Navigating Career Transitions From Recruitment to Mortgages

Guest - Alan Greenin

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Transcript

  📍 Hello everybody. And welcome back to another episode of the mortgage Mavericks podcast with me, Ash Borland. And in today's episode, we are joined by Alan Green. And now actually I've been just wanting to chat with Alan. So this is like a, I'm excited to have a chat with you. We've been going back and forth on on. 

On like DMS. I've seen you for a while. We had this book, didn't have to cancel it, but he thought I was ghosting him. But we're not, so we're going to just unpack it and just learn a little bit about you and what, how you got into the industry and what your kind of situation is. So mate, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, sir. As I said earlier, it feels a bit like imposter syndrome being here because I've been following you. I would say probably. Before I even qualified, I'd seen that really that long ago.  Yeah. Cause that rather than just go straight into the story of how I got there I like to prepare things.

And I like to know what I'm getting into first before I jump ship and do stuff. Yeah, so figured out who the main players were really and followed them. I like to think that's at the beginning, that's me and Gary. Yeah. We are the main players to be fair. There is like Gary is always say Gary is patient zero and I am like the second one, like that's how I started very much.

So a lot different now, but yeah. So how, you said that you you follow me before you were qualified. What were you doing beforehand? So I was in construction recruitment for 10 years. Oh, nice. Yeah, working with national house builders, mainly on the white collar side of things. So quantity surveyors, they were my speciality, really.

Did that for 10 years, went self employed at the end of that, because I thought I could change recruitment. Definitely couldn't, it didn't want to be changed.  Change recruitment in what way? I think a lot of people get the idea that it's very cutthroat and it is recruitment. It's hitting the phones,  100 to 200 calls a day.

I don't want to give too much away about recruitment but Just not underhand tactics at all, but doing what's best. I thought we're doing what's best for the candidate and the client at the time, but a lot of the time it doesn't work out to be that way. So going self employed, I wanted to change things and do everything, not work with as many people and just make it a little bit more bespoke, but being a one man band against the Randstads of the world is, It's tough.

Oh it will be, industries like that the reason why I asked that you saying about this idea of  going, going and changing it is it's quite common for many people in the mortgage space are like, I'm going to be different. I'm going to change it. And I just find it very interesting because when you say, when someone's to change the industry always makes me think you probably need to bring your or it's always never going to work because it's so much larger.

Then people realize and I only say that because that was me. I've done that as well It's like when I did the videos it was like i'm gonna change the industry And I still think I will change the industry and I am but it's probably going to take me 20 years as opposed to what? I thought maybe it would take in six months.

So it's always significantly harder than people realize And yeah, so it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Did really well first couple of years was misadvised, I'd say accountant wise. They said I could put my wife on as a director and she earns good money. They didn't think to ask about that.

Oh, wow, okay, yeah, so that throws everything else up. So yeah, it was hit with quite a large tax bill that wasn't expecting. Had the money obviously there. But then after a while I had a bit of a mental breakdown. Okay, one January and thought, I can't do this anymore.

Had a good cry to my mum . I get that. I've been there down the road. And then came up with a plan of what? Didn't come up with a plan, thought, what am I gonna do now? I've got friends who own Marble, who I themself employed with, spoke to them, and said. What is it you guys do? Cause I didn't really have any idea.

We just hung out with them most evenings and weekends. They seemed happy,  which was the main thing. Yeah. And had a nice life. So I was like, what is it you guys do? They told me, and then we set up a little plan of how I would get to what I needed to do to get there. And then lockdown hit in March of that year.

My recruitment was still going, but. Everybody just said, we're not recruited now for six months. And I was like, okay, now's the time to, to get qualified C MAP. And that's what I did while homeschooling my two daughters. Wow. So it's a lot there to unpack with that. And then, so it's interesting then you say they seemed happy with it, with the that line of work, how have you found.

We'll dive back into the CMAP bit of it all, but you say you made that shift and again, that the breakdown I've been there, I was there with very much when this started, same sounds literally identical, similar thing. I remember it was breaking down on the floor and my wife being like something like, I just don't even know how, where to go from this point.

