Get Booked – Russell Dumper, Britannia Rises, Ruling The Waves Was Just The Beginning 290124

Hi, I'm Hazel Butterfield, and this is GetBooked for Women's and Men's radio station. Today on the show, we are going to be talking to the author Russell Dumper about Britannia Rises: Ruling the Waves Was Just the Beginning. It was released on the 13th of October of last year, and Britannia Rises tells a story of how in the near future the British Empire faces a pivotal crossroads. When the Queen dies, her peaceful, prosperous reign comes to an end after more than 7 decades. The new monarch must tackle challenges from within his own family and decide how to keep the empire competitive with their most powerful rivals. The other world powers are looking for any weakness they can find to subjugate Britain and take their place as the most powerful nation on Earth. At the same time, King Alfred must preserve the peace and focus on Outpost, the cooperative program that will ensure the survival of the human species. Jamie Bayston is a young teacher embarking on a wonderful life who has the misfortune to witness a murder that will plunge him into the dark world that exists between the Empire and its struggle to maintain order. He must run and fight to keep himself and his family safe while facing up to the truth that the world he knows is just a small part of what's really out there. I really enjoyed reading this book, and I cannot wait to introduce you shortly to Russell Dumper and break down this fantastic book. Right now on Get Booked, we have Russell Dumper with Britannia Rises: Ruling the Waves was just the beginning. This is book 1. It's a dystopian of sorts, thriller of underworld and underhand tactics to gain control and amass power for the British Empire. A mixture of economic obfuscation, civil liberties distortions, enemies created to suit an agenda, and way too many true-to-life para— parallels to feel comfortable with. It's brilliantly written, excellently researched, and seemingly very well clued up on military combat and operative knowledge that just got you hooked. It's very clever, and what a great debut. Not for those who dislike graphic violence, for sure, but I'm all over it. Uh, welcome to the show, Russell. How are you? I'm very good, thank you. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. You're very welcome. I was surprised when I first saw the book. I thought it would be quite historically based, and as I said, I was quite hooked. And there are some really, really dodgy parallels that just kind of make you think, I wonder where he's got this information from. It's quite interesting because the book has been written— well, I've I sort of had the idea for it 20— when I was a teenager, so what, 30 years ago now. Oh wow. And I've written it and rewritten it when I've been failing to find a publishing house for it. Um, and, um, actually a lot of the themes in it are from the original material written 30 years ago, so it's quite interesting. Maybe a little, uh, a little worrying how accurate some of it is turning out to be. Well, yes, because I assume the beginning is something that was quite a new idea because the way that you described the Queen and the monarchy taking over just seemed like there was about 95% parallels there. Well, no, the— actually, I was sending it out to people before the Queen died. And I do think probably the reason it actually got picked up was because that happened. So it's, um, but I researched the— because the Queen had a plan for the funeral, and that was not that difficult to research what was actually going to happen in that. So I researched that before I wrote it, and, uh, yeah, I changed a few bits, um, and, um, yeah, it was a turned out to be quite accurate, I think. Uh, very accurate. Yeah. Although a lot of people predicted what would happen, I guess, with our current and real-life princes as well. Even 10, 15, 20 years ago, they kind of could see the writing on the wall a little bit. Do you agree? Um, maybe. I mean, I personally didn't see it. What— didn't see the recent um, should we call it conflict? I didn't see that coming. But, um, yeah, um, it worked quite nicely because, uh, that's kind of what I wanted for my story. So, uh, it's, uh, yeah, they've done me a favor there, I think. Well, yeah, it probably intentionally. Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm sure they're fans already. Um, and what else was quite an eye-opener for me was the more intricate and dangerous concept of economic warfare, which you actually described quite easily. It was quite— I found it easy to get on board and to understand the concept. I mean, I know certain elements of it goes on, but just the concept of so many underlying themes and workings going on to put a particular country on the back foot you know, prior to taking them over, and how to mess people over economically is the main tool of war. Yeah, and, um, it's been, it's been quite interesting actually because, um, when you talk about imperial sort of novels and films and any sort of media, um, there's not really— I've not seen this done before, and it was an idea that interested me a long ago, um, because I studied economics at university, and I found the idea intriguing then. And then when this sort of story started developing, I thought, well, this is a slightly different way of going about things, and I think it could be interesting for the, for the book. And the tricky, the tricky thing about it is being that actually with what's going on in the world these days, particularly what's going on in America, you can see that