Russ Cook

Maybe I'm not trying to die in the Congo rainforest today.

Maybe I do want to have kids and a family and grow old.

It was very much an all or nothing mindset.

Like I said there, it was a run Africa or die trying kind of situation for me at the time.

So I was giving it everything I had.

But I also think that this is something maybe people don't understand so much about the project itself is that

Running was just one tiny part of getting that project underway.

So yes, I was running a lot.

I was running 200, 250k miles a week, kilometers a week even.

but I was also like, I've got no money and I need to basically build a business alongside this to fund the whole thing and I also need to recruit a team that are going to help me with this and I need to grow an audience online that can help the business, that can help this whole thing function.

So I was like, I was spread across a few different areas, you know, but...

A little bit.

I mean, I was probably on that sort of self-development arc as a young guy trying to find my, I'm trying to look for that direction.

So I was pulling bits and pieces in from that area.

I think one person I met that was actually pretty important in just

opening up that sort of way of looking things was a guy called Zach Allsop.

I don't know if you've heard of him, a YouTuber, really successful guy, makes great videos.

And I met him and he started talking to me a lot because I didn't know how media worked at all.

I didn't really have a Scoobies about any of this whole stuff.

And he was a YouTuber and he was like, right, you know, if you build, if you make content, you build an audience and these brands, look how much money these brands will give you to do this.