Pete Ward, Humanity: Going again

Amrit Santhirasenan 0:06

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startup that I co founded in: 2017

Pete Ward 0:57

Yeah. Hi, Amrit. It's It's great to be here. And thanks for inviting me on the show. So yeah, I'm Pete ward. I'm the co founder and CEO of a company called humanity. We are a consumer app that will help you understand what actions are working to slow or reverse ageing. And we do that by tracking the actions that you're already taking through biomarkers in your phone or in your wearables, and extrapolating that against ageing biomarkers digitally, clinically, and genetically. And what makes me a startup Dad? Well, I guess the obvious definition of having a child that child happens to be a lovely daughter named Lima, Sophia. And she's definitely the apple of my eye, and is definitely keeping me entertained when I'm not working every hour under the sun. And we also have a baby on the way number two, which is going to be a boy. And we've already got a name pegged for him, which will be Oslo, Brooklyn, following a cosy travelling theme there. So yeah, I'm smitten and grateful and delighted about that, too.

Amrit Santhirasenan 2:02

Amazing. Congratulations. So Pete, you're being extraordinarily humble that you know, you've gone from your first startup, building an international social travel network. And now what your new startup humanity, they're trying to reverse ageing. Can you tell me a little bit? How did you go on that journey? How did that happen? Talk us through that.

Pete Ward 2:20

Sure. No problem is a great question. I'm right. So yeah, indeed, I do believe in life. Sometimes, things get to choose you through the flow of life rather than you choose it. And this is definitely one of those situations. It all began when actually I was having a pint of Guinness with my now co founder, Michael gear. And we were at the web summit, which was the last one in Dublin before they moved to Lisbon. And he he kind of propositioned me, I think it must have been point two or three. Pete, what would you say? If I told you we could end ageing? So I'll answer that question with the obvious response, which is, how many pints of Guinness have you had? And he said, No, seriously, I think there's something in this which I'm seeing, which is enthralling. And I think we could do something that uses our skill sets to really make an impact. And so Okay, so I'm leaning in at this point, I'm going Okay, tell me more. And so he goes on to tell me about his personal journey, which was hugely inspiring for me. And to give you a bit of background context, Michael is someone who was a good friend, he had worked for me as my interim COO, Wayne, the tribal social network, you mentioned. And we learned that we could do great things together, not kill each other. And therefore, that was always a good thing in the back of our mind that one day, this could be someone I'd love to work with. And I always found him very impactful, very impact oriented, we did a campaign for fvck cancer. And that had a big effect to me that he was so passionate about doing something which was to try and raise awareness of these types of issues. And so to come back to the story, he told me that he had a personal tragedy, which we can all relate to. He had a family member and a high school friend who unfortunately got diagnosed with late stage cancer. They died within 12 months of diagnosis. And he felt completely helpless as to how to help them in that last phase of their lives, and of course, how to help his family and himself and others. And so that kind of took him down a bit of a rabbit hole where he started talking to all these top geneticists. And he had some pretty good success in his career similar to me. And so he would go to the top people in the genomics world or in stem cell research or immunology and literally ask these questions like, why are we not screening people? Why are we not only detecting and to cut a very long story short, he found this body of science where it was ageing science, and essentially what's better than early detection, it's prevention. And so if you think about what is ageing, it's the last function that happens in the body over time. So instead of focusing on the endpoint, that endpoint could be cardiovascular disease, it could be cancer, you know, if we can keep the body fully functioning, before it actually gets to a disease state, then that's going to knock out all of these downstream diseases further down the line. So that's the idea that enthralled him. And that's what led him to come to me. And then we went on our own collective quest, doing a bunch of science, fantasy camps, getting our genome sequences and everything else. And that led us to what became humanity.

Amrit Santhirasenan 5:35

That's amazing. Getting started again, how did that go? How did you approach that? You know, with all the experience and learnings you had, from the first time around, it's fascinating to me thinking about how different your new ventures are, maybe they're not, maybe they're not that different? I'll be interested in your thoughts there, you know, learnings from the previous one into the new one.

