James Cutting has been involved with football coaching since the age of 19. First going to the USA to coach and then working for Cambridge United for 9 years. James speaks to us about his life story and how he came to starting his own coaching business. He is now training up young kids with life skills such as discipline, good attitude and mental awareness as he does the many coaching sessions throughout the week in the East of England.
In this episode we want to help you by giving you the inspiration you might need to go out and do the things that you love doing, whether that be a hobby, or a sport, or even turning your hobby or sport into a business. Whatever it is that drives you, whatever your passion and your love, don't neglect it and let it lie dormant. If you are a good artist, then draw, paint, make music, dance. But don't let that talent go to waste.
Reward does come to those who take risks, the risk does not always have to be high. You should not put your families lives at risk to the point where you could become homeless, but if you have calculated it properly and you have the right plan in place and you are sure there is a market for what you want to get into then what are you waiting for? Just try as Coach James Cutting says
https://www.thefootballfunfactory.co.uk
Introduction: Hello everyone. Welcome to LifeShot. Have you ever wanted to break out, leave the job you're doing now or perhaps try something new? Maybe it's a new hobby or something. And you feel not quite confident enough to do it. I spoke to James Cutting this week and this is his journey, he used to do football coaching for Cambridge United, which he loved. And then he moved on to a job that he didn't like as much and then decided to get back into doing what he loved. And perhaps you're in a similar situation where you might be doing a job that is okay. Maybe you used to do a job that you really loved and now you're finding out the job is not the best. How do you get the confidence within to go further to say, "All right, that's it, I'm taking the next step. I'm going to break out. I'm going to get free of these things that limit me, these fears that I seem to have put on myself. Let's get out there and try something new"? So today's about James talking to us about do what you love doing. And even if it's something on the side, like what I'm doing now, I'm doing podcasting and interviews on the side, I've got my day job. And it's just about making a difference where you can, if spreading a message is your passion like mine, do this. If helping young kids is a passion, like what James does, then do that. So it's about pushing you, challenging you guys, go and do what you love doing. Welcome to this week and I hope you enjoy James Cutting, football coach from the Football Fun Factory.
Interviewer: James Cutting, welcome to the LifeShot podcast.
Interviewee: Thanks very much. Great to be here.
Interviewer: Yeah, good to have you. And for the listeners, James Cutting is a football coach here in the UK, in Cambridge. I'll let you do your own introduction actually, James, because you've got quite a history within football and coaching. Do you want to give us a background as to your time with Cambridge United?
[00:03:55] Interviewee: I'll try and keep it brief. I'll try to skip further in the different stages. I started football coaching at a really young age, stopped playing football at about 16. I realized that I wasn't going to play football to the level I wanted to. I haven't got a sub story like lots of people, a bad knee, dodgy ankle, those kinds of things. Just wasn't good enough.
Interviewer: Did you come to terms with that?
Interviewee: Yeah, came to terms with that quite early. And then it was like "What's the next best thing you can do if you can't play?" So, coach. So I turned to coaching at 16, did some volunteer coaching, knew I wanted to be a football coach or be involved in football at some level. So then I went off to America to gain some more coaching experience. I was in Chicago, in New York, worked for a company out there that trains British coaches.
Interviewer: It's quite like a coaching culture there, in America, they train a lot of coaches, don't they?
[00:04:49] Interviewee: They do and they like British coaches. You're a bit of a hero if you go over there. They think we're really good for some reason. You go over there and you coach and work for a company, they send out loads of British coaches. You stay with host families and do coaching camps throughout the summer.
Interviewer: And that was in your younger years?
Interviewee: Yeah, so I was 19 and did that only for about six months. It's was a temporary position really, but gave me opportunity to coach every day. To then gain loads of experience, came back, and then began work at Cambridge United Football Club. So, I tried to force my foot in the door a little bit.
Interviewer: What, did you just knock on the door and say "Hey guys, is there a new job?"
Interviewee: Well, while I was in America, I sent a few emails, contacted all the local professional clubs. I was living in Kingsland in Norfolk at the time. Contacted Cambridge, Norwich, Peterborough, I think they all got back to me actually. And had the meeting with Cambridge and then didn't go to the other meetings because I was sold on the place and the people at the time. They basically said "If you want...", so, I had no commitments. I came back, I was 19, I was living at home, no real commitments. And it was just like "Throw yourself into it". So there were some paid coaching hours. But a lot of it was just like "Go and volunteer your services, go and get involved as you can". And I was in a brilliant position to do that.
Interviewer: Were you were living with your parents at home or did you have to move away from home?
[00:06:11] Interviewee: No, I was traveling from Kingsland to Cambridge every single day up and down the 810, which is the worst road in the world.
Interviewer: Oh, you didn't take the train?
