"It's a buzz like nothing else!": Q&A with former Bridges CEO Nick Langton

Since leaving Bridges I've been working full time in a business called Wimp 2 Warrior, which was originally founded in late 2012 and then I came on as a co-founder in mid 2013 to capitalise the business. For a few years prior I was working on the business at night and on the weekends and as it has recently grown, I was able to take a leap and come on full time.

It's an interesting story. In 2013 I was sent to Harvard Business School to do the Advanced Management Program. At the time I was an executive at Perpetual and CEO, Geoff Lloyd, kindly invested in me and sent me to Harvard. Whilst there it became apparent to me that it was impossible to live on campus in that amazing bubble for a number of months and not start thinking more creatively about other commercial opportunities. The scholars who taught us left me with an enduring message and sentiment: whilst you've got much to give to your executive career, you've also got to give your brain opportunities to flourish in other ways.

Since 2008 I've been telling anyone who would listen about how big mixed martial arts (MMA) would become globally and they literally thought I was bananas. However I could see the fundamentals of why the sport was going to continue to evolve and become such a huge thing. Back then I would have loved to be able to invest in the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), but that was a privately held company. So in looking for a proxy to their growth I connected with Wimp 2 Warrior founder, Richard Cranny, on Twitter and when I heard more about the business I just loved the idea. Wimp 2 Warrior isn't simply about training in MMA, although that's obviously a big part of it, as at the core of what we do is describing ourselves as a company that specialises in "human transformation". We see training in mixed marital arts as the most amazing catalyst for personal transformation both mentally and physically.

So it was a seed that was planted while I was at Harvard, that grew when I came back to Australia and discovered Wimp 2 Warrior, which ended up being this perfect proxy for investing in a sport I knew would be huge and a company that carried such a great purpose in terms of participant outcomes. I'll also admit I felt significantly vindicated that my commercial instincts were correct when in 2016 the UFC was acquired by WME IMG for $4.5 billion - they were originally bought in 2001 for just $2m!

It's a 22-week training program with people who are either beginners or have very little experience in any kind of combat sport and then we take them through a very immersive program. We train 4-5 mornings per week for the 22 weeks. We use the hashtag #whileyouweresleeping in a lot of our social media because the whole ethos of the program is that you can get to the gym by 5:30am and be part of our intense training sessions and still be at your desk before 8am ready to start your working day. With that in mind, one of the biggest fights is the mental fight - getting yourself out of bed when your alarm goes off at say 4:30am. Once people fight through those first few weeks, they look forward to jumping out of bed and joining this community of like-minded people.

There can be 30-40 people that get together. They're getting fitter, losing weight, gaining flexibility, their mood elevates, their confidence rises and their mental strength builds incrementally. Every time you get out of bed without hitting snooze, you get incrementally stronger. Whilst we get amazing physical transformations - for example we had a guy recently that dropped 43kgs, it literally saved his life - we really focus on the mental strength gained. Our favourite testimonials are the ones where people say, "Because of this, I applied for a job and I got it" or "I was brave enough to change careers" or "I left a bad relationship". As self esteems builds, people start making brave decisions and that's the best kind of transformation. It's enormously gratifying.

Fear of failure and putting my family under future levels of financial stress. I would be being disingenuous if I didn't say that was it. I felt like we had the business in a place where it wouldn't fail, but being a start-up, it can still be terrifying. We've been going hard on it for four years already and whilst I've have had a couple of job interviews since I left Bridges, I also realised that my heart just wasn't invested in exploring those further. I just wanted to sit with the discomfort of taking that first leap. At the time I thought to myself, "your greatest dream would be to do this job and make this company succeed and you've got to overcome fear to do that."

I've never been scared of feeling embarrassed if it didn't work because I think most people would applaud you for having the audacity and ambition to have a go.

Throughout my career in financial services I've met so many brilliant, talented, thoughtful people and I've often thought to myself that there might be more inside them than just their traditional job. I'm not saying that a career in financial services isn't rewarding and valuable; I did it for two decades and I attribute enormous learnings to that time. My mantra would be to encourage people to use some time to explore creatively something that is completely uncorrelated with their financial services career.

The genesis of great ideas is never 'how can I make money?' - it's 'how can I solve a problem?' I didn't just hope to come up with the next Angry Birds to make a ton of money. Rather I found something with purpose, that I believe in, and built the business model over time. I would encourage people to properly scratch that itch. Turn the TV off and do it at night and over the weekends. Don't bite into your family time or quality time with friends, but we've all got time that we could use more effectively. Use this time in an imaginative way. It's liberating to be able to act in a more creative, entrepreneurial style as opposed to acting in a more risk averse and protective way that we so often have to when working for a large company.

So I wouldn't say to everyone to just flick a switch and leap into a start up career that switch, it's the old joke of "there's no such thing as an over night success." Build something on the side and slowly make a transition.