kind of thing actually sort of starting to happen now. And It was completely fiction when it was first conceived of, but now it's not quite so fictional. It's a bit odd to see it occurring, not the way it does in the book, but you see the beginnings of it, don't you? And it's a bit peculiar, but yeah, good, maybe good for sales, so I shouldn't complain too much. Yeah, I just find it interesting, the fact that you can look out for these things. I think knowledge is power, and sometimes it's nice to know what's going on, understand a little bit what's going on around you, um, even if it is a little bit scary. And I did say in the intro that it's a dystopian book of sorts. Do you see what I mean about that? Because it's kind of— I don't think you actually specify a year, do you? And it can't be— no, that far in the future. But I think it's as if we started going that way bit further back. Yeah, it's a bit because, um, I mean, the, um, when it— when I sort of, um, got and started working with the Combo Press on it, um, they described it as dystopian, but I'd never done that really until then because to me it was just a thriller novel. Um, and I sort of— when I originally set out, started writing it many years ago, um, the whole idea of having it in the near future so that you could make it more believable as to what's occurred. Um, and, um, I invented all this sort of technology. Um, and when I came to rewriting it a few years ago, once my children were a little bit older and I had the time to do it, um, actually a lot of the technology I'd invented now existed. So it was a bit— it was a little bit weird that I had to change all of the technology in it because we had everything that I'd sort of made up. Um, near enough, not quite all of it. You predicted the future. Um, but just dystopian, I suppose, is the bracket it falls into. But I think, um, it's not just a dystopian novel. It's, um, it's definitely a series that's— um, I had a good description said to me the other day, actually. Um, and it was, um, somebody on social media described it as if The Crown, Game of Thrones, and James Bond got together and had a baby. And I thought that was quite a good book. Who said that? Um, I was— somebody on social media. I couldn't— I couldn't tell you the name, but I quite liked it. I thought that was quite a good one. I'm gonna steal that and use that. Do you know what? I think the best thrillers out there are the ones that are way too true to life. Yeah, yeah. It's very conceivable, isn't it? Yeah. And, um, it's been, it's been quite nice because I've had quite a lot of feedback about sort of— because there's quite a lot of these sort of, um, stories out there, but nothing's quite been done like this before with the British Empire and what could have happened if it hadn't fallen apart. So, um, I've had 2 or 3 people, a couple of other authors as well, sort of come back to me and said, yeah, it's interesting because I can't believe this wasn't done sooner. Because it's a really good idea. And that's been quite nice to hear. Um, so I'm hoping that, I'm hoping that it goes well. Yeah. Well, do you not think it's a little bit like history repeating itself? Because you've got to remember, the British Empire were horrible years and years and years ago. They just took whatever they wanted. We've kind of glossed over just how bad we really were, and we now focus on anybody else that's doing terrible things. But the British Empire was, um They pretty much just raped and pillaged anything they wanted to kind of build their empire, didn't they? Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of difficult, isn't it? Because it's, it's, it's like anything, when you look back at it in retrospect, you can see how bad it was. But, but at the time, they didn't really— it's not like they knew any better. It's a bit like comparing that to sort of environmental issues. Now we know what we're doing is wrong. But our grandparents did not know. They thought nothing of it, um, because they didn't have the education and the understanding to do differently. I don't know if that makes sense. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah, it does. So, um, whilst what the British Empire did was awful, it was no different to things that the Roman Empire did, or, um, we talk about Alexander the Great and, um, other empires in history did similar things. They took advantage of people with a lower, lower ability of technology and, um, yeah, took everything for themselves. I mean, we swapped, um, we swapped a lot of tea for gems. Oh, and it's, it's an interesting thing because being somebody who's British, um, you're not really proud of the history, but at the same time you know, you accept that that's, that's what it was. And there's not really, you know, it's not like we did it. Um, so yeah, there's, there's a, there's a lot of that that has to be dealt with in history. Um, but you know, um, times have moved on, and if anything, we're now switching over to AI and technological and economic advances to kind of do interesting and rather bizarre and terrible things, but you know, that's just the way we are, and it's a thriller within itself. You said you had kids, and how old are they? 10 and 7. Right, so they're not reading this book then? No, no, my eldest wants to read it. He's an avid reader, and he wants to read it, but I've told him he's got to wait a little bit longer yet because some of the fight scenes are definitely not for him. Um, but my youngest is, yeah, way too young for it yet. Um, but I'm hoping they'll read it in a few years and, yeah, hopefully