Interviewee: No, because I needed equipment in my car and all those kinds of things. In fact, the first ever coaching session I got was in Baldock, in Hertfordshire. So it was an hour and 40 minutes from my house. I got paid about 15 quid for the hour and probably spent 40 quid to get there and back.
Interviewer: The sacrifices we take, right?
Interviewee: Exactly. I wasn't doing it for money, I wanted to do it for the experience and for the opportunities.
Interviewer: Not everyone's privileged enough to be able to just to do that. Because actually, today's episode, we're going to call it 'Do what you love doing'. And it's not necessarily that we want to put guilt on people to say, "Hey, why aren't you doing what you love doing as a job?" But it's doing what you love doing, even if it's not your job. You're doing something else outside of the things you love doing.
Interviewer: So even if you were working at some other normal job, you did football just because you love it. I think this is the message we want to get across today, just do what you love doing. If doing what you love doing pushes you outside of your comfort zone to try a different job, then so be it. I think you're going to give us a message today about how you did that, how you started your own business and that journey from there. Before we get onto that though, I've noticed and I've seen you coach, I don't know if you know it or not, but you've got some very good skills with young people.
Interviewer: And my wife's a teacher and so she can pick these things up and say "James is a really good coach and he controls the kids well". So did you learn this by osmosis, through the years or was it something that was particular in your training in there?
[00:07:55] Interviewee: Both, really. I think as a football coach, really the root to become qualified is to go on FA courses. So you do your FA level one, FA level two. I did my FA level three, which is the UEFA for B-coaching license, which basically qualifies you to coach a youth level for any club in the country basically. So at Cambridge, I had to work within the academy, but then running a number of different programs as well there. But the qualifications are great, being around other people and FA mentors and all that kind of stuff. That's all great. But actually, what really matters is on the ground experience, throwing yourself into it, watching other people, putting hours in where you go and just watch someone else coach, ask them questions, "Why did you do it like that? Why didn't you think about doing it this way?"
Interviewer: Did you analyse yourself as well afterwards?
[00:08:44] Interviewee: Oh, massively. Massively. And that is part of the FA qualifications as well. They say you have to assess all of your coaches and be assessed. So all of your coaching sessions and be assessed as well. But really just doing that every single day, every session that you deliver, you question everything that you do. And you just learn from success and failures. You try something and it just doesn't work and then that's your best coaching session because the next time you'll do something differently and you think, "Right, I'm not going to do that again" and you find a way to make it successful, it might be a small tweak that you make.
Interviewer: If you think about professional sports, you think about golfers, for example. The difference between them is so small, in that who's going to win the game. Because they're all professionals, they all play very well. And in coaching, I think it might be similar, what differentiates you from being one of the top coaches. Because they are teaching you all these things, right? Like how do you assess yourself and be assessed? How do you think you're going to take yourself to that next level, if you want to get there?
[00:09:57] Interviewee: Yeah, it depends what the next level is. Most football coaches aspire to work in an academy, probably with a younger age group, gain the experience, then work with an older age group, maybe with a youth team, maybe work with a first team. That's never really been my aspiration. I don't particularly - sounds like a funny thing to say - I don't particularly like adult senior football. I don't particularly like the culture and environment that surrounds it. Obviously, there are some brilliant cultures, I'm sure there are some football teams that do things brilliantly well. But that's never really been my progress route. That's not really what I'm interested in. So my passion has always been around participation, enjoyment. And that leads on to obviously the organization that I've created.
Interviewer: Because it's Football Fun...
Interviewee: Football Fun Factory, yeah. Three F's. Football Fun Factory. So we explain that to kids who say, "Okay, what's football?" Kick a ball on the go. "What's fun?" Run around with a smile on your face. "What's a factory?" It makes things. So Football Fun Factory makes football fun. That's the idea. That's the sort of ethos of the organization.
Interviewer: Speak about your aspirations for you, particularly for Football Fun Factory.
[00:11:09] Interviewee: I'll give a brief summary of where I have got to, and then I can talk about where it's going and where it's heading now. It's a really good time to ask that question, because there are a few things bubbling away. So, where I've got to, often working full time on this for 12 months, that's it.
Interviewer: Just dedicated to it, fully focused.
Interviewee: Yeah. So I left the job, last June, started running my own business full time before that. I had a year, but only really six months out of the year where I have taken it seriously, building up the business, walls and employment. And in that year, what we've managed to do, is start a number of different football programs for children aged two years old, all the way through to 12 years old, boys and girls, all abilities. A number of different programs, evening coaching sessions, Saturday morning coaching sessions, school holiday courses, all of those things outside of school hours. So nothing during the day.
Interviewer: You're focused on children.