How has it now felt now that you're here, now that you've been doing it? Is it everything you thought it was going to be, or is it maybe more difficult or what's been your experience of that? The first year was brutal. It is. Like I didn't know, didn't realize how hard it was going to be.

Cause I had no, no experience in it. Didn't really know much about my mortgage, let alone anybody else's. So I thought if I'd just sign up a couple of estate agents. The work's going to come flying in, not going to struggle at all. Most estate agents have got mortgage advisors. I was going to say signing up estate agents is very hard.

That's like the hardest, one of the hardest things to do.  Yep. So yeah, first year was hard and thought, I might as well, I've got to get a job, I've got to do something. But then things started to get a bit better.  I started to stop focusing on what other people were doing, because I'd see other people in the industry  with these mental figures that a lot of people were doing.

Also people within Marble were generating a lot of A lot of inquiries, doing a lot of mortgages a month. Where am I going wrong? But then instead of focusing on that, I focused on learning  mortgages, more about criteria, really focused on the protection side of things to make sure that for the couple of inquiries that I did get, I made them count with the protection.

Yeah. So when I was in recruitment, it was all, all in my head was. get people the jobs to their dreams, really help people out. And now I really feel like I'm doing that, but with their houses, get them in massive amounts of debt first. But then they've got that house at the end.  But then also getting the protection in place that really secures them financially if anything does happen.

So I can sleep better at night now, rather than when I was in recruitment. But that, see that's the main thing, isn't it really? If that, and it's an interesting one with that. So one of the things you just said, I just want to circle back and double click into this thing, which you said, you stopped focusing on other people.

That's something that's quite common, I think. Is that you, you actually, it's not fair about what might be careful, what you even want for more of my content. I was saying, be careful what because it's a snapshot of a much larger picture. So  what was it that made you stop focusing on other people?

Because that's very hard to do. Like I, even I struggle with that. Like to even today when recording this, I've just decided to stop doing YouTube shorts because it, because there's no point the data shows. It doesn't really work. Even that was like, I'm only doing it because I know that other people do it, not in the industry, but other people in my line of work, it's hard.

So what was, what built up to that point? What did you see? And then how did you overcome that? So I listened to, although I listened to your podcast religiously, I also listened to a lot of positive mindset stuff. So Ed Milette, I've listened to him. Probably. eight or nine years since he started to record his podcast.

He's changed a lot. Yeah, lot, a lot. But I went through a stage of not listening to anything. So then I got back into going to the gym or the come out, go into the gym listening to those positive mental podcasts and kind of reevaluated my headspace. Yeah. Okay. Comparison. What's the phrase that they use?

Comparing yourself to other people is like the root of all evil or something. What do they say? Comparison is the thief of joy. Joy. I think it is. Yeah, I think it is that. So yeah, just took it all on board and thought, It always says, laser focus, focus on one thing and get really good at that.

So that's what I just tried to cut out a lot of the noise that I was focusing on, like other people doing well and just really focused on what I could change rather than. Focusing on what I can't. So one of Ed's, I think Ed's things is life happens for you, not to you. Yeah. And I love that. Very stoic.

That's a stoic, that's a Marcus Aurelius quote that originally. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Stoicism Marcus Aurelius, which is obviously what people like Ed and that are built upon, very legacy yeah, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and things like that. So I love that. My wife says that quote all the time.

We're talking about this off air, like about being diagnosed with an auto immune disease when that happened. And it was like the kidney disease and there's a chance of progression and like potential dialysis. My wife was like, everything happens, like they say for you, not to you. And it shifted and that, that perspective shift is really massive because then it was, we just chatted about like food and health and, I'm healthier than I ever was because of the diagnosis.

