've got a 10 minute consult, you know, that's what I need, take it or leave it, and a lot of people will leave it because, you know, so I will massively research anything before I buy it.

And if I haven't got info, I just don't go down the route, and if, if, if the person on the other end of this transactional sort of conversation that I the vet, isn't prepared to give me the information I need, then I'm not gonna invest, you know, and so like I've sort of given up apologising for pricing. I basically don't work in places that I find. Are unfair with the prices now, just, you know, it's not worth my stress levels.

And so if somebody says to me, that's really expensive, my counter is as if I acknowledge it is a large sum of money, but I can assure you that, you know, this does represent value and this is why, and this is why we need to do it. And then, you know, I, I think sort of some people are in the situation where they go they receive that, you know, sort of retort of that's really expensive and if their response may be, it's just not but well it is. You know, unless you know that person's exact attitude to money, never mind their bank balance, but their attitude to money, you know, sort of the expensiveness is only in the eye of the person who's paying the money, you know, so that you just need to explain sort of why that represents the way they should go.

Yeah, and I think that's gonna become more and more important in in the the months and years ahead as we, you know, head full tilt into a recession now, where, you know, there are going to be a lot of people who are jobless, who've still got pets, who, you know, have still got the responsibilities and still love them, but, but don't have money to throw around and stuff, and I think that's gonna be, it's gonna be a real. I maintain a great opportunity for every profession to, to galvanise our relationship with the general public, but that comes down to to that communication. And I guess.

For me, and I love asking people this question, and for me it's a, it's a resounding yes, time and again. If you could, if you could do it again, if you went back to eight year old Rob and said, right, OK, you know, this is, you probably don't remember what you look like without a beard, but, but you know, 8 year old, unbearded Rob, full head of hair, all these aspirations and dreams. Would, would you be a vet again?

Knowing what you know now, would you be a vet again? Well, the weird thing is, it's only because I'm greedy and I'd want to try something else, you know, so, but I like so I, I do hear, you know, serving friends and sort of, you know, on forums and stuff that they would say to their child, oh, I, I'd never make them be a vet, I'd never make my, my, my kid be a vet, but if they said they wanted to. I'd be proud, especially proud if they made it there, you know, there, because I think the idea of wanting to be a vet is a noble thing, you know, sort of whether, you know, whether you follow through or not.

I think I would, there's no, there's no job apart from the, you know, the stuff like Formula One driver or a professional athlete. You know, it's that would make me go, I would jack in vet me for this, yeah, because I'm capable of it, you're capable of it. Anyone who's listening to this is most likely capable of it.

You know, all it is is you have to just say this is what I wanna do and focus on it, and the vast majority of cases you can that you know that there somebody could be that no win no fee lawyer. It just doesn't fit my boat and so I'm aware about grass being greener and I've chased greener grass to find out it's not that green. And so yeah, I, I still think I probably would, you know.

You could change one thing about the profession as a whole. What would you change? I would have a, I would have a generally shorter shift patterns sort of in in work because I, I do find that they are so intense and because it's not the fact that we need to be sharp and on our game all the time.

It's just that, I bet you the last 3 or 4 times, you've probably never snapped at anyone twice, man, but let's just say the last time you snapped at anyone, I bet you were knackered. I bet you were really tired, you know, so it's very rare that you wake up refreshed and then just go straight into an argument with someone, it's easy because you're feeling a little bit flat. And there's a practise in the northwest actually that they do, I think it's 56 hour shifts a week, and I don't think I've ever seen a happy group of vets now they come for them and and they were just great.

And I just think sort of, you know, you go in there, you smashing your 6 hours and you step out to a lovely sunny day like today, and guess what, you're not bothered about going back to work tomorrow because it is fun when you're not doing it for like 12 hours at a time. 6 hour shift just sounds glorious. It's and I think it's great practise makes money, vets earn decent wage, clients that are, don't see why more people don't do it.

Yeah, I was gonna say that sounds, that sounds really quite cool. I think we might need to do a podcast with that practise at some point to think, oh right, what can you teach? But yeah, no, that's cool.