[00:12:11] Interviewee: Yeah, so we can't do anything during the day unless we go into schools. And that's not an avenue we want to pursue. So, within that, it's been building up those programs. I live in Red Lodge, in Newmarket, we've got a whole host of programs that we run there. But we've also built up other communities, Football Fun Factory communities - as I like to call them - in St Ives, Cambourne, Waterbeach, all of these areas are surrounding Cambridge, basically, without being in Cambridge itself, actually. So the idea is that I run my area, my Football Fun Factory community. I've created a bit of a blueprint and business model for that. And then the idea is that we'll replicate that. So we're at the moment creating a franchise model in that we'll have other head coaches, I sort of turned myself the head coach for the Football Fun Factory community of the Suffolk area, really. And we want to create that working from Cambridgeshire outwards. So Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hertfordshire, Essex, all of those areas. Eventually, we could have one of those in all counties of the country. So that's the aim. And the reason for that aim is simple, as I know the benefits that the programs that I deliver bring to a few hundred children. But actually, if we could do that for hundreds of thousands of children, then that's a game changer. So that's what we're looking to do.
Interviewer: What are the benefits and why?
[00:13:53] Interviewee: Football's an interesting game, because you've got football participation for children and then you've got football participation for the children's parents. [laughs] And it's a really interesting one, we could easily do a podcast on parenting and football, which would be really interesting. Less than half a percent of children that participate in football then go on to become a professional footballer. Less than half a percent.
Interviewer: Especially in this country, because it gets taken over by the other internationals.
[00:14:42] Interviewee: Yeah, that's it. And there's challenges around that. And again, that's another topic of conversation. So, loads of kids have the aspiration to play football and they see their idols on TV and they watch Tottenham play or whoever, and they're inspired by that. And that's great. That's brilliant. And they aspire to become a professional footballer, perhaps. But the opportunity is actually minuscule. It's tiny. Even the most talented might not necessarily make it. So my thought is that every single one of those children can have fun. Every single one of those children can develop social skills. Every one of those children can enjoy themselves, make their parents proud, learn how to become part of a team, how to be respectful to others and to their coaches. So it's life skills. It's just through football. You could almost strip away the fact that it's football. Football is almost for us the vehicle of child development, rather than football development. And the reason it's football is because there's such a huge passion for it. So it's a combination. It's almost like child development through football and there's all of those life benefits and life skills that it brings.
Interviewer: My son goes to one of your classes and I'm just thinking of an obvious development, I can see he's improving in the game itself. But I suppose it's hard to measure when they're that young. Is it more measurable as they get older?
[00:16:20] Interviewee: So what's really interesting is, I've been involved in football academies in England, started in the under nine age groups. That's eight-year-old children playing football, that play for a local professional club. The worst player in the under nines team, by the time they're 18 - old enough to sign a professional contract - could be the best player. They might have had a really early growth spurt. They might hit 12 and be tall and gangling and uncoordinated, but they might end up being the best players as they grow into their body when they're 16, 18. 20 maybe, even. And there's players that released by professional clubs, dropped down the leagues, play non-league football and rise back up at 25 years old.
Interviewer: There's no set way that it happens.
[00:17:07] Interviewee: No, and it's so immeasurable. It's a skill to know talent levels and spot progress. I would say the best way of measuring a child's successful development within football would actually be their progress rate, rather than their level of talent. So if for example, they could hardly kick a ball six months ago, but now they've got good levels of technique, they might still be - horrible term - the worst player within the group of children.
Interviewer: But still, he's or she's a lot better than what they were.
Interviewee: But because of the progress right there that's going on, they might end up being the best player in 10 years’ time. And that's the thing, it's such a long game. If you do want to become professional footballer, and if that's the outcome, it's a really long game. It's a long journey from six years old to 20-something years old.
Interviewer: So behavioural changes, I'm sure there must be many topics and discussions about this, how it actually helps kids who might be struggling in school. Maybe they're not so good at academics, and then they find some kind of meaning or purpose in football and what it does for their person, for themselves.
[00:18:22] Interviewee: I think it's the structure that it brings. Your son comes along on a Saturday morning, and the session that he is within is three, four-year-old children. And at the start of the session, they have a free play, 10 minutes at the start, where they come in, enjoy themselves, kick a few balls around. That's to settle them into the environment. At that point you'll notice that we always bring them in and sit them down. That's not because we want to show that we are the coaches, we are in charge, we're the boss, you've got to listen to us and all that kind of thing. We do that every single week religiously, because those children then get used to structure. They get used to the fact that they have to show respect and they have to listen. And if another child is talking and answering a question, they need their eyes on that child because they might have something valuable to say. So it's those kinds of social skills, life skills that come out of it and those kinds of benefits that it brings with it.