And that was because of that exact quote. So I love that. That's why I would point that out. I learned it's great. And the quote was comparison is the thief of joy. That's what it was. Okay. I think once you do think that  life happens for you, not to you constantly. Yeah.  So if something bad happens.

to me, or like a mortgage doesn't go through or a client doesn't want to work with me. I tend to think, okay you weren't meant to work with that person. It's going to free up your time to work up with, to work with somebody else. That's the right way to think as well. So one of the things, again, going deeper into this, you said that you stopped focusing on all the other things and start to focus on The one thing that you were good at, like you wanted to be better.

And then your control. So what were those things? What was the thing that you decided I'm going to focus in on this thing? What was that thing?  So it was just getting better at one thing every day. So I used to be very shy. But then recruitment changed that. I'm not overly good in front of camera, as I suppose most people would have seen from my videos.

But  getting yourself out of that comfort zone and you get used to it after a while. I quite enjoy doing some of those videos sometimes. Because I find them like the outtakes on my phone are quite hilarious where I completely mess up and say the complete opposite to what I meant to be saying. Why you should use your bank over a mortgage advisor.

No, it's completely not what you should be doing. And yeah just trying to find something to get better at each day. Was learn more criteria use a different bit of software that I've not used before. Yeah, just try and learn something new every day that I can use to, to progress with mortgages, really, and protection.

I love it. So What are some of the you're just, I'm just making notes by the way, when we're chatting. So one of the things you said then about software, like software processes and like daily routines. So do you, what are some of the software that you now use that you've learned how to use?

What's been some of those things that you've. So we  never used to use I was taught how to use LifeQuote. Now I use Solution Builder. Good. I absolutely love it. Like I can't, the only reason I go back to life quote is to use the decision and principle part. The 27 tech, like  I love that. Calendly I started using.

That's good. What else do I use? I never used TikTok before until a year ago. Oh, you want, are you on your iPad? Are you on your laptop? I'm on my Mac at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Just as soon as you did that, it was like. Yeah, I love it. I love when they do that. That's not Matt Chapman where he uses his all the time.

We have chats. And I think if you put both hands up like that, should do like lasers. Oh yeah. Look at that. I like that. Yeah. I actually did this on a call with somebody a while ago, but we were on a teams and I did that and it started to do some thumbs up. I think if you put your finger on that, it does a thumbs up.

I think there's a thumbs down. Is it time if it does thumbs down, I won't do it with me. Just if you try it now and see what it. There's something where you can do, where it does fireworks somewhere. Yeah, fireworks is I can't remember what it is. I know that one was the lasers, but I guess I don't know what the rest of them are is.

I remember we went through the, it was one of the things you were going through on a session once. It was ridiculous, but I love it. Okay. And then, so you're obviously somebody who's very driven and focused on things. This is something that's quite clear already, just from speaking to you, this idea of the people you listen to, first of all, the fact that you've listened to me, but since before you were qualified.

It means that you've been around for a long time and that you stick with things for a long time. So that's really impressive. Do you have a daily kind of routine that you follow with your business or are you, how's that kind of work? Do you have a thing you do every single day or is it just winging it?

So there is a sort of process, but I do get caught up with emails. I don't like to be reactive. I like to be proactive and make sure that, so I, I write a list every night, the things I need to get done. Sometimes some of them get ticked off. Some of them, sometimes they don't. But the most important ones normally do.

Normally at five to five. But I was just joking with my wife earlier. So not that I don't shower every day, but some days if I'm just focused in on work, I've got a hoodie on and I don't speak to people, but I've got probably 10 to 15 videos that I want to record. So I've showered and shaved every single day and I've not filmed one this week.

So do you film your content in batches then? How do you do that? Yeah, I tend to. I think I did quite a few just before Christmas. I did a few a little while ago. But yeah, people do come in and say, you must do one every single day. I'm like, no I've got all my shirts lined up that I want to wear.

So I changed them. And so how much content do you upload then? How much content do you upload? I'll show the  schedule at the moment. I had,  I've had about two weeks off just because I was quite ill. I had that cough, cold thing for about a week now. I tend not to get too ill, but that really knocked it out of me.

