This is an AI transcription, apologies for any typos.

She actually put her hands on my shoulders to pin me down, which just added to the anxiety and the uncertainty and the vulnerability.

The COVID 19 pandemic, at the beginning of 2020, was an incredibly scary time for many people, particularly the unpredictability of it all. Even more. So for people whose family members were directly affected by COVID. Cats in Makwana, is an award winning small business owner, the pandemic took him completely by surprise, after testing positive cats and was at home with his wife and family laying in bed, completely unaware of the severity of his condition,

I hear the handle of the door and its lever turn left and right, it's very quiet and very dark. As the door opens, this beam of light comes in. And I could sense that song was making her way to the bed very slowly, as simple as a flick of the switch switching on the light in that room, my whole emotion changed. With the same flick of that switch, it went from being kind of neutral, or unbeknown to what's going on to bringing this whole level of anxiety into me, as I started to regain my focus, I could notice that she looked concerned very serious, very sombre. All I could think is what is going on the shakiness of our hands, the breathing, being kind of interrupted, this ensued more and more fear into me, I felt that this is more serious than what I first thought as she was making or approach, there was also this feeling of total vulnerability. And it's at that point where she actually put her hands on my shoulders to pin me down, which just added to the anxiety and the uncertainty and the vulnerability, because I'm thinking, What the hell is going on here. I couldn't say anything. So the only way that I could express how I was feeling at that moment in time, Tucson, all was through action, I just could not get any words out of my mouth, she uttered these words that I'll never forget my life cat, this better be real. Someone went on and repeated that statement, three or four times. And then she's describing me as looking like a very pale, old weathered man, someone who may not make it throughout the night. And this is when I started to understand what was going on. I was restless, I was obviously in bed, I'd had a fever, I was struggling to catch breath. One moment shivering to the next bit where I want to kick the duvet off, basically, because it's so hot. It was almost as if I was looking at myself out of the body, almost urging it to do something, and I just wouldn't respond. With all of that energy that I have in my body, I uttered five words. Don't send me to hospital. That's all I kept saying. And it just kept repeating over and over and over again, like a broken record. Don't send me to hospital. Don't send me to hospital, Sano had to make a decision. She looked at the condition that I was in. And whatever her motivations were, she decided to step away from the bed, slowly leave the room, close the door. I never did go to hospital. One

of the things that I took out of this story was the unconditional love that Sano had for you. Throughout the whole situation. Yeah,

no, absolutely. And an undeniable unconditional love. And, you know, outside of all of that situation, there was obviously all the recovery, you know, being able to provide me with the hot drinks on a regular making sure that I'm eating on time and making sure I'm resting and you know, coming in and checking on me on regular, you know, at the same time keeping a whole house going we you know, we've got two young, we've got two kids we've got we've got a newly newly sort of welcome puppy. And you've got a whole house to maintain as

well result it's

like a third child. Exactly. That it's almost like a third child. Well, almost I became the fourth child so so they haven't you've got two kids of your own a puppy and then you've got this with an old man, which totally vulnerable, you know, that she has to look after. But yeah, you're absolutely right. I think it goes down to unconditional love and that automatic nursing and welfare that has ensued with someone who has that unconditional love. I mean, having

someone there like Sonal to nurse you through the whole situation because I remember being in Budapest at the time, and I was in an air b&b. And I was single at the time. Still, I'm actually here her. And I had I had COVID in the first three days, a lot of the symptoms that you suggested, but clearly yours were so much more extreme. And to not have anyone there to look after you makes you realise, actually, I do appreciate being in a relationship.

Now 100%, I think in 2015, when I got malaria, and, you know, thankfully, the symptoms didn't start showing when I left when I was still in Nigeria, or they started to happen when I was at home, you know, we, we've been through that kind of cycle where I kind of been admitted into hospital and then move to another Centre at Churchill, which is several miles from Ina, from Windsor to Oxford, there was a daily run, and my children were very young back then. So my wife had to, you know, sunlight to contend with the school runs the, you know, the making of everything at home, and then to be to get up to Oxford to see me and stuff like this, I think there's a part of that which kind of fell into what happened when, when I had COVID I feel that I got it so intensely because of the underlying effects of malaria. And, you know, I'm still I'm still my body is still weak or weaker compared to the everyone else in the kind of family plus, I add to this other things, which are like underlying conditions, the toxicity, the the disregard that you have for your own health, when you stop listening to your own body, in particular ways, you know, the way we eat, the way we sleep, that way we exercise, you know, all of these things, you may not feel or experience on a day to day basis. But when you get a trigger or pivot like a pandemic, or like COVID, it almost accelerates or magnifies all of these things into one big thing. And it's kaboom, it just hits you. Like a like a bus. So, you know, I'm I'm wholly grateful to anyone out there that's looking down on me the fact that I have a wife like, follow that was there to care for me otherwise, to be frank, I don't think you and I'd be having this conversation right now.

