Robert (Robbie) Whittall: 113 mins of Unhinged conversations with The Man Behind Ozone Paragliders

It was the first time ever that I just realised how totally and utterly insignificant I was, and it's a beautiful thing to have a moment in your life where you just are, to recognise that you are smaller than a leaf in the wind. This landscape is so vast and so huge and so dauntingly threatening, but at the same time beautiful. It's amazing. Yeah. And then it was I got this is really out there. This is, you know, nothing. And yeah, it was that moment that, yeah, just changed. It actually probably changed my life. Hello and welcome back to Paragliding Atlas Podcast. I'm your host Aninder Singh, and

in case you have been wondering, why did I take such a long time to get back to you? My reason for that is that life has been absolutely magically fun in the past few weeks, or months I would say. Airtime was coming and taken fast, and I was exploring the world from above in places that I'd always wished for. Long story short, a lot of travels, more or less living the dream the way it is supposed to be done. And yeah, screen time was not a priority. However, with that being said, I have missed being here. I have missed interacting with you. But a massive thank you to all

of you guys who came up in person and said hello while my travels were going on. And now for today, we have someone who we can consider as one of the real Ogs of the sport. I'm talking about none other than the man himself, Robbie Whittle, who also is known by the name Robert Whittle, which I just discovered today. Robbie, welcome to the show. This is an honour beyond words. Well, thank you very much for the invitation. And I'm not really quite sure it's such an honour because it's only me, but thank you very much for inviting me and I'm looking forward to talking to you. Robbie the reason why I'm so,

and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one, I think a lot of members in the audience can also relate to this. Having somebody come out and chase their dreams to the fullest is an inspiration to watch and having someone do that in the in the passion that you share yourself is very relatable, I would say. So, I mean, this is a huge and wide question, but usually when you look back at the way you have managed to live life, what is one thing that you said that you did right, which kept you on track in getting what you really wanted? Right. Well, yes, it's a, it is a, it's a question.

Is that one? That's a real question. Well, if I if I think honestly and openly, then the real answer is dedication. It's dedication to the cause. And you know, if you look around you, all the people who are successful in whatever they choose to be successful in, the primary factor in their success is dedication. For sure, you need to have a sort of love and a passion for whatever it is that you're involved in, but you also need a single minded kind of dedication. And I would say that in my life with the different phases of my life, the one sort of constant is that there has been

dedication towards something. So in the early years, then it it was Hang Gliding, then that turned into paragliding, which is still flying. That is it. I was dedicated to free flight, shall we say. Then it turned into business. And I was very dedicated in business or to the business. I wasn't sorry when I say dedicated to business. I was dedicated to my part of the business, which was research and development. Again, still involving flying. Because really if it, when I look at myself, I'm dedicated to, to sport in a way, you know, so flying's a sport. Kiting as I moved into, later moved into kites and kite design.

It was dedication to the sport because I, I like to be active and moving. But the overall factor is yes, as I say, all all success seems to be underlined by dedication. You know, Robbie, I, I resonate with that very well because eventually, umm, you know, when I was growing up, I was chasing field hockey pretty, pretty hard. You know, I wanted to be in the Olympics, wanted to get on the podium, chase the gold. And when you, when you have emotions that strong in your daily routine, it's, it's not that hard to become obsessed with your craft. So how do you is there a way to define dedication versus

obsession? Or is it more or less the same thing that we speak about, whether we just label it differently depending upon the time?

These are great questions, honestly.

You know, dedication and obsession. Let's say that dedication is the polite way of saying obsession. And we like to use polite terms when we're talking about ourself and when we're talking about others. So we use the word the word dedication rather than obsession. But, you know, I can definitely say that I have an obsessive nature because I obsess about these things. When once a feeling, for instance, let's we'll just go to that feeling in the beginning, when I first went free flying solo, flying myself on a hang glider, the feeling was so amazing and yeah, so expansive in the way that I felt a certain freedom that I'd never felt

before that I became ultimately so dedicated to it that it was my obsession, you know, So yes, I'm very much obsessed. But I think that there's nothing wrong with obsession or dedication to that level where you're obsessed because so long as it's in a positive nature, you know, you don't want to be obsessed with things that are destructive to your nature and to other people. But when they are, you know, the more time I spent in the air, I probably believe they the better it was for me because, you know, in a way it was a release or it was a release and a connection. At the same time, you know,

you're you're releasing the constraints of society and the world that we live in. And at the same time, you're truly connecting with the elements, which is fulfilling, which is refilling the part of what you're releasing. Because, you know, I think it's quite easy to see that when we live in a constructed society, which we do, it might not align with the true self. And so therefore we need to find these escapes. And for me, that escape was flying. And yes, it became my obsession. So in a in a very positive way. Yeah, I love the word positive. The the original word positive in the end, because I think that

is very important to mention. The reason I'm saying that is I had Russ Ogden on my show in the previous episode. And after we stopped recording, Russ was very kind to stay with me for a chat. And we, we ended up speaking about you because I was, I was discussing my dreams with Russ. And I was like, Russ, you know, Long story short, I want to have my life full of flying. And, and he was like, what is your inherent desire? What do you really want to make out of it? And I was like, if I can go out and fly every day, I'll feel that I have one at lice.

And he was like, yeah, but you don't want to lose the fun of it or the joy of it or, you know, whatever it comes. So when it comes to making it big or making things happen, you need to define your calling. And once you've done that, it comes down to the point that how, how bad you want it, which we just spoke about. And then what's very important is how not to overdo it. Because it's very well known fact that too much of anything is bad, right? If you, if you just keep on getting into that loop and then it like it's, it's a spiral, which can quickly turn into

something counterproductive. So my question is that you have fixed the first few steps where you are putting in the work, but now how to not get bored of that work? Is is that something that you've managed to unlock in your life, or is change the only constant and that's why moving on to something more exciting or different is the only way to keep it alive? Oh, I really. Yeah. This is. It's incredible because you're touching on many points that I'm reflecting on just generally my life and learning about myself because yes, you know, a very good question again, And the the reason being is because when I reflect on myself and my past

and my current situation is yes, I've always been obsessed with

what I'm currently involved in. And then I tend to do somewhere in the region of 10 years worth of being very, very committed to something and then everything changes again because I do love change. You know, without going too deeply into sort of philosophy and the understanding of self, then what I can say, looking now back and reflecting and trying to get a better understanding of my picture is we can chase these things. They will almost certainly never satisfy us regardless of what we're doing. Because I am beginning to understand, or maybe it's not understand. I'm beginning to want to create an answer for myself, which is what the mime does.

It's great at creating answers that we want to align with and that is basically that it doesn't matter what we try and fill ourselves with, to become content and to have inner peace is only going to come from within. So no matter how much we try and do and what we try and do, you know, if we want to become wealthy or if we want to make flying our only thing and we just fly everyday, it still isn't going to bring any form of true contentment. The, the real feeling of content, being content with yourself is going to come from within. And it's probably going to come from some form of meditation

that requires nothing other than yourself and silence and the ability to, to voyage within here and within here. Everything exterior to that is just purely, not purely, I can't say that sorry. It it could just be sensory stimulation that we require to, to entertain ourselves until we are ready to go on that sort of inner journey. As such, I'm just becoming ready now to embark on this inner journey where I am finding meditation and peace and quiet. For instance, I was, I've, I've always been involved in exciting sports. They have been what have driven my life and what I've considered a value in my life. Now I'm very much into gardening.

Why am I into gardening? Well, I don't really know, apart from it's not as exciting as any of those sports. It doesn't bring me any adrenaline, but at the same time putting my hands in the earth and nurturing these plants and trying to make this garden, this sort of mini food forest that I'm trying to create has become a bit more of a passion because it is fully tranquil and it doesn't require this stimulation that I've been looking for in the past. There's no adrenaline. There's just purely a peace that it brings to my mind, to my being and enjoyment of just watching it do what it does and helping it do what it does.

So it's very different to what I've used in the past as a stimulation and this is now stimulating, but in a very different way. Yeah. OK. So this is something that I kind of think about a lot myself because I mean the the curiosities are similar, you know, from from what I've spoken to you so far. One thing that I've realized or discovered over a period of time is that, and I think this this comes from Will Gad, who I had on my show back in the day as well when I was just starting out. And he said that it's the young ones who go out and make the

change, who push for something different than what it is. So you need that testosterone to get the ball rolling. But when I see sitting still or having the ability to sit down with your thoughts and make peace with them, it's usually the mature ones who are able to do it. What I am wondering for a very long time is that is this just a part of being human? That in the early years of your life you will have all the excitement, the uneasiness or the curiosities to go out and chase the adrenaline or whatever you define it as. And then eventually nature slows you down and you start making more peace with your reality.