they'll enjoy it. We'll, we'll have the next, uh, 2 or 3 books out by the time they can read it though. So, uh, well, yeah, I can just imagine the 7-year-old, tell me a story, Daddy. Well, as he pinned him to the ground and kicked him senseless. Bedtimes. Yeah, actually They're doing the, um, Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and, uh, Tom Gates. So they like Geoff Kinney and Tom Gates at the moment. So it's nice that they read so much, actually. But I don't think either of them are interested in stories so much. Um, my youngest actually said to me last week, um, he told me he was going to write a book just like Daddy. I was like, that's brilliant, buddy. And, uh, 3 minutes later he came back to me and said, oh no, no, I'm not, it's really boring. Well, fair enough, mate. But fair enough, you crack on with what you want to do. It takes a lot of work, Dad, did you know that? Yeah, funnily enough, yeah, I've come across that notion, really. Yeah, yeah. I did have, um, with my eldest— I mean, my youngest liked reading, and he was very much into the same as yours, you know, the Tom Gates and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We've got millions of them— not millions, slight exaggeration— um, on the shelves. But my eldest when he was 10, he was up in the kind of 14 and 15-year-old books, and because he just read so much that he just needed to keep on challenging himself. So it's interesting with your 10-year-old wanting to read it, because those that are fans of reading, they kind of excel and move on to higher levels pretty quickly, don't they? Yeah, he's, um, he's, um, always been a big reader. He devoured Roald Dahl fairly quickly and was moving on to something. We're at the library quite a lot, um, and, um, but it's, yeah, it's something you encourage, isn't it? Yeah, it's difficult to get them off their devices and doing something else. So, um, anytime they pick up a book, you just, please, you find yourself on Amazon buying a bunch of them straight away so that they can keep going. You don't want them to stop. I think that's the big challenge for our parenting generation now, is devices versus actually doing something that's not on the screen. I find it very hard actually, because with my kids being the age they are, they're at that age where, I mean, the oldest, he can pretty much make his own decisions and there's very little I can kind of impose. And he's got to be on his computer for college work and left, right, and center, but also you know, they, they have their loves and they have their friends and all their friends are on the same thing and they either get left out. It's the quantity of it which is problematic. But I know how bad I am on Candy Crush sometimes and scrolling on Instagram when I'm promoting a show or something like that or searching for the next book. So, uh, I think we're all just as bad as each other. Yes, it's tricky though as well, isn't it? Because during COVID their school moved to devices, so they became quite used to using the devices quite young, or certainly mine did. So if you were trying to keep them away from screens, you were instantly flummoxed by the fact that their school went there, and then they just carried on using them, you know. So yeah, it is a toughie, um, constant battle that we're going to have to deal with, but you know, if we can get them back into reading. And the thing is, my son's doing economics, and I think I'd love him to read this book because I think it would really kind of give him a slightly different understanding of what's going on. Yeah, in the global economy, it's, um, yeah, it's interesting because you, like we was, like we touched on earlier, it's not like, um, you've ever really seen that sort of weapon used in warfare. Um, I think— I don't remember seeing it in any films or TV series or books that I've come across anyway. Um, so I think it's quite an interesting new take on how that sort of thing could happen. I think it has been used, but we're sure as hell not going to be told about it. Well, yeah, but I think— I mean, even though you did economics at university, you must have done a a ridiculous amount of research in finalizing at least book number 1. Yeah, and but I mean, research is like, again, when I started writing this book, the research was I had to go to the school library and look things up. Um, and now it's, you just Google it, don't you? So it does, it is difficult, and the difficult part now is sifting through the absolute massive information to find something that's actually probably accurate, because the source materials on a lot of these things are very questionable. Um, so, um, I found that was probably the biggest challenge, was finding reliable information as opposed to information itself, if that makes any sense. Well, there's a lot of subjective opinion on what is the situation on Google, isn't there? Yeah. Yeah, there's plenty of people who've got opinions, but not a lot of people have actually got anything to back them up. Um, or certainly after what I found anyway. Well, yeah, it's, it's kind of riddled with it. That's something that I'm— because the kids constantly on TikTok and they seem to get their information from there. I don't know if your 10-year-old's been allowed on TikTok yet, but it's just, they take it as As they're being told, they, they think it's real. They think, and they don't realize it's a distortion of a fact portrayed for a particular agenda or for clickbait. And I feel like I'm constantly explaining the difference between opinion and the way facts are construed. Yeah, it's another