The Campbell Academy Blog (81)

An example

As a part of my work (this is a complete joke, by the way), I got to drive an hour and a half with Louis up to the peak district last week to Winnats Pass.

We actually pitched up at a cafe in a little village called Hope, which seemed absolutely appropriate.

Louis and I had a great journey, chatting about all sorts of stuff with the bikes in the car and ready to ride up a steep hill.

And then we met Alex in the cafe and Gurmit and Harry.

We had a coffee and sat outside the cafe, the weather was great, and Harry and Gurmit were filming us while we were sipping our drinks because the purpose of being there was the last bit of filming for a project that's taken a year.

We started over a year ago trying to put something together for the clinic, like the Rapha 'why' video.

We had a long-term video project inspired by Tom (and perhaps a little bit by me) where we would make a brilliant patient testimonial video for the front page of the website - the patient as the champion and a team video introducing the team.

And finally, the about us section, the philosophy of our business, we would have our 'why'.

We filmed lots of different things for this in lots of different places, but the final part was supposed to be bike riding.

And so, we were filming at Winnats Pass on a lovely day with Gurmit and Harry hanging out of a car or setting up a drone trying to capture the stuff that we wanted to see. The narrative around why riding your bike and training and enduring sport is a little bit like running your business.

Gurmit is amazing; I've talked about him many times here before.

He's the guy who made a film for Amazon called Get Gone, which has had over a million views.

But he turned up as he does, super cool, with a sweatshirt that just said 'namaste'.

At the end of the filming, we were finishing off, and I was rushing back to work, and Gurmit said, "Oh, Harry and I are just going to go up to the top of the hill there to that viewing point and contemplate life. Do you fancy coming?"

I stopped for a minute.

How much I would have liked to sit at the top of the hill with Gurmit and Harry that day, but I didn't.

I wonder if there will be another day that comes, hopefully not soon, where I really wish I had.

The next time I get that opportunity, I will.

I learned a lesson.