am I going mentally insane?

Breasts, Thighs, The Whole Palaver

Wet and Glistening. Sumptuous and Unctuous.

I bloody love Nando’s. Yummy, I can’t fucking wait to dig in.

“Half Chicken, Extra Hot… Garlic Bread, Peri Chips, 3 Wings Extra Hot, Halloumi…chief ”

Thighs & Breasts doused in flame-thrower spice - blackened- burnished - gnarly- cantankerously-crispy chicken.

Spicy poetry for your taste buds, callously cajoling your spice receptors into blissful oblivion. Remedy the billowing heat with bottomless Diet Coke.

Nando’s Balham is my tropical port in the storm of chaos. Peri-Peri Chips and Perinnaise pulls me from the muddy malaise, plucks me into a state of milky, happy delirium.

It’s 7.09pm on a miserable Tuesday Even.

Am stuffing my face with perrinaise-dunked-chips whilst thinking about what to write in this newsletter.

The start of the year has been totally crazy, bro.

Thailand for 3 weeks. Furious Fun. Bayeux Tapestry of Debauchery. Thai-phoon of getting absolutely SLOSHED, met some incredibly business operators out there.

Had a SICK lunch at with Rory Sutherland, Will Storr and Osh at The Devonshire last week.

recorded a SICK poddy with indefatigable Henry and Milly from SULT - the next big brand.

Am building CLUB HUNGRY. An exclusive members club for challenger FMCG founders (more on this soon)

Anyhoo, fo-shizzle-mi-nizzile, some stuff I’ve been reflected on:

1. Your Mental Illness Hides In Physical Wellness

Are we getting physically healthy, but mentally ill?

I unflappably believe our mental “illness” hides in our physical “wellness”

Surreptitiously, our physical “wellness” checklists, create mental “illness” checklists

the physical wellness check list

• 5.30am wake up

• Ice bath

• sub-3 marathon

• grounding your feet in mud

• masturbating next to an Oak tree

• natural sunlight first thing

• journalling

• meditate

• walk 10k steps everyday

• eat 1 gram of protein per kg of body weight

• post your Strava time on instagram

• post your fucking LuLu Lemon outfit and have fucking pastry

Don’t check off all the above

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

You’re a TOTAL piece of shit mate

Chatted about this with Henry and Milly on the poddy.

In 2026, you’ve gotta run a sub-3 marathon to be “decent” runner

THAT IS FUCKING MENTAL.

You’ve just run a marathon, mate?

We’re so “optimised”.
We’re “unoptimised”

Our mental illness hides in our physical wellness.

coupla years ago, this happened to me, I went sober, turned into a boring Steve,

Did all the Brollocks (Bro-bollocks)

Before each poddy,

if I didn’t run,
if I didn’t mediate,
if I didn’t journal,
if I didn’t fast

I got stuck in my head, it would be a shit interview.

I was physically well, mentally ill.

In Thailand, I got the nod for the Adam Handling interview whilst I was half-cut on a beach.

Everyone needs to chill the fuck out.

Have a KitKat and have some fun

Sometimes a little self-harm, is a lotta self-love.

2. Will Storr: Story Telling Tactics

We’re in the age of storytelling. The greatest founders and brands are storytellers.

Will Storr told me something fascinating about storytelling at our lunch

“Tell the slow bits fast, tell the fast bits slow”

Imagine a film with a car crash in it.

Everything leading up to the crash tell fast. The boring meetings. The grabbing of the coffee. The dropping the kids off at school. All the boring bits.

BUT the actual crash and the peak of the story, tell that VERY slowly + add DENSITY of information to the fast bits.

In your supermarket or investor presentation tell the peak, intense moments very slowly.

Add detail:

• What did you feel?

• What colour did you see?

• What did it smell like?

• What month was it?

• What time of day was it?

• What were the thoughts in your head?

• What could you taste in your mouth?

Remember we are literally storytelling beings. Becoming an incredible storyteller unlocks the doors for pretty much everything.

Storytelling is just constant change.

Understand that story telling is just constant change and transformation.

X happened. How did it transform Y person?

Y happened. What surprising thing happened next to X .

When telling stories think about the constant change.

Check out poddy I recorded with Will a couple of years ago.

“The best books on advertising have nothing to do with advertising” - Rory Sutherland

Just (tried and happily failed) reading Notes From The Underground by Dostoyevsky.

Got this off Chat-GPT…

Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky is a novella about a bitter, isolated, and hyper-conscious ex-civil servant in St. Petersburg, divided into two parts: the first, his philosophical rantings against rationalism and utopian ideals, arguing humanity needs suffering and free will; the second, a depiction of his spiteful, self-sabotaging actions in his youth

It’s HEAVY AS FUCK BRUV

And, definitely not one for the beach in Thailand.

Donde esta la Vanilla-Thrillers you pick up at WHSmith’s at the airport???!!

It’s the literary equivalent of going on a date with someone with a monobrow who can’t pronounce their R’s.

HOWEVER, Rory’s principle of

“The best books on advertising have nothing to do with advertising” rings true.

Weird lessons from reading this Russian Novel from 1664 that apply to brand building

1. Makes you realise human nature hasn’t changed and never will - we’re all stuck in our own head,

2. Your consumers are stuck in their own mind, their own insecurities, their own fears and feelings.

3. Makes you understand nuance and subtleties you couldn’t understand from typical marketing text books that are laden with frameworks and tools and checklists.

   
   

   Alas, from a brand building perspective, you learn

   NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOUR BRAND.

Sir John Hegarty… “a brand is the greatest piece of real estate in the world - a cornerstone of someones mind”

If you want your brand to penetrate someones mind you’ve gotta be

BLOODY DIFFERENT.
BLOODY BETTER.
BLOODY CONSISTENT.

hope you have a gorgeous weekend legends

Popey

xxxxx

Still Hungry? Course you are…

Please feel free to gorge on the most downloaded podcast episodes of all time (these are CERTY: BANGERS)

1. Rory Sutherland: Why Challenger Brands Must Never Follow Logic to Truly Disrupt Categories 

2. Waitrose CEO: How Challenger Food & Drink Brands Can Win and Build Profitable Partnerships with Waitrose - James Baile

3. Spencer Matthews: How Spencer Matthews Built Unshakeable Resilience and Raised + £10m to Launch Clean Co. in Sainsbury's, Tesco and the U.S.A. 

4. How Grenade Exited to Mondelez for £200 Million and Lessons in Unapologetic Authenticity- Juliett Baratt

5. Tyrells Tycoon: How William Chase built and sold Tyrells for £50 million and sold Chase Distillery to DIAGEO 

Or read our most read articles of all time

1. Quick quick - we must escape the Middle

2. You moron you let the disease infect your mind

3. do you like bad sex?

4. raving in Ibiza taught me six brand building lessons