Interviewer: That's good. James, I looked at a little bit of history of your past and you worked with Cambridge United Football and you were into youth development. And from what I gather, you really enjoyed that piece. And then you've got a different job within the same company and you didn't really enjoy that, because it was taking you away from what you loved, right?
Interviewer: So tell us about that little journey between changing jobs and then saying, "Hey, screw this".
[00:19:43] Interviewee: Okay. So, the process for me was from the job that I loved, Cambridge United, to where I am today, literally went in probably four steps when the job that I love and got loads of passion for and get up for every day and am really motivated for, a promotion into a senior role that was glitzy, glamorous...
Interviewer: And you thought it was good at the time, right?
Interviewee: Yeah. And was sold to me as, "Wow. What an amazing thing to do". And it was, it was. It was a brilliant thing to do, for someone that's got a passion to then have a job in management and business and all those kinds of things.
Interviewer: But that taught you something then, didn't it?
Interviewee: Oh, massively, don't get me wrong. I never have any regrets in anything that I do in life, because it will have taken me on a journey that made me realize that's actually who I am and what's important to me and what my passions are. So I took that job, did that for a year and a bit and worked across business development across the whole football club, hospitality, retail, ticketing, loads of different things, loads of different sectors and markets that I have not been involved in and learned a lot of lessons along the way. Probably realized that actually I couldn't have as big an impact in those areas as I could within what I could have in my area, which is giving amazing football experiences to kids. So did that, realized that actually I probably made a career defining mistake in taking that job. Because I then realized that I had lost my passion.
Interviewer: How soon did you realize that?
[00:21:17] Interviewee: Pretty soon. And then probably spent nine months, twelve months to come to terms with it.
Interviewer: Thinking "What should I do?”, struggling with yourself?
Interviewee: Yeah, a little bit. From that point then, I left. I've been there nine and a half years, so I'd literally had one organization that I've worked for, apart from six months in America.
Interviewer: You were part of the furniture there, weren't you?
Interviewee: Yeah, absolutely. I'd literally grown in the football club, from a non-league club to getting promoted, to play Manchester United in the FA cup, I have had quite a really good period of history for the club. When I went on a journey of growth at the same time the football club did, and that was really good for me, took a job completely outside of football. And actually, what I was seeking at that time was the next stage, which was to be somewhere different and to be around a different organization, different structure. That taught me so many things because football is incredibly fast paced, 60, 70 hours a week, it borders on ridiculous on your lifestyle.
Interviewer: But in all aspects of the club, no matter which part of the club you're working for, it's pretty much.
[00:22:30] Interviewee: It's nuts, I can't even begin to explain what the football industry is like. This is nuts, a professional football club. Brilliant and the best learning curve I could ever have hoped for. But that's all I knew, from age 19 to 29, that's all I knew. So to take a step outside of that, to work for an [00:22:48] organization, I actually worked for the National Trust. A charity that looks after special places across the United Kingdom protects the heritage of the country. I was a consultant for them. And the reason why, probably my CV was how I got that job, I have no idea.
Interviewer: Yeah, because it's football National Trust.
Interviewee: Yeah, random, seemingly random. But the reason why they gave me that job was because they could see that I have passion for a cause. So I could speak passionately about the cause that I had within football and I could transfer that across to the passion of the cause of protecting the country's heritage. So, I worked for them, was there for a year, realized that I missed football and I missed giving opportunities to kids and create a big impact.
Interviewer: So you moved away almost totally from working with kids, because at National Trust, we work with families, but you're probably speaking to adults most of the time.
[00:23:44] Interviewee: Yeah, absolutely. And it's an internal job. So I was only dealing with people within, I was an internal consultant. So people within the company. So I then had a couple of years at Cambridge, not coaching, another year in that job, not coaching. And then I started a one-hour coaching session on a Friday night at Red Lodge Sports Pavilion.
Interviewer: Where you just thought, "I'm gonna get back into this"?
Interviewee: I thought "Do you know what? I live in a village. It's got an AstroTurf. I'm a qualified football coach".
Interviewer: [laughs] What am I doing?
Interviewee: "Let's put on a session". So I put on a session, and then that turned into the Football Fun Factory.
Interviewer: Oh, we've got to hear more about that. So do what you love doing. This is what we're talking about today. Let's go back to that. So you're in this job, but again, we're not telling everyone, "Listen, quit your job and do what you love doing". It's not easy, some people, they might want to go parachuting. And how you gonna make a living from that, right?
Interviewee: Absolutely. You can.
Interviewer: You probably could, I think people do need to try to chase. It doesn't have to happen tomorrow. It doesn't have to happen next year. For me, I've always been into media and then I stopped doing media. And now I want to get back into it. And that's why I'm doing this. And you know, I've got aspirations of where I wanted to go, but I just got to enjoy every moment, you know?