Pete Ward 5:52

Oh, yeah, you know, you ask any entrepreneur, and it's a constant struggle, where you're cutting teeth, and burning the candle, and banging heads against walls, climbing ladders against the wrong ones, learning as you go. And I think that happens, regardless of whether you're doing your first or second one. But I think the good thing about second time round is that you you've definitely learned a lot of things that you do differently. And so actually, it's really cathartic and amazing to feel like, Oh, now I get the chance to do this. And I don't have to go down that road, which I made the mistake of doing last time, how would I do it differently. Now I'm starting from scratch. And so I think it was definitely different. I felt very much like Wayne was almost like my playground to learn in a safe environment, what it means to be an entrepreneur and and to really like persevere through some of the biggest challenges, such that I'm like, out of that. And I'm like a trained boxer, who knows how to come into the fight and know how to jump straight back in, you know, we're a bit of sharpening up and you know, learning up on new things, but a lot of the principles, building a great culture, having a real clear mission, vision, purpose, set of values and living and breathing by them, treating your people with humanity and helping make an impact. You know, I think that's the highest level of integrity you can have. And perhaps that's the biggest difference from my previous startup where I was passionate about travel. And I believe everyone should travel because it's something that broadens the mind gives you more perspective on you know, your position in the world and how you treat other people. I think when it comes to health, and preventing people from getting sick, and giving them extra years of health span, it was a whole different level of realisation that we could affect change in a way that would not only affect the individuals, but their families and humanity as a whole. And that was something that really enthralled me,

Amrit Santhirasenan 7:49

yeah, I could see how doing this sort of thing with such a very obvious kind of personal clearly that, you know, your story about your co founder, gives such an incredible personal motivation to it. But it's this is not the sort of thing that's hard to relate to, is it at all for anyone,

Pete Ward 8:04

it's not. And you know, I didn't mention the part, which really pronged on my strings, which was that I also had a premature loss of my father, speaking of dad's place in a family unit, well, he got a stroke at 62 was in a coma for over a week, you know, touching go, he came out of that coma, after six months of being in a hospital, he had to be transferred to a nursing home, which could cater for his severity of disability. And, you know, we had him for another six years, which I was very grateful for, but you know, there was no quality of life there. He was depressed, you know, all he had to really enjoy was seeing us and coming around in his wheelchair to sort of see the family. But actually, it was more frustrating for him because he couldn't do anything cuz he couldn't do anything. And, you know, seeing that happen, and just realising that that came out of nowhere, he was, you know, in his 60s, and there are people that have a heart attack in their 40s or 50s, or get dementia. And these things, frankly, are often lifestyle induced, environmentally induced, and no one is aware, because it's this ticking time bomb, which no one's monitoring, and the only reason you will find out about anything when it's often too late, because you have symptoms, symptoms means it's got to the point where your body is telling you alert, alert, there's a problem. Whereas we need to give people this opportunity to understand how they're doing relative to how they should be doing their age. If you're finding out that 40 you're actually 50 biologically, I think people would want to know that so they can course correct and, and in many cases, reverse that trajectory so that they can get back to being a 40 year old or even potentially a 35 year old if they really play their cards right. And that's really the superpower that we want to help provide to as many people as possible on that,

Amrit Santhirasenan 9:50

you know, in a related subject there, I suppose, on the personal situation, nowadays, how does your mission cross the barrier between work and home because as we've talked about, already, you business so relatable. Do you end up kind of finding yourself naturally monitoring what the family does? Is this a team effort or the family beta testers? How does it work?