And that's just thrown everything out a little bit. But normally what's your upload schedule? I try and post five days a week. So that's good then. That's really impressive. But I do, so I see you all, I do see you a lot. Obviously you will do because me and you go back and forth on DMS quite a bit, it'll then show me your stuff more because I'm talking to you, which is a little tip there for anyone listening to this is that's what you should be engaging with people. 

And commenting on their stuff, because when you comment on their stuff or like comments on their stories, if it deems you as a relationship is what they call it, it's a relationship algorithm and it starts to show your stuff to them more. So little tip there, a little pro tip that no one really knows about, but I, yeah, I haven't, I have noticed you've not posted.

I haven't seen your stuff for a couple of days. So that would be why it's one of those things. I said to someone before,  I noticed it's less that I noticed that people stop. It's more when I know that people have stopped because it's when I see it and I go, Oh gosh, I haven't seen that for a while.

Whereas normally there's like a group. There's a lot of people I find. I just follow that. I'm like every day I'm like, Oh yeah, there they are. There they are. There they are. Yeah. Yeah. I, you see the same people and you're normally in that rotation. So it's one of those where I can imagine once you start posting again, I'd be like you'll be posted by the time this is out.

Cause this gets recorded significantly early on in advance. But yeah, it's interesting. You're you've joined here. How have you found it now then? Are you, is it, are you enjoying it? Are you enjoying the actual job now? Yeah, absolutely. Three years in, because you said the first year was pretty tough.

The first year was pretty tough. Yeah, shadow of a doubt. So this is the start of my third year. Last year, all the advisors that I speak to said it was really hard last year, but I had a really good year. But for my standards anyway. So I'm really looking forward to this year, the beginning of the year.

I was really looking forward to it because interest rates were coming down. I had inquiries coming out of my ears.  And then interest rates have gone up,  inquiries have slowed down, people are a bit worried about what's going to happen. Find out tomorrow. But I do really enjoy it. I'm quite, I've never seen myself as somebody that likes to solve puzzles.

Okay. When you get people's information, and you then have to try and figure out the puzzle of The maximum they can borrow. Can they buy the house that they've already got in their mind? I love that satisfaction of going back to him again. You can actually, there you go. That's what we can do. And this is going to protect everything.

And so how are you getting your leads now? Where's your kind of majority of your lead source coming from now? If it wasn't, you said it like beginning, I'll just get a few estate agents and stuff, and obviously life has a funny way of, we've all done it. We've all done it, but like you say, but it's what does it look like now?

What's the kind of inbound needs type of stuff? So I do have an estate agent that I do work with. They're really good. I love working with them, but I think a lot of my stuff comes from LinkedIn mainly because when I was a recruiter, LinkedIn was basically my database. So I've got quite a good I say quite a good,  nearly 8, 000 connections on there.

Yeah, that's good. So when I do post anything it doesn't get seen by everybody. I do get the inquiries from the people that I used to work with and they are my ideal clients because they probably know me from when I was trying to, when I was annoying them, headhunting them. Oh, so you're getting from like the construction Side of things you're getting those people.

Ah, so have you niched into that? Is that what you're. So I'm trying to niche into it more, but I still get the inquiries from Facebook where they're friends. Yeah. But yeah,  I do really like working with the construction. So I guess that's good because that lead, they said that builds upon your previous experience, which is where that is, where that's the hardest bit is trying to keep that stuff, like you've spent 10 years building this career in an area that you know, and then you, cause that's no different.

Like I said, I only do this because. I only got into this because I was a broker before. Like I've, if I could do marketing and branding in any other industry, but the knowledge, of the industry, especially as a broker, it's the knowledge of your clients, actual work and their life is the bit that makes you more valuable.

So that's, and that's a really interesting take. So on LinkedIn, are you doing videos? Are you doing written posts? What's your strategy? It was for the last three months. It was videos every single day. I have noticed in the last month that they're not doing as well as what they were. You should listen to my podcast.

You should know that my podcast says stop doing videos all the time. Yeah, only on LinkedIn.  A dramatic drop in views and stuff. And I do message some of my friends that go. I know you've seen it, so give it a like. But yeah I think I do need to change tactics on LinkedIn. Because I don't know what, what's changed.