That adrenaline or the the dissatisfaction that comes with chasing adrenaline or that Cambridge chasing adrenaline can come in other ways as well. So Long story short, is this just a nature's way of making life complete as a human, or is is this something that we as humans can particularly be aware of? Where if you sit still as a young person then you are going to be a cut above the wrist? Because eventually it's the survival of the fittest which makes the species go forward, right? And if you are able to do something which the rest of the gene pool is not doing, then you are definitely surviving better

than the others, yes. What's what's your thought on that? Yes. Well, I think, you know, we're we're about yeah, we're about to get sort of slightly deeper on our philosophy, philosophical understandings of life. I would say to try and wrap that up in something that I think is the truth is that I think we're born into a structured society that is very far from one that is natural and we discover ourselves through whatever means we can. And for me, you know, I, I was never good at school. This is why I've come up with my understanding of myself. I was never good at school because I was put into a system that didn't suit me.

So when you're put into a system that doesn't suit you, but you're beaten in that system, you know that that system is your parents, That system you know, because the your parents are in the system. But when that whole system doesn't align with the natural true essence of a human life, then we do all these things until finally we start to recognise that all this is just noise. And then you find the true path to the natural human life. And that's why, yes, we could say it's the young ones that go out and do this than the other. But in all honesty, I think that everything is just a reaction from not living a true human

life. And, you know, a nurtured, we're nurtured into competition rather than into harmony. Why would we be nurtured into competition? Well, because the whole of the modern society is basically financial competition. So but that is far from anything that is natural because we don't have to have it isn't actually survival of the fittest. That's what we have to actually understand as well. It is when you think of fittest, we always think of, you know, the strongest. The guy that got the no, no, it, it's the person who is able to harmonise with the environment and the other people who becomes the person who comes to the top because it's the person who is

closer to harmony is surviving better. The person who is aggro and get out of my way, I'm climbing to the top. He's not surviving very well because he has to fight every day. The person who harmonises every day is the fittest. But it takes us a long time to understand and to get to that harmony because we're bought into a system that is about fighting. And it's not until we start to mature and have the corners of ourselves knocked off through these battles that we start to recognise that actually, you know, at this present moment in time there are conflicts over the world that are unfortunate. And I can now see the immaturity

in those conflicts because there can no, there can never be a conflict that is won. There is. Always going to be discontent and a so-called contentness from the the, the, the, the successor, the the winner. But if harmony isn't reached, nobody's really won. You have to reach harmony because harmony is effectively the only way forward. So yes, these expressions that we have when we're younger and these things that we do are all just a shakedown to eventually, hopefully find a harmonic rhythm with yourself and the universe. How's that for you?

I love that we are connecting on such a harmonious level to begin with. You know, I mean, it's, it's amazing to have somebody open up to you and give you the trust to have these conversations. The, the, the, the dilemma. I wouldn't even say a question. Robbie, the dilemma. And I'm going to take this a bit more personal, so bear with me, my audience members. We will come back to the Flying talk very soon. This is flying. This is flying. You know, it's all an expression of freedom. And we have to express ourselves. We have to allow these things, these ideas, you know, let your ideas fly.

It's the same thing as when you take off and you want to fly across country, you know, you, you have to link the information to be able to make the next thermal the next thermal. Well, we also have to link the information within ourselves to be able to make the next step in our evolution, in our personal evolution to, to find, you know, if I, if I just came here for a life and then didn't ever find something closer to harmony, then I would be disappointed on my deathbed because I wouldn't have achieved what I need to achieve. What I need to achieve at some point in my life is a form of

harmony within myself, within the universe, within this life where I feel that's it, I'm good, I'm content. From here on, it's just icing on the cake. And so we need to be talking about these things because in the modern world, we're very muddled up in thinking that achievement and success are things that are measured by wealth and by the activities that we've LED in our life. It's not the only only success can the only success that can really be measured is at the end of your life, when the curtains are about to be drawn or parted, whichever way you want to see it, and you are content within yourself and you feel that

you've achieved what you should have achieved.

This, this. No, no, no, I love it. I love it. It's just that I'm thinking something super deep right now and I'm contemplating if it is the right moment to share it or not because this is a public quota and I'll be speaking to like this is this is going to be an Internet forever. You know, there's not going anywhere and people will listen to it. But The thing is, I definitely, you know, have the trust with you to feel comfortable enough to share with it. Then I would request anybody who's listening to this to yeah, like have a certain bit of yeah, just just judge it with your own

words. Because coming to Harmony, you know, the, the thing that comes to my mind right now, as, as he was speaking, I was thinking in my own head. If at the end of the day, when it's time for the curtains, you can say that yes, it's been a ride which you're happy with, then that is a harmonious position to be in. Recently I had the opportunity to experience something I would say that I had wished and yearned and looked forward to and visualized for decades, not even years, decades like you can say ever since I was a kid, I wanted to do that. And I'm talking about pilot shoot assist base from a

parallel letter. I mean, ideally, I like if you ask me, my yearning was wingsuit base and that is still is that I will go ahead and chase it. But for for the audiences who are wondering, pilot chute assist base jump is basically where there is someone else responsible for holding your pilot chute while you jump out and that pilot chute opens up the main canopy. And when you do it from pilot lighters, there's practically not a lot of things that can go wrong because you are in open space. And even if there's a twist, because I have a pilot lighting experiences, you can, you know, be with the risers.

And so they're very safe. First base jump of the life, I would say, or a way to get into it. I was in Lauterburger in Switzerland a few weeks ago and I met a friend of mine randomly and he was jumping and I was like, hey, man, so cool to see you. And we ended up speaking and he was like, yeah, do you want to jump? I was like, yeah, no, you know, within, within a second, my answer was like, yes. He was like, Are you sure you're you're you're going to trust me just like that. And I was like that, not even a question. Yeah.

Before the paraglider take off, when I was all rigged up, you know, everything was good. Once a thought came to my mind that I mean, I trust the technology, I trust my friend, I trust the procedures. There's no question about having a doubt right there. But then it's like, do anything can happen to anyone at any time. That is the norm of life. If it is the time to call it a day, are you OK with the reward that you're chasing? And somehow the answer was yes, Robbie. I was OK with that, considering whatever I've done in the past 36 years of my existence on this planet.

Was that a harmonious position? Like, am I in harmony? Is is that how you define something like that?

Well, it's risk to reward and I have taken many risks for the reward because that was a lot of what I did for my life really. You know, I've, I've done some base jumping and raced, raced motorcycles and been a test pilot for, you know, 20 years falling out of the sky and many incidents have, you know, excitement and, and bravado. But I think I'm talking about something slightly different where it's nothing to do with

you can deal with risk to reward because your desire for the reward means that the risk is worth taking. But sort of where I'm currently, it's just somewhere it's slightly different because it's not about risk or anything. It's not about risk to reward. It is purely about contentment and finding, being content in with less, with nothing being content with, you know, for instance, Once Upon a time my life was, oh, I was so involved in my life that if I was in a queue waiting for something to happen, yeah. You know, if I had to wait in a queue and it was going to take 20 minutes, I would be uncomfortable for those 20

minutes because it's like, oh, come on, I've got, I've got things to do. I, I could be doing this. I could be doing that. Now the idea is to stand in that queue and wait in that queue in line very comfortably within myself, being able to meditate on the fact that this doesn't matter, because it doesn't matter that it's going to take me 20 minutes and I might miss something and the flight's going to is going to take off and I'm not going to be on it. Once Upon a time, that would have been a stress. Oh my God, I'm going to miss the flight and oh God, you know,

that means I'm not going to get to the other end and the other people that are waiting for me. It's all a pain in the neck. Well, now I just stand there and wait for the for the line to go down until it's my turn. And I try and be peaceful the whole time rather than wanting or creating this thing within me. And so that I'm just sort of trying to, to, to get that, to, to find that harmony in everything. You know, don't get me wrong, I'm not getting, I don't get, I can't find this harmony everywhere, but it's starting to search for it everywhere so that

I'm more present in the moment rather than yes, getting carried away with the rewards. Yes, no matter how. Yes, no matter how hard it is. God damn. Yeah, but that doesn't, doesn't that make sense? Because that that really is, you know, I, I, I'm going through things at the moment that are not particularly comfortable. But Once Upon a time it would have been much more uncomfortable. But now I'm learning to to deal with the discomfort and. Yeah, to find peace with it and to harmonise with it because, because it's the best way. You know, friction, whenever there's friction, you know, it's so simple words, harmony, harmony and friction.

