PJ Ellis (00:38)

So this episode brings together two siblings whose worlds may look a little different. Crawford.

founder of Quiet Note blends music, mindfulness and mental wellbeing. Whilst his sister, Peggy, is a data expert, a drone expert and check this out, a world series of poker player. And she's pretty good. Two paths, one family. Let's get it started. Welcome to the pod.

Andy (01:03)

Welcome guys.

Peggy Crawford (01:04)

Thanks for having us.

Will (01:05)

Thank you for having us guys.

PJ Ellis (01:08)

You're welcome,

you're welcome. look, we've not interviewed somebody outside yet, Will. Talk us through where you are.

Andy (01:12)

This is a first.

Peggy Crawford (01:14)

aside. He's at war.

Will (01:15)

Well, I was inside, exactly. It's the mindfulness brand, isn't it? I'm literally sat by a river and it's really nice.

PJ Ellis (01:21)

I've instantly seen that your sister was giving you a little bit of a dig there sort of thing. She was complimenting you but also calling you out a little bit. Are you close or do you clash?

Peggy Crawford (01:31)

we do in terms of like when we were younger we kind of like ignored each other for a good few years as you do as siblings as teenagers and then one year we just thought you're actually all right and started drinking together and then became friends and now we live together in the Crawfee flat so yeah we're close.

PJ Ellis (01:47)

the cruelty of that.

Will (01:48)

Yeah, to

be honest, it was probably the age where we started realizing that when we've got the house to ourselves, we can invite all our friends and we actually became quite a bit of a party house for everyone to come round to. And we realized that when we team up, it means that it's half as much to tidy up the next day and we can get the house in order for when mum gets home. And I'll never know.

Peggy Crawford (02:06)

and they'll never know.

Andy (02:07)

You'll never,

never know. Now there's video cameras that can go in your PIRs in your security system. Those days are gone, I think.

Peggy Crawford (02:13)

Yeah.

Will (02:15)

Yeah, well, unfortunately,

younger brother got that exact treatment because when he was old enough to stop, you know, throwing party was there and they had this whole CCTV system set around the entire house. And it's like, that's not fair.

PJ Ellis (02:28)

Taking a note down for that mate for future sort of Yeah, 100 % what a great idea. Let's start with a little bit of an intro then so Peggy what I mean my That was a very brief intro. I'm sure there's so much more going on in Peggy Crawford's world. Tell us briefly who is what is Peggy Crawford what's going on?

Andy (02:30)

It's your reference.

Peggy Crawford (02:47)

Yeah, so I'm freelance data analyst currently working on a project ⁓ to do with drones, which is quite interesting with our dad. And I'm also a semi-professional poker player. So I travel and play, and I also do content. So I'm a content creator at the same time, which is kind of on the side, but I get some opportunities from that to play poker around the world.

PJ Ellis (03:07)

Yeah, I like that. I followed you on Instagram or at least I was looking at it the other day and some of your content is very, very funny. I think it was your boyfriend that you were slapping around the face in one of them. ⁓

Peggy Crawford (03:12)

Thank you.

Well yeah,

so that was actually a competition to go to the Bahamas and unfortunately the judge, a nice lady, chose the guy that did a skit with his little girl. I was like, that's totally not fair. It should have been me laughing. And Will featured in it as a bit of a wanker brother, which was quite funny.

PJ Ellis (03:33)

sort of that dressed dressed up as a marathon runner or something or a cyclist.

Will (03:37)

in full, in full micro, but this was what we were saying. It's like, you can't have kids in poker videos. So we think it's a bit of a cheat to be honest.

Peggy Crawford (03:44)

Totally. So yeah.

PJ Ellis (03:45)

Well, if they're listing,

we need a stewards inquiry. Thank you, Peggy. Will, tell us a little bit more about what you're up to at the moment,

Will (03:51)

So four years ago, I founded a company called Quiet Note and this came out really because of the COVID lockdown. So I was studying as musician at the time as a classical guitarist. COVID comes along, I lose all my work, literally Boris Johnson's on the TV and the next day I lose about 10, 11 months worth of my work. And then it was a sort of moment where I, as a musician, I was completely lost, but I'd always had this interest between my personal mindfulness practice.

and the relationship to music, music therapy and our overall wellbeing. And I thought, well, actually, could I do this as bit of a dissertation project? So I looked into it. did it for my university dissertation and it got to the end of the project. And I was got a family friend reached out and offered me, you know, a sort of a bit of work experience with it and said, would you come in and do a presentation to the team? And I was like, I'd love to, this would be actually be great for the project. I'd love to see how it fits into a real life environment. And he said, how much do you want? And I was like, oh.

you're gonna pay me for this. And at that point I realised, well, maybe this could be a little bit of a side hustle. And so QuietNote started off as just a side hustle going around, helping people to better understand their mental health, their mental wellbeing, the process of mindfulness, using music as the guide, because music is hugely accessible, mindfulness is usually inaccessible. And it started off as a side hustle, I was doing a bit of guitar teaching on the side, and then over the last four years it's completely flipped. So I've moved away completely from the music industry, and now I'm running QuietNote full time.

Andy (05:16)

So question for me, you've both got a lot on, so I'll come to you first, Peggy. Just really interested in what does a typical work day and you can go poker, non-poker look like for you?

Peggy Crawford (05:29)

Yeah, so I tend to do all of my proper work first thing, so I get up like 9am is usually my start, maybe half 9am, not like Will who's on it.

some kind of 6am sunrise stuff. So 9am I'll do like kind of five hours of work for whatever it is to do with data and then I might go outside if I feel like it. If not, stay at home and then I'll start making content. So at the moment I'm working on one of my Vegas vlogs that I didn't get to do back in the summer. So I'm kind of and that takes up a lot of time. So I pretty much just work.

all day on my laptop doing stuff and then kind of go out when I need to.