Now, obviously, yeah, away from being a vet, you, you have a few. Dabblings and of course in, in, I dare say the true Rob Pope fashion, you don't really do things by hearts, and, and I think also, I dare hasten to add that you possibly have the most tolerant wife on the planet. But I mean I remember, so Rob and I first met properly, like face to face, this mythical legend called Scally from RBC.

We actually met because I was working with his now wife, er, who was a nurse and. Practise where I was, so it was fascinating watching you going through this. I'm gonna call it an early midlife crisis, where you said, right, I know, I'm gonna follow this the Forrest Gump trail.

And obviously, anyone in the veterinary profession has heard about these endeavours at this stage, so I'm not gonna dwell on it too much because it's, it's not new news, but I think the great thing about it to me is. I use it as an example with a lot of people, even non-vets that I'm speaking to, and I say, do you know what, this is a guy who wanted to do something. And, and for no other reason than, this is my live stream, this is what I want to do.

And you did it, but you found a way to make it work for you. And obviously most people have got a life dream and and they don't necessarily get the chance to live them all, but what. What would you say to anyone who, who's got, you know, some kind of aspiration and, and desire to do something, but, and maybe a little bit reticent to do it.

What, what have you learned about yourself, what have you guys learned as a couple, you know, what, what was it everything you wanted it to be? I don't think it could have been sort of, yeah, apart from like the, it would have been nice to have been completely sponsored and had a gold plated RV that followed me around and like fed me snacks on sort of silken napkins, but apart from that, maybe actually to be honest that might have made it rubbish because the experience as a whole was based on the people that sort of helped, you know, sort of in. You know, sort of, when you've not really got much, you know, sort of, the fact that people are so open to helping you was, was a fantastic thing and I would say don't listen to the negativity, whether that's from other people or most often within yourself because quite often we'll we'll make up these sort of obstacles that we say that we that we can't do something and you know.

I, I sort of always planned on doing this but never necessarily as big as it was gonna be, so that it was there was nothing physically stopping me there, and it was just eventually when I, I came back and I thought, well, I probably should be settling down and you know, sort of unfortunately sort of the job that I came back from I was for and you know, in the same place didn't turn out to be the the childhood dream, you know, sort of, for whatever reason. And it presents me with the opportunity. Now that is the important thing, you know, you can either go looking for an opportunity, or more importantly, you can be available to the opportunity when it happens.

Now if something presents itself. I think I've proven that it's certainly doable, take away the physical side of it and stuff, you know, just say it was a two year non-paid, you know, sort of odyssey and stuff, and you know we'd saved up money to buy like a house deposit, which isn't a massive amount being up north, you know, sort of, and then when we finished that. We literally didn't have a penny, in fact, we were in the hole.

But being in the, in the profession that we're in, I always knew that I was going to be able to come back, get a job, work hard, and just get back on my feet again, you know, and, and that's what happens and you know, sort of, you know, not just sort of because of my own efforts, but because of the people around me as well, you know, whether it was on the run or when, when we came back. And therefore you should always be available to help other people with their opportunity as well, because, you know, you might not have had yours yet, and you know you might think oh why should I do this and stuff, but when I was meeting people in the states who literally had nothing, like a, like a woman who lived on the local trailer park who came along and first of all she offered me an umbrella that I couldn't take because I was running, and then she came back with the entire. Contents of their penny jar would have been about a couple of 100 bucks, but I bet you she didn't really have much more than that to to put together, and she didn't know me.

And so we should just be more open to helping people who, as you were saying before, the, the, the whole landscape's gonna change, yeah, it really is, and we should almost sort of approach every consult that we're gonna do now with when they come through the door going right, help this person, that's what it's gonna, that's gonna be the end result, you know. And then, and by doing that, I think you'll help yourself because you know you'll just pick up all these positives and, and you, you know, your day will be better. Yeah.

And of course, you sort of topped the run off pretty nicely when, when you, you asked the, the lovely Nadine, who is, as mentioned previously, beyond tolerance to marry you, and of course she said yeah and you know you've got this beautiful daughter. And what, what have you learned from that, I think, you know, a lot of us, it doesn't doesn't happen for everybody through, through want or or through lack of desire sometimes, but what's parenthood taught you? Has it, is it sort of reprioritize things in terms of your career and stuff, or?