Harmony is only going to lead to contentment and some form of comfort. Friction is not going to lead to to that. And if you create friction and you're creating one thing, and if you try and, you know, align with harmony, you're getting something else. So yeah, we we do have to try and harmonise and just be cool with the way things are. OK, let's let's simplify it a bit more for audiences who might be thinking, and I want to put this in cross country terms. I think I know, like I was speaking to a Parakite pilot the other day and he was like, why do you even fly cross country? Man?

You guys land pissed all the time. No matter. I think this is this is Paul Tucker. I don't know who, but some guy, a pretty big name in the industry named Benny Collin. He was like cross country pilots land as sore losers every time or most of the time and the Bob out Paris parakaiting is is so much more fun. So anyways, what I'm trying to say is that practice makes a man perfect with a very known very well known saying. Long story short, the more you practice dealing with your challenges, the more the better you get at navigating them. Is like to to put it in simpler

words, first breakup hurts the most and later on it doesn't that bad. So the more you do it the better you get at it. Is that the bottom line of life?

Well, only if you're searching to become better at it, yes, But the search to become better at it has to be a conscious search. Otherwise, no, it'll just, you know, and The thing is that I, I, there's no right or wrong in life. There is just individual journeys and everybody's entitled to their own journey. And some people may desire to chase the adrenaline buzz to the end. Great, Well, that's fantastic. Good. Good luck with that. I hope you enjoy it. And really, I mean, that's great. Other people might not want to recognise it whatsoever. Everything's personal. So the guy who wants to fly across country, go and fly across country and enjoy it.

If you land out, if you land at your end of your cross country and you're not satisfied, well, that's unfortunate. You're probably not doing the right thing. And the guy who's flying the para kite or whatever, you know, it, it's maybe less adventurous because it's more limited in terms of being on a hill doing, you know, practising manoeuvres. It's not quite as expansive as cross country flying. But yes, you know, everybody writes their own story and it's up to them what they're looking for. Everybody gets to write their own ending too. So you know, it, it depends what, what, how do you want your book to read? Do you want it to read the same

from start to finish? Or do you want there to be a progression in the book towards something? I Yeah. And, and some people want to read a book that's the same from start to finish and other people want to read a book that has progression. So that's what I'm saying. There's no, there isn't one thing for everybody. There's just an individual journey, But I'm interested in my individual journey being layers of different things. So, and hopefully this is just, you know, as I said with the garden, it's another layer. And I think it's a very good layer for me to have because a lot of my life has just been adrenaline junkie type

satisfaction. So and now I'm looking into different kinds of satisfaction, meditation, different kind of satisfaction. My mind is very active. So to try and overcome my mind is really enjoyable, you know? Having a good day. It's fun to see the smile that code puts puts on your face. It's it's like, yeah, you're aware of how to make it count, but let's say what was I going to say? Yes, if it feels right in the moment, then no matter how loud the questions are, to me, it feels that it's worth continuing what you're doing because of course you can, you know, overthink any of your goals or

aims and like keep on remunerating on your past. But if like living in the moment is the ultimate Nirvana, right where you're not kind of swamped by thoughts which are beyond your control, so be it like chasing the lead goggle or be it pushing full bar when you're at the back. If it feels right when you're doing it, you're doing it the right way. Is is, is this the essence of life? More or less? Umm, well, yes, I mean, I, I, I'm not the guy. I don't know the essence of life. Who knows what it is. Again, everything's so individual because everyone's experience is their own

experience. I can't say what's right or wrong. I know that I have been, you know, these sports, especially when we flying, for instance, is very meditative in the state of just flying because as, as we all know, every pilot knows this is that you can have the weight of the world on your shoulders and literally you take off and suddenly that's all gone. And you are just in a meditate meditative state where you're just thinking about flying and how to, you know, where to control your wing, how to control it. So that takes us into this meditative state. But it's also a good indication to show us that the that that meditation and let's say

unadulterated meditation is probably something that we should all be paying attention to, but we don't. We like, let's say, excited meditation. Where you are. Yeah, where, where you're, where your mind is consumed with something greater than your problems, but it is still consumed with something, you know, as you know, true meditation is to try and not be consumed with anything, you know, if you can. It's a great step, but I, I don't necessarily think that it's, you're doing the right thing. You are just doing a thing. And it, it just so happens that, you know, for us, when you're going paradeliding, it feels good because we are in a form of meditation that takes us away

from the problems that we have in the real world. But to be able to sit still with yourself and be able to get into that meditative state and push all those problems aside and

yes, and just deal with yourself there and try and find silence, then, then that's a whole different, different ball game. Deep. Very deep. Well, you know, when I look at my life and my sports, I know how much they have distracted me from the real world of the the rest of the world because they're so, you know, they, they draw you in, they're amazing. You know, flying on a beautiful day or, you know, not on a necessarily beautiful day, but trying to fly your best in conditions that aren't very good. You're going to be just fully engrossed in receiving as much information as you can trying to

apply it, apply all the knowledge you have to, to be able to make the right decisions to make that this flight last longer or to try and be first or, you know, faster to the goal. Yeah, it's super consuming. It's amazing what what you can do with flight. I'm so glad that like the first 40 minutes of this talk, we have built up a huge ass base to everything that we exchanged on emails, you know, because the, the, the topics on e-mail was like finding your passion, finding the courage, making it sustainable, giving up to the community, everything. So we have discussed everything that comes outside that scope.

And you know, maybe now we can use the the future moments to reflect more on that which is more flying related. But before we do that, Robbie, there was a question that I wanted to ask you earlier rather than speaking about harmony. And to me, let's let's, let's put another word to it, which can be called as fitting in into the ecosystem and blending in. You can say that, right? If you're sticking out, then you're read it out. If you blend in then you roll with the tribe. Basically my question to you, which is something that I have. I think I've found the answer to it but I would love to get your perspective.

Long story short, obsessed with flying, doing whatever to take to make it to do, doing whatever it takes to to make it happen and moving to a whole different country and society was brutal change in my reality when it comes to expectation versus, you know, the real thing. And I tried to blend in, man. I gave it my all. I kid you not, I, I tried to behave like, you know, be in be like Romans when in Rome. I, I lived that saying as much as I could. I'm not saying that I lived it to the perfection, but I gave it my all. And eventually I saw that I was

losing myself in, in, in search of blending in. Yeah, uh, then, umm, some things showed me in life that being yourself is so much more fun. It, it makes you smile more often. So why not go back to that? And even if it doesn't mean that you're in perfect harmony with your surroundings, which are brand new, not not your ancestors because my ancestors and my tribe where I originated from are on the other side of the planet. Yet I umm, one of the, you know, you can say a lone wolf who decides to put all his eggs in one basket and try to make sense of the actuality. And in that I've gone on extreme

ends of the scales and eventually found out that being in harmony is helpful as long as it doesn't eat you up, like doesn't go as long as you don't go to self destruct mode, basically where you start losing yourself. So finding first of all, is this the right way? Because that is the only vein which one sets in my head. And if it is, then how do you find the courage to reach this realization? Because there is a right time to give up in some endeavours, in some pursuits, and especially if these pursuits come at a cost of giving up on your inherent like desires, like the instincts, basal instincts, then it's about

time you speak to yourself honestly rather than continuing with, you know, a straight head and not looking around and being aware. Because I'm not sure if I explained it correctly. What do you get the vibe that I'm trying to say here? Yeah, yes. Is it totally. And it just brings me back to as you know, what I was saying earlier that the journeys and the paths are all different. And what we can definitely say is, you know, with the blending in as such.

One of the probably the one of the most destructive things in modern, well, not in modern society, in any society, is this idea of wanting to fit in. Because wanting to fit in is purely, well, wanting to fit in is not recognising that everybody is an individual. And by fitting in, most of the time it is to emulate somebody else or something else. And one thing that we don't do, I believe, and I've always thought this, I've thought this for a long, long time, because I didn't fit in in the beginning, because I, I was, yeah, I, I was just a kid who shouldn't have been in school, you know, I, I,

yeah, I didn't fit in that system. So if you don't fit in that system, you, you, you grow up recognising that, you know, following fashion and being like everybody else isn't actually what you want to do. You're an individual here. You're allowed to express yourself as you want. You should. We should all be proud to be individuals and to have our own thought processes and our own thought patterns. And regardless of what stage we're at in our lives, you know, you've got to be, or at least you don't have to be, but it's good to be, to recognise your individual traits and, and strengths and, and weaknesses too.