parenting worry I have actually, is how my kids will take what's said on YouTube by YouTubers gospel, and I'm trying to constantly explain, look, that isn't true. I know it's not true because, you know, I studied all these things at school and so on and so forth, and you will too. But you've got to be really careful because it's, it's a bit alarming, the influence that YouTubers do have on small— on young minds, actually. And some of them are really responsible with it, some of them are really good, um, and are really careful what they say. Them just keep their content suitable for children, but some really are not like that, and YouTube doesn't filter them out. Um, so you have to be a bit careful. I know there's a Kids YouTube, but the filters on it take out the things my kids want to watch. So yeah, definitely. Can I, can I prepare you for the, um, for when you do try and put your kids straight or try and inform them? Um, about the intricacies of the information that they're consuming, the amount of eye rolling you're going to get from them. Yeah, it's already started, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, brilliant. Yeah, yeah, not interested in what I've got to say, never mind, never mind that if I did it as university or school or, you know, it's part of my job, for example. No, no, no, that doesn't mean Didn't mean anything to him. So, yeah. So what is your job then, if it's, um, related? So I work, um, for a company called, uh, called, uh, Produce Logistics. We're sort of a warehousing company. We work with Gusto, who do the— and, uh, I sort of manage a shift there. Um, sort of, we just supply— we do all their warehousing work. It's a good place to work. They've been really supportive of the book. Good. They all have. Some of them, I think, are more excited about it than I am. So, it's been really nice. And yeah, I mean, I've got a meeting to go to today, but my boss was like, "Oh, you've got your interview, so we'll push it back till 12." I was like, "Yeah, brilliant. Thank you, mate." We like that. Yeah, you've got to make room for Get Booked. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's just been so supportive because, um, they didn't need to be, you know. They could also— they still need to pay me, I still need to do my job, but they'd be really, really helpful. They— yeah, but also, you know, depending on how long you've been there, you probably know where all the bodies are buried and they don't want you writing a book about them. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's their motivation, but I haven't been there long enough to know where the skeletons are now, so Time will tell. Yeah. So have you already written book 2 and 3, or are they ideas, or what stage are they at? So they're— we're releasing another book this year which is not related to this series, actually, um, because the publisher and I discussed it and decided that perhaps it was a good idea to release a book that didn't commit people to a 7 or 8 book series, um, just to try and gain a reader base, really. Um, and, uh, the second book for this is written, the third book is written, and I'm probably 60% of the way through the fourth one. Oh wow, there's a fourth? I thought, I thought it was a trilogy. No, there's going to be about 7 or 8, I think. Wow. By the time it's done, there's, um, but the— I don't know, I keep having ideas, so maybe that'll extend to 9. It— there's lots of stories sort of weaving together. There's— in the second book, there's quite a few new characters that people are gonna like, um, because, you know, some of them die in this one. Um, and, um, yeah, I don't know exactly how it's going to go yet. I haven't fully worked it all out, but, um, yeah, I'm working on it. Well, I suspect the, um, the books will dry up once, um, the world stops being incredibly fudged up with how they operate. Well, maybe not. I've got other 23 on the way. Um, I mean, this story, I've sort of got the idea in my head for the whole story, the whole series. Um, um, it's not all down on, um, it's not all on the computer yet. Um, but there are, I don't know, 200 notes on my phone. And, um, I finally transferred all the Post-it notes lying around the house onto my phone, which pleased my wife greatly. I was going to say, yeah, I think that irritated her quite a lot. Um, but, um, I, I don't know how long it'll take me to do it all, but yeah, it's, it's all there sort of up in the head. It's just a case of getting it all out. So you have a full-time job, you're writing books left, right, and center, and you've got two young children. Are you keeping up to your end of the bargain? In which sense? Well, how do you still have enough time to do everything else that you're supposed to do? Writing a book is a full-time job for most people. It's— yeah, it's difficult. I mean, my wife and I, we work shift patterns, um, and we work opposite shift patterns, um, so there's always someone at home with the kids and always someone at work, um, doing a 12-hour shift. So fundamentally, you're a single parent on your days off, and then you're doing 12-hour shifts on your days in. So quite a tiring lifestyle to start with. So chucking this into the mix as well has made us very, very busy, but it's a good busy. I'm not certainly not going to complain about it. Um, but, um, yeah, we're, we're busy people, we're tired people, but you've got kids, you know, that's constant tiredness. Yeah, but I, I find, I mean, fair play to you to like keeping all these plates spinning. I find the busier you are, the more productive you are, and the more you bash things