David Hexter, COO and co-founder of Serena Organics, premium organic CBD products talk with Tabs and Kate.

David Hexter is the fabulous COO and co-founder of Serena Organics, beautiful premium CBD oils and tinctures and an inspiration in wellness.David is passionate about health, wellbeing and fitness for life. He talks about the science and the journey behind Serena Organics, the power of listening to our bodies, learning and making the changes that make a big difference. They launched the brand in Selfridges in 12 months and facilitate wellness events in luxury hotels, sports and retail environments and in their growing following.It's a wonderful one! ❤️Thank you for listening, Tabs and Kate X

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David Hexter, COO and co-founder of Serena Organics, premium organic CBD products talks with Tabs and Kate.

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Tabi: 

Welcome to Lifestream, a podcast to inspire and provoke, in which we delve

into the meaning of success. We chat about development, self-care and journeys with some phenomenal people.

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We are a mother-daughter duo who have both had very different life experiences. This is my wonderful mum Kate Tojeiro. She is deep in business and leadership, and she cares about how people can make a difference.

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Kate:

And this is my brilliant daughter Tabi Tojeiro. She's just about to graduate as an actor and will be stepping into the unknown on her own path, which is yet to reveal itself personally and or professionally.

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In this episode, we're delighted to welcome David Hexter, he’s the COO and founder of Serena Organics. They're an amazing business, a science-led and wellbeing-led organisation, which produces a whole range of organic CBD products and also hosts wellness events. And you’re stocked in a whole range of prestigious retailers, which is really, really exciting. I’ve been watching that journey for the last few years.

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I suppose one of the first questions I wanted to ask you, and then we’ll move into your background and where this came from. But I was reading something the other day about how you and Joe ended up in a CBD extraction plant in America, and actually, maybe that’s where the bubble of inspiration came from. And I thought, gosh, how did you end up there? And how did that spark?

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David:

It’s a very good question. I can give you a background on our journey and how we got there because it wasn't your typical path, should we say. So for myself, when I went into university I studied physiotherapy, a different field from where I am today. 

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But what I valued in physiotherapy over doing 1000 hours of clinical placement for my degree was the helping people side of things, and building a rapport with the patients in hospitals, whether that would be on the stroke wards, cancer wards, IT wards, and seeing the benefit they got from the service you were providing.

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Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the setting or the environment of the NHS. It wasn’t the most exciting. I'm quite a positive person and a lot of my colleagues I was working with at the time didn't necessarily enjoy their work. So, I made a decision throughout that time that I didn’t want to carry on my physiotherapy, but I wanted to find a way that eventually I could still be of value to other people, and still work within this sort of health space, as it were. Straight after university, I just needed to survive and thrive in London, which is quite an expensive place to live.

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Kate:

Yeah. 

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David:

I moved into the corporate world and did well for myself. I was there for about 7 or 8 years. And then I always had deep down in the back of my mind that, although I'm doing okay for myself, I'm not fulfilled in the role I'm doing. There was always a door ajar for me that I wanted to step back into, it was just how that was going to present itself to me.

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Then Joe and I worked together in the corporate world for a couple of years, and a colleague of ours reached out to us saying that he just started a company where he was growing cannabis, or organic hemp in Zimbabwe, and it was for CBD purposes.

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This was 2018/2019 and myself and Joe had not heard of CBD before, but he explained that it's a health and wellness product. Plant-based, it’s

a cannabinoid that we naturally produce, and when supplemented in the body, it helps with sleep, anxiety, and pain, amongst other things.

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Also for me, not a stigma, but quite a cool attachment to a historically bad named plant now coming through with such positive benefits that for me, I was like, that sounds interesting, and for Joe as well.  We both stepped into essentially the CBD industry and worked with him. 

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As you mentioned, in that time, we spent a lot of time in the US and Canada meeting a lot of the founders of the industry, which was fascinating for us at the time because it was the US. I often feel like they're 5 or 6 years ahead of the UK in terms of innovation and for us, seeing how big the industry had become over there, into the billions, whereas in the UK it was barely formed.