Pete Ward: 10:09

That is a great question again, I have to say, yes, we're like it or not. So to give you specifics, I've had my whole genome sequenced. My wife has had her whole genome sequenced. Obviously, I'm self testing in a manner of ways, whether it be wearing continuous glucose monitors or earrings, Apple watches, and everything else. And both my wife and I are both getting our bloods done every few months, every three months, essentially, which are part of the humanity service, which retesting, which she also uses on the app. And I think one of the best experiences I had was, you know, my wife is often in many family relationships, your harshest critic. And so she would kind of almost dismiss or I felt she was dismissing what I was doing in some respects, and I kind of accepted that because it's just me, and, you know, whatever I'll be doing would be a little bit like, whatever. But to be fair to her, she gave it a go, when she got her Apple Watch. And she got so excited. One day, she came back, she goes, Oh my god, I'm so happy. I'm ecstatic. And I'm like What's happened? And she said, I got 90 on my humanity score, I've shared it with my sister, my best friend, I'm just ecstatic. I thought she was having me on, I thought, you're just like saying this to make me feel happy or something. And she's like, No, I didn't realise that I can do this, I don't have to be running like 10k, or doing a 40 minute high intensity interval training workout, you know, so so for her to see that she can achieve a lot of the things that are seen as healthy, such as getting a good night's sleep, going for walks, meditating, she did whilst getting acupuncture at the time, these were things that were like eye opening for her and made her think, oh, there are ways in which I can do this within the propensity of what I'm likely to do, because that's one of the things that we really look at is like causal inference, and propensity scoring. So it's no point telling someone who's never ran before that they should go into a marathon. It's just and frankly, marathons are probably not that healthy for you. So there's all these different things and and how I apply that to my family life is, you know, monitoring is really important. Understanding information about how our health is going is really important. And so because me and my wife got our genome sequence, we can see what carrier status we have in our recessive genes, which means we already knew before we would have our children, what risk factors, there could be if both recessive genes became dominant in our children. So, so these are kinds of the things that we've done. And of course, my wife is vegan, and she's giving our daughter a very wholesome vegan plant based diet, which seems to be working perfectly fine, because she's like, developing really well and is full of energy. So So yeah, yeah, I think we're just trying to do the best we can.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 13:00

It's fantastic. What are the things that I've always been struck by when, and I've learned this myself and with fellow entrepreneurs is how much it is a full family effort a start up, right. It's just a total, it's an all encompassing family effort. I don't know, if you've got thoughts on that.

Pete Ward: 13:16

I think I read randomly off a Twitter feed, talking about her experiences as a wife of a husband, who was a founder. Now, I'm sure this works both ways if you're the female founder, or the male founder, but it was like, essentially typifying their relationship as there's three people in that relationship, there's your business, there's your partner, and there's you. And that's obviously even before you've had kids. So I think that's a fair way of describing it, you know, there is this, this mistress, if you like, which requires a huge amount of your attention. And that mistress, if you like to one of a better word is competing with the attention of your partner and your family. And so getting the balance right is super important. And so, to be very specific, as an example, we have built frameworks to try and stop me from spending too long on the business because that I can always find more things to work on because we're always behind on what I want us to achieve, which is like the classic dilemma any founder finds themselves in. But you know, I stopped at six you know, we have meal times pretty regimented at one o'clock lunchtime six o'clock dinner time. If anything I will then after putting lemur to bed around seven 730 will then do some work or we'll do something together.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 14:39

That's brilliant. I can relate to that very strongly because yeah, in my calendar, no between five and seven everyday is easy time. And my team new joiners go What's this Evie Tyler? Like Evie is the real CEO of hx right? She's the 15 month old boss and she's in charge. So I think that's a fantastic strategy. So P I'd like to cyclists back to I suppose you know, thinking about the learnings that you carried between Wayne and humanity. So coming at a completely new problem a few years after rounding up your last venture, things are different this time I, you know, so many things about the world about you about everything that what you're doing now will be different. So can I ask I suppose what about your life in a perspective has changed the most? Particularly, I suppose, in the context of the learnings you had at Wayne, but, you know, more broadly as well.