Do you really think it would have been that bad?

I think so. I think so I think you know, the state of mind that people go into, as I say, I'm quite a savvy guy, I kind of I'm a wild man, I know a lot about a lot in this particular day, way. But you know, when I was going through COVID, to not even know what day it is, what time it is, you know, the fact that I was eating or sleeping, it took me 15 minutes to walk across from the guest room downstairs to the toilet in the office downstairs, it would take me about eight or nine minutes just to get a couple of words out. And usually I can talk for England, you know, so. So the so the point of this is is what happened is was not fake it genuinely. It changes people, it changes lives. I mean, so many lives were lost. And, and a lot of those been attributed to the fact that they didn't get ventilation or support at the right time. And one of my biggest scares and looking back now the reason I kept uttering those words, don't let me go to hospital is I was scared. I was scared that if I went to hospital and never come back. And I think more deeply than that, you know, thinking about this while I'm talking to you. There's only one line of care that I could have ever trusted in this sandals, not not anyone else's.

It's interesting because you say that the reason you kept uttering those words don't don't send me to hospital is because people will go into hospital not coming back. But the original kind of understanding or thought I had from when you said this was Don't send me to hospital because it it felt like a typical sort of male response of pride and I'm fine, don't send me to hospital, I'll recover by myself. And so many lives are lost through that sort of line of thinking as well. Now

very true, you know, and this is why it comes back to listening to your body more than anything else. Sometimes you've got to put pride and ego aside. I've made some maths massive changes to my life, not my lifestyle, not just my business life or my work life or my my relationships, my whole life. And these changes. Follow through from me recovering from COVID Not not because I got COVID I think that's the other thing that one needs to remember. I mean, people will go out there and want to change their body They shape or they want to change their stress levels or their mental well being. And they do it because of a reason. You know, I want to lose weight because I'm fat, or I've got disfigurement or whatever it is basically. But the truth of it is, if you, if you pursue it in that particular way, you're never going to be satisfied, you'll never reach the centre. Remember, perfection is momentary. As soon as you hit perfection, you start that cycle again. Whereas if I had come out of this and said, I've got COVID, I've got to change my diet, I've got a, I've got to be healthier, COVID can come again. And I could be I could be bedridden again for three weeks, in this particular way. But if I changed all my diet, my mind, and my body would be saying you did everything, and yet, you're still in the same position. So you've got to do it for you not because of something. And that's what kind of ensued with me, I think, you know, coming out of this and gaining consciousness, I think I started to listen to I was, you know, I was bedridden, I couldn't move. So the only thing I could do is have a conversation with my puppy, or myself. And those conversations was like, what is it that your body's telling you, that you're just not listening to or you're avoiding, or you're resisting, you know, to take on board. That's why I saved maybe COVID Saved My Life, two to

three weeks bedridden, not been able to move is a long period of time. I mean, when I got COVID, I was only bedridden for three days, something like that. And the beauty about all of that kind of being in that situation, it sounds strange to say beauty, but I feel like you're presented with an opportunity to make some big changes to like in terms of self reflection to cuz you can't, you can't do anything else you can you can lay in bed. So I feel like you've got two choices, you can either take that time to really self self reflect, look at your whole life out in front of you and think to yourself, Okay, I'm happy with this. I'm happy with that. What can I be grateful for? What can I improve? or picking up the phone? For anyone who's who's just listening to this, you can just distract yourself with mind numbing content on social media and all these things and kind of feel like, you know what, I'm in such a terrible state right now I'm going to escape from the situation that I'm in.