I know you, I did hear you mention that video isn't doing so well on LinkedIn. I don't know why they've decided to do that. So LinkedIn is a, it's an interesting one. So LinkedIn is video has not been doing well in LinkedIn for quite a while, but it's getting worse and worse. It's because when it started doing.

Video it was it tried to adopt like everything else. It was like video is the way forward It did have stories. Yeah, not very long. Not very long about six months. And then they were gone But linkedin it was trying to be like every other social platform Because that was the way everyone was going that however, they really in a good way They really in the last maybe a year really got very clear on what they do and who they serve and what they're there for You And it's a professional networking, social media account.

And so written content just seems to perform significantly better. At the moment, that's what I'm doing daily at the moment and seeing how they play. I've stopped doing everything else, just doing that,  but written posts themselves. The reason why I do that, by the way, just because people ask them and people will be listening and what's the difference.

So a post, a written post will get more reach and get more engagement and get everything like that. So with same video, won't get any of the things, but it's in that combination, but but the, what are the problem though with a written post is that once it's done, same with the video, once it's out there within two or three days, it's done, like it's gone.

And so articles, which is that they're like newsletter feature. They have, you see it there. They actually will get less reach. I'll get less views. But. They are they're actually searchable. And they're searchable on Google, so they're a blog, so they can, so you don't have to have a website.

You can build SEO content on there so that you can drive traffic. Anytime. So it consistently works. And you can embed videos, you can embed links, you can do all of that in it and not get penalized. So it's deciding which one is better for people for me, because I make such a lot, like a lot of content and evergreen it I'm trialing  this article thing.

And it seems to be doing well. Plus it emails everybody who signs up to it, but you get the email. So I didn't realize it just so I didn't realize it did that. And no, and it was Chris target for social brokers had told me, cause I'm good friends with Chris and he's just been on the podcast. And he was like, do you know who emails them as well?

And I was like, no,  because what I was doing was emailing it. I was emailing it as well to my mailing list. So I was doing it and then also emailing them myself. And I was like, Oh, I didn't know that. So they, so twice a day, these people are getting like, listen to this podcast, listen to this podcast. I don't, I think it comes up as a notification in your emails  to say that you've got, you actually get an email.

I think it actually comes up as a, as the email of it from when I looked at it on my, my, on my wife's one, cause she subscribed to mine and I saw on hers. And I was like, wow. Cause I was setting up her website and so it's, but I don't really know, but it's clever. It's used to be like they used to do live streaming and still do live streaming, but live streaming on LinkedIn  used to be amazing.

You're right. You found me coming. I was just looking at it then. Yeah. It's I've got my other screens. Yeah. Live streaming on LinkedIn is, was used to be the it doesn't do anymore, but it used to alert everybody. Every like everybody who followed you, it would alert them that you had gone live.

So now it doesn't do that. It just alerts people who it thinks might like it and stuff. But back in the day, we're talking like first year of COVID. That's why I started doing daily podcasts because you could go live and everybody's phone would get an alert at eight o'clock in the morning going Ash ball and his life.

And quite a lot of my clients who have worked me for a long time now, but didn't know, like they signed it at that point. Cause they were like. I just kept going, who is this guy? He's just going live every single day. And and one of the ones said I was running, I was going out for a run and I knocked it.

And I, and it clicked onto the notification. He said, and I was running, he said, and it hit when I was in my leg. He said, and that was it. He said, I was in listening to your podcast because you're live talking. And I was like, wow, this guy's talking a lot of sense. And it wasn't that, so you don't know, there's always these new features that come out and it's just about deciding whether or not they're right for you.

But LinkedIn is always taking different directions, but video. With yours, you just wanted to move to text. Yeah. Yeah. So I do, I have them written out. Then I turn them into a little script, like 30 to 40 seconds script. Okay. Are you using a teleprompter then? Are you using a teleprompter? No, I'm not quite that advanced.

So I use captions,  but it's here, but my 12 year old has got a ring light. So I have got a so I don't ever have the ring light on because I always wear my glasses. Yeah. So I have the script attached to the ring light by a little clip. But I've figured out with captions, it's got a transcript.