Andy (06:08)

What about if it was a poker day? What would a poker day look like?

Peggy Crawford (06:12)

Right, so a poker day is completely different. So if I'm at a series, so away somewhere playing, I'll probably do like couple of hours in the morning and then poker tournaments tend to start about kind of midday, but usually a little bit later. And we don't always start straight away. You can jump in, there's maybe two, three hours of late registration. So you can jump in whenever you want. Sometimes it's six hours of late to reg. The blinds just keep going up. So when you enter, your stack is worth less, like respect.

So basically I'll do that and then jump into the poker tournament and play and if you get knocked out you can get back in and if you carry on playing to the end it's usually about midnight 1am when you finish the poker.

Andy (06:53)

Okay, bye bye.

Will (06:53)

The thing is Andy,

I've been living with poker players for the last year and a half and there's a lot of terminology that you've got to get used to. So you can pull peg up. If you have no idea what blinds and stacks and late redges, you've got to just say, what on earth are you on about?

Andy (07:08)

I've got a bit of an amateur's view so we'll go with that. I'm sure we'll touch on it more. But what about you, Will? Is a typical workday stood outside by a river with something in your ear?

Will (07:20)

Well, I wish. mean, that's the misconceptions and stereotypes around mindfulness is that you're just sort of spending your days calm and relaxed. But the reality of running a business as a mindfulness, running a mindfulness business is it's a whole mixture. So my day is broken into two halves. Really. You've got facilitation, which is working directly with clients or with individuals or groups where you're going in. And usually we're running our workshops or our courses. And in all of those settings, it's actually helping people, you know, how do you, how do you build a mindfulness practice? What

tools and techniques can you be using on a day-to-day basis to help with whatever goals or targets you're working towards, yes, around your mental health, but also around your personal and professional goals as well. And then it's being a business owner, isn't it? So it's admin, it's new leads, it's sales calls, it's everything that the two of you know very well, all of that that comes with that. And it's never really the same day. There's the sort of...

know, similar clients that you see regularly. There's the networking groups that you go to, Future Faces, Chamber of Commerce, Sunrise Networks, all the things happening around Birmingham. But no one week is the same as the other.

Andy (08:22)

Great. And give you an opportunity to plug yourself here, Will, because I'm very pleased and proud of you because you got some Innovate UK funding, didn't you recently? And you've had something published. Why don't you just quickly share what that is?

Will (08:34)

Yeah.

Yeah, so this was a huge moment. So in 2024, we won the Creative Catalyst Award from Innovate UK, which was a £50,000 pot of funding. And we went and we put the majority of that funding, £35,000, to do a research study with the University of Birmingham, basically trying to prove our method, that mindfulness through music is an effective way to really look after your mental health and your mental wellbeing. And the reason why we've seen so much success with this project is because

Unlike a lot of traditional mindfulness practices, which is just about vague, you know, just living in the moment or being mindful or, you know, blatant advice about, just be calm and relaxed. We focus more on the practical applications, the tools, the techniques that you can be using on a day-to-day basis. And we ran a study with the University of Birmingham. It was over a year. We put nearly a hundred people through our courses with a psychological evaluation before.

and after basically trying to understand what's happening to the brain, what's happening to the lifestyle. And the results that we got at the end were absolutely huge. We were seeing a 55 % reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety. We were seeing improvements in general mental wellbeing of up to 20%. We were seeing improvements of sleep quality of 49.2%. And it's because we're giving people tools and techniques to go away with.

PJ Ellis (09:49)

I need some of those tools and techniques 49 % uplifting better sleep. my word

Will (09:54)

Yeah, well,

we focus on sleep quality rather than sleep quantity. know, a lot of people just think, I need to get more sleep. The problem is if you're just getting more sleep, but you're still waking up really tired after eight hours of good sleep, or if you're waking up, you know, at four in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep, or you're struggling to get to sleep when you start off, that's not a problem with the amount of sleep you're getting. That's a problem with the quality of the sleep.

And you know, your mind needs two things. needs a calm mind, it needs a relaxed body, and that is the two perfect ingredients. But how do we go about achieving that? And that is through a series of either music techniques, or it's a series of breathing techniques. And actually giving people those tools empowers them to take care of their sweet sleep quality.

PJ Ellis (10:35)

Yeah.

Andy (10:35)

How

do you measure sleep quality, Will? How was that measured in the study?

Will (10:40)

So we paid some very expensive and very intelligent scientists to do exactly that. So it's through basically a series of different records that happened throughout the study. So you basically fill out these data sheets. Actually, PEG would probably be better talking about this because it was all around the data. But the idea is, know, rate your sleep on a quality, on a level from one to 10, and you do that throughout and we just measure how that changes.

and look at that change. And if someone's saying my sleep quality is terrible at the start of the study, but it's in a really good position by the end, then we know we've seen that increase.

Andy (11:14)

Great. And Peggy, do you guys work on anything together or have you worked together at all, yourself and Will?

Peggy Crawford (11:21)

A

little bit. I did a bit of kind of recording for the day that we announced the results of the study and like if he needs some content making we'll work together but we kind of we do throw ideas to each other across quite a lot which is helpful there's always a good discussion going on in the Crawfy flat but in terms of poker Will's absolutely useless so not in that way.

Will (11:42)

That's not true. I'm on the player of the month wall.

Peggy Crawford (11:47)

We do have a player of the month going on with five people printed out and you're on there but you haven't been player of month yet.

PJ Ellis (11:55)

he's on the wall though. He's on the wall.

Will (11:55)

do you guys know in Friends where Joey and Chandler, they have a table football as their dining room table? We have that, but we have a poker table instead. And so anyone who comes over to the flat, the first thing that Peg does is sit down and let's play a game of poker. And then if you win, you get put on the wall of fame with a photo. It's very sad.