Interviewer: We're enjoying this moment right now, enjoying the moment when it goes out and just not thinking about the "Oh, when it gets there, then I want to be happy" type of thing. So for you and your coaching, how did you follow that path? I want to get into your head about the decision you made, about saying, "Hey, this is it now, I want to do the Football Fun Factory".
[00:25:32] Interviewee: Well, there's an awful lot of good fortune that sat beside that. So the journey that went up from there is start one hour coaching session, in a village with 2000 people in it. I put on the session and it was full.
Interviewer: Really? Like what, 10, 15 kids?
Interviewee: There were 15 kids. So one hour coaching session, it was full. It was actually a session. I just thought, "You know what, let's just open the age range five to twelve and we will foster a coaching session. We had a five-year-old girl who'd never played football before, who really struggled, to be honest. And we had a 12-year-old boy who was really talented. Somehow we made it work and obviously that's the skill of coaching then, how can you create a session where you can do something where each individual can gain something from it? So I put on that session, that worked. I'm putting another hour in place, that became full.
Interviewer: How did you market it?
[00:26:34] Interviewee: Facebook groups.
Interviewer: You said "Hey, I am putting a thing on"?
Interviewer: The village groups are pretty powerful, aren't they? Because people are always looking at those village groups.
Interviewee: And if people see something that they're not interested in, they'll tell someone that will be interested in it and they'll tag and call people and all those kinds of things. So, I started that. We now have 150 children in Red Lodge alone that train and participate with the Football Fun Factory.
Interviewer: So that's a tenfold increase.
Interviewee: Yeah. So that's happening over the course of a year and obviously, there's a finite number of children, that's not going to keep growing. I'm not going to have a thousand, because there's not that many people. [laughs] Although that is developing, every time they build more houses, I'm like, "Yeah, great". So, that's what happened there. I was then really, really fortunate that I was in a job where I had a good relationship with my boss and good relationships with the people in the organization.
Interviewer: Doing the National Trust work?
[00:27:36] Interviewee: Yeah, at the National Trust. So they offered unbelievable personal development opportunities, it blew me away. There are training courses, CPD programs, all sorts of things, all the time. I was like, "Wow, I've got more training next week. Brilliant". And I've never been in that environment. I'd gone from a job where I had none of that in 10 years to that thrown at me every couple of weeks.
Interviewer: So during your Cambridge United football, you had to develop yourself?
Interviewee: Yeah, it was too fast paced to even stop and think about your own development, because you're thinking about the development of the company. So yeah, it was too fast paced, and to be fair, the club had been on such an upward trajectory itself that there was no time to stop and think. It was like a start-up business, which was handy.
Interviewer: I was going to ask you about that, but I suppose we've gone off topic.
Interviewee: We could easily, yeah. [laughs]
Interviewer: Okay, so the National Trust gave you this personal development thing, which is awesome. And then that helps you.
[00:28:39] Interviewee: So National Trust gave me loads of opportunities to develop myself. I was also in a job where I was massively out of my comfort zone because I was in an industry and organisation that I knew nothing about. It's the most complex organization in the world, I think. It's just nuts. It was brilliant for my development. Just missed that football fix and that child development fix that I needed. I could have easily stayed there and had a 10-year career there, easily. And been very happy doing that. But the bit of good fortune I was talking about was that I had an honest and open conversation with them and they said, "Well, if that's your passion, we want to keep you here as long as we can, but we want to support you and your aspirations". So they allowed me to set some stuff up outside of my working hours. They even tailored my working hours slightly so that I could then get to the sessions on time. They allowed me to book holiday to run school holiday courses. And then it built itself up to a point where we were just keeping constant dialogue and they just said, "Okay, we want to keep you for as long as possible, would it help if you went part time?" And obviously, when you're talking about someone having a passion and then doing that for a living, the biggest jump from there to there is that I've got to pay myself. I need a salary, I have to pay my mortgage. I was in the fortunate position where I was building up a business at the same time as I then became part time in another, in my job. So basically, they helped me transition from full time employment into full time running our company.
Interviewer: So as you're saying this, I'm thinking there might be a chance for people who are listening to do something similar.
Interviewer: Because I think most of my listeners would probably either have a job or be self-employed. So yeah, that's a fortunate position that you were in and it all worked out. I'm just thinking some people could do that. If you follow your passions and even if it's just a hobby and you want to turn it into a business, then just transition slowly, you think?
[00:30:46] Interviewee: I wouldn't necessarily say slowly, but certainly transition at the rate which you need to. So that could be quite a quick transition. It might take five years to do it. The biggest thing I would say is, it then comes down to hard work. Because I was doing a full-time job.
Interviewer: But a sacrifice somewhere. A social sacrifice?