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We had started to see, in that short period we spent with him, of about nine months, a lot of brands suddenly moved into the UK market. What we realised in that time, though, is the gulf in the quality of products was astronomical. People were selling products in retailers in the UK and, when being tested, there was no CBD in there at all, or incorrect levels of CBD, or illegal levels of THC, or other things like heavy metals or fungicides from poor extraction techniques, compared to the US, where it was all organically grown, it was high-quality extraction and very, very pure products. When you tried the products, you experienced the benefits that people were talking about. So, Joe and I saw a gap where we needed to bring the US quality to the UK market.

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Unfortunately, for the business we went into, due to lockdown, they lost their funding, so we were unable to continue working there. But then that did open that door for Joe and I to say, why don’t we take all the knowledge we’ve found in the US?

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Kate:

One door closes, as the expression goes. 

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David: 

Exactly, exactly. It's one of those where your hand is kind of forced because you’re no longer in a role, so it’s almost less of a risk to take that step. But also you're grateful for it at the time because it's like, would I have taken it if I’d continued to have that security of a role? It’s funny how the positives can come from the negatives in these moments. Essentially that’s how Serena Organics was born. 

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Tabi:

Wow. So from creating something from nothing really, what do you think was your favourite part of creating the brand you have now? Was that getting someone to design the bottle, or was it the marketing? For you, what was the bit that you enjoyed the most about creating Serena Organics as a whole?

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David: 

That's a good question. You know, I think it was the creation of the brand in general because we had a very fortunate period where we could spend so much time together, really throwing ideas around and trying to understand firstly what we wanted to achieve with Serena Organics. We knew we wanted to bring the best quality to the UK market, all organically grown, with the highest strengths you could buy so people could close to guarantee they were going to achieve the benefits. Because of that, we then had to reflect that in our branding. And I think I enjoyed the process of creating a brand from nothing, from a thought to a wide-bodied idea, to suddenly seeing a tangible, physical product. That whole process was quite enjoyable for me.

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Naturally, I’m more of a logical thinker than a creative one. Joe’s amazingly creative in the way he thinks, he can come up with ideas within seconds just by having a quick conversation. So seeing a creation we both shared come to life, which was sort of new for me as well, was probably the most enjoyable part. Where we are now as a brand, it's very much more into business development, growing the business and getting our products out there to the masses, which was the work I was doing in the corporate world too.

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Kate:

Ah, okay.

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David: 

And it’s more sales. It’s more what I’m aligned to, would I say I enjoyed that? Probably not so much. I thoroughly enjoyed the brand creation side of things because it was new to me, and it was a different experience. 

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Kate:

Your brand is beautiful. Just your packaging, and how it looks. For me, at least looking at it, it’s very bold. As in, it’s beautiful, but it’s so simple, so actually it brings together what it does, what it enhances, but in a real… You know, that there’s beauty in simplicity isn’t there? In terms of how you use the colours and the structures.

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David:

Absolutely. It's not overcomplicated. Everyone who sees it is like “love your packaging” because, I guess black and gold is very complimentary and does give that premium feel. But it was down to the small details as well. You realise when you're going through the packaging process and the bottling process that small details, just like the white edges on the side of the top of your cartons, give a very, very different impression to someone if they just see those small blemishes, those small areas where the care and attention haven't been given to it. And that suddenly devalues it a lot more than it would be if you put the extra cost into making everything look pristine. But for us, it was a cost we had to add in because otherwise, it wouldn't reflect the brand that we are. So, taking that time to focus on the extra details was a bit more time-consuming for us, but the result was worth it completely. 

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Kate:

That attention to detail always makes the difference, doesn't it?

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David:

Absolutely. 

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Kate:

You know, whether it's that whole tactile thing. And also I think, a lot of what your products do, they're very visceral, and it's actually about the senses and how you feel and therefore the touch around the packaging and how you’re feeling emotionally, mentally, it all comes together, doesn't it? Very tightly. 