Yeah, like, so like like we weren't planning on having like sort of any children, you know, we weren't necessarily against it, you know, sort of, but it was fifty-fifty at best and you know, it goes back to what I was saying about those obstacles, you know, your priorities change and I was, I only found out about sort of the sort of, this is the name of my daughter midway through the run sort of after a hasty trip back to the UK. Yeah. So I was, I was really down for a while, and quite often a lot of us would be down, and we don't know why we're sad, and so I did a lot of sort of soul searching.

It was because I realised that because she was going to be born sort of either, well around the end of the run that Nadine and therefore I be wouldn't be able to be part of it, you know, and so I just sort of said, well what can I do to put this right, you know, don't just go, oh, this situation is rubbish. So I was just like, well why don't I stop like about 200 miles before the end, or find a cool place to stop, and then I actually stopped at the place where forests get splashed with the mud, just south of Flagstaff and I went home and then came back with them, you once he was born, a 3 week old baby bee, and and then carried on and it's, it was so simple. I was just like, I'm so sad because this thing can't happen.

And then if you just strip it back to basics and go, what can I do to make this thing happen? You know, quite often there's a way, and then like I don't know if she's given me more clarity. Maybe, maybe it's just because it's sort of.

I've found something that would actually be really important that I've, that that I devoted that time to really soul search and just go, this is a problem, how can I solve it? And yeah and so now, sort of maybe maybe any big massive adventures like that are off the cards, but er if I ever do any she'll have to come. I was gonna say I I I'm, I'm not, not gonna be totally.

Surprised if she goes to break her dad's record at the Forrest Gump from at some point. Say, right, come on Dad, I'm gonna push you in the pram at this point. But like, and, and it's obviously, you know, you've had this massive adventure and you come back and you know, it's almost unfathomable the extremity of what you did with that.

And that kind of obviously very much lends itself into this little conversation about your, your. Podcast that you're doing for Red Bull now, cause that is, you know, you, you're not speaking to people who dabble at the, the norm, really, are you? So I just, can you tell us a little bit about that and, and sort of, you know, absolutely plug it away because I know I've listened to a few episodes and like there's some, there's some proper cool maniacs in this world who, who just do amazing things.

So what, what's, yeah, tell us about it, mate. Well, the podcast is called Red Bull, How to Be Superhuman, and obviously we all know about the, the company ideals of Red Bull, which is basically, you know, Red Bull gives you wings and can help you achieve things and stuff, you know, even if it's just. Get through a mad morning in the consults, but the whole focus of the podcast is to talk to a range of people.

Some of them like genuine Olympic athletes such as Tim Donn, you know, he said he's been to like 3 Olympics and he's a world Ironman record holder. All the way through to, well, I suppose to the people like me, sort of, and there was a chap called Gabe Cordell who followed in my footsteps all over him of his wheel tracks because he rolled his way across America in a completely unmodified wheelchair coming out of a massive spiral of like drug and other anti-social addictions, and I've seen. So I, I saw a video, his documentary is called Low with me.

It's on, it's on, it's on Netflix, and he's going up this hill just outside Globe in Arizona, and that was brutal running up and it would be worse riding a bike up to be pushing yourself up on the normal wheelchair is incredible. You know, we had our very own Jasmine Palace, obviously, so it must must be something in the air in the waters, I guess with a. Such a decent runner as well.

But then Jasmine's tale was of like smashing into bits, the the record for the spine, which is 268 mile race on the Penn way. And when I say record, I don't just mean like the female record. I mean the overall record.

She won this race by half a day, you know, there was no podium, you know, so she was able to have come to bed before the podium ceremony and then the second fellow was still coming in. And then crazy people like said V andyad who's had this and she first attempted to swim from Cuba to Florida in 1978, the year I was born, and then it took her 25 years before and 5 attempts, including getting stung by box jellyfish and, you know, sort of having shark divers all around before she managed to complete the swim and. Like the production by the the the the people who do like the David Tennant podcast and and the Brian Johnson podcast is unbelievable.