There's a real buzzword that's going around financial services in recent times, CX, which is customer experience. There's no doubt that working in wealth management, across product manufacturing, advice, sales etc that you're required to think a lot about the client experience; both the end client and the B2B client. Whilst not always getting it right, I honestly feel most people in the wealth management sector genuinely try to put the client experience at the forefront of their thinking and that they genuinely try to innovate in this regard. So having thought so obsessively about both the B2C and B2B client during a two decade career, it made it very easy to put the client at the absolute centre in my role with Wimp 2 Warrior. I really sweat the detail around how we ensure our client experience is as good as it can be. We don't want it to be a buzzword, or jargon, it's literally how we configure our business. That's the big lesson that I take away from 20 years in financial services.

The personal answer would undoubtedly be the friendships that I've made and the networks I've created. I think it's a wonderful, collegiate environment and one I'm grateful to have experienced thus far. Recently I've had a lot of support from friends and former colleagues who are curious about my new journey outside of the industry. I feel a lot of good will and good vibes and occasionally I still get invited to industry events, which is actually quite touching.

In terms of a professional highlight, I would have to nominate being part of the Group Executive, reporting to Geoff Lloyd, at Perpetual in 2012 when the firm undertook a huge transformation of the business. Being part of the core team who sat at the coalface of that redesign, is something I take both immense satisfaction and pride from. I felt I made a significant contribution, especially as it pertained to the redesign of Perpetual Private, but I also learned so much during that process. Playing a part in the success of that program was an absolute career highlight.

My Dad was an economics teacher and he fostered the initial interest I had in financial markets and the global economy. I'd say it's because of him that I went on to study economics and then ultimately followed the career path that I did.

More recently I would really need to credit my wife, Tanya, as I've navigated this big transition from former executive to start up co-founder. On the days that I get some wobbles around the intensity and stress of growing a global business, my wife - who had her own career in financial services as a portfolio manager with State Street - has given me the confidence to execute my dream. I couldn't imagine how hard it would be to succeed with what I'm doing with a partner who couldn't ride out the waves of stress and volatility that comes with this type of enterprise. Tan has been a tower of strength when we've had to tip in more money or deal with all sorts of non-traditional work hours that come with a global business that spans many time zones. She's always reminding me that I'm doing something very special and that I should keep pushing forward, she's patient beyond belief.

Authenticity and communication. Authenticity meaning that you can pull the under-current of issues in a business out onto the table and be prepared to talk to your team about the most challenging topics. You create an environment where people feel secure enough to be a little vulnerable. This is the whole paradox of vulnerability and strength, namely, having the strength and confidence to be vulnerable in front of your team, to admit when you're wrong and ask for help. I've been in situations where I've got it wrong and, when I've applied these principles then I've watched the people around me flourish. It's a hard thing to do and something I hope I can continue to get better at all the time.

You have to take the time to understand the underlying utility in the products and services you are making and distributing. Once you understand the intrinsic utility that accrues to the client who buys them, well then you start to really understand how to position and sell them. Take the time to really understand how the client would benefit from that product or service so you can become passionate about why they need it and what problem it solves for them. Lastly I would also really encourage newcomers to consider how much the delivery of that product to the end consumer will change in the next 5 years. Understand that the channels or mechanisms clients will utilise to access these products and services will change A LOT. So with the benefit of not feeling compelled to protect the status quo or incumbent players, a newcomer might be better able to comprehend this change and be better able to predict how this will influence consumer behaviour.

I started working at K-Mart at Warriewood Square on Sydney's Northern Beaches when I was 14. I worked there from around 1988 through to 1996, from high school all through university. I spent most of my time working in the gardening and hardware sections and as a small source of pride in my entire K-Mart career I never mis-tinted a single tin of paint that I mixed! That's my proudest achievement from my 8 year career in retail.

I grew up on the Northern Beaches. I went to both primary and high school at Avalon Beach. I had the quintessential, sheltered Northern Beaches experience - although, my parents have always been intrepid travelers. They adored living on the Northern Beaches but they also talked about it being a cocoon lacking diversity. So on holidays we were always off back packing around Asia or somewhere similar to make sure that my sister and I knew that there was another world out there.

The next 12 months will be transformational for Wimp 2 Warrior. We expect to be operating our program in 100 gyms throughout the world by the end of 2018. We're presently in the US, the U.K. & Ireland, New Zealand and we're growing in our home base of Australia whilst exploring some new opportunities in Asia. Our growth is fast and as a consequence I've got to continue to find the right capital partners to fuel our current trajectory. We have ambitions to be one of the most cherished and prominent names in health, fitness and wellness, globally. I firmly believe in my heart that we can do that.

Listen to Nick (below left) speak more about Wimp to Warriors on Yellow Brick Road chair Mark Bouris' (bottom right) podcast, 'The Mentor.' Released 24 August 2017.