It's got a teleprompter, by the way, you know that. No, I was going to say, I'll show you this at the end of this call, captions has got a telepump upload the script in and it will, you can read it. Okay. I'll probably do that from now on. That's what you're going to do from now on. That'll be great. I love that.

Otherwise I was just pausing so that, because when you edit on captions, it cuts out all the pauses that you do and the errs and the ums. So I was just pausing just long enough and then I'd read the next line and then I'd go back into it.  That's a smart way to do it. That's how I do my podcast in the morning.

So I pause. Yeah. Yeah. So I use similar to captions. I use the script, but it's, which is a desktop version of it. And I pause. So while I'm talking to stuff, if I'm like, because there's a feature, like you say, where you just press delete and it deletes all of the word gaps and ums and ahs. So if I'm like stopping and I'm like, okay, I've got to think of the next thing, or I'm going to get up something on a demonstration on screen or something, I'll be chatting and then I'll stop  and I'll open it up.

And I'll just, the videos are hilarious when you actually watch them without editing, because it's, they can be like. 30 minutes long. And they're in like seven minutes because I might be like looking like the quote, I'll be like looking for the quote, looking, trying to find it, bring it up, space it. And then I'm like, press.

So here we go. And it's quite like hilarious when you actually watch it. Like it's terrible actually.  Or like I'll be  watching them back. I know you should never watch them back. Never watch your videos back. So one of the things you said is me and you spoke about on here. And you spoke about off air as well, is that you were leaning more into protection.

So what is it about protection that makes you Just be more drawn to it. Going back to being in recruitment and wanting to get people that dream job. wanting to do the best and it sounds cheesy again wanting to do the best for that client and getting the best outcome for them. And again, it does sound really cheesy, but it's an edge my let quote again, where he says if you serve people,  then the money will come kind of thing.

And that's basically what I've taken on board. Serving people, not like a slave. My children think I'm a slave most of the time, but yeah, with clients just making sure that they've got everything they need. If anything does happen, because I've seen in our personal lives when things don't go right and it's brutal.

Yeah, no, it's definitely an interest. That's an interesting, quite as very similar to the not the Eric Coffer quote. What's the one, the Zig Ziglar one, which is the Zig Ziglar. Have you heard of Zig Ziglar before? I think I have. He's Oh gee, you like Zig Ziglar. You go down go down a Down a rabbit hole.

If you look at him, cause he's like Ed Milette before Ed Milette. So his quote is, if you help enough people get what they want, you will get everything you want. And that's his, it's a very famous quote, which is that you say, if you're serving people. And I remember working with a guy who was one of my bosses in St.

Neots actually. And he was great. And he used to say, Ash, if you chase the money, it'll run away. And I always, and I loved that. And it really stuck with me that. Because it's very similar to what you're saying there. And I think protection is one of those things where when you approach it properly,  and you approach it from a place of, Pure and true like what you're doing, like really trying to be there for the client and to protect the client, help them.

You end up one, it's very rewarding. And two, you end up making a lot of money  because it sells itself if it's done for the right reasons. And I always say to the industry, if it's done for the wrong reasons, then there's a lot of people, they churn it, they do all the bad things. It goes wrong. And then they can't seem to understand why they're not selling it.

But then, like I said, I've got clients who are doing 300 pound a month premiums, three 50, and they're not thinking about it. Because it's just, because it's about what's right for the client and what's, and the client picks the budget. So I think, I love protection. I think it's a massive part of what you're doing.

I do think if you don't, and I do hear some horror stories because I always tell clients, send me the protection that you've got. If it doesn't need touching, brilliant. Yeah. It saves you a job. But some of the stuff they send me through is, Criminal. And you just think, why have you got 200 grand above your mortgage for life cover?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Some level term yeah, crazy stuff that goes on. I know what you mean. So how has this got past compliance first?  Oh yeah. I know. Yeah. I love it. I love a bit of that. I speak about that recently, but I won't go too in depth. I just feel bad. So one of the questions I wanted to bring up with you before we wrap this up, cause it's been great learning, but one of the things you put on here, which I think is just brilliant is.