It makes me sound good, you know, and so yeah, you can't help but be enthusiastic when you're talking to like people like this, like Ed Jackson sort of . Rugby player for like sort of bath and sort of he he dives into a swimming pool and breaks his neck, told he's never going to walk again, but then within a year he's climbing Snowdon and you know his lofty aim is to actually sort of be the first paraplegic to scale Everest and so I wouldn't bet against him and the whole range of the people you get there is. You know, I think what Red Bull was trying to achieve, especially with the title Superhuman, because if, well here's the thing, name someone who's superhuman, who, who, who do you come up with?

And you're not allowed to say me and you didn't say that. It for me superhuman instantly I go into the Marvel universe. So I'm, I'm just having a lovely time with Iron Man and Thor and everyone's having a great party there, but like you look at it and you know I, I was, you know, you are.

You know, you, that what you first said there was a perfect example, but then mine's in the same league. I'd say Steve they gave, you know, 6 ft 4, muscles popping out of everywhere, you know, being atop the, the, you know, the, the podium in the Olympics 5 times. And to be honest, I said, people love that sort of stuff, but you know, you can get a little bit, oh well, there's no point in me trying to achieve something like that because look at him or her.

And this is the whole point, you're at the reins there, it shows that I think that the key to be superhuman isn't necessarily in your sort of, you know, your arms and your legs, it's, it's actually up there. And considering we only use a tiny fraction of our brain's potential. It shows that literally anybody can do that if they're able to harness it properly, you know, and so people can do these things.

Now they encourage anyone listening here who who wants to do something that people have told them is ridiculous to give it a go. There's no such thing as failure, the only thing is is not getting to the start line, you know. Yeah, and, and I think that's it, and it's interesting you touch about, you know, all the, all the stuff up in your head.

And of course, as a profession again, not unlike other professions, especially at times like this where, you know, everyone is, is really strained and overworked, mental health is, is a huge issue, and it is something that's being addressed, and I think almost something it's. Again, rightly or wrongly, I think sometimes people use organisations use the term health and wellbeing as a bit of oh well we have to use that because it's a buzzword and we need to be saying that we're doing stuff about that. But proactive mental health support for yourself and for those around you is something that, you know, I mean, I know, I know you're big on sort of mental health and wellbeing and so.

So on and so forth, but you must have been in dark places at various different times in your life with, you know, studies, with, with the, with the run, you know, with the prospect of being away from Nads and be, you know, potentially Nads was going to go into labour and stuff like that, but what, what sort of coping mechanisms do you utilise for your own sort of mental health and wellbeing? Well, yeah, if, if you mention sort of, you know, going back to the run sort of thing, I'll use a little bit of Forrest's philosophy. It's actually Forrest Mum's philosophy, but you know, any good philosopher's got a good mum behind them.

And er so Forrest Mum's quote was, you're no different, you're the same as everybody else. And I think quite often when when some of us get, you know, sad, it's because that we feel that we are different to everybody else and that we're on our own with this and so that basically the person that you think you should chat to isn't gonna be interested because they've never had any problems like this, but in fact we do, and you know, to be honest, a lot of my real sort of struggles were in the intermediate to the period between, you know, the run and normal life again because I remember. In on a on a Facebook group about people who crossed the United States on foot and you know, me saying has anybody really struggled since the run and I was just going, I'll be fine.

Of course I didn't post that because that is the act of a of a douche, you know, sort of but I was thinking I'll have no problems at the end of the run. I've always been able to go from one thing into another with with with no trouble. But then people would say, yeah, wow, I just couldn't, you know, sort of, .

You know, relate to the normal world anymore, and you know, and you could see that them talking to other people's really helping people come out of the shell and sort of lo and behold, so when I got back, it didn't like hit me like I said, Gemma, like I'm not running, you know, on a desert road listening to you two anymore, you know, it's it's just the thing that I've just found I was useless. You know, like sort of I would, I would make snag comments, you know, and stuff like that, and it literally just was, you know, so I'd had such a, even though it was really hard and, you know, sort of physically drained, it was all encompassing. And then when that was gone, you sort of realise that you know, sort of there, well, yeah, it takes actually a while to realise that that that was just dominating you so much.

