The Compound #5: Bali, Hyrox, and why good times make me nervous

Three weeks sounds like ages until you realise how much life admin sits between “great idea” and actually getting on the plane. Flights are booked, villa is sorted, training plan is mapped out, and I’m slowly remembering that moving your normal life to the other side of the world still involves your normal life.

This isn’t a holiday. That’s the bit people sometimes misunderstand. I’m not disappearing for three months to drink coconuts and pretend emails don’t exist. Toucan will still be running. Twenty One Beauty will keep on growing. Decisions will still need making. The only difference is that some of it will happen from a laptop in Bali instead of a desk in the UK.

Which, to be fair, is a pretty good difference.

I’ve always liked changing my environment. I think some people see that as a luxury, and in many ways it is, but for me it’s also become part of how I work best. New surroundings change how you think. They interrupt patterns.

But it’s not just work.

It’s also amazing for my relationships and for time with my son & wife.

At home, life gets very full very quickly. Work, commuting, training, meetings, errands, weekends that disappear before they’ve started. You’re together all the time, but sometimes you’re mostly just moving through the logistics of life.

Bali changes that.

More time outside. More breakfasts together. More walks. More swimming. More random little moments. More space to actually be present instead of just trying to get through the next thing.

My businesses, training and ambition matter, but I don’t want to build a life where the people closest to me only get the tired version of me at the edges of the day.

That’s the real benefit of changing environment for me.

“The goal isn’t to work less. It’s to build a life where work doesn’t take the best of you from everyone else”

I get it. Anything that becomes cult like gets the jokes. CrossFit got them. Veganism got them. Hyrox is getting them now.

It's been a long time since something genuinely changed gym culture. Hyrox has done that.

Running is back. Run clubs are everywhere. Hybrid training is everywhere. Gyms are adding sled tracks, ski ergs, wall ball targets, bigger functional areas and more open space because people don’t just want to look fit anymore.

Hyrox is the reason.

People want to be fit. That’s the part I like.

I still want to look good, obviously. Let’s not pretend I’ve had a personality transplant. But Hyrox has shifted the standard. It’s not enough to lift well if you can’t run. It’s not enough to run well if you fall apart on the stations. It’s not enough to be strong in a controlled environment if you can’t produce that strength under fatigue.

Cult or not, I'm in.

“I’m stronger, bigger, faster and fitter than I’ve ever been. Oh and I’m injury free. I’ll take the jokes.”

When things are going badly, it’s obvious you need to work harder. You lose a client, pipeline slows, a deal goes quiet, cash feels tighter, and suddenly everyone is focused. The pressure makes the problem impossible to ignore.

But when things are going well, that’s when people relax.

And that’s usually the worst time to take your foot off the gas.

Let me explain.

At Toucan, our pipeline can take a long time to build. Sometimes a client goes from first conversation to signed contract in a few weeks. But often it takes three to six months. Sometimes longer. So if we take our foot off the gas when things are going well, we don’t feel it immediately.

I think this is where fitness and business overlap more than people realise. You don’t wait until race week to build fitness. You don’t wait until you’re injured to care about recovery. You do the work before the consequences show up.

Business is the same. You don’t wait until pipeline is empty to start selling.

Enjoy the good periods, but don’t trust them too much. Momentum is useful, but it can also hide the things you’re neglecting. And the second you start believing things will stay good by default, you’re probably already creating the next problem.

That’s the lesson I’m leaning into this week…because right now everything feels very good.

“You don’t feel the impact of taking your foot off the gas when things are good. You feel it six months later.”