Pete Ward: 15:24

Yeah, where do you start? I mean, it all depends on what time point, right, I think, I think it would be right to say that one of the things that really helped me throughout my Wayne journey was having a community that, that I became a part of, and co created, at the time called ice stands for the International conclave of entrepreneurs. And, and I make mention to that, because as a founder, and other founders listening to this will, no doubt relate, it can be a very lonely journey. And even if you have co founders, there's very few people that really understand, you know, psychologically, emotionally, you know, what you're going through, you know, because it kind of doesn't, you know, doesn't feel the same from an outside perspective. And so having a community of like minded founders to have a drink with party with commiserate with celebrate with, you know, all of the kinds of different sort of spectrum of emotions was hugely impactful for me. And, and that's something that carried me to sort of feel that even when the chips were down, and stuff was tough. And you know, to be specific, again, on Wayne, you know, we, we had the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows, you know, we exited a bit of money at the beginning, so became millionaires very early on. But then we also went from almost selling for a few 100 million to almost going bust. In fact, we almost went bust 15 times, it almost became business as usual, almost going bust, you know, to the point where I was having a dinner at a dinner party a day or two before running out of cash and kind of half nonchalantly joking that I will probably go out of business in the next couple of days. But hey, I'm sure we'll find a way. And somehow, some way we did, I mean, it was it almost became strange that we would just find a way some some way which we would continue to get out of this, this sort of like being on the edge. And you know, we ended up persevering and then we successfully exited to a large online travel agency known as last minute calm group, which was a great outcome for everyone involved. So. So I think that was a big lesson in really having to struggle hard. And the way I handled that, at the time is by interestingly enough, sort of devouring myself into health and fitness and, and mental toughness and well being. So as I read every personal development book, I would like, make sure I'm building habits into my life, so that, you know, whatever I face during the day, at my work life, I can deal with it because I'm not stressed, you know, I've had good sleep, I've managed to do some exercise I've done what I thought the time was the things that needed to do. And I think without that, plus the community support because you know, this feeling of having a comfort blanket of support really made a difference, you felt like you weren't on your own

drove me. And so what's different, what's different now is that I am much more aware and appreciative of those things. And it's only further concentrated my appreciation for how those things can have a positive or negative effect on one's health. So I guess, I've only just taken it to a more of an extreme. What I know now I didn't know then is all the things that are now much more at the coalface of what helps you cognitively mental health wise, you know, as well as physical health and just understanding that a lot of conventional wisdom is not necessarily true. And there's a lot of things that if you look at the data, it can really help guide you as to where one should go. And so monitoring myself being more aware of, you know, mistakes I've made knowing there's a support framework there and just particularly lockdown, right, we're all Groundhog Day, every day. So it's a perfect opportunity to like optimise and tweak and iterate every single aspect of how you spend your day. So that when I write in my journal, at the end of the day, it's like the last thing I have to write is, what's the one thing that I could make today even more amazing, like classic positive psychology like it's not what went bad today and you can improve that what could you make even more amazing, but it really sort of resets you and think, Oh, I should have gone to bed half an hour earlier yesterday. Or, you know, I shouldn't have eaten you know, after that 9pm because, you know, I think it's gonna affect my sleep. And so all these little things were just like tweak, tweak, tweak. And yeah, I just think you feel a lot more present and a lot less stressed funny enough about what may happen because you kind of have this almost spiritual belief that as long as you do the right things, good will come in your path, and and that flow of life will take you to where you need to get to.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 20:27

That's amazing. I mean, I suppose Firstly, what incredible grit to go through those highs and lows of, you know, nearly losing it 15 times amazing journey to go through. So can I ask Pete, what is your relationship with stress? Is it different now, in the context of you heard, having had a successful exit in the way you frame your humanity for yourself? To some extent, it's probably less or differently about the money now. Right, that will change your relationship to what success means? And does do you feel differently about stress? With this one?