You know, obviously we've all got strengths and weaknesses, but everything else, unfortunately to me is just a form of societal constraint really. And yes, I, I wouldn't want to move to another country and then try and be, you know, I, I wouldn't want to move to Rome and then be, try and be a Roman. I'm not I'm me. It's OK when you think of the, the globe or the world and it is basically one big rock and you take away the oceans and it is only one rock. We're all connected to the same place. Everybody is connected to this rock. And it doesn't matter where you're born on this rock, you're still just a human being, an

individual human being doing your thing. That's what we should be embracing and allowing it to to happen like that. But unfortunately that isn't where we're at. And so society tells us it's, you know, when in Rome and act like the omens. Well, why whose whose great idea was that? So that you don't you don't get seen and you don't live the life that's true to yourself. You you simulate theirs because you think that's the thing to do. Well, you know what happened to the Roman Empire when it went down the shedder? Well, it did, you know, as they all do, because we're not, we're not living individual lives that

promote the best of ourselves. We we end up getting corralled into societies that apparently don't benefit anyone because in the end, they all fall apart and collapse and then there's a rebirth and off we go again. So, yeah, it's all very difficult to to navigate. And I always think on the side of the individual because I want to be that individual within myself and within the things that I do.

The only thing I want to harmonise with is with nature. I don't necessarily want to harmonise with societal constraints because that's not to me. That's not harmonising. Harmonising with a constraint isn't harmony. Harmonising with nature, harmonising with the universe, That's what we need to be doing. Or at least I need to be doing. Thank you for hitting the nail on the head, Robbie, you, you sold a dilemma there. I don't think that's the dilemma. Maybe. For you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like it's harmonizing with nature is greater than harmonizing with society. As simple as that. Oh, yes, yeah. Well, look, what we have to

realise is that what goes on in your head is nothing different. That's what's gone in, gone in, gone on in everybody. Well, it is different, but you know this, this indoctrination that we've had, this indoctrination that takes away our ability to think critically, to, to live from our heart, to live from our stomach where you know, you, you know what's right and wrong, but you go and do the things you shouldn't do because everybody else is doing them. You know, the greatest indicator for me of anything is if everybody else is doing it, I don't want to be doing it. I don't care what it is, you

know, let's just say COVID vaccine, when it's being pushed down your throat that hard, then there's something wrong. You don't you don't want to be doing that. For instance, the World Cup, when the World Cup suddenly is the biggest thing around the globe and it's this, everybody's supporting their team and their way. You know, our country wins. Well, I don't want any part of the World Cup, you know, I just, I'm not interested because it, it's all the indoctrination stuff, you know, imagine if they put as much emphasis on trying to look after your own back garden as much as they do on on the World Cup.

For instance, how many hours did you spend in front of the television for the World Cup? How many hours did you spend in your garden? Well, you probably spent more on the World Cup but less in your garden. You know, it's all, it's all topsy turvy, it's all madness, you know. So yes, when when everybody's doing something, the the chances are you should be doing exactly the opposite. Reminds me of the famous Pink Floyd song. We don't mean no education. Yes. One of the greats say you're playing at some and this is just like, yes. Yeah, that's like I, I'm pretty sure. Like there's a whole generation after generation of people who

can relate to the lyrics and, you know, kudos to the artists who put in the. Well, yes. Generation after generation. Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone. Yeah, it's very fitting in today's times because not only does it mean mentally, but it also means physically. And you know, we are in a mad time where everything's going on and you know, you, you steal and you drive. You can drive a person's life by being a bad teacher or a good teacher. But as we know, the system isn't particularly good. So it doesn't matter if you're a good teacher or a bad teacher. You're still indoctrinating those kids to to not understand

the freedom of mind. I, I love the word, the terminology that you use that you can drive other people because it's such a powerful responsibility if you have the, you know, the blessing to drive someone else's wife. As a teacher makes me curious because these days one of the drivers of a lot of people's reality is social media, unfortunately. Like holy shit, how, how do people not realise that it, it actually dictates the way you move around your day and not just the way you think. So I'm, I'm curious, have you ever scrolled in your life? Have you ever? Yes, I have. Yeah. You know, I've got.

We're all bombarded by this and I have, you know, the same problems as anybody else. This, this technology has been devised by very clever people to suck us all in.

I am very anti telephone, mobile phone in general. I try and leave it at home a lot or I do leave it at home a lot.

I use it as a tool for myself, but it doesn't mean to say that I'm constantly available. So I it can ring and I can just ignore it because I don't care who's on. There's nothing that's that important that I need to pick it up. I'll pick it up if I want to pick it up, but if I don't want to pick it up, I don't care who's calling. I don't care if it. I just don't care because it's all noise. Once Upon a time, 20-30 years ago, everybody got on with their lives without them. Then suddenly they, they became very in our lives. And then today, you know, I

travel around the world and I see everybody at the airport just doing this. No one's looking at books anymore. They're all just staring into their phones, young and old alike. So yes, I, I do get caught up in that. I try not to be too bad. I try to make sure that my feed is very positive and I've got lots of nature stuff, lots of gardening stuff, lots of sort of stretching and isoteric stuff, basically, you know, stuff that's actually stimulating. I don't need to go down the the world of modern news and drama.

Quick question, very respectfully, because this is something that I that I feel so challenged explaining. My mum as well, probably she's a bit older than you. She says the same thing that you know what, I'm scrolling and I'm looking at cooking video, then I'm looking at fashion and whatever. So whatever she's scrolling is making sense in her head. And I think I've spoken to, I've spoken about this on the show earlier. So maybe some of the audience members know the reference that I'm know know the topic that I'm referring to is that as you mentioned that there are proper scientists who have designed the algorithm and they release, they make you feel in a certain way

when you make that movement with your hand over the touch of the screen. My realization is, Robbie, that you cannot learn while you are getting intoxicated. I mean, of course you can, but it won't be that effective. Like, you know, imagine going to a class with a beer in your hand. It's like, yeah, you know what The the instructor can, can speak whatever he wants to, and I'll keep on sipping a beer while I'm learning. It's going to be a lot more counterproductive. So what I'm saying is that bottom line of scrolling is that no matter how much sense it makes in your own head, it is

still intoxicating you at the time of receiving it. So isn't giving up the only end game there because everything else is still intoxication at the end of the day? Yes, absolutely. And I have been contemplating over the last probably two months, actually getting rid of the mobile phone because it's very apparent where we're heading. You know, I, you could call me some kind of, some kind of tech rejection. Maybe that's true. I don't particularly, you know, not, not not all technology is good. And we, we prove that to ourselves repeatedly. For instance, a nuclear bomb, it, it's cutting edge technology. And I'll look at the way wars

are fought today with drones and you know, all this, all this technology is making killing people, let's say, easier.

That's not. Useful. It's not good technology. Yeah, it's technology. It's the same stuff that's that's in these phones.

And so not all tech is good. We can safely say that you and I both know and all the the listeners and watchers know that that mobile phone is useful as a mobile phone. It's awesome. But everything else that it does, we don't need. We never needed it. It's just that we were sold it and now we've been sold the idea that we can't live without it. And now they're going to have a society in probably less than 10 years where you are going to have to have one. Can you imagine that this appendage is going to almost be mandatory? That to me is incredibly worrying because no part of that

is natural. No part of it is actually required. The the, the ability to be able to make a call quickly when you need to make a call or receive 1 communicate is awesome, but it's gone way past communication that's now control. So yeah, it's it's interesting. It's very interesting. I mean, bottom line that I'm trying to tell our audiences is that no matter how much collapse videos or, you know, crazy things that you might be watching, which might be making sense in your own head, bottom line is that it is counterproductive and it's not going to get you where you think it will. It's a, it's a pseudo effect that makes you think it'll get

you in, get you there. And then eventually once that, once you're physically tired, because I think that is the only barrier that the big tech has not broken yet, that the human body has a physical limit. And like eventually people get tired of holding a phone physically. I mean, they all the eyes get too tired. So once you do that, once the dopamine goes back to the baseline, it goes lower, it goes higher. The baseline is higher than what it was before you picked up the phone. So try giving it up no matter how much you think you're learning. I can share 1 anecdote which stuck with me while I was