Peggy Crawford (12:12)

Yeah.

like let's see what you can do and most people have idea. Yeah it's like you will have fun, you will enjoy this.

PJ Ellis (12:18)

I that.

There's nothing sad about that. I love that. I'm just noting that down.

Andy (12:27)

Sounds like our Witton Gwitt Christmas Do sort it out, Peej. Or our New Year celebration.

PJ Ellis (12:29)

Yeah, mate, well, let's do

Peggy Crawford (12:32)

get you out.

PJ Ellis (12:32)

it, We'll bring the beers, you provide the poker and the entertainment, and the music. I mean, it's perfect evening, obviously.

Peggy Crawford (12:36)

No mindful music

Will (12:36)

Yes.

Peggy Crawford (12:39)

though, only intense.

Will (12:41)

only intense hard hardcore. Yeah.

PJ Ellis (12:41)

only hardcore. Yeah. Electro.

A bit of EDM. Yeah. A bit of electro dance or whatever is. Yeah. Let's have it. I'm up for that. ⁓ You know, congratulations Will. And I'd love to read that publication. We talk about Will building his practice, being published, being out there. I mean, your sister, mate, is on the global poker index ranking. I mean, she hasn't...

Will (12:47)

You

Peggy Crawford (12:48)

I'm

Andy (12:49)

you

PJ Ellis (13:02)

She's on the all time money list. I've always wanted to have that growing up, being an amateur golfer of football. I've always wanted to be on this all time money list where you could go and go, that's pretty cool. Peggy, I know we could probably talk about every misconception about what a poker player does and what it looks like. Is it gambling? Is it data? I suspect from looking at you and knowing a little bit about you, it's the latter. And because it's a career, you're setting yourself up to grow this. But also, I

It's not easy, is it? There's a of resilience around that. I saw a post around how you approach poker. You have to work hard. You have to think about when to play, how to play, how long to play for, the cost of that. How did you get involved with all that to start off with, Peggy?

Peggy Crawford (13:45)

Yeah, so my poker career kind of started, so I've always loved maths and I've always loved games. You me and Will would play Monopoly once a week and I'd destroy him at that.

and that's kind of the start of it. I just always absolutely loved games, studied economics at uni and there's always been little hints like I played poker and absolutely loved it and then one job after uni after I graduated I was working. We basically didn't have much to do but we had access to YouTube so I started watching a lot of poker YouTube videos and I was like okay there's actually strategy behind this there's actually a really interesting kind of strategy to the game that is comparable to chess

in that your thinking moves ahead and you're thinking all about that. But then there's also kind of the element of luck, which is very different to chess, and also the element of deviating from the right strategy. And we call this game theory optimal strategy, which is this is what a computer would play against another computer. But then you're not playing against a computer. So you want to be able to deviate from that completely to exploit the players that are sat across from you. So I just found I just fell in love with it. And I was like, this is so interesting.

and I started playing a kind of a weekly 40-pound tournament at the Grosvenor down the road, Hill Street. And at first it was absolutely terrifying. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know like who to register with and all this stuff. But then I kind of saw the gap in the market for YouTube in that case because it's like, well, I can tell people how to get into it in a sensible way, you know, make sure you've got the money, you can afford it and that you're trying to learn and be better at the game. Don't just do it to gamble.

You know, so I started doing that and every week I'd go in and I'd make a mistake and I'd feel like an idiot and sometimes I'd have to show over my cards and then everyone would know I'm an idiot and sometimes I'd be able to fold them and be like, okay, it's just me that knows. But I go back for that week and think over the hand and I'd learn something and I just say to myself like, every time you go, just don't make the same mistake and then you're just getting better. Every time you go, you're 2 % better and you keep doing that and it's just that resilience and allowing yourself to make mistakes.

become better. And so that's kind how I got into it and it just spiraled from there.

Andy (15:57)

That's a fab

mindset to have and it's really, really applicable to all businesses. Just you mentioned the phrase I saw in the gap in the market with YouTube. Do just want to expand on that a little bit and tell me what is that market and do you make money from that?

Peggy Crawford (16:13)

Yeah, of course. So there's a lot of poker content out there that's like, I won 10 million pounds or like this crazy hand quads against Royal flush. And there's a lot of that very generic stuff. But in terms of like, I'm a young female poker player or I want to be a young female poker player and go and play, but I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to approach it. I don't know what to study first. And what's it going to be like? You know, I just want to have that reassuring video. So I tried to do that. And even though I had kind of no editing skills, I was like,

I'll make something and hopefully kind of inspire or if not just follow my journey. And yeah, it's kind of, it's doing well. do, because I don't do that click-baity stuff, I kind of focus on strategy and the more boring side of poker. I don't have millions of views, but I have, you know, 2K and I have a really sustainable audience who care about what I'm doing and they want me to succeed. And I feel like I'm having a genuine positive impact on the poker industry.

PJ Ellis (17:06)

Yeah, I think that's genuinely influencing as well, know, micro influencing, whatever you want to call it. I suppose a more important question for me is what piece did you use to play when you used to play Monopoly? What we saying?

Peggy Crawford (17:10)

Yeah.

so we were into Spongebob Monopoly. And so I was Gary or like our dad would always say it's not Gary, it's Gary, but because they say it in American way. called it Gary. It's Neil. Yeah. Will was Patrick, I think.

Will (17:21)

We're into SpongeBob Monopoly.

PJ Ellis (17:33)

Gary, Gary, is he the snail? Is it the snail? Yeah, I'd be Patrick man, is Patrick available?

Will (17:34)

Gary, he's the snail.

You see the one thing Peg missed out from that story as well is usually around New Year's when dad would get the poker cards out and the chips out. Peg and dad will be really good because know, Peg and my dad have a very mathematical brain and so poker comes very naturally to them. Whereas I'm there struggling to add, you know, seven and three and seeing if it's a, you know, if it works. And so they would absolutely wipe the floor with me and I'd be like, can I go to bed now? And they'd like, no, stay and play more poker.