Pete Ward: 21:01

I mean, I think a bit of stress is healthy for you is the degree to which stress is being used to drive or put you in overdrive. And I think that it's actually a lot of scientific evidence to show that a little bit of stress is a good thing is it's about having good habits to manage that stress. And I think I have, you know, stronger habits now than I had before. Albeit I had to develop those habits in a back against the wall, kind of, how do I had it? How do I keep myself sane sort of way. So part of that was just like survival, right, I had to learn what to do to keep my head above water. And I think now where I'm less against the wall, when I'm able to carve out and curate something new from start, I can be a little bit more intentional about how I want it, how I want to manifest those types of outcomes. And so, you know, yes, money is, is not at all the motivator to the point where it probably should be more of a motivator than it is just for the sake of giving the best possible outcome for my family on that. But, you know, I believe that that will sort itself out as long as I focus on the right things. So yeah, I think you become, you know, it's like that kind of pyramid of self actualization. You know, it's like when you, when you have your basic needs met, you become less concerned about how do I meet the basic needs, you're then focused on more, how can I fulfil my potential, and then how can I then impact interdependently as many people as possible, because that will, that contribution, as well as my growth, will, will have an A way of also fulfilling me beyond my current comprehension. So I just kind of just trust in the process. And I feel that this, this inner journey I'm on with humanity, is a vehicle by which I can I can grow and contribute more in that regard.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 22:52

Absolutely love that framing are so wonderful, you've got an incredibly kind of uplifting, positive framing, on the way you go about your business, which I think is brilliant. And I think I think lots of people don't realise with successful high growth businesses or you know, successful startups or businesses is that money reasonably quickly, if you if you're lucky enough, and have worked hard enough to, to make your business successful, it long ceases to be the source of stress, I really like the way you frame that, like, stress is a nice way of driving positive response, right, in certain circumstances, if you can control it, but you know, thinking about how you can frame that stress. So that end outcome is growth in the right way.

Pete Ward: 23:28

Yeah, and there's I mean, there's so many different sort of learnings from different books and life experiences and sources, but I one that comes to mind when you were saying that was a guy called Gao, who set up his own kind of community of transformation programme, you know, kind of like your life personal development programme, and he and he came with us to one of the ice trips to Montenegro, I think it was on that one. And he had this this exercise that we all did in groups. And they kind of the essence of the exercise was that all these pain points in our lives, these situations that were perhaps difficult to deal with emotionally, for whatever reason, whether it be financial hardship, you know, breakup or business failing, we're actually the opportunity is for you to lean in and grow. And so that just that reframing of everything being a teachable moment to grow personally, I think is super powerful thing to have in your armoury. Because then you to remind yourself these things are always temporary, you know, whatever pain or suffering you're going through, nothing lasts forever, it's no permanent. So that is, is a current situation, you always have a choice on how you deal with that. Now, I know that's easy to say, some people become paralysed, you know, through depression, anxiety, and so on. But even if you just theoretically understand that premise, it can give you a sort of a focal point of hope to think about, well, I know it's possible. So how do I how do I find my way out of that? And actually, it does sort of segue nicely to say that one of the things I have found as a great support outside of just the community is is therapy, you know, I have benefited from personal therapy, which was actually triggered from the fact that I thought someone else had a problem, but I couldn't change them. So I better, you know, start by trying to work out what I can do to change them. And then I realised, actually, what I needed to do is change myself. And so that was really powerful. I also then did what we call cubes in ice, which is a similar thing to forums in YPO, or there's different sort of tribes and various other things where you get in a group of, you know, in our case, eight people where you is highly confidential, highly vulnerable, trusting of sharing your challenges and concerns and wins on a monthly basis, you all meet up, you know, without fail every month, and it's like a four and a half hour session, and you basically use like cashed out, which is essentially sharing my experience, so you don't give any advice. So there's no judgement environment. And it's amazing what you learn from realising you're not the only person going through this, this tough time, because we all go through them at different times of our lives in different contexts. And so you take a huge amount of Catholicism from that, it kind of makes it much more manageable. And then lastly, I've even had couples therapy, which again, you know, is a is not because we have issues it was because I realised, Wow, this is so powerful, I'm getting so much benefit, why wouldn't I if I can invest in developing a stronger bond with my wife, particularly as we as we have a storm coming, which is, you know, a second child on the way which I'm going to have to get ready for because it will change things. And yet again, it's just been hugely helpful and reaffirming and preparing us for that storm in the best possible way.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 26:50