chasing this pursuit of like lifestyle. I would say because it's a it's a huge discipline challenge to give up scrolling simply because of the fact of how how good it feels. How I made sense with it is that saying yes to things is fun. I'm not going to lie, saying yes to things which are counterproductive or which are not healthy is so much fun, man. Go grab a beer, drink it, watch your head get light or chase the rush in any form, you know, be it, be it a hookup, be it a snort, be it whatever, whatever rocks your world. But try saying no. And the first few times it might not be fun, but I kid you not,

after, after you've crossed that barrier, saying no is even more fun than saying yes. You know, that's where the bliss is. Yes, you've struck it on the head for me. That is exactly where it's at. And an interesting one for you is that for the last 10 years now, I think it's 10 years. It could be 8 years, but I think it's 10. I kept, I've been saying 8 years for a long time, but I think it's probably about 10 years now. I've been eating one meal a day. It's the joy of saying no and it's the success of saying no. And it's, and that's also turned into alcohol and other things

that it's I just again, when it's recognising these traits that society builds for us to align with, but then realising that they're wrong. So it's pretty obvious that three meals a day of the type of food we're eating at this particular juncture in time is not very good for people because you only have to look around to see everybody's pretty. Not everybody, but the majority of people are overweight and unhealthy and unfit. And. You can eat yourself, fit, literally eat less. Your cellular restorative system can only click into action basically if you're intermittent fasting, if you're eating three meals a day on a cellular level, your restorative system can

never start. So once you understand these things and then you realise that the food industry and the Pharmaceutical industry are owned by each other and they're invested in each other, we sell more food, which is great for us. And you selling the people more food means that they're going to need more drugs to try and solve the health issues that the more food is creating, especially the low quality food that they're that we're selling them. So these two things go together and it's an ever decreasing circle of life. Your life is going to get worse as you get fatter and more unhealthy and as you get older

and older. It's an accumulation of your entire life's consumption and they're throwing drugs at you just to relieve the symptoms. And yeah, lo and behold, it's a great system for people to make money. But I said no to that. And it's just such an enjoyable thing to feel fantastic within myself to be saying no on a regular basis, to enjoy saying no. When I do get to 6:00 PM in the evening and I have my evening meal, then yes, I give myself a pat on the back. I made it. Well done. Nice, nice. You won the battle again, and it is a battle because it's a battle against the

indoctrination and the reduction of your potential. So just like the mobile phone, this is a reduction of your potential because it's going to chew hours of your life that you could have been putting into yourself, but instead you're just going to flick and scroll and go nowhere. Oh, yeah. But that's interesting. I didn't know about that. Yeah, but what are you going to do with that information? You know you're not going to do anything with it, so even though you've got some new information, you're not going to do anything with it, so it doesn't make any difference anyway. So yeah. It's going to vanish anyways out of your head, you know as soon

as you put on the phone to go the way it is designed to. Yeah, when you go to your next scrolling session, you'll have forgotten what you got, what you learnt from the last one anyway. So yeah, yeah, it's another one of those things when everybody's doing something, you need to be doing some the opposite. So if everybody's looking in this, you probably don't need to be looking at it. If everyone's eating three meals a day, chances are you don't need to be eating three meals a day. If alcohol has been made socially acceptable and everybody's drinking it, good chance you don't need to be drinking it.

Let me put that into paragliding contest. If the gaggle is going one way, there is probably a better left. Somebody's just got to be brave enough to go.

There are multiple ways, but there's the way everybody's doing it or there's the way you can do it. You just don't have to go the same route and it might take a little bit longer. There's no doubt that the the mobile phone makes things at particular instances quicker, but the result, you can still get the same result by walking to a public telephone, putting a coin in and making a call. It's it still gets the same result, but one of them took an action, whereas this, this one takes less action and it's just handy and it's here. And then we build up a whole love story with this because it's socially acceptable now

it's socially unacceptable to go and make it all on a public phone. Oh, but they're dirty. The whole world's dirty. If you think the phone's dirty, what about everything else that you touched during the day? Come. On yeah. And I'd like to reinforce the gaggle analogy here because I was speaking to Juan Serbospina, who's one of the British goodbyes, who's racing and the Europeans as we speak right now. And we were just discussing top Frenchies and like Maxine and honor and and stuff like that. And he was like, dude, because I was like, man, what is it that Honoren has that he keeps on killing it every single time. And he was like, man, you have

no idea how many times I have seen him bomb out and make mistakes. So the point is, the point that I'm trying to make is that even though the gaggle goes one way, Honorens and Maxines and goes, or even 1 for that matter, are the few brave ones who go out and carve their own path. And they might fail because obviously risk comes with whatever, you know what I'm saying. But when they do succeed, they learn something so great that others don't even have the courage to open the book for in that learning. And eventually, once courage becomes a habit, these kind of challenges become a bliss

because for everyone else it's a challenge, but for you, it's something that's your comfort zone. So following the guy that is fun, it's a part of the tribe and you feel safe. You can see the air more. But eventually the glory lies in pushing your comfort zone and that you have to define yourself on how much glory you want basically. It's being prepared to try. Don't get me wrong, it's still difficult to fly in the gaggle that it's the way that modern day competition is. It's incredible. The the gaggle is incredibly fast, but you have to try and these guys go out and they try and sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't.

But they're they're giving it a go. And yes, it's safer to stay in the gaggle, but you know, you're learning so much and you're not learning less, but you're just, you're not taking a risk. You're not pushing yourself. You're not pushing the, you're not pushing against the system. It's the guy that goes out there and finds the next thermal. Oh yeah, now we'll follow him. Now we'll follow him. You're only following. And following still, like I say, is not easy. But you want to be the guy that is being followed. That's where the fun is.

Oh, yeah, Yeah. Robbie, how do I even comprehend this? One hour. This is supposed to be a paragliding talk now, but we did everything, Yes. We talk about paragliding. We can quickly, we can do a quick 10 minutes about paragliding and then you can cut the pieces together. Yeah, post production is always fun listening to her. The thing is, it's interesting, but what are the good thing is you have plenty of people talking about paragliding. So not every podcast needs to be fully integrated into into paragliding. It's better that there's a, you have a wide, a wide library of if you want to just go full

flying, then there's Oh yeah, look at this one. If you want to go a little bit more to the lunatic end, then there's this one. No, that was the essence of starting the show. In the beginning, I was like, yes, I don't want to hit just one nail on the head. I want to put multiple ones and make sure all of them or at least try my own bit and then let everything else fall into place by itself. But coming back to our topic, Robbie and you do have time, is there? Yes, absolutely. OK, great. Because Simon again, I've been thinking what is the most optimum duration for episode? And because Spotify has its own

algorithm and as a creator, I get bombarded with suggestions from their e-mail team on how to make it make it the best. But then I was like, as long as it feels right, that is the duration that I should be chasing. I agree. So coming back to the doing your calving, your own parts, I've been very curious to ask you this. Robbie, you guys, you are one of the early founders of Ozone and God damn man, that being one of the inventors of the most iconic brand in the sport. How does it feel Robbie? How does it feel when you guys? Look back and see what you have created.

Yes, very lucky for sure. Yeah, the whole ozone story is quite amazing. Please talk us through it. I'd love to, honestly. Well. So it basically started. I was interested in starting a brand with my brother and then we bumped into bumped into Mike Kavanagh was a British team manager at the time and we just got chatting one evening and I was working at Firebird at the time. Mike was busy being an accountant at a newspaper and Dave Pilkington was around on the scene working at Airwave and in back in the early days as well. Bruce Goldsmith was involved and yeah, it was just passionate people deciding to do it

themselves because maybe we didn't have full agreement with the the people that we were working with and we thought we could do it better in a nicer way. And Ozone was born, really. It was fantastic. We didn't last long with Bruce. So just difficulties so that we parted ways and me, Mike and Dave just got stuck into it and it was fantastic. And the main reason it was amazing was because Dave is very good at what he did and Mike was exceptional at what he did, which is the the business side of things. Dave was the sort of production side of things. And I was the ended up being

design and testing because I was already in testing especially. And it's just turned into what it has through diligence of management really. And it's, it's a lovely thing. And I'm glad that ozone is what it is. And it does what it does, which is try to inspire, tries to have good business practice. We're, we set up our own production in Vietnam. We treat those people amazingly well. I've heard that before. The scene is president stuff. Yeah, we're just the factory is Dave did just such an Dave and Young, his wife did such an amazing job over there. It's like it's super clean and it's all air conditioned. They take the the whole staff,