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David:

Yeah, you want to create the full experience. You want them to be experiencing the benefit of the product before they’ve even touched the product. The understanding that “okay, this is good quality. Okay, this is something of high value.” And then obviously when they experience it as you say, they get it through the experience of the product itself.

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So yeah, we wanted to create the whole round experience from the small things like the packaging we deliver our products in, all that being fully branded, all that being sustainable as well. It’s everything down to the minute details, which 90% of people might not even care about but it's also the people who do care about the premium side of things or the luxury market. We wanted to make sure that they noticed the effort we put in as well.

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Tabi:

Yeah, I think that’s the thing. The small things, I feel like I speak about it all the time, it’s normally the small things which mean the most and the people that do notice them, then it does push your brand into the next bracket because it's the people that do notice them that will be like “they've spent time thinking about what the product’s doing, and making sure the outside of the product reflects what's inside.” 

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Because obviously with CBD, you're so focused on making it the best it can be because it's something for health and wellness, I guess it’s the whole experience of it, isn't it? Because, with CBD oils, you might disagree, the target audience, would you say it’s everyone? Like, it’s good for everyone?

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David:

Absolutely. When we were doing our first raise, we mapped out across three different vectors. But we realised that everyone can sit across three, but just in different levels across like 1 to 10. So that could be like the “Remedy Seekers” so that’s people who are seeking a specific health condition, whether that’s sleep, or pain, or anxiety, or something else. 

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Then you have your “Stressed Achievers” those are the people who have very busy lifestyles, are constantly on the go and don't have much time to focus on their health because they’re so focused on other things within their life, whether that’s a family or career or whatever that might be. 

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And then it's the “Believers” they’re the people who are seeking alternative plant-based medicines, and who believe in plant-based medicine over the typical pharmaceutical drugs that can often come with side effects and be quite addictive. We realised that wherever you sat on each one of those vectors, you could always map yourself, and it would always be of relevance to someone in one of these three areas. 

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Also, when we first started, because of the stigma, we thought it was going to probably be a younger generation appeal, because there's not so much history in their mind of this being a typically bad thing, seeing all of the benefits to it. Whereas it's been a pleasant surprise, it’s been the complete opposite. And I think maybe that's being driven by the fact that we are a premium brand, so we’re more on the luxury scale. 

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But also I think personally it's more down to the fact that the people who value the benefits of CBD are typically older - whereas younger people tend to be a bit more fit and healthy - they don’t typically tend to have as many health issues to be dealing with, whereas older people typically do. And we’ve had so many communities that we’ve developed that at the time we didn't think would be part of our community. To name a couple, is the arthritic community where our massage and cooling gels were like daily management for them, and they now swear by it. Whereas before, it would’ve never been an option to be part of their daily routine. 

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But also other communities, like menopausal and pre-menopausal women, who are managing their symptoms going through that. It’s also one we didn’t even envisage, and it's grown quite big. So for us, it's also seeing the development of communities which we just wouldn't have thought we'd be tapping into, and actually, we’ve been able to provide a lot of support and help too. 

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Kate: 

And as you say, in that triumvirate of the different people that you're focusing on, that could cover so many sectors of society, couldn't it?

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David:

Absolutely.

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Kate:

Going back to the beginning, you have an amazing array and suite of products now, as you say. Oils and massage and all sorts of things, but at the beginning was there the one product that you and Joe knew worked, knew was doing its thing, and therefore that was the pinnacle, if you like, or the beacon to take you forward.

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David:

Yes, I'd say that was our 40% oil drops. To put that into context, typically a can you’d buy in a supermarket is about 20mg on average, our 40% is 4000mg.

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Kate:

Oh, wow. 