And this is even the same when we're playing now. Peg can look at a pair of poker cards and know exactly what she needs to do. And it takes me about 10 minutes to even figure out where I'm going. So it was almost quite torturous.

PJ Ellis (18:17)

You know, talking about figuring out where we're going, Peggy said something there about how she's helping that community to plug those gaps as to how you get started. Well, when you set up your business, how did you find that challenge? Is there enough information out there, would you say, for young people like yourself to set up the business, to give you those basics and fundamentals?

Will (18:38)

Yeah, that's a really interesting one. think yes and no. I think it's actually never been easier to set up a business nowadays. If you think about going back, you know, even 20 years ago, things like Canva, easy access to email, easy access to networking events, these things just didn't really exist. You know, if you wanted a logo for your business, you would have to, you know, pay someone a huge amount of money. Whereas now you can just, I mean, even now with AI tools.

PJ Ellis (18:58)

Okay. Yeah.

Will (19:06)

you can just get a, you know, type a quick prompt into AI and you'll have a really world-class logo, you know, and from that side of things, it's never been easier. But in terms of actually gaining that traction, because it's so easy to get into the market has never been so saturated with people trying to make their way into this space. And it's like, yes, there's always going to be competition, but now you've got a huge amount of, you know, a huge amount of competition in there. And I think also the way businesses

sort of function now, especially in the UK, we're becoming very service heavy, aren't we? People are focusing less on products and actual physical things to sell, and they're now focusing more on services. You everyone on LinkedIn is now some sort of coach or guru or trying to sell you a course or something going on. And that makes it really difficult to break through. But that challenge has always been there with business. So it's just about trying to understand, well, what am I trying to bring to this? How can I build a community that really...

resonates with what I believe and what I'm trying to send here.

Andy (20:05)

You're so right about how easy it is to get set up. Some people might say it's too easy and then that leads to mass saturation, as you've said. So there's a lot of young people I know, and I would include some of my kids in this, who really do want to do what you've done, set their own business up, work for themselves, test things out. What would you advice be to them? are the key things from both of your perspectives that are key to success in this day and age?

whatever the business is you're looking at. Come to you first, Peggy, if I may.

Peggy Crawford (20:38)

Yeah, so I think just you've to be able to kind of take risks, I guess is a big one and kind of, but at the same time, like make sure you have that stability. Like, for example, like I still work part time as well as poker. Will does his teaching just as like the bread and butter so he can chase the dream. And like just, yeah, being able to just go for it whilst you're young, whilst having that support system in place if you are privileged enough to do that. So yeah.

Andy (21:04)

What about you, Will? What would you say?

Will (21:06)

Yeah, I definitely agree with Peg. mean, you've just got to, the main ingredient is just working as hard as you possibly can. And it's that old sort of cheesy saying of you've to work harder than the other guy. And that is, know, I mean, that's kind of one of the really nice things about, you know, me and Peg living together over the last, last year has been, we've just encouraged each other to do that. It's like when we're feeling a bit down, when we're feeling a bit defeated, you know, if Peg's had a loss or I've lost a client or things aren't quite going the way, it's just about saying, just keep going, have the patience.

because I've been working with Quietenate for four years and it's still not quite working. It's nearly there.

But I've just got to have patience with it. And I think nowadays with everything so, know, touch of the button, next day delivery, it can be very easy to get into this mindset that I'm going to set this business up and by next year, I'm going to be a multimillionaire and I'm going to be super successful and I have a world-class brand and it just doesn't work like that. You've got to have the patience in what you're doing. So patience is probably my biggest lesson and a bit of hard work. And like Peg said, you've got to have the sort of that financial sort of bread and butter as well so that you can pay your bills.

Peggy Crawford (22:09)

Yeah, patience is important. And we're both kind of, even though it's different worlds, we're both kind of trying to like get lucky a little bit. Like I'm trying to get that big score that's kick-started my career. You're trying to get maybe that big client or just ⁓ numerous clients at the same time that will set you kind of in stone. And then we'll both be able to focus more on that. So yeah, there's just, so you need to be patient until you get that little bit of luck.

Will (22:18)

Yeah.

PJ Ellis (22:33)

So I'm just jumping in. If you're enjoying these conversations, well, we are bringing those to life at Witton Grid live at Millennium Point in Birmingham on the 30th of January, 2026. 300 people, real talk, life lessons, even a moment to breathe, proper takeaways you can use straight away. Get your tickets at wittongrid.co.uk forward slash register. It's going to be a good one, Bab. Right, let's get back to the conversation.

Andy (23:04)

So we talk about mindset a lot where I work at Curium and you two have both got an excellent kind of perspective from a mindset. Where does that come from? Where does mental strength, some that you're born with, some that you continuously develop, what would you say, Will?

Will (23:22)

are definitely something you continuously develop. think there will always be, know, people might be naturally more inclined towards hard work, but when it comes to that sort of strong, positive, keep going mindset, that's just something you can build and work with, you know? And within mindfulness, we talk about a sort of set of attitudes that you have towards your mindfulness practice and that is...

these attitudes around acceptance, patience, trust, non-judgment. These are so important when it comes to, you know, keeping going as well and keeping staying in the loop, but also having the balance of saying, you know, is it worth it? Am I getting the return? Is this fulfilling for me? I think one of the reasons why I've been able to be so patient with the process is because I really believe in the mission that Quiet Note is trying to do. I really believe that what we're doing is having a genuinely positive impact on the local community, on society, and is, you know, really fulfilling me.

And that's it. There's a balance between, you know, just relentless hard work for no reason, but also balancing that with your purpose.

Andy (24:20)

Yeah, brilliant. What would you add to that, Peg?