the whole place on holiday. Each year there's 1000 workers taking thousand people on holiday. Yeah, there's medical insurance, there's dental insurance, there's accommodation for people that come in from the provinces. There's, it's just doing it properly, doing it the right way and looking after everybody that's in our ecosystem, looking after our distribution network, just trying to trying to have a healthy business and trying to promote a healthy sport and a healthy sport means that we can have a healthy business and a healthy business means we can have a healthy sport. They both go together, symbiotic relationship and we're not really in competition with anybody because there is no real

competition without anybody else. There's only competition within yourself to do a better job. Yes, for sure they may, they've been making great gliders, David Daggau and the and Russ and the Luke. They've just employs great people. There's a good work ethic, there's an enjoyment, a shared passion. It's just it's amazing. It's amazing. Yes, yeah, it's come good. And I hope that people feel that the brand is giving back, which I believe it is. It's invested in competitions for everybody. It invests some of its profits back into the environment, environmental things that environmental causes. And yeah, it's just, it's a good thing. It shows that not all business

has to revolve around the bottom line and in profit, it can revolve around trying to be healthy for everybody involved. It reminds you of the militant Friedman Coat. The business of doing business is just about business, which is basically comes down to the money, and that was the stupidest shit I've ever heard in my life. And Boeing proves that super well with everything that is going on in the company because they live for Wall Street and stuff. I think a good example is longevity. The longer a company is around proves the health of the business really. But again, we are also dealing with a sport and one of the best

things about our sport is that it's becoming safer and that safety is helping the whole sport have a better public image. And so the late 80s, early 90s, it blew up, but then it collapsed because there was a lot of injuries, because people now it's had time to mature. The actual sport has had time to mature and the safety matches the maturity of the sport. So people can come into the sport, learn well, learn safely. We know the best techniques to teach people depending on where they're learning so they have good experience. Then they come into a sport that's mature enough and a system that is or an ecosystem

that helps them progress. There's a lot of the club at a club level, even the clubs now are very safety conscious and promoting sort of better flying practice. So yeah, the whole thing is just it's come of age really paradigm and came of age and Ozone was lucky to be there at the right time, but also has been a good part of it coming of age as well. Before I jump on next question, Robbie, the name Ozone is quite fascinating. What's the story behind your name? The story behind the name is we were struggling to find the name and John Pendry came up with ozone and John was obviously a

big part of my early years in Hang Gliding and paragliding. And John was somewhat, somewhat involved with us at the beginning. Should we say he never worked with us or but was a good friend and a sponsored pilot and things like that? And John came up with the name Ozone. And yeah, that's a great name. I don't think we thought into it enough quite enough at the time, but it worked. And here we are today with with Ozone. So he just said just because of the ozone layer, it just sounds cool enough to. I don't even know if it was. It was just the name sounded

right. We've been throwing a few minutes around and that one came up. It's like, Oh yeah. Do you remember the ultimatums? Oh God no. I can't remember any of the alternatives. Really fun to to picture what the industry you like. Yes, it was. In In fact, I don't know if we hadn't really been thinking about it much, but John just came up with that and it stuck. It was like, yeah, that's a great name. One thing that I'm very curious, Robbie, is that making mistakes or stumbling while you're on your part is a part of human nature. None of us is God. We all are mortals and we all make mistakes.

How did you guys navigate the challenging times? How did you guys make sure that instead of falling, I wouldn't say apart, but letting that crisis grow into something big and you guys managed to find a way up and kept going? Yes, there are always challenging times, problems that come along. In all honesty, I think that most of those challenging times have been well managed by Mike Kavanagh. Mike is a very level headed cool guy. He doesn't, he doesn't instantly react, which is obviously a very good thing because most of our when you have problems that knee jerk reactions and reacting too quickly are often not the best thing to do.

But Mike is just very diligent and very calm. So he made very good decisions. And the same thing with Dave and the production side of things. It's 1000 people means that you've got to have a business that is continually, how do you say continually afloat and sustainable because we don't want to sack staff and then re employ staff and because our market, because we're not stable in the market, everything is about being stable. But again, when you treat people well, we try and treat our dealer network well. We try and treat the schools well. We're trying to enhance the sport. Everything is put in there to try and make it run smoothly.

Yeah, it's all worked relatively well because yeah, we're every hurdle that we've come up against so far has been possible to surpass and we got over it and carried on. But like I say, mainly down to Mike's cool nature and not getting overexcited about things that we can you can deal with. Have you guys had any ethical dilemmas? Because I remember watching a documentary and Google or something and they said that when they were going forward they had. A challenge where they wanted to push, I mean I don't know, they had a choice of being something that was not OK to show to the people versus something which

was perfectly fine. And then they said that we will mix and match both of them on the search results so that we are not on the either end of the scale. Their search between an ethical dilemma was that the safe part in middle part and that we don't have to scale the guilt. But that also meant that they were going a bit worse despite of ignoring complete public welfare or whatever it is. I hope you can get the point that I'm saying, but how did you have you guys had to reach those kind of crossroads where it was like if we do this, then the community as a whole might not

benefit as much. If we do this, then they will, but we as a company will have to sacrifice something. So if yes, then how have you guys navigated around those? I think, you know, I don't know that anything has particularly come up that has put us in that position. Most of the time of course, the company's survival as such is is going to be effectively first in line. So that's, and most of the time it's because we're trying to protect our staff more than anything. There's a, there's 1000 people depending that if you think that there's 1000 people depending directly on what we do, that means there's probably somewhere in the region of 3000 people in

total, maybe more 5000 that that are even more than that. So there's a lot of people dependent on that. So we're probably try and do the best, what is best for them first, secondly, but also almost on an equal level, what's good for the sport because one doesn't come without the other. The sport needs to be healthy for us to have a healthy business within the sport and vice versa. Yes, when it comes to anything ethical like that, I think yeah, yeah, we try and do our best on all fronts. As I said, I think that's part of the success of Ozone is that at the end of the day, it's a business, but it's a business

that isn't. It's a business that is investing in the sport and in yeah, it's investing in the sport. So I think that keeps us relatively honest because we've got to, we have to have a sport to have a business. Yeah, so Long story short, self-interest is a necessity but becomes an existential crisis. But if that is not the case, then you can look for means beyond your own, but survival is a necessity. And then? Yeah, yes, it is. But I don't think you've got to understand that Mike and Dave, especially Ozone is not a cutthroat business. So at the end of the day, if ozone had to close for the

benefit of the sport to continue, then I guess they'd probably do that. I don't think it's ever going to come to that. But they're just, yeah, I, yeah, it's a difficult question, but I think that most of the time it's like you say, business has to survive to a certain to an endpoint, but then you can go past that endpoint. But the sport needs to survive most importantly as well. You know, this brings me to Armstrong Foils, if you'd let me touch on that. And for audiences who are wondering, Armstrong Armstrong Foils is another brand which Robbie got into as a founder, as a Co founder, I would say once

he found his new calling of some sorts. And it, it has grown into again, one of the most successful foiling brands out in the market simply because of the way you tackle. So when you when you were speaking with your partner, I'm forgetting his name. I was listening to his podcast yesterday. Oh, Amy Armstrong, Amy. Yes. He said that you were like key factor in mailing the foil design and stuff like that. What were the lessons that you took from Ozone that you implemented there that helped you leapfrog the competition if any? First of all, it is a statement, correct? And if yes, then how did you navigate that?

How do you manage them? If anything, it's it's a good question. It's difficult to answer. Basically, there are just so many after having so many years of business, successful business with Ozone and seeing what works, not being cutthroat in business. It's a very good thing because. Please explain from the audience. Sorry, cutthroat means that it's not business at all cost. OK, Yeah. You have to, you have to nurture the sport. And so from the beginning, Armstrong has been involved in the sport and sharing, as with Ozone, sharing the passion because the one thing that's really interesting, especially with pilots, and it's also the same with the ocean.

It's a special breed of people that want to go flying. Most people do not want to go flying. It's a special breed in the ocean doing water sports. It's the same thing. Not everybody wants to go into the ocean and do water sports. So you have to realise that this is your, it's, it's your, it's your brotherhood, iron brotherhood, the ocean user brotherhood. And everybody is sharing the same passion. They like this escape, make the escape and the the enjoyment of these sensations that we are chasing a part of your business because that's what we're all that's all we're out there for. The actual para glider who makes it doesn't matter.

