Podcast Takeaways: 3 Things Anyone Can Learn From Harvey Armstrong

Ever wondered how real reality TV is??

That’s one of the questions I put to Made In Chelsea star, Harvey Armstrong, who dropped by for a recent podcast interview, and his response was very revealing to me.

The answer to the immediate question was pretty real, but the more interesting sub-text was the real-life impact on the show’s cast was very fucking real. In both a positive and negative way.

On the up-side Harvey has been able to commercialise his profile by launching and growing a beer brand that is worth a ten figure sum already, but on the other hand Harvey found himself in the public firing line when he was shown to have cheated on his then girlfriend Emily Blackwell on the show. Let’s just say that making this indiscretion so public caused them both huge extra pain and suffering.

Harvey’s honesty helped me better understand the true value of sharing your most intimate life on telly for everyone to see, and there’s loads of lessons we can take to be more successful ourselves.

Harvey revealed exactly what goes on behind the scenes of Made In Chelsea in the full episode, which is well worth your time to listen to here.

Meanwhile, here’s my top three learnings from the reality star turned lager entrepreneur.

Sensible Plans Allow For Calm Thinking

The word sensible is not very sexy, and it’s frequently not something I can claim to achieve, but most of the time it’s very valuable.

And sensible plans are at the heart of Harvey’s success, due to his early days of getting a good business and economics degree, and then getting high quality work experience when consulting at major firms like PWC.

While what Harvey does these days is a world away from this sensible regular life, he knows that if his business was to go tomorrow he could always use his impressive education and CV to secure well paid work.

I think these early sensible choices have allowed him a level of security that helps him think more calmly. Afterall, how rash do we often think when we are worried about failure? By removing that fear, it promotes calmness of mind, which allows for better future decision-making.

If, like me, you’re prone to impulsive thinking sometimes, then ask yourself how sensible is your life plan right now? If the answer is ‘not very’, then learn from Harvey and start making sensible decisions today, that will help you stay slow thinking tomorrow.

Business Can Help Overcome Broken Hearts

We all make mistakes, but thankfully for most people those errors remain private. Not when you’re on a reality show, though.

Harvey is the first to recognise he fucked up when he kissed someone that wasn’t his then girlfriend and is genuinely remorseful about this. But, the public nature of the mistake amplified it to become something far more hurtful to both him and Emily, and it’s fair to say that it really threw Harvey off-course.

But, rather than lick his wounds, Harvey focussed on his business, Prime Time Lager.

He took all that heartbreak and embarrassment and negative emotion, and channelled it into working harder on his new business, and the results speak for themselves.

From a standing start, Prime Time Lager has achieved a ten figure valuation, and is rapidly growing further. It’s now a better product, with more stockists and fans than ever before. And, that’s squarely down to Harvey’s drive in this period of his life.

He could have easily hidden away after that public humiliation of the cheating scandal, but by focussing his emotion into productive work time, he has massively helped his future prospects.

The moral here is not to kiss someone you shouldn’t, but to take life downers on the chin, and use negative emotional states to power future success.

Public Profiles Open Doors

It’s an obvious lesson, but a critical one - a heightened positive profile provides opportunities you just don’t get elsewhere.

Harvey is a relatively new entry to the Made In Chelsea cast, but in that time has grown a personal following of hundreds of thousands across social media, as well as the millions who watch the show. This makes him more desirable to engage with for third party brands and people, which creates opportunities.

In Harvey’s case, this enhanced profile has allowed him to expand his alcohol business to new stockists, that may have been less open to his product if he weren’t so well known to a young cool crowd.

But, 99.9% of people aren’t going to be on reality TV, so how does that apply to the majority?

Easy - we all have personal brands, and we can all grow out the number of people that respect our personal brand, and see value in doing business with us.?

This can be through an increased social media presence - you’re reading this on LinkedIn, right now! - or it can be through content creation, but it can also be through newsletters, or talks, or anything else where you can demonstrate more reach than the average person.

And the kind of new opportunities you find available to you can be anything you want them to be.

For example, since starting a podcast which has reached millions of people, I have not only discovered it’s easier for me to meet the people I strategically want to, but also I’ve realised how much the advice we give helps the show’s listeners. I love this kind of feedback, as I find it so motivating, and this has helped open new doors for me to do more to help anyone watching or listening to get more out of life.