Peggy Crawford (24:23)

Yeah, also that, yeah, hard work is partially born with, but it helps a lot if it's something you're passionate about. So if it's something you really care about, you're going to naturally work harder. It's like, yeah, you might be working a nine to five and that's fine. That's your bread and butter, but what are you passionate about on the side? It's like you guys making this podcast. Like, hopefully this is fulfilling to you and yeah, it's extra work and it's harder, but it's exciting. It's good for your life and it makes you want to work hard.

PJ Ellis (24:49)

Yeah, yeah, hang on, is. I mean, there's gotta be a formula there. So you're data expert, you've gotta come up with something there, surely, because I've written down here, you've got patience, then you care about something, then you start working harder because you care about something, coupled with that patience, then you get luckier. So if you've got patience and you love doing what you do, you'll work harder, and actually then the luckier you'll get, it feels like you both have got some really self-belief.

and sometimes you might have your darker days and whatever it might be, but are there any rituals or habits that keep you as grounded as you appear? And let's start with Peggy on that one. You say you go out for two minutes a day, are there any other habits that you have or rituals?

Peggy Crawford (25:28)

you

Will (25:29)

Yes.

why we're

laughing, Peg, you've got to get it out. This is perfect opportunity to... The grindstone. You got to go and get it.

PJ Ellis (25:39)

Here we go.

Peggy Crawford (25:40)

the grindstone.

PJ Ellis (25:43)

Go on then.

Peggy Crawford (25:45)

Right, OK, so.

PJ Ellis (25:46)

Okay, she's got a grindstone that

I can only imagine she grinds. It's like, it? Does she do this to the... Does she do what I do to my teeth to the stone will or do I need to wait for the story to come from Peggy? Here we go. Here we go. Okay, go on then.

Peggy Crawford (25:57)

Okay, so this...

Will (26:00)

This

is like center place in the Crawfee flat and every morning at 5 a.m. because know, Peg works ridiculously late hours because of the poker. know, she'll finish, you know, work as a data analyst and then she'll log on to these poker sites or go off and play tournaments. And we'll usually be going to bed at around five in the morning. You know, because of all these stupidly early networking events that I do, I'm usually up at five in the morning. So we have this like little crossover. And so what we'll do in complete silence, we'll stand and we'll salute and we'll...

PJ Ellis (26:04)

I feel okay.

Will (26:29)

turn the grindstone as Peg is finishing the grind and I'm starting the grind.

Peggy Crawford (26:30)

And this is an ancient

family heirloom that spans back thousands of years that we now own.

Will (26:38)

Yeah, got it

PJ Ellis (26:38)

You got it from,

Andy (26:38)

Really

Will (26:38)

carbon,

Andy (26:38)

good.

PJ Ellis (26:39)

you got it from Donal.

Will (26:39)

we got it, no, no, we got it carbon dated and it's nearly 5,000 years old and it's been passed down the generations.

PJ Ellis (26:46)

No, are you... Is that a joke or is that serious?

Peggy Crawford (26:47)

Yeah.

Will (26:49)

No, no, that's J-

Peggy Crawford (26:49)

Yeah, that's all a joke,

but we do have the grindstone just to represent the grind. It's kind of silly to be honest, but we...

Will (26:52)

Ha ha ha ha.

It's very stupid.

PJ Ellis (26:59)

You say that though, you say that though, and I'm sure deep down, you know that there's so much more to it than that because there's that there's that partnership, there's that support piece, there's that reset piece, you know, it's that sort of signing off piece. It's the start of the day piece. And I think that's really important to have those rituals. really do. mean, I instantly want to grindstone. Do we get one, Andy? What do think?

Peggy Crawford (27:12)

Yeah.

Andy (27:19)

I think so

mate, yeah, could do with some merch first, but we could do a bit of a ground stone, definitely. Quick question for me. There's a great kind of camaraderie between the two of you. So let's mix it up a little bit. So Will, I'm going to come to you first. If you were Peggy and you were doing her job, which included the data and poker, what would you do differently to what she does?

PJ Ellis (27:22)

Okay.

So.

Will (27:42)

Oh, that's a great question. Firstly, I'd be a lot nicer to my brother because he's such a role model to me. No, I think the way I think the attitude pegs got towards, you know, the data analyst, you know, helps her to sort of sustain her lifestyle and helps fund that dream. But I think that the area that she's got the most growth is the story behind what she's doing. You know, this idea that the poker world is a hugely male dominated world and, you know,

Andy (27:47)

You

Peggy Crawford (27:55)

Thank

Will (28:10)

usually older male dominated world, this idea of going into a casino for a lot of, you know, the younger generation, especially women is probably just something they've never thought of or don't want to do. I think that this gap in the market that Peg was talking about earlier, you know, and reaching out to that community through YouTube, through social media, I think that is, you know, for this day and age, I think that is definitely the area I'd be putting the majority of my investment in. But she is doing that. So it's just as much more time as you can do.

Andy (28:39)

You got away lightly there, Peg, right? He can't come back here, so this is your chance to say what you do, if you will.

Will (28:43)

Hahaha.

Peggy Crawford (28:45)

Okay, stop getting up at 5am. It's just ridiculous. You're only doing it to show off, like, let's just calm down. No, I just, yeah, for Will, you just gotta keep going and keep that belief. I know you have doubts sometimes and yeah, just...

Will (28:48)

Hahaha

Peggy Crawford (29:00)

You just got to keep working on it and keep, you're very good at meeting people and making new connections and stuff. And honestly, I don't think I can give Will many pointers because he's like one of the hardest working people I know. So yeah, just keep going.

Andy (29:14)

Will, you shared a post I saw the other day. I think it was a reflection on the weekend and it talked about two conflicting thoughts that you'd had over the weekend about the business. Do you want to just touch on that a little bit and touch on how you kind of reframe it?

Will (29:23)

Yeah.