It's the fact that this thing allows us to get this feeling that filled with yes, that's what I took from there. And admittedly, I think the passion thing with Ozone was one of my creations because of something that I helped shape a lot. Because passion is so important. It's the driving factor. It's our love for this sport that started the business. It wasn't because we wanted to have a business that made money in the power lighting sport. It's because we loved flying when we started Armstrong. It's because we loved foiling. It was just like, yeah. And it started with friends and it started and Armstrong started

with friends. It's not like we just got together to make a business to make money. Yes, we just enjoy and promote passion really and that it seems to be a good recipe. That's the key. That's the key tagline there. Enjoy and promote passion. Rest. Everything else falls into place if you work hard enough. Yeah, yeah. And it is tons of hard work. That's the other thing people may not recognise that is hours and hours of dedicated life and work time. Weekends disappear, holidays don't exist. You can ask anybody that knows me your whole life is the one thing. But it's OK. It's OK because it's super

enjoyable and you're creating things that you want to create. You're sharing a feeling that you want to share. And if you at the end of the day as well, sorry. One other thing I remembered is there's no hard selling. We don't need to sell the products. We want people to buy the products. If they like the products, we don't need to force them down the throat and we don't need to have cutthroat sales tactics or anything. It's just this is our feeling that we're trying to create. We want to share that feeling. These are the tools that we share those feelings with and if you like them, fantastic. If you don't like them and you

like another manufacturer's feeling, great, go and enjoy their feeling. We don't. It doesn't matter. Just be there enjoying it, whatever it is, and if it's our stuff, fantastic. If it's someone else's, fantastic. I'm smiling so hard because you just seem so peaceful by saying that feeling like and I love the way you explain it because I've watched you guys for quite a while with your media presence. I I wouldn't shy away from taking names because what I've seen is advance in New York's, which are one of the biggest competitors, at least in the beginning class of gliders are killing it and marketing the teams that they have which push

push out content is absolutely a delight to see in paragliding the newsletters that come your way, the promotions that happen on every platform. And then there's ozone. I wouldn't say they don't give a single about that. They do. But some, I don't know who was it Russ or was it Bill Belkert or somebody told me that Ozone's philosophy is just make the rings that people like to fly and then everything else falls into everything else. They'll get itself out, basically. Yeah. That's inspiring considering I have been wanting to go out and I'm starting my own business in trail tours and travels and I will be launching.

How about in trips? And I'm looking at all sorts of these marketing templates and those kind of things. But I'm like, bottom line is dude, if your vibe is amazing, then you will end up attracting your tribe any which ways. Doesn't matter which medium you reach them from SO. It everything in the end is certainly longevity. It comes down to product and good product sells itself. It might be slow in the start to gather momentum because people have to it hear and understand and to touch and to fly and to. But if you make good product, people want it and that's all you have to do. And with the odd new businesses,

just great product. Like you say, be friendly, be kind, be helpful and give the best service you can. And guess what? People are going to love it. Fingers crossed I am able to deliver on that. Only time will tell, but at least I have the right motivation and the pull for it. Yeah, what I was going to say is that you pull yourself out of the rat race the moment you have this mindset because otherwise it's a hamster review that will never end. And the same goes for recording these episodes, you know, like the the algorithm say is released twice a week. The audience starts dropping if

I don't publish. And especially at the beginning of the show, I spoke a little bit to the listeners and the viewers that I was away and I couldn't publish as per schedule for the past three weeks, three months or something. But the bottom line is that had I did publish, the quality would have been absolute shit because I was not in the right mindset because I have to prepare for these episodes and do my own research and prepare myself. Yet when I spoke with Russ or with you or whatever episodes are published during this period, they were very meaningful talks. They were like very well received by the audit.

The retention rates were the highest that I've seen in quite a while. As long as you've put your heart and soul into it, the noise will fade away in the most beautiful matter. Possible. Absolutely, absolutely. There's nothing I can. I just 100% agree with what you're saying and all all the algorithms, everything there's. Unfortunately, the algorithm doesn't take one thing into account. It can't take into account the quality of the content or the quality of the product. And at the end of the day, it is the quality of the product in the user's hands or in the user's ears that is relevant. And the algorithm is yet to be

able to understand that because that's a personal interaction between you and that it's. So true, the human connect which cannot be digitalised in one's in view of all the binaries, not a algorithm speaks itself. Yet watch out. I don't know where this is going, but from what we can tell with with AI anything could be possible in the future. I'll tell you one thing which gives me hope, Robbie, and this is such a certain which gives me complete confidence that humanity will win at the end of the day. Generative intelligence is even more scarier, right, which is coming on further in the future. That artificial is one thing,

but artificial generative intelligence is the whole different thing. But I was speaking to someone who said that until today, doctors have not been able to map the area and brain where the pain is perceived, because otherwise they would find a drug and kill that right? Because pain goes all over the neurons, all over different sides. And the medical science, no matter how adverse it is, failing to decode it. So that tells me that eventually nature has built its own algorithms, which can never be, which can come. You can try and mimic them. You can try and come close to it. You can replace your mean, you

can replace your whatever you need in your body, but nothing comes close to the nature or the miracle of it that we see. It's all foreign games for big tech to go out and make trillions or whatever paper or numbers in the bank account it is, which are only going to mean so much because eventually even that longevity guy is going to have to say goodbye to the body and the soul is the only thing that survives. And there's no way you can recreate Soul, even though you can recreate a guard particle in the long tubes and try and decode the making of the universe. But Soul is pretty far away from human intelligence, and there's

nothing that scares me in that regard, I would say. Yeah, I hope so. But the long and the short for me is that generally is that it doesn't matter it, it doesn't matter where we go, it doesn't matter what path we go on. The only thing that matters is your existence within it, and ultimately you are in control of that you. We give up control and we relinquish control to the forces that be. But this is how astounding reality is. That and when you lose yourself in your own meditation, things don't exist exterior to your own meditation. So we allow all this news to come into us and all affect us and AI and Oh my God, and

where's it all going to end? If you just ignore all that and concentrate on what you're doing and put your telephone down,

nothing makes any, nothing matters. I mean just as a matter at all. Does it matter if humanity is going down a one way road to nowhere because of AI and our capitalistic greed? It doesn't really matter at the end of the day it'll all shake itself out and the universe will continue. So yeah, it's only because we get tangled in our self importance as the human species. Oh my God the human species is under threat. It's under threat. Yes, it always will be under threat and it always has been under threat. It's just we happen to be here now looking at it and thinking that this is some pivotal point. The pivotal point could have

been 3000 years ago, it could be 3000 years in the future. We don't know. It's just that we think this is some particular point. We're manifested ourselves here and now. So it's the important part, but it's no more important or less important than any other part of the human existence, prior or future. You speak like a Yogi, man. Is that where you're heading towards? No, no, all of it is trying to just bring some form of rationale into the madness. And if you bring some kind of rationale into it, then you get, oh, you just try and realise that we're just such an infinitesimal small point in time.

We're just, we're nothing in time. It's just this tiny little mark on a line of God knows how long Infinity as far as we know. And we're just at this particular point. So why am I going to take this point so seriously when there's a point just behind it and there's a point in the in front of it? It's just we get carried away in self importance because we're having the experience now, but it's no more, no less important than any other part of time. I want to drift off topic for a bit for the sake of slime because I want to relate to it. What's the most? Maybe spiritual is the right

word? What's the most spiritual experience you've had while flying in your career? Oof, sorry or a tough question, but it just. Came No, no, it's good. It's good.

I was in the Himalayas with Bob Drury and Peter Brinkaby. I was just close to switching the question to that that tell me about your flying in Himalayas, but I had a feeling that Himalayan Himalayas and spirituality are oh. Yeah, they go together and we've been on the, we've been on our feet for quite a few days. Four days of walking out of this valley that unfortunately I'd pulled us into. Oh. My God, we landed in the back. Yeah, we landed in the middle of nowhere and when I say it was really a long, it was a four day. Was it 4 or 6 day? God, it was a four or six day

walk out. Anyway, it was super tough. We got out and we ended up at this little village called Padam which is up in Zankskar. Peter had bad ankles from an accident that it had para lighting previously and so he didn't want to come flying with us that night because of that evening because he was needed to rest. Myself and Bob took off and we went literally straight up to 07000 meters and yeah, it was huge. Huge. You started from beer. We've started from probably 4 1/2 thousand. No, in beer building. No, we started. Where did we start that one? We started in Manali. Yeah, because one scar is further up.