Interviewee: Yeah, absolutely. Because I was doing my 40 hours a week, which felt like a part time job to me, having been at Cambridge for ten years. I was like, "Okay, I've got all this spare time". So in the evenings and weekends I was then setting up my sessions and running my programs and taking holiday, but then working it, running my business.
Interviewer: Were you married at this time?
Interviewer: Your wife was like "When am I going to see him?"
Interviewee: So, there's two big things here, right? Two things. People think, "I'd love to be able to follow my dream and just start up that business". And they think they have to jump from full time employment to running a business. And they can't make that jump because how can I make enough money to pay my mortgage next month? When I went on that journey from employed to self-employed, effectively, I did that at a time where I had not long ago bought a house for the first time, just got married and spent a lot of money for the wedding. And we were about to have a baby at the time. So we've got a six month old now. So if you can do it in those circumstances, then it's possible to do and you don't have to jump from A to B. You just have to put the graft in and you just have to work really, really hard and do things in your own time.
Interviewer: People need to know that what they're going to do, they're not going to give up on. So, for example, you might have an idea to do something that you love doing, but you think, "Well, I love doing a lot of different things. Which one should I choose?" But for you, fortunately, football coaching was your thing, right? So I think people just need to assess in their minds, "What do I really love doing? What could I turn into a business?" And then just go with that. And stay dedicated to that path. Once you decided, maybe stick on that? Do you think? Because you can't just throw yourself everywhere, can you?
[00:33:05] Interviewee: No, no, no. And I think I'm unfortunate that I've had one real passion. And sometimes people, they're passionate about a number of different things and think they would like to run a business in, "Oh, I could run a business in this, this and this". I'm fortunate I've had one burning passion and that's me. That's just me. That's what I wanted to do. I think that the first question you have to ask yourself is, is it a viable business? I knew that it was, because I'd pretty much already done what I do now in a job for a number of years.
Interviewer: There's definitely a market for it. There are people wanting football training. Their parents want to send their kids.
Interviewee: If you take each program, school holiday courses, to some - we don't really market it as this and we don't really want it to be this - but to some it's childcare in the school holidays. I hate to think that, but it is.
Interviewer: Do you do an all-day-course?
Interviewee: Yeah, 9:00 until 3:30 and it's like a school day and effectively for some working parents that makes it a bit of a God-send, it's a solution. Luckily the children come along and have a great time and they want to come back. So even better for the parents, but it's more than just a childcare service. And we don't really like to think of it as that, but to some it is. That's never going away. In fact, there's going to be more demand for that than ever before, because people are busier and busier in their lives. Football is just the national game. People love it and people have got a real passion for it. And kids love playing football. When people inquire about the [00:34:41] program that we run on the Saturday morning, the first thing they say is, "Hey, she loves kicking a ball around in the garden", therefore they want to bring them to the session, because they just find that that's their child's passion at that time. And it's up to us to then just harness that passion. So the markets that we operate in, football coaching and an aspect of childcare, are not going anywhere. There's nothing that's going to happen, there's no recession. There's no Brexit. It will be here in 50 years, 100 years, 200 years’ time. And if anything, I think that every aspect of business is becoming more experienced-led, in my view. So what do people want to do for an evening out with their friends? Are they wanting to go to escape rooms, are they wanting to have an experience rather than going out for dinner? Maybe. And people are going very more towards experiences than they are just the norm. And I think that the way that we do our sessions, it leads itself more to the experience market, because it's football with a twist. It's not just a football coaching session. It's a session in an inflatable pitch with a giant football and inflatable goal and a football dartboard and all of these kinds of things that nobody else really does. And that's the USP of the organization. So all of those things are never going away. So I knew it was a viable business. So because I'd had that absolute confidence, my mind was made up that I can do this. Which is a fortunate position to be in.
Interviewer: You spoke about, this is a good time for people to take the plans, really. I don't want to go along the lines saying everyone should start their own business, but even if it's just a side business, and you're happy to do your other job, the tech that's available to us nowadays is just so good. Although it does take a bit of money to start up, because I'm building my own website now, because I've got big plans for it, it's costing a bit more money. But tell us about these little tech tips that you can give entrepreneurs starting. Because you've just started a year ago.
[00:37:07] Interviewee: The biggest thing I would say is that you can run a business from a smartphone. Depending on the business, you don't necessarily need a laptop. And that sounds like a crazy thing to say. How can you run a business without a computer? But I do a fair amount of my work on my phone. And that's the way that entrepreneur-ism is going. You can capture, edit and upload your social media content from your phone. You can answer your emails from your phone, you can use free apps, you can capture five videos throughout the day, put them into an app and it creates a video for you. We use loads and loads of free apps or we use apps that we pay 99p a month for, and they do brilliant, brilliant things. My advice would be just to do your research, download loads of apps and try them all out and see which ones work best for you. I've got a photo editing app, where we put text over photos. iPhones now capture brilliant content, in terms of the quality, photos and videos. You can have blurred backgrounds and all sorts on the new iPhone and stuff like that. There's a fantastic app, where we literally select the photos and videos from the day, when we have a school holiday course, we capture loads of content throughout the day on a phone, we put it into an app and it makes a one-minute video that looks like it's professionally made.