Yeah, Ken, that's a really refreshing thought provoking framing on the use of proactive mental health development. Right? In the same way that you know, you manage your fields fiscal health, you can have defensive strategies to try and manage your health where you don't do harm, or try and mitigate, try and heal. But then you've also tried to strengthen. And I don't think people think about necessarily therapy and kind of mental health development, I suppose maybe we're seeing a little bit of a difference now with, it's not all driven by technology, but meditation and philosophy becoming much more prevalent in modern society again, which is fantastic.

Pete Ward: 27:24

Absolutely. And we're seeing I mean, there's a lot of scientific evidence that shows that meditation helps you develop grey matter in the brain, which can help strengthen mental well being and cognitive health as well. So this is like an example of something that we monitor in the humanity app, which we're developing. And that's, you know, a key part of the holistic health that we're talking about. Because, you know, indeed, it's a great way to become present, become more in touch with how you're feeling and to just centre yourself, be more calm and intentional. I think with that with your day, for sure.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 28:01

Yeah, really, really great insights there. So Pete, before we wrap up with the startup shoutouts, I'd like to ask you the question I'll ask to every guest. So what's the biggest lesson you've learned from your journey in entrepreneurship that you'd like to pass on to your your kids? Now your kids plural? Well,

Pete Ward: 28:17

I think the first and foremost is really try to understand what it is that you want. And that means, you know, what fulfils you, you know, what are your values? You know, what is your personal mission? You know, what would you like to experience in your life? What outcomes would you like to achieve, and then think about which kind of career path will get you there. So, certainly don't want them to think that the only way to, you know, to success in the broad measure of successes and happiness, of course, is is is by becoming an entrepreneur, it's definitely not for the faint hearted, and it's not the right path for everyone. I hope that I can lead by example and show strength of character and mission and in the way that I approach what I do, such that the principles you know, the positive principles, at least are emulated by by my children, but I think the number one message I say to them is to, to follow their heart and pursue their dreams and to expect knocks along the way, but, but ultimately persevere, the number one word I would use is perseverance. Because every every successful person in any field, whether it be as a parent, as a CEO, or as a doctor, or in any any profession, frankly, you know, it's the perseverance of not giving up, you know, on your dreams and doing something towards it. Because everything you do, even if it's not exactly what you want to do in the sort of build up to that is probably building the foundation. So just always have in mind, be prepared to do things for nothing. To build the experience. Take the time to learn and educate as people talk to people who can, you know, give you advice. Get mentors, all of these sorts of things. And you'll be surprised, I think, what will come back to sort of help you and guide you along the way, and be present to what comes in front of you and you know, seize the day take take the take the opportunities as you see them. But of course, also, you know, have the time for friends, for travel, for experiencing life, don't make any decision too quickly. So I would definitely be encouraging them to, to not rush, and then take their gap years, you know, do do something, perhaps purposeful things I wish I did do, which I did. And hopefully just give them the best possible start, and Educational Foundation and family upbringing that I possibly can.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 30:40

Wonderful, I think, as you say, you know, understanding yourself, there's, there's certainly no better way, in my experience to learn about yourself than to set up your own business.