Yeah, that scar is north. It's the other side of the, yeah, other side of the past. And anyway, we took off. It went straight up to 7000 and it was incredible landscape and it was the first time ever that I just realised how totally and utterly insignificant I was. And it's a beautiful thing to have a moment in your life where you just are to recognise that you are smaller than a leaf in the wind. You just this landscape is so vast. And so huge and so dauntingly threatening, but at the same time beautiful. It's amazing. Yeah. And then it was, my God, this is really out there. This is you're nothing.

And yeah, it was that moment that, yeah, just changed. It actually probably changed my life. Now you're talking about bombing out and walking. Yeah, no, no, sorry. This was after the bombing out, just getting up so high so quickly in such a place and just seeing the vastness. It was rough as well. It was so you're getting old, rocked around and it's not, it wasn't comfortable. It wasn't just, Oh my God, this is beautiful. It was more like, whoa, this is intense. And everything about it was intense. And yes, it was that moment that I just realised how totally insignificant I am. And I use the word totally other words, totally insignificant I

am because I still am totally and utterly insignificant. Really we're all just again, we fill ourselves with self importance, which I have done because of the things that that shape us, ego and all those things. But the reality is that we're just all pretty insignificant. It doesn't mean to say we don't have value, but there's just massive insignificance to all our lives really. They're all equally important, but none of them are important. That's the most humblest statement, hands down, I've heard in quite a while. And it's so nice that you're aware of it. You go. It's. Yeah, I can see that you've put in the work within yourself. When you speak, I really don't

think I have. It's easy, Easier said I'm not. Everything's a learning experience and we're learning all the time. But we do have to really recognise the fact that there's going to be thousands of souls after US and there's been thousands of souls before us. And how many of them are really relevant. They've all been relevant in our evolution and they all will be relevant in our evolution. But none of them, there are just a few names in all of history or in in all of history at this moment, that is recorded history at this moment that truly stand out. And of those few names that truly stand out, none of them are really relevant.

They're just, they just happened to be little islands that stand out. But in another 1000 years, all these names will be forgotten and we'll be dealing with a different set of names that stand out because of the evolution of consciousness and humanity within that consciousness. Word golden words yeah I there are 20 branches that I want to speak about like the 20 topics that I want to branch out to, but somehow it just feels that we have to save that for another day or be this is like.

Yeah, the The thing is, the the whole question of life is super interesting. It's super interesting. And you could argue that it's more interesting than anything else if you actually get into thinking about it and trying to understand yourself within it. The trouble is that we're always trying to entertain ourselves. That's all we do. Don't get me wrong, the podcast is another form of entertainment, but I'm not belittling the podcast. I'm not belittling anything. I'm just saying it's what we do. We entertain ourselves and we find things to occupy our minds with. Because if we stop and ask ourselves the questions that are truly interesting and expansive,

it becomes difficult. Should we say? Because then you've got to start dealing with the fact that, Oh my God, I am irrelevant. Yeah, you are. Yeah, for real. That is the truth. Even though you're so. Full of your own self importance, which I am, but the reality is it's just nothing matters. It's like standing in that line I was talking about earlier, when you're standing in the queue and you want to be at the front and you've got other things to do. Yeah. And everybody else in front of you has got other things to do, and everybody behind you has got other things to do. And you think you're the important one because you have

to be on this next flight. You're just another person in the whole thing who's totally irrelevant and it doesn't matter. You've only created yourself importance. OK, I'm going to tell my audiences what I had for the show, like the structure. And then they no, I think somehow we have ended up covering it all. Robbie, I kid you right? It was, it was five points that we spoke about. And the first one was finding your passion or the calling. The second one was finding the courage to go after the same. And the third was making it sustainable financially and emotionally. And that was followed by giving back to the community. And then the last one was what

comes next after you have been there, done that. And even though we might not have explicitly answered these questions in a chronological way or something, but I seem like we have given an overall idea more or less of how, yeah, the thoughts around them at least. Feel free to let us know people, how you felt, like how you found this. For those of you who have stuck these two hours, because we do have retention rates in the beginning of the show, but later on, the patience of a human brain obviously goes down. So for those of you who have stuck with us for so long, do

let us know in the comments because it's all about connecting, right? And I would like to connect with you guys rather than just having this as a one way conversation. So looking forward to hearing your feelings, but yeah, I don't know what can I be curious about next? I've been very curious about the stories from back in the day when you guys were exploring the Himalayas and B building or the John Sylvester Times and Coracorums. Man, these are like, to me, these are like fanboy moments when I, when I think about them, I was like, these early pioneers were going out and pushing the flight envelope of these brand

new machines. They were building themselves and, you know, taking them in these crazy places and having fun and finding the insignificance at the end of the day and realizing all of that and what an emotional rush and a roller coaster it must be. Yeah, I personally feel very lucky and super privileged. Amazing people everywhere in my story. Just inspirational people everywhere. John Sylvester. John Pendry, Russ, just the list, the list goes on. There's so many amazing pilots, great people, and not all, not just iconic names, but just doing a demo in Italy and meeting passionate people who are just flying at the weekend and excited to be a part of a, a demo weekend.

And you just, you have a great day with them and evening meal and everyone's just buzzing from sharing the passion. Yeah, it's the whole thing's just been incredible. And it's, yeah, just an amazing story in my life. And I'm sure there are equally as amazing stories in other people's lives that have been running parallel to mine. What's 1 commonality that you have seen in these people who are able to chase their passion or maybe these names to that which you mentioned, the amazing people? What's 1 commonality that you've seen in most of them that makes them stand out? Because I would like to do one of one of those names at the end of the day when the curtains are

coming in to close. I would be like, yeah, if I can look back and say that yes, I have done my own bit which was appreciated by the ones who saw it through my eyes, then I think I would have won at life basically. Yeah, I would say that all of those people every or but again, even those the those weekend pilots that you meet at those demos and things, it's just people's passion.

It's very good to have true passion and you might not be able to dedicated to it because you've got a family and you've got a job that's five days a week and you only get the weekend. So you might not have the same potential to dedicated to the sport because you've got other responsibilities. Most of those people that I talk about have navigated and had prioritised their passion over responsibility. Guilty as charged, yeah. Totally me too. So maybe that's one trait, but in general the thing that and the thing anyway that links all pilots together, including hang gliders, sailplanes is, is passion. You know, we, we're all

passionate people and we love this feeling that flight brings us and this potential that flight brings us because it's always an unknown potential. You take off, you don't really know what's going to happen. Yes, you probably know, you understand what's likely to happen, but you never know. You can't see the air. So you're flying in a medium that is invisible and you can only sense it through the controls and through the environment around you. But that's a beautiful thing to share, you know, and that that's a very unique thing to share. And sometimes I think it's something that we forget to recognise in our fellow pilots

is that everybody's out there just to to get to connect with that special feeling that flight is. So true. Yeah, well, I'm going to have to stop and just say that let's call it a day because this is the endless wonderful trail off the top that can keep on going on that. But one thing I do promise to my audience is that if you allow me, Robbie, I'd love to help you that at later stage sometime when we find more topics because, yeah, youthful, like an encyclopedia of end reality the way you like it. And I don't know, man, I just feel very relatable to you because, yes, we spoke about

Isle of Man, we spoke about the speed and all of those things. And when you see somebody who has been there done that, I'm like, shit, dude, I want to walk in those footsteps. And of course, if I can walk an extra mile, it's even fun, at least from the what what I see. I don't know what what else goes behind the scenes, but from what I see is, yeah. Thank you for showing us the way, Robbie. Inspiration is an understatement. You're much more than that. And what an honour to have these two hours with you, man. I was, yeah. About it, to be honest, I would just like to say though, thank

you very much for your kind words. It's very kind of you to say those things. But for as easy it is for me to have answers and insight for your questions, I've made all the mistakes. I've done many things badly, probably done more things badly than have done well. And yes, it's because you're asking these questions, you get the roses, but around the roses there are also thorns. And I have those thorns and I've made those mistakes. And it it doesn't, it's not all just perfection or imperfection. It sorry, it definitely it's not perfection. It's not all just the positive side of things. There is plenty of negative

stuff as well. I have my own demons that I have to battle like everybody does. But the most important thing more than anything is that just get up, keep trying and keep trying to make my life better. And hopefully everybody can do the same thing. Just the whole gig is just about trying to make your life better. Indeed, indeed. And yeah, thank you for your honesty. I think that is a good way to pause on this. Excellent. Thank you very much. Really appreciated it.