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David:

So, you're getting a lot in a 10ml bottle, like a single drop of that is about equivalent to a can in a supermarket without having to drink the whole drink. It really is very strong, also the way we administer oil drops, is you drop it under your tongue and it rests for a minute, and it goes straight into your bloodstream. So in terms of bioavailability, it's the most effective way of consuming CBD, because when you do digest CBD, you lose about 10 to 15% of the effectiveness through the digestion process itself. So, the oil drops are the most effective and also, we go up to the highest strength. 

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And being the strength that is the highest in the market as well, when we speak to these prestigious retailers and luxury retailers, it catches their eye because they'll understand a bit about the CBD market and what products are available, and when they see one they’ve never seen before in the most effective form, it's quite an appealing proposition for them. And it's shown in the uptake from our community and retailers that it is one of our best sellers, the 40% and I think the quality speaks for itself, because I take it, and I can see the benefit. Fortunately, it’s a product that we produce, you can take it every day. Whenever I do speak to people, I’m like, yeah the 40% is the one you want to be going for.

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But that said as well, if you’re a first-timer of CBD, we do 10% and 15%, and essentially the only difference is the strength per drop. So you can take more drops of the 10% to gain the same benefit, you’ll just be going through the bottle quicker. It’s essentially more cost-effective to go for the stronger percentage. However, some people might have a lower tolerance so they don't necessarily need the stronger drops. But we all have our tolerance to CBD. If you find yourself with a higher tolerance, or naturally you have quite a high tolerance to things, people will typically go to the 15 or 40% first. 

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Kate:

Yeah. Also, what I love about how you market your product, it’s not just the product - “take the product, and everything in your life will change.” As you talk about the people, you know some that are believers and some that want a remedy but actually, the fact that you link what you do to science and to wellness, and yes you could take this in isolation and it would be very beneficial to your life. But also, I think the fact that you advocate so strongly, how are you thinking about your emotional side, your mental side, what's going on physically for you spiritually or whatever and then when you bring all of that together, the power is sort of amplified. And I love that you do that in your events. And actually, it’s the sort of ethos and heart of your brand. 

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David:

Absolutely. I'd say I think the way we see health and wellness is not “you take this and you're fine” - it’s how are you managing your week, what activities are you doing, what food are you eating, who are you spending time with, how are you filling the gaps outside of your work to manage your health and look after yourself?

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It's very easy in today's digital age to be so overly consumed by everything and feel like we're working more than we've ever worked before, and everyone's trying to be the best in their field that they've ever been before. To the point where people are now neglecting starting families because they’re so focused on their careers and things like this, I think, create more tension and add more stress for people. They often overlook their health whilst walking that path, so I think we just wanted to bring products that could help relieve symptoms of that lifestyle they may be living, but also provide advice where they might not be realising other things can be helping.

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So, we like to work with ambassadors who align with what we're trying to achieve. For example, people within the biohacking space, things like grounding, breathwork, exercise. Things that ten years ago we weren’t doing too much of or weren’t so mainstream. People can now see the benefits of that and you see huge communities also forming around that. In our events, hosting things like sound baths, which before I had no idea what a sound bath was, I thought it was a bath [laughs]. 

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Kate:

They're amazing. I must admit the first time I went, it was an extraordinary experience. 

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David: 

Yeah, and we like to provide samples of our CBD before the sound baths, then obviously they can go into it and people will explain it. I describe it as a transcending experience because you do sort of drift off for an hour into just a completely different state of how you’ve been spending the other 23 hours of the day.

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Kate:

And also where your energies are, because we talk about energy sometimes. People talk about energy more, but actually, I think what you do and facilitating that. So what are you meaning by using the word energy, and your energy, and what are you feeling? Because if we stop for a moment to feel our energy, we know, don't we, when it's all a bit fizzed up? And equally, we know when actually. But we don't often stop for that nanosecond attention to it. Whereas I think, to your point about sound baths, they encourage you to properly listen and explore and think “Okay, how is this impacting me, not everyone else, but also the energy in the room?”