Pete Ward: 30:49

Stephanie, one way to do it, I think, you know, that people say, can you are you born an entrepreneur or you can be made into I don't believe that you are born to be entrepreneur. But I think that there's a good parallel with with health, right, your health, like your genetics, for example, you are born with your genetic code, but the expression of your genes, I, which genes turn on and off is a function of your environment. And what you're exposed to is that trauma and trauma can be passed to your children, you know, genetically, you can believe that, because it affects how your genes adapt to the environment that they're currently facing. So I think that we are a function of our environment massively. So hence, it's important to provide a nurturing in a loving and supportive family environment. And I think where I've seen, I believe, a lot of previous generations, perhaps go not, so I don't wanna say they go wrong, it's just not the way I would do it, frankly, because it's everyone's ways, their own way. And I respect that. But it's like, I wouldn't want my children to not have a relationship with her father or mother, because we're working to create a future for them, really, what they want is just to spend time with their, with their mommy and daddy. And so, you know, who might sort of deny them of that just so that I can provide them with the golden ticket? You know, I don't think that's actually more important. I think it's much more important to give them the love and support and encouragement they need in the early years through to whenever they want for the rest of their life, frankly, but, you know, that's the most important thing you can give them is love and support and encouragement, and then I'm sure the rest will take care of itself.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 32:21

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a beautiful way to kind of wrap up the main part of the podcast, because it kind of doesn't really matter, the scale of which anything you build, because quite frankly, your children don't care. Like they think they care they care most deeply about is whether you play with them and making the most time and you know, there's nothing more levelling than having that, you know, in my experience to

Unknown Speaker: 32:47

startup, shout out.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 32:50

Well, look, Pete, thank you so much. You know, just before we wrap up fully, I'd like to close as we normally do with our regular feature, startup shout outs, where we shine the light on one of the organisations in the startup ecosystem that we admire. So I'd like to give you the chance to do that now, Pete?

Pete Ward: 33:06

Great, yes. So there's a couple of startups that come to mind who I am particularly excited about. One is a company called mind stone, which is founded by Joshua Rowley, who is also the founder of super awesome, they're building a next generation platform that will help us learn faster using technology. I think that's always a great shout. Because, you know, in this fast paced, distractive social media world, we need ways to retain and engage with useful information in a more more helpful way. So so that's definitely one to check out. And another one, which is full disclosure, as well, I'm advisor to is is a company called heights. So Dan Murray, and Joel Freeman, two co founders, who are also advisors to humanity, but I have to give them a shout out because they're inspiring to me, you know, in terms of, you know, how to do a lot of brand marketing and to sort of, you know, be helpful to other founders. And there's a lot of similarities in the path that Dan, in particular and myself have taken and being community LED and trying to do what we can to be participants in the ecosystem. So I'd say they're the two Rachel's Cora kids is great. I could go on.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 34:23

Brilliant. Well, my favourite part about that is that you happen to name check two of our previous guests.

Pete Ward: 34:27

Oh, really? Oh, there you go. There's some synchronicity right there.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 34:32

Well, it Pete, thank you so much for that one of our most transparent kind of vulnerable, open episodes we've had today, loads of stuff, I absolutely love the kind of positive framing you have on growth. And I think as you rightly say, every experience has an opportunity to learn and refine yourself and develop yourself and you know, thinking about that, how that kind of dovetails and ties in to your mission, highly authentic episode we've had today. So anything that you'd like to talk about with respect to humanity, or your Before we wrap up, oh yeah, sure.

Pete Ward: 35:01

I'd love to just let everyone know that we've got an amazing app that we're bringing out to the world in the next few months. It's in early access private beta at the moment. You can sign up for early access or request access through the website, which is www dot humanity dot health. And yeah, reach out to me or you know, follow us on Instagram or LinkedIn. Look out for some different stuff we're doing on clubhouse. We're actually doing a collaboration with Dan from part of the brain Care Club on clubhouse every Tuesdays at eight ish pm. So check us out.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 35:39

Thank you so much coming on the show. Fantastic.

Pete Ward: 35:41

Real pleasure on that.

Amrit Santhirasenan: 35:45

Monday, thanks to today's guest. You'll find links to them and their work in the show notes. Join our community of parent founders, head over to the startup dads Facebook group.