Interviewer: There's AI, just right there, in operation.
Interviewee: Absolutely brilliant. So my advice would be, obviously I talked about I started a business at a time where there are so many reasons not to and that's the biggest thing about entrepreneurism as well, there's so many reasons we just go, "But I can't because...", and for me it was that I just got married, just bought a house, about to have a baby, I can't do it. It's crazy. What if I can't pay the mortgage next month, what am I going to do? So if someone's 19 years old, if they were me, just before I went to America, living at home and no commitments, no mortgage, the phone bill might be the only thing that you have to pay or whatever it might be. Then my advice would be just do it. Just do it. Just try.
Interviewer: I wonder if it's the confidence in being able to say, "Well, I might not be the best coach". I suppose confidence comes over time, but you may find some younger people who are more confident than others. Because for like me, if I want to become the expert in my field and I'm thinking of what field I am an expert in, you know? I know what I'm good at. I'm good at fitness, I'm good at strength training. I know a lot about nutrition and I know about meditation and all those kinds of things. I'm thinking, "Well, am I really a professional in this field?" And I suppose it's just about finding that confidence within yourself as a young person saying, "You know what, I can do this". Maybe they lack mentors, maybe they lack people like yourself, who would be able to say, "Hey, you can do this".
[00:40:29] Interviewee: And to be honest with you, that goes on at different levels. I'm someone sitting here in my first year of business. So absolutely, if there was a young aspiring entrepreneur, I could sit down with them having a chat and sort of mentor them. But also, that's something that I've identified for me that I need to find a mentor and I need to find a coach and people did develop me. I think that's something that people are opening their eyes to a lot more now. Those people are really, really valuable, because the biggest thing about doing what I do now, the most exciting thing at the moment, is that when we begin to franchise and expand across the country, I'll be doing that with a business partner. And I'm really, really looking forward to doing that because it will be the first time where I can actually collaborate with someone other than my head. [laughs]
Interviewer: Have you found someone like a venture capitalist or something?
Interviewee: Not even that. It's just someone that basically I've known really well for a while. They're going to come on board, they're going to help me run the whole thing. And they're better at some stuff that I do well than I am. And that's what it's all about, surrounding yourself with really good people. And when people talk about a coach or a mentor, it doesn't necessarily have to be someone you pay loads of money to be able to do that for you. It could just be someone that you respect or someone that your dad works with that's got experience in doing what you do or starting their own business or something like that.
Interviewer: So I think, one thing I've learned is that if you want to find a mentor, look for somebody and serve them and ask what you can do for them. So instead of, "Hey, I'm looking for a mentor, can you help me?" Let's say I'm a young 19-year-old and here's James, "James, how can I help you? Can I help you coach?" So for young people listening, or people who are looking for a coach, it's go and serve, go and help those people that you aspire to.
[00:42:31] Interviewee: Yeah. And that's all experience, isn't it? It's not me talking about when I first began at Cambridge United, a young 19-year-old coach. I went and watched as many coaching sessions as I could, because all the coaches, they were better than I was. So what I had to do was go and watch them. So on that trip to Baldock, that I was talking about, that cost me more money to do than actually earn. On the way home, I'd then take a detour and stop and watch the academy train for three hours and then get home. So my nine hours working day, it cost me money, it was actually my personal development. It was my opportunity to go and see, you wait for qualified coaches at work and that's what I needed at that time. It's a compliment if someone said to you now, "I know you've got a podcast lined up with James later on in the week, I'd love to sit in and watch it and just see how it works".
Interviewer: Yeah, that would be a compliment.
Interviewee: Yeah, it'd be a compliment to you and I'm sure you'd say to someone, "Absolutely. Why not?"
Interviewer: Yeah sure, push the buttons on the camera.
Interviewee: Yeah, absolutely [laughs]
Interviewer: If you can help us out, that'd be great.
[00:43:40] Interviewee: So all those kinds of things. If someone is thinking about, "I'd love to run a business. I know what my passion is, that's what I want to do, but I don't think I'm ready yet and I need to get an experience". Just ask people. Ask people, because people will take it as a compliment. If someone said to me, "I'd love an hour of your time once a month to talk about what you've done in the last 12 months, because I'm just about to go on that journey myself", I'd give him an hour. Absolutely. As long as they were respectful in the way that they position that.