out the park. It's, it's kind of lethargy that produces more lethargy and lack of purpose. And actually, weirdly, I know this kind of segues into, you know, the whole ethos of Women's and Men's Radio Station, which is very well-being focused, but having a purpose is one of the main components of keeping on top of your mental health and mental well-being. And you've got that in bucketloads. Yeah, I think it's Because mental health is a tricky thing, isn't it? Because, um, because I've had this drive— because I've been asked if writing is something I started to do to help with my mental health, actually. And well, I couldn't tell you because I was doing it from such a young age. I was probably 9 or 10 when I started writing stories and things like that. So for sure it does help, but I wouldn't know any different, um, because I've never really— I'm one of the lucky people who's not had really problems with mental health. Um, although I've had plenty of family members and friends that have had quite severe problems with it. Um, but because I've always had that, I don't know if that's why or not, because I was too young really to, to know any different. Um, I don't know, um, because obviously your ethos is about improving mental health in general. Um, and I think this probably does, but that's for me, you know. I think other people would need to find something else that they love to do. And it gives you— because it gives you a focus, um, not only does it sort of release tension, it gives you a focus. So because I wanted to do this for— as a job, and I've been pursuing that dream for many, many years, um, it gave me something to focus on and to go towards. And I don't think it matters really what that objective is in life. I think you just need to have something that you're looking towards, whether it's a holiday or decorating, or whether it's going out next Friday to watch the football, um, and have a couple of pints with your friends. I think you just need something to be looking forward to all the time. There needs to be something that brings you joy. And I think there's, there's quite a lot of truth in what you said about when you were writing when you were younger, because Um, this is why I'm a huge fan of books and reading and writing, because if you're, if you're a fan of reading, it means you're quite comfortable in being on your own, but you're also being entertained. And that, you know, a lot of, um, depression issues has to do with loneliness. But also, if you're able to understand a bit more about other people and read about other people, then you can kind of feel like you, you're not alone in whatever you might be going through. But also, the ability to write and to kind of unjumble what's going on in your head. You know, so many people talk about journaling, and whether you're journaling for yourself or you're writing a book or writing a blog, it all does the same thing. So I think it is very helpful. And I think because mental health is such a complex topic and we only really starting to understand it now, because I can remember I would have only been about 20, 21 probably when people started talking about depression. And I remember a lot of our attitude, even, even young people, was a bit like, what have you got to be depressed about? Because we didn't understand the whole thing at all. Nobody understood it. No. Um, I don't think social media helps with it. I think social media, um, people a lot spend a lot of time on social media looking at the highlights of other people's lives and compare their lives the highlights of other people. And I don't fully understand that at all because it's a bit like watching a highlight reel of, I don't know, Messi and Ronaldo and then going down and playing football down the park and being annoyed that you can't be as good as they are. Does that make sense? Um, so I think, I think it's a really tricky thing anyway. And I think that the way society is moving towards phones and social media and the, the addiction to likes is what they call it, isn't it? Um, yeah, looking for other people's approval all the time. I think that hurts people as well. Um, I don't think it helps anyway. I think— didn't Instagram do something? I think it was last year where for either 24 or 48 hours it would not show likes on a post. How did that go? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I found it interesting myself because I stopped going on to look because I knew it didn't matter. Yeah, I mean, people have always looked for the approval of their peers, haven't they? Yeah. Ever since you were a child, you look for approval of your parents or your friends. And then as you're a teenager, it becomes your peer group. And that's never changed. It's just the audience has become a lot larger. Than the 20 people in your class when you're at school. So, um, yes, we just— we are who we are, aren't we? And they take advantage of that, I think. Yeah, it's human nature. A lot of us do just want to be liked, and sometimes if we're feeling a bit low, if we at least think that other people think we're pretty cool, then it somehow fills a void, which, whether it's healthy or it's not healthy, Uh, sometimes we just got to do what we need to do to get through. Um, and it's a toughie. I'm on social media a lot. I mean, I have 3 different Instagram accounts, um, one for this show, one for another show that I do, and one that I manage for my dogs. Quite frankly, I just like dogs. Um, and my dogs is probably the funniest Instagram. I've got Twitter to promote things, I've got TikTok to promote things, Facebook, you name