Yeah, so these were two genuine thoughts that I had literally just the weekend gone. And the first was Saturday morning and I was feeling really confident in what we were doing with Quiet Note. And I just had a moment where I thought, really feel like this is a real calling for me. I'm really grounded. I feel really comfortable and I'm really committed and I'm really enjoying what I'm doing here. This is what I'm supposed to be doing.

And then Sunday evening, when I was planning my week ahead, when I was sort of, you know, thinking more about the practicals of what's coming up, I was like, this is not, there's no way is this sustainable. I'm, you the business is going to run out of money. haven't got the amount of clients I wanted to by this time in the year. I should probably start having a look for other jobs for the new year. And it was those two completely opposing thoughts. One was like, keep going. The other was completely give up.

And this is really important when it comes to a mindfulness practice, because everyone has that voice inside of them that says, you know, give up what you're doing, just go for the safe route, you know, train to be, you know, something safe and secure, you know, get your nine to five and, you know, focus on your pension. You know, that voice in the back of our head that says, take the safe option, don't take the risk. And firstly, that voice is a really important part of us. It's not a voice that we should be ignoring.

It's not a voice that we should just pretend isn't there because it's trying to keep us safe. And it's a really important perspective we need to have on our life. But at the same time, it doesn't always require an action. We can listen to it, we can understand it. What's it trying to tell us? But do I actually want to take an action on it? And so what I did on Sunday evening, feeling a bit defeated, a bit deflated, I was like, I can understand why I'm feeling that way. I can understand this thought process, but I know that I'm okay. And I know I can keep going.

Andy (31:13)

Did that conversation happen in your head or were you talking out loud to someone?

Will (31:18)

No, that was in my head actually. There's a really nice meditation exercise where when you've got one of those difficult thoughts, when you've got one of those intrusive thoughts, instead of just trying to bat it away or pretend it's not there, you actually just sit down and do nothing else but focus on that thought and just say, can I understand this? Because when we are face to face with a difficulty or an uncomfortable situation, our first reaction is I want to get away from it.

But actually one of the best things we can do is just bring more awareness to it because the more we become aware of it, the more we start to understand that thought process and the better understanding we have of it, all of a sudden we become a bit more empowered of how am going to deal with it? It becomes much more practical that way than just constantly trying to ignore it. So on Sunday evening, I just like put everything aside, sat down and I was like, right, let's just sit with this thought.

Andy (32:07)

It's human nature to run away from a problem. And that's why I respect the emergency services so much because they have to run towards problems and difficult situations. you're absolutely right. Peg, a quick question for you. Can you take us into a poker playing situation? It might be when you start going to the Glovener, but when you get your mouth goes a little bit dry, get your palms get a bit sweaty, it's real, can a key moment. How do you stay calm? How do you keep

Will (32:15)

yeah.

Andy (32:33)

perspective and not let the emotions get in your way.

Peggy Crawford (32:36)

Yeah, so this is something that just becomes easier the more you play, the more experience. But yeah, so you're talking about kind of a big hand where you maybe got all your chips in by the last card, the river. And you might be bluffing and you think if he calls me here, calls my bluff, I'm out of the tournament. So it's quite a nerve-racking situation, but...

The more you play, the more you just focus on the strategy. And yeah, you're always going to be a bit nervous, but there's just a million thoughts going through your head. Have I played this hand in a way that makes sense? Am I giving away any tells? Like, am I looking nervous? Or do I want to kind of flip that and make myself look nervous when I do it? So there's a lot of pressure in that way, but if you just stick to the maths and relying on your solid foundation of strategy, you can kind of find some peace and calm.

in that moment and in the exact moment where he's maybe staring you down I just look at the same card on the table and just stare at that try to do the exact same thing as if I was bluffing or if I wasn't bluffing and you kind of just try and get into the routine where it looks like you're playing every hand the same in that way

PJ Ellis (33:40)

Hmm.

Will (33:41)

One of the craziest moments I've seen Peg play numerous tournaments and one of the best ones that I was able to see was watching her in Vegas. And there was this one point where there was a guy, you know, very intimidating man, know, shaved head, very, you know, largely built was just absolutely staring daggers at her. And I was like, if you can hold your nerve in that situation, then you're there's not many other places that you're going to be worried about because you can just I've never been in one of these, you know, intense poker tournaments.

but you can feel the energy in the room and it's so intense.

Peggy Crawford (34:13)

Yeah.

PJ Ellis (34:14)

I bet it is. I'm, what's the word? mean, all of that, to be fair. I mean, do you me asking how old are you, Peggy? Do mind me asking that? 26, right? I can imagine what I was like. I remember about me being 26 to put myself out there and do stuff like that on my own in Vegas with my own money against people like that that have done it. What's the community like other than those big bald guys having a go at you and staring you down? Is there anything else that's come out of this community for you?

Peggy Crawford (34:22)

Yeah, I'm 26.

Yeah.

PJ Ellis (34:43)

then just obviously a career.

Peggy Crawford (34:43)

no, the community

is amazing. Like we always say, like, how often do you get to sit down at a table with seven or eight other adults for like eight hours in a row? And yeah, you end up, you do end up talking to people. Sometimes you're not going to talk, you're to be serious or, or whatever. But I've met so many people from poker and that's why I do encourage people to play in a sensible way because even Will came to the Grosvenor to play like a 50 pound tournament once and he did terribly, but

He met loads of people and he said he had a really good time. And it's like, okay, well, your last decision was pretty bad. And some guy told you that.

Will (35:16)

didn't do terribly, I was alright.

Yeah, it was. Yeah,

some guy turned around to me and looked me dead in the eye once I was out of the tournament and he went, you've only got yourself to blame, you idiot. I was like.

PJ Ellis (35:31)

Yeah.

Andy (35:32)

But

don't they say feedback is a gift,

Peggy Crawford (35:36)

you

Will (35:37)

Yeah, so I'll take it on board for next time.