And this is so random why marvel and not dc so you put in here  Why marvel you say you're a marvel fan? Yeah, and not DC and it just got me thinking I thought let's end it on this question because it's just an interesting thing to understand So, please explain to me Alex Curtis will be spinning in his grave if he hears this.

How does he like DC? He's a Batman fan like big Batman fan. It's not even a superhero Batman. He's a big time Like that's his whole thing. So go and tell me why I'm gonna clip this and send it to him I've loved Marvel comics since I was, since I could probably read. So you're like OG, you're like proper fan of the comics and everything.

Yeah. Now, if there's any burglars in my area I've got a Deadpool edition two, number two comic and number three. in my loft, immaculate condition. So you're a proper collector then? No, I've only got those two. Oh, really? All the other comics are ripped to shreds. I went up in the loft last summer because I was showing my two daughters.

I've tried for years to try and get them into Marvel. They're not interested. But I think with the whole Marvel cinematic universe, I think that's almost changed my made me love Marvel even more because the movies are so good, the way they intertwine with each other. But if you watch a DC film, I guarantee you fall asleep before the end of it.

Oh yeah, they're terrible. They are rubbish. I remember. It's so dark. I remember. What do you think is going on? I've never shared this publicly. This is hilarious. My friends and family know this, but like never shared publicly as well. Before my wife, my ex girlfriend, before her, we were together for a long time five years.

And the thing that we shared together was that we, Went to the cinema all the time. So I would go, I lived in London and she lived in Cambridge, but we'd go back and forth. It was, we were together for a long time, but we'd see each other at the weekends and we'd go to the cinema. It was all during that era of the initial kind of Marvel, everything coming out.

And it was.  I wouldn't say it's a golden age of cinema, but it was the last time where cinema was really any good, because it's very much died a death now it's, and it's not as nowhere near as good as it was across the board. And we had a cinema card. And  anyway, she split up with me at the, I can't, it'd be years ago, seven years ago now, eight years ago, eight years ago.

But when she's loving me, we're in good terms and literally speak to be still speak to her. She literally lives in down the road for me and my wife. She's my first friendly with her. But I remember saying to her,  I was like, I don't mind that you left me. But what I do mind is that the last movie we watched together was Batman versus Superman. 

Oh, my God. I was like, and she was like, we were like,  first out laughing at the end. Cause I was like, cause we were, we did part amicably, but it was, I was like,  I can't believe a run of this relationship of all these incredible films we watched together because we'd watch two movies a week and it'd be like all these things that was our thing and I was like and then you had to end with me couldn't wear a week you had to be batman vs superman worst film I've ever seen it's not even a film it's like half done it's not even like it's not even Yeah, they pulled, the directors cut out, didn't they?

And it was like three and a half hours long or something. Oh, that was the other one. That was the justice League one. That one that was even more, but this was Batman versus Superman was re horrendous and I've never watched it since. Are you, so with Marvel then, are you still a fan now?

Of all the stuff coming out? Yeah. Or are you or is that kind of weighing since it's been bad in the press? I don't care about the press . See, mine's Star Wars, so I will watch anything Star Wars, so that's my like I do love a bit of Star Wars. That's my like, your Marvel is Star Wars, I actually have a Star Wars tattoo.

That's actually a Star Wars logo on the shield. So it's the I'm actually looking at getting on my right thigh,  a Spider Man versus Hulk comic strip. That'd be cool. That'd hurt. Yeah, it's gonna hurt. I love that. The arms don't hurt at all, so  You say that. I found the arms With mine. Cause I have a, so I have a body suit.

So it's like all over completely. Which no one ever, again, no one sees any of this stuff. They just see the sleeve this, the bits, but  I found the hardest bit for mine is in the inner arm, and these were all like pictures in there. So yeah, that was very sore. And then the lower back was quite cause it goes down my bum and stuff.