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David:

Absolutely. And sometimes like you said, we know when we're not fully right, and we know when we are feeling good. But also we don’t understand the cause of it sometimes, because we could be doing the same thing we've done for the past week, but suddenly feel in a different state. And sometimes it's just not giving yourself that time to relax, or taking that break, or you've been doing too much and your body is now telling you to slow down.

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Kate:

Yeah. 

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David:

It’s also allowing space for you to, like you say, listen to yourself and recognise actually, maybe I've been doing a bit too much recently. 

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Tabi:

And on that, on a personal note, how do you think you take the time to slow down and relax? You're part of a brand where that's kind of your ethos really about slowing down and looking after yourself. How do you feel you look after yourself in a world that is full of consumerism on social media and a world that's like go, go, go to the next thing, how do you take that time?

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David:

I try to do as much exercise as I can. I find exercise is like a perfect release for any added tension, that is building up in your body, whether that’s through work or things you're working towards, things that aren't going as quickly as you want.

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I find that if you just suddenly go for a run, or go to the gym. I go play football twice a week, usually every Monday, if not out of season. I find after these activities I feel way more energised. I feel reset, almost.  Even though you're exerting energy, once you've relaxed and your heart rate's down to normal again, you suddenly feel much more invigorated to go about life. So I find exercise the perfect remedy for that.

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Alongside that, I'd say speaking and catching up with my friends and family. Not as much as I'd like to, I hope to. But just in moments where I feel like I could take a break here, even if it's like a Tuesday afternoon. But if I feel like, say I've been working all weekend and suddenly my body's now telling me it's time to just take some time off, I'll just take it when I need to.

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So I think, as Kate touched on, it's always trying to listen to my body more, rather than do it based on a set schedule. I think the problem with the set schedule is you could have a very relaxed week, but then a very stressful weekend, but your weekend’s your time off. You're just feeling very stressed, so I think it’s also just trying to find when's the right time for you by listening to yourself a bit more, and just taking that break. Which isn’t easy, we’ve got schedules to abide by. But yeah, if and when you can, listen to yourself a bit more.

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Tabi:

Yeah. I guess like intuitively listening, I feel like it's such a big thing

at the moment. I can’t even remember when I first started hearing about it, but it's when people talk about intuitive eating as well. It’s like really listening to your body and listening to when you need something as you just said, like you might have a calm week where everything seems to just be going smoothly, and the weekends are meant to be the time off, but that’s when something comes up.

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Life is never linear, and you don’t know when anything's going to come up. So, I guess that's a really lovely thing to take from that. It’s when you need it, you allow yourself to do the things you need to do to take the time away and be like, I'm just being myself now. I'm not being the founder of a big company, I’m just doing the things that I love doing. 

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David: 

Absolutely. Just to elaborate on that as well, I think sometimes it is easier said than done. Now, if people have commitments, whether that's work and family, and whatnot, but I think at the end of the day, the number one priority for people, should always be their health.

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Because without that number one priority, then everything else is almost irrelevant to a degree. I think always putting that at the top, making sure you are not damaging your health in any way, and not neglecting it in any way and always making sure you are, to a degree, taking care of it. I think that's what's important. And sometimes it comes at a sacrifice, sometimes you have to give up other things that you might necessarily want to be doing or feel like you need to be doing, but actually, it's not the thing that you should be doing in that moment. It can sometimes be easier said than done, but I think that it is important to prioritise that as a number one.

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Kate:

I agree. And sometimes it's permission around that, I feel, giving yourself permission to go actually “I’m tired” “I need to exercise” or “I need to sleep” or “I need to sleep longer” “I need to go to bed early” or “I need to eat more healthily” or whatever it is. But that thing as you say, without your health, there’s nothing. 

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Tabi

Nothing else matters, really.

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Kate:

Yeah. But actually, it's so much easier to say than in the middle of a packed schedule thinking actually I need to take half an hour, to do whatever the thing is. As you say, you have quite a few times, you said the word reset. And it is, isn't it? Bringing yourself back down if you're all up or whatever it is to your normal level, where everything’s cool. And we don’t do that very often or give ourselves an allowance that that's okay. Even if you're in the middle of running a pitch for you know, whoever.

