E10: Dom's Diary - Mental Health, Addiction & Quitting Business

**Steven Bartlett** (0:00)
This week may be my favorite chapter of all time. In chapter 10, I fulfill a promise I made to you in chapter nine by inviting on my business partner, Dominic McGregor. He comes on the podcast today to share his deep, dark secrets and his incredible story. So many of you will know my story. But this whole time, I've had somebody stood right next to me, and he's a completely different person. He chooses not to take the limelight, he has a different perspective on the world, and he's built in a different way. He has an incredible story. You'll hear things from Dom that, you know, I was honestly frightened to share with the world. When I first hired Dom back in 2014 to join my startup, Wall Park, because he had grown a large social media page and I was looking to advertise the platform on social media. I messaged him online and I met him in a bar, and I encouraged him to drop out of university and join me full time, and surprisingly and courageously, he did exactly that. We've worked together side by side ever since for the last six years, and we went on to start social chain together many, many years ago. Through that time, we've been through it all. We've lived together, we've worked together, we've traveled together, we've slept on floors together, we've argued, we've had celebrations like you wouldn't believe. Dom has his personal struggles and me and him, as I said, are very different people, and there are things that I've always wanted to ask him. Today was that day. This is his story of success, of mental health issues, of alcoholism, of destruct... So without further ado, I'm Steve Bartlett, and this is The Diary Of A CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Okay, Dom, a lot of people that listen to this podcast would probably follow me across Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and Instagram. And they know a lot about Social Chain, but they don't hear a tremendous amount about you. So my first question to you is, from your perspective, why is that?

**Dominic McGregor** (2:22)
Good question. I think the reason people don't hear a lot about me is a couple of reasons. So I don't like to put myself out there too much, which again, what you put out there, you get back. So that's probably a very main reason. Secondly, the role I play is a little bit different to what Steve plays and what you play, what you play, because it's much more about bringing people together and getting shit done.
And I think, being frank, you know, I probably wasn't someone that maybe like a year ago, two years ago, could be someone who's put out there.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:05)
So what is it you do then? And make the distinction between what I do at Social Chain and what you do at Social Chain.

**Dominic McGregor** (3:11)
Yeah. I've always seen it mainly like, the way I think about my head really, is like a little bit like external, internal, like a little bit like, we've always said like a marriage.
So what I do is solve problems of how things are working at the moment. So solving what, you know, we've got problems with a campaign because, you know, two parts of the business aren't working very well together. Things aren't going smoothly. There needs to be someone to come in there to fix it, to tweak it. What Steve does is the role, do you do? That's weird. I'm doing it this way. What you do is much more about the external kind of the noise of who we are, about getting ourselves out there, always being the face, always being the rapper in the business, bringing them through the front door, being that kind of side of things. But then also more of the stuff that involves inspiration and the kind of perception of who we are internally as well, while mine's more nuts and bolts, pulling things together, sticking things together. This can be more efficient like that.

**Steven Bartlett** (4:12)
And obviously, because I spend a lot of time doing external facing stuff, I put myself out there, I'm speaking on stages, I do the podcasts, YouTube channel, all these things. I have a cameraman following me at all times. I get a tremendous amount of credit, right? I get like a disproportionate amount of credit. How a lot of, I think, something that I don't think anybody would understand, and one of the questions I want to ask you, because I feel like it's a question that people must wonder, is I definitely, just being completely honest, because that's what the podcast is all about, I definitely get a lot more credit than you do, in terms of people using my name when they think of Social Chain or when they think Social Chain. How does that sit with you?