It's funny, it's funny, you say that? Again, the conversation that I had with myself isn't a reflection conversation, it was actually is almost Jacqueline Hyde. I was almost on one side, I was like, Why have you been avoiding the things that I've been telling you. And it's almost like having to a devil and an angel on your shoulders, basically, you know, bleeding, whispering into each of the ears, and then I kind of go down that straight to try and find a reason. And really, it was only until I got to that stage where I had accepted. I am where I am because of what I've ignored or chosen to ignore in my life. Previously, you know, I've had a very, very hectic 1215 years, I've multiple startups I've worked, you know, across many countries I was doing, I was doing five continents, 42 cities 250 events every year for five years straight. You know, I, I was negating my kids growing up because I was travelling the world I would be, you know, alongside all of that I had a very toxic relationship with alcohol. Not I wasn't alcohol alcoholic, but I used to be very, you know, you work hard, you play hard. That kind of scenario, it got to a stage where I was ashamed to come home drunk. So I used to wait until my kids went to school in the morning before I came home, go to sleep. Yeah, go to sleep until 11 o'clock. And for eight o'clock in the morning, I'd come in completely drunk 11 o'clock, I'd sleep until 11. And then I'll get up and go back to work again. And that type of thing wasn't done because of something. It was just it just naturally intuitive. You live a fast life in this particular way. Social media had this whole accelerating effect to it. You know, you kind of all want to show the good life, the high life the entrepreneurial life, you know, you're on a plane you're here, you're there, all of these kinds of things. But for what you know, so when I when I when I kind of really recovered and I became more ambulating with our post COVID And I was moving around. I wanted to get back into the connections straightaway. Back then. A lot of people were using that. Yeah, clubhouse That's right. That's the one and one of my friends was hosting a chat and I said, I want to come on and he goes, okay, and someone else was on that chat that I know as well. And I was still struggling to get my words out. My, the other friend of mine was WhatsApp in me saying, just forget it, go be in a lever, just go and look after yourself, because you still sound really, really bad. And it's at that point, I thought to myself, see, I'm still trying to go back to being the old. And that's the message I want to get out to people here is you'll you will find those momentary lapses. But it's acknowledging that is elapsed as a part of who you are as part of your DNA that you then have to just come up with and say, I've got to move on. My attitude, my mentality, my behaviour, today is very, very different, you know, 28th of December 2020 was the last time that I had an alcoholic drink. Okay, I didn't stop because I want because it was like, Oh, my health and oh, it's better for me, I for you know, for the three or four weeks, Pastor 28. For December, I was bedridden when I was going through recovery for the next three or four weeks. Basically, I just had no appetite or, or requirement for any alcohol. So I'd gone almost three or four months without it. So then it turned into this kind of, oh, well, let's see how long you can go. A year later, I'm just like, I'm a sharper thinker, I'm less moody I've got, I've got a better appetite for life, I wake up early and go to sleep even earlier, you know, I enjoy my food. So all of these things started to consume me, which just kept me going and going. And so it wasn't, it was a decision, rather than a motivation. That got me there. And I've got to a stage now where I go out everyone's drinking, I don't have a problem with that, in fact, my wife loves it now because we can go out and she can have a drink and I drive home basically, it's a brilliant thing, it connects more than just the health thing is changed my whole life. And the fact of it is is it took the COVID it took COVID to come into my body where my whole body shut down to not for me to realise, but to almost put me onto that road where I had to have that serious conversation with myself that I had to accept certain things about the way I am, who I am, what I am, my relationships at home work really, really bad because because I you know up to those kind of points, because it's not because I was aggressive, because I was drunk and drinking is because I was ashamed. You know, I didn't want to have contact with the outside world outside of the three people that in this home. And even then those conversations weren't brilliant. You know, it's, it doesn't change overnight, it kind of improves over time. But from as I say, from I could have carried on that path. I could have had COVID for two or three days just like yourself, and and then thought, Okay, back to normal, better life, and you just carry on hustling, the way that you've been hustling because you think you can do all of that.

Going back to that time in bed for those few weeks that you are bedridden? Where do you think you would be now if you hadn't gone through that scenario? Because I feel like that was very much a trigger for my life needs to change for me and my family? Where would you be now if you hadn't had that realisation in that bed for that period of time?

I think honestly, speaking, quite frankly, and honestly to you, I don't think I would be here.

The unconditional love of your partner to nurse you back to full health is a reminder that these are the people who really love and care about us. And that we may think sometimes that our drinking buddies and work colleagues care about us. But would they be there to support us in the way that our partners are doing now, that business culture in London is something that I've been a part of. But I can't honestly say that any real true friendships emanated from that, if people like Catan and Jonathan are out till four or 5am Every single night, drinking and doing other things. What are they running from? It got me thinking about this constant pursuit of money as well. This chase in element and when is enough enough? Why are our priorities scrambled, where we put money and possessions above everything else? COVID was in a strange way great for people as they could finally come off that hamster wheel and reassess their whole life and decide how they want to move forward. Will people have that opportunity again in their lives, I wonder? For men. Money is a big construct of our egos. And it allows us to feel more masculine as it's a symbol of success and achievement for many people. I really don't know how Quetta did that constantly for fun Five years, I remember being a young, energetic, 21 year old. And once every couple of weeks, I would stay at two or three or 4am, and then go straight back into work next day. It absolutely killed me then. So to do it as a 36 year old now, is absolutely unthinkable. Katelyn was doing this is a late 30s man with a wife and two young kids at home, there's definitely been an element of chasing money in my life. Whether I'd made a tonne of money I was just making enough to get by, I've experienced both. I don't think it's changed my day to day level of happiness. I remember reading previously about how the law of diminishing returns revolves around money, where you could earn a certain amount, let's say $75,000. I think he said in this report, and any more than that wouldn't make you any happier. Now, this was an older study. So I'm not sure how that holds up in a cost of living crisis that we're going through right now. But it's still a very valid and interesting point to make. Let's be honest, money isn't going to hold your hand on your deathbed. But if you treat your family right, then hopefully they will. Nobody's sitting there on their last day on earth, and with their last breath saying, I wish I'd worked harder. However, they might be saying, I wish I had been kinder, or I wish I'd spent more time with my children.