But then you just realise that hey, other people have got their problems and you can, you know, you can talk to them about theirs and then, you know, you then realise that they'll talk to you about yours and. And so I, I finally saw one of the things that helped me on the run to cope with things was goal setting, because if you just are biming along, you know, just going, I'm just gonna go for a run. I don't know how far it's actually coped, you know, because obviously you just went for a run one day and then just stopped.

Maybe he did have a goal, maybe sort of unbeknown to us sort of he wanted to run across the country 5 times, you know, so I would set myself like, you know, the massive long term goal, which is, yeah, I don't know what my next one would be or if we, we, anyone has one, maybe just to be happy, happy at the end, that's, that's gonna be my, my big goal. And that was to get to the point where Forrest stopped. Now my perception was that that was very unlikely, you know, so it had never been done before, and so that I wasn't sort of, you know, coasting through it.

In fact, I was in bits financially, sort of mentally I was OK, generally because of this, but physically I was struggling, and then that those two would would knock knock the mental side and you'd have to keep on top of it, so. Intermediate goals were just getting to an ocean, get into a state, you know, sometimes like a cool city or a landmark, you know, so they like, you know, it, and that would be like a time landmark when it's someone's birthday. And then the short term goals were just like, you know, sometimes you just get to lunch and being nice to yourself, you know, go, OK.

If I, if I do this, I will get myself like sort of a nice motel or like sort of a, you know, a big bag of doughnuts and stuff, and then, and then that was, yeah, that was your little successes and so I think if we don't have any goals, it's very easy to think well what's the point I'm just going to work. Looking forward to payday at the end of the month and then that's it, and I'm gonna repeat that for another 70 odd times, you know, sort of, you know, and, and then quit with nothing to show for it, so I think you just need to try and achieve something along the way, it doesn't have to be career based, which is why, you know, sort of you do need to think outside the box and er you know, have other interests. Yeah, I think, I think for me it's funny I was sat there a few years ago now and I was thinking I'd, I've not long watched it, it was while you were doing the race and I thought, do you know what, actually I'm gonna, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna watch Forrest Gump.

And I find myself watching it going, I wonder what would have happened if he'd have gone right. And said, right, OK, go off the drive, go left, keep going. So actually what would have happened if he had gone right and and I was sat there, I was chatting with my old man about it actually.

I would say actually it doesn't matter what would have happened because he made the decision to go left, and I think invariants partly why I asked you earlier if you did it again, would you be a vet, is that when you make a decision, you you go with it and you make the best of that move, and you, you carry on down that path, and no matter where it takes you, whether it takes you to the other side of the world, where it takes you back. Home again. But there's no point worrying about what would have happened if he'd have gone the other way.

And, and, and to me that was one of them things where you sit there thinking this is why we go to people who are older and have more life experience than us for, for guidance and advice, and, and that was one where I go, yeah, do you know what, Dad, fair enough. You were spot on on that. So, Rob, mate, it's, I mean we and you could chat literally all day, given the opportunity, I think.

One important question to finish, because I know you like a pint. American or English beer? I, I probably have to say American, but we're catching up, man, we are catching up.

I was always a fan of, I, I, I like my fizzy stuff, you see. And so I actually really got into my beer when I moved to Australia because you can't have like cask stuff over in Australia because it just, it just tastes rubbish. I think it was 42.

22 days of running, I at least had 422 beers on the way and the only state that I ran through where I didn't get a beer brewed in that state was Wyoming, so that that's, that's one for the future. They don't have many breweries. So, so the follow on book is gonna be Rob's journey through American beers.

If, if somebody wants to er finance that, then I'm all down with it, you know. Never, never missing an opportunity. Rob, mate, it's great to chat with you so much for your insights.

I hope those that are listening, the other members of the community can take something from it, and like, you know, Rob, like, like, like you said, you know, he's just, he's just a guy who's had something, wanted to do it, gone and done it, and, you know, he's doing his dream job in terms of career, he, he's. He lived his life dream in in doing that stupid ridiculous long run and you know he's, it's opened doors and opportunities for him afterwards. So I would say to you, you've gotta do something, get on and do it because you never know what will come out of the back of it.

So mate, Rob, thank you so much. I shall go and get a Budweiser or something ridiculously horrible Breeding some minutes.