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David:

And it's also important because I feel like you are the best version of yourself once you’ve had that reset. You could be trying to do the most, but also you’ll be like “I need to continue doing this”, but you’re not as effective at doing the thing you're trying to do because you're exhausted, you're tired, you've not given yourself a day off in like two weeks. It's almost like you need to take that rest and that break and relax to suddenly come back a better version of yourself, and the best version of yourself you know you can be. You will be more effective in the thing you're trying to do than if you’d just ploughed on and just kept trying to do it and weren’t as effective. I think it’s more important. 

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Kate:

The analogy with sport is so true there, where peak athletes or even not peak athletes, people that are just excelling in their exercise, they rest, they think about what they're eating, they think about what they're doing, and it's all absolutely critical to, as you say, being your best.

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If you're not rested, if you haven't eaten well, if you haven't done whatever you need to do to sort of get your muscles back to where you need them to be, you're never going to perform your best. Whereas in business we’re like on on on on on.

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David:

Yeah [laughs] it’s true. You need to just flip the switch off sometimes. 

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Tabi:

And as someone who is obviously so passionate about health and wellbeing and, also about your brand and getting it out to people so that it can help people, and so that people can feel the big benefits of it. And recently Serena Organics was stocked in Harrods which is the most incredible thing ever. But linking to that, how did you feel at the beginning of Serena Organic? What was your definition of success for the brand and how do you now think it's grown and changed, personally as the CEO of the company and the brand as a whole?

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David:

Interesting question actually, because it is malleable. It does shift. Joe and I, from day one when we were creating the brand we essentially set a vision board of what we were trying to achieve. And for us in that mind, it was luxury, prestigious retailers. So the likes of Harrods, like you mentioned, Selfridges and within our first year of launching we got into Selfridges, which was massive validation for us and then now obviously getting into Harrods which is awesome.

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The second one was working within sports, so obviously the need for, well, the stress, among sports athletes or professional athletes for sure is huge. The demand on their bodies is massive and seeing the benefits of CBD obviously with muscle recovery, pain management, managing anxiety and stress from obviously the pressures put on professional athletes, we realised there was a big, big opportunity there. So, we are now focused on stepping into that market. We've just, as of a few months ago, had our products approved by Informed Choice, so those products are now certified as suitable for professional athletes.

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Kate:

Wow! Brilliant, well done. 

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David: 

Thank you. And the last one was hospitality, so luxury hotels. The reason is a lot of people who travel naturally can be quite anxious if they’re flying, but also they struggle to sleep away from home predominantly if it's a foreign environment or a new bed and just don’t feel comfortable. It could be like the smallest background noise and they just don't sleep a wink. And then that essentially determines their review and their experience of the hotel, where no matter how nice it is, if you don't sleep well, you don't wake up in a great mood. 

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Kate:

Well, you’re not your best self again, are you?

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David: 

No, exactly. You're not set, you know, rested. So, seeing there's an opportunity to help the hospitality industry as well with their guests. And I guess how it’s changed is, we saw that gap there, and we ended up creating another product later down the line, which is a sleek collection, bespoke for hospitality. So, it's not part of the retail range we sell, it’s just specific for the hotel industry. Now, a lot of my focus this year has been stepping into the hospitality space and looking to partner with luxury hotels. That’s been our focus, but I’d say how it’s also changed in that time is almost what we touched on before - recognising that it’s not just the products - it’s a lifestyle. And it’s creating a space where people can come and actually invest in their health.

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So, because of that, Joe and I now have a future vision where we want to create a wellness centre where people can come and experience the benefits of CBD using our products, but they can also go there to relax, they can go there to work, it can be a co-working space, but it could also be a space where they can get access to hydrotherapy, infrared saunas, sound baths, breathwork exercises. A space where you can experience wellness sessions and wellness events, but also just come

and relax if you want to as well and focus on your health. And then when they leave, we essentially want them to leave feeling recharged, re-energised, and ready to take on whatever they're facing in the world.