So like that, the bum's pretty easy. Cause that's like a. It's just soft , but is it like one of those Japanese body suits? Yeah, it is. Yeah. So go, oh, goes all Yeah, round and down. I'll show you after the thing, but yeah, it's a proper body suit. It's about 180 hours, 190 hours.

I had  over a, it was over a four, three and a half, four year. Yeah, took a long time. Like it was all it was like to be weird with that. No, I've never spoke about this on the show because some people ask, most of them don't realize I have it, but it's it was the, it was very much like a visual transition of happening whilst I was also moving into being more Like I was before that time I was a corporate mortgage broker and it was a state agent, then came my mortgage broker within corporate  and it was the kind of realization of I can start to do things that maybe break the mold a bit, like maybe not be and it started, and that was what the tattoo was.

I was like, We, I remember we would start, we saved up quite a bit of money and I was, and this guy was like what'd you want to do? And I was like, I really want a tattoo. And they're like, what do you want? And I was like,  I want a bodysuit. Like I'd already had a tattoo. I had a very little tattoo, but I was like, I want a bodysuit.

I remember going in and the tattoo artist, when I showed him, he came in, And his name's Ri Sochi, and he's a, he's got waiting list now and everything. He's a great guy. He is a good friend of mine. You will do after a hundred and 150 plus hours? Yeah. Never met me. He never knew me or anything and I walked into the art, the tattoo parlor.

I'd seen his work on Instagram and I just was like, okay, so this is what I want. And he was like, what? And I had printouts. I'd printed them all out in wow. In in my office at Connell's I'd printed it all out and I'd drawn it and I put it out and I literally put it all across the floor in the center of the office in the center of the kind of like the place that they were at, like the tattoo parlor.

And I was like, so that is going to go across my arm. That's going to go here. That's going to go, that's going to go here. And I designed it all. And he was like yeah. So like I designed it and then he put it together. So all of the things that like, I was like, I want this thing here, this night and day with this happening there, like it's all completely intricate and he was just like, I remember looking at him and he was like, He's no, I don't know anyone who's ever done this.

Like he was like this because it, cause it's not, it's a, it's not a big, it's big tattoo, but it's say 40 little tattoos. So it's very intricate. It's like a. What most people blow up across their entire back.  I have it like shrunk down. So he's like using magnifying glasses and everything to do it was really good.

But it coincided with my son got born in the final, when it was, my son was born at the end of it or when it was all done and it was just all like amazing to see, like going from like when the final one ended, it was like going from you talking about beginning of this, bringing it to say, how breakdown you spoke to your mom sounds very similar to me.

It was like that journey of. Going through, I had the breakdown when I was getting it done. I had I went off and set up on my own. I then set up this business to, by the time it finished, I'd, we'd started to pay off. I pretty much paid off my mortgage and was in a career that was like my dream career.

And my son was there. It was just like a whole weird thing. This tattoo meant a lot. It was really weird, really strange. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Which part hurt the most? Inner arm hurt the most or lower back. Yeah. So I had two days back to back which was, so I did two 10 hour shifts back to back, which was just a stupid thing.

I shouldn't have done that. I was a really ridiculous one. So  they did the entire left flank of my back from the top down to the bottom. But it was two 10 hour shifts. And the first one I was buzzing. And then the second one. Like they were like going in against it already, very tired and fatigued. And then it was like, it was just not a nice and pleasant experience.

And I could chat about this forever. We've been around the podcast. We can talk about this off air. Alan, if people want to learn more about you, where's best place for them to go. I would say probably Instagram. Yeah. Instagram is probably the best place. And what's that? What's the handles for that?

Let's have a quick look. Should probably know it's the mortgage guy, Alan. That's it at the mortgage guy, Alan. I've got it here. You see when you're doing your stuff. So I love it. I'm way more prepared. The only reason I've done that is because when I message clients, unless they've saved my number, I put Alan brackets.

Yeah, it makes sense. Because people will know it's much easier. I love that. So mate, thanks so much. I'll round this up and it's been a real pleasure. We'll chat.