Peggy Crawford (35:39)

But yeah, it's a really good social environment. Sometimes you're gonna get the bad egg. It's still casinos and gambling, so you're gonna get some people that are rude and nasty. But that's in most aspects of life. You learn to take it on the chin and just know how to deal with it when it happens. But most of the time, you're just meeting some great people. And I play ladies events as well, and they're always even more friendly and social. And yeah, it's just a really supportive community when you get into that kind of inner group.

PJ Ellis (36:05)

You know when you set up a business and you go on AI and Canva and all the tools that Will said earlier about creating this logo, you're thinking about a brand, aren't you? You're thinking about how you present yourself as a business. Quiet Note, I think, have nailed that. It looks exactly like the business that it does, that it is. ⁓ Do you have a, that's good, man, it's cool. I'm sure it will iterate as well as your journey continues. But Peg, do you have a brand? Do you turn up like, know, Honey G, like glasses or a hat on or, you know,

Will (36:21)

Thanks, man.

PJ Ellis (36:32)

Have you thought about that? Because I assume there are poker players that have a very obvious brand, right? What they wear, how they talk. Have you thought about that?

Peggy Crawford (36:39)

Yeah, no, we did joke about me taking, when I went to Vegas for the first time, like taking a pipe and like something ridiculous, like a wonky hat. But no, just, I tend, the poker player typical attire is a hoodie or just a tracksuit. And all the pros will look like that. But I tend to just like look nice. Something that makes me feel confident and like professional-ish, I guess. But just also like feeling comfortable is important at the poker table. So yeah, I don't say I have a

Will (37:07)

Tell them how

your name works as well, your sort of social media handle.

Peggy Crawford (37:13)

Yeah, so my branding is Pocket Peg. So in poker, you might know this, but you're dealt two cards in Texas Hold'em. And if it's say it's two threes or two aces or two kings in the two cards that you see that no one else sees, that's called a pocket pair. So obviously my name is Peg, so Pocket Peg. That's the branding. And yeah, I get it all the time. Like some people that watch my vlog will be like, hey, Pocket Peg. And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, yeah.

PJ Ellis (37:32)

Alright, well-

That's amazing. That's

so cool. I knew it was pocket peg, but I just assumed because I don't know that term. I just thought you might be small, small ladies. I don't know why, poly pocket maybe, you know, I don't know. But that's cool, man. People are representing. I think that's lovely. Pocket peg. It's brilliant. Whoever came up with that, it's fantastic. So if you get two aces or two good cards, that's a pocket. That's the pocket.

Peggy Crawford (37:47)

Yeah, I'm pretty average to be honest. Yeah, yeah, get it,

Yeah, if two are the same card, so two aces, that would be a posthead. No, it's not black yet, come on.

PJ Ellis (38:07)

Yeah, got you. And can you split it or anything like that? Can you split it or is that... Blackjack, that's right. Only play

Will (38:12)

Yeah

PJ Ellis (38:14)

with five beats. When's your next game? How often do you play?

Peggy Crawford (38:16)

Yeah, so we try and do like a series a month so kind of work in like three weeks and then we'll do a week playing at series so My next one I'm not playing in December actually just gonna try and save up over Christmas But we've got WSP Morocco so World Series of Poker in Morocco, which we played last year and I had a really successful series It's a really awesome stop. So I'm really looking forward to that

Andy (38:40)

Where is that Marrakesh is it?

Peggy Crawford (38:41)

Yeah, it's in Marrakesh. They have a really lovely actually, a hotel and casino combo, which I can't wait to go there.

Andy (38:49)

How much does that cost you to enter, Peg? What's the entry to a tournament?

Peggy Crawford (38:53)

So they range from everything. So the Grove node do 50 pound ones, but.

At these World Series of Poker, the minimum is pretty much about 400 euros. So they're a bit bigger. We do this thing called selling action though. So if I'm playing a 1000 pound tournament, let's say PJ, you bought 10 % of my action, you'd give me a hundred pounds and then you get 10 % of any of my winnings. So if I won a million, you'd get 100k,

PJ Ellis (39:20)

So It's it's a way of like it's a proxy play, isn't it? I suppose.

Peggy Crawford (39:25)

It minimises the variance of poker because you're only meant to cash one in seven tournaments to be a profitable player. So if you're able to sell action, you get him cheaper and yeah, you have to give away some winnings, but you get to play more, you get more experience. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah, the buy-ins that I play range from kind of anything up to about 1.5k.

PJ Ellis (39:39)

Well, that's that's business, right? You know, it's like quiet note looking for investors and shareholders, I suppose. ⁓

One second.

Cal, that's my wife. We've got a new investment. Put it on the portfolio. Pocket peg. 10 % every month. There we go. me the invoice, Bab. Send me the invoice. Willie, are you looking for shareholders and is that, do you have that around the table at the moment, Will? Is that part of the growth that you're looking for next, people?

Will (39:57)

Hahaha

Peggy Crawford (40:00)

Alright, we're on.

Will (40:10)

I mean, it's when you're a founder, it's always something that you've got in mind of could I take on more investment? What could I do with a little bit more capital, you know, a little bit more investment in the bank? Where we are right now, we're actually in a quite a good position. The Innovate UK funding has just come to an end that sort of taken us up to the next level and we can actually see our growth journey up to our next sort of glass ceiling. And we want to see that growth through 2026. And if we get to that point, that's going to be the position where we ask, do we keep this as more a lifestyle business?

that sort of, you know, funds and fuels, the life I want to live, or do we consider taking on some serious investment and seeing if we can really take this to the next level? But that's when I sit down with Andy over a pint and hire him from Curium to come and help me with my action plan.

Andy (40:55)

We'll definitely do that. We'll definitely do that. just following up from that question then, I'll come to you first, Peg. Let's project ourselves forward to 3rd of December, 2027. So two years down the line. Who knows what the world's going to bring with technology and how that impacts poker and wellbeing and stuff. where would you like to be in two years time?