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So that's a new vision that’s sort of come on top of the original vision for us. And it’s one that we've now started to see implemented in the United States, which is typically where things are implemented first. For us, this is also another validation that there's a demand for this out there. 

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Kate:

Oh, absolutely. 

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David:

And seeing how the world is now with the stresses and strains that are put on everyone, we do think it would be a perfect space for people to really invest in their health and come together and just leave feeling amazing.

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Tabi:

Yeah. That'll be incredible. It sounds like such a great next step after you’ve created everything so that it can all go into one place and it is this oasis really of just feeling good. 

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Kate:

And not feeling bad about it, as in feeling guilty about it or it’s like a holiday, and it’s something I have to book out, and it’s very special rather than, no actually, it’s part of being a human you know, the whole ebbs and flows and resetting and looking after yourself.

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David:

Absolutely. There are many private members clubs, for example, where people will pay a lot of money to be part of a social circle, whereas this could be a space where people pay money to invest in their health.

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So I think they'll be, like you say, you don't want to feel bad about doing it. I think, if anything, they’ll feel this is probably a wiser decision, and also socialising at the same time. We want to also combine the two, where you can meet a like-minded community, and you can also network and work together. But also, you're leaving feeling much better than you were when you walked in.

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Kate:

And that whole movement is around self-care, as opposed to health care being around fixing, rather than actually the self-care in the first place. Be it your mind, your body, your health - as much as one can. But being as well as you can be to develop your immune and things will happen, but that sort of shift to looking after self. Even when we see the way some hospitals are operating, virtual wards are in people’s homes. And so actually that whole piece around the self-care and health care and how to bring that together more strongly, in terms of what you’re doing, and going and investing in it, as you say, rather than it just being a fun thing to do every now and again. It’s essential. 

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David:

It’s almost like you’re committed to it if you put something into it, then it's like it's not just an experience I'm going to have once, and then I'm going to go back to my old routine of just working too hard and burn out. It's like I'm creating a space where I'm now committed to going and really investing in my health, which I think holding people accountable in that sense is probably only going to be a good thing.

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Kate:

Utterly. It’s been so brilliant talking to you and listening to you talk about your journey. I was going to ask you one question, which we ask all of our guests, which is what is your wish for society?

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David:

Wish for society? Well, I think probably on the theme of the conversation we've been having, but I think it would be for better health for everyone.

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But I think what shook the world was COVID, and that was a bit of an eye-opener for everyone. How vulnerable we are as humans to illnesses or things that we just don’t see around the corner. We almost feel at whatever age, it's almost like we can live forever. But, for no one that’s the reality, and we almost forget that. And often because we neglect that, we suffer the consequences either in the near future or later down the line without really realising.

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So I think my wish for society would be to make sure they invest and prioritise their health and then not neglect it.

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Kate:

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. 

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David:

Thank you. 

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Kate:

It's been fantastic speaking to you, really insightful. I just love what you're doing, and how you share as well. And it’s those little sparks of inspiration that we can all do a little bit more to look after ourselves. You can do a lot, but we can all do a little, which takes us quite a bit further.

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David:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on. 

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Tabi:

Yeah. Thank you. It's been great, even just speaking so openly about how health and wellness is something that should be in everyday life, like it's not, a “you need to take a day out to kind of sit and not do anything.” It's a constant job. I mean, health is a constant and so should taking care of it be a constant. And I think that's a really lovely thing to take away from what you've been speaking about today and how passionate you are about it.

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I think it's lovely for us to hear and everyone listening as well to hear this “everyone needs it all the time” kind of thing. So it's like always an ongoing thing, which is lovely.

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So everyone listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode of LifeStream. Please leave us a comment, subscribe, and come back for some more incredible guests and some more inspirational chats.

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Kate:

Indeed, we’ve been inspired, and hope you have too!