Interviewer: Because you want to give back, don't you?
Interviewee: Exactly, yeah. Absolutely. Because I wish someone would've done that for me.
Interviewer: Yeah, exactly. That's true. Because you're like, "I'll just do it for this guy". So James, just to end off today, thanks for being with us. Before you go, I just want to know, what does your day look like? Do you have a routine in the morning that you do or maybe it's not a routine, but how do you invest in yourself personally, at this point? Besides football and business? Do you invest in yourself in other ways?
[00:44:41] Interviewee: Yeah. One of the most important things out there is get up and go to the gym. And you might say, "What's that got to do with running a business?" It gets you into a mindset, it gives you head-space. So I drive to the gym, it takes me 10 minutes to get there. I've got that time in the car. I'm in the gym for 45 minutes, an hour. It gives me time to think. And actually, it's the one place where you can get the results and rewards as an outcome of your work, guaranteed.
Interviewer: You can see the physical rewards.
Interviewee: Yeah, so you go to the gym, you work hard, you get fitter. It's a really simple process. You can't really break them at all. Now in business it's been more difficult, in that you work really hard and you might not get results. But in the gym, you can. So I find that a really good way to get into a positive mindset for the day. I don't do that every day. I wish I had time to do that every day, but at least three times a week, so I'll go and do that. I'm fortunate that I work from home. I think that's a nice environment to be in, where you feel more relaxed. It's not so formal. I don't have to get up and have to iron a shirt to put on. I can get up at 7:00 o'clock and I can be working at 7:02.
Interviewer: You don't have to drive anywhere, you just walk to the office.
[00:46:06] Interviewee: Down the stairs, yeah. So investing in myself is something I probably need to do more of and you need to find time to do that. Reading books I think it's really important. Again for me, something I'd love more time to do.
Interviewer: And books on different things, not just business books. Books on spirituality, whatever it is.
Interviewee: Absolutely, yeah. Books about passion and what your goals might be and all those kinds of things. So I think that everything you do in life can apply to business, actually. I think it's the one thing, or spending time with your family. So I give myself a Thursday off every single week. What does that do for me? The reason why I want to be successful in business now for me, I'm at a new stage in my life, I've got a six-month-old, a wife that I married a couple of years ago. And for me, I'm doing it for them. That's my inspiration. On a Thursday we go to swimming lessons, take my daughter to swimming lessons and it just reminds me all the time, when it's getting really hard on a Wednesday night and I'm on that AstroTurf and it's freezing cold and it's raining, I know why I'm doing this.
Interviewer: That's so cool and while you were saying that, I'm just thinking there's always a question why. Simon Sinek said it, "Why, why, why?" And the 'why' you've answered earlier, you said you want to help kids have fun playing football and it's for their development. And at the same time, the 'why' is also for you personally, for your family, spending more time together. So there's more than just one 'why', isn't it?
[00:47:41] Interviewee: Absolutely, yeah. There's five according to Simon Sinek.
Interviewer: Oh, five, is it?
Interviewee: The five why's. He said five why's and he goes into all that. I think it was him, it might be someone else. But yeah, it's the why, but then also having the discipline of when it gets tough, when things don't go as well as they could. One thing you need is resilience. And I think that's so important, because when you are, paint the worst possible picture. So I'm running a football coaching business and football is my passion, but we haven't got the numbers on the courses that I needed to get to run my business effectively. I'm standing there on an AstroTurf, the kids don't want to listen tonight. They're not interested. It's freezing cold, it's raining. And at the end of the session, I've got to pack all of this stuff away by myself. Put all the goals away, get into my van and drive home. Doesn't sound as glamorous, does it? I've sat here with you for half an hour to talk about what sounds like a really glamorous, brilliant way of life. And it isn't. It will be for me, but none of that is possible without resilience and hard work.
Interviewer: You have to go through the slur sometimes.
[00:48:48] Interviewee: Yeah, absolutely. And you go through that slur literally every single day. And there are so many ways where you could go. Somebody offered me a job, "Just take that nine to five and get holidays and whatever else". But if you've got real passion for it, I think you'll stick at it. And that's the key.
Interviewer: Chris Ducker says that being an entrepreneur can be a lonely business.
Interviewee: Oh, so lonely. And as I said earlier, when I've got someone on board to come and work with me on it, I can't wait. Someone I can have a conversation with. It's very lonely, very, very lonely. And again, that takes resilience to say...
Interviewer: It's not always going to be like that.
Interviewee: Yeah. You'll get there in the end.
Interviewer: Yeah. James Cutting, it's been great having you.
Interviewer: Football Fun Factory, I wish you all the best in the future.
Interviewee: Thank you very much.
Interviewer: Thanks for being on the show.
Interviewee: Cheers, pleasure.