Peggy Crawford (41:16)

Yeah, so with poker it's quite difficult to kind of set goals because you can't say I want to win this or I want to cash this because there is still the luck involved but try and set goals in terms of like study as much as I can or study a certain amount but in two years time I would like to play the main event of poker which is in Vegas which is a $10,000 buy-in

and they get 10,000 entries and there's 11 million for first place. So that would be a huge step in my journey to play that. Not this summer, I think the next summer will probably be a good goal. And yeah, just keep growing the vlog. ⁓ I had a sponsorship and that's kind of that ended in the summer. I'd like to get another one so that I could fully do that as a sponsored poker player, as well as, yeah, being full time and just being able to play more.

Andy (42:03)

What about you, Will?

Will (42:04)

I would like, so at the moment, Quiet Note, we've just brought on our first freelance practitioner who's supporting us with our London based clients. Our sort of, our overall goal is to empower the UK with the Quiet Note approach. We want it in as many businesses, in as many homes as possible. But we also want to be supporting musicians, because like the music industry is in a really difficult place at the moment. You have some of the most incredibly talented, you know, hardworking.

musicians out there and they're just really struggling to find work. I would really like to see actually if QuietNote could bring in bit of an internal franchise model where we actually support musicians in building the QuietNote approach into their portfolio. That's going to be a really solid way that we're going to grow over the next over the next few years and we're trialing that through the entire 2026 with our first practitioner and if that works what's to stop us from saying well why can't we have a QuietNote practitioner in every major city in the UK?

PJ Ellis (42:55)

Fair play. ⁓ what... Yes, of course, mate, of course.

Will (42:57)

and then global domination, of course.

Peggy Crawford (42:59)

And then we can,

me and Will, combine to form mindful gambling.

PJ Ellis (43:05)

Well, I

Will (43:05)

Exactly,

PJ Ellis (43:05)

mean,

Will (43:05)

It's the ultimate business model you see. You gamble with Peg and she screws up your mental health. She sends you to me, I fix you, and then I send you back to Peg and we rinse you at every step.

Peggy Crawford (43:16)

Yeah.

PJ Ellis (43:16)

⁓

I'll actually, I'll probably, dare I say, I think that would probably work very, very well. I think there's actually a viable business proposition there that you should.

Will (43:24)

And

for legal reasons, I've got to say that that's a joke.

PJ Ellis (43:28)

Of course, of course, was

Andy (43:29)

You

PJ Ellis (43:30)

it was a conversation at the your proverbial photocopier is the grindstone, isn't it? It's just those conversations that you have at the grindstone, right? That will ignore. But yeah, I used to be a lawyer, mate. You're fine. You're safe. Don't you worry. That was in jest. But you know, exciting times. We started this part off the basis of a quick coffee and we press go underpinning this conversation with the idea that it will generate some ideas for us to

Will (43:36)

Hahaha

Peggy Crawford (43:38)

Exactly.

PJ Ellis (43:58)

take back into our lives to help our kids. So moving forward, know, what does it look like, you know, the future for our children who probably need a little bit more self-confidence here and there, a bit more self-belief, a little bit more get up and go. My final question would be, what would your advice be to those kids, 14, 13, 14, 15 year old, just about to go into that next stage of their lives?

And I'm thinking about, I'd love to go and be a poker player or I'd love to go and incorporate music into business. What would you say to them, Peggy?

Peggy Crawford (44:29)

Yeah, well I'd say at that stage just try everything, like make sure you've explored all your options and like just try things, give things a go. Get off that phone, you know, that is a big thing for kids these days. yeah, so get off the phone, try sport, try music, if you're gonna be on your phone, watch something interesting.

And yeah, and just, you know, try things out, take risks, don't be scared of looking uncool because it's not going to matter after school. God, I sound so old now. But yeah. I know.

Will (44:58)

You do sound like a bit like a grandma.

PJ Ellis (45:01)

Old is generally

wise, isn't it? Comes from experience. had exactly the same conversation this morning with my son. He had a stranger things, a lot of stranger things. Had a little pin badge and he was putting it to the bottom of his coat. I said, Blake, what have you done that for? said, oh, you know, people might see it. Yeah, great. I should see it. Get out your own way, you know, have that.

Andy (45:04)

Exactly.

Peggy Crawford (45:05)

Yeah.

Exactly, be yourself

and if you want a life where you can travel or or do the all these amazing things buy things that you want to buy you have to work hard in school me and Wilberth worked hard like not afraid to admit that it's not uncool Yeah

PJ Ellis (45:34)

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Thank you, Peg. What about

you, Will?

Will (45:37)

You know, I'd echo completely all of that. The only thing I would add is make your mental and physical health one of your top priorities. Because if you look after your health, your quality of life will just be sustainable right into your eighties. You know, and actually when you think, you know, where life expectancy is going, if you look after yourself, you know, you can, you know, try something and fail, try something and fail for years and years and years. And if you, if your foundation is your health.

then you can't go far wrong from there.

Andy (46:09)

both of you, thanks. Thank you very much for your time. Hopefully we'll find a way connecting around Wit and Grit Live on the 30th of January. There must be an opportunity. I'm not sure we can do a poker school, Peej. Maybe an after show poker school, who knows?

Will (46:19)

well,

PJ Ellis (46:24)

Why not?

just a little wrapping up piece, right? Make your mental and physical health a priority. Mindfulness through music is the way. The crawfy flat is the place to be. Go for it whilst you're young. Make those mistakes quickly. Work harder than the other guy. Patience is key. Get a grindstone. Tell your story.

whatever it might be. Thank you so much for joining us on the pod. I could talk to you forever. Thank you so much.

Will (46:48)

Thanks so much guys, that was so much fun. Really enjoyed that.

Peggy Crawford (46:51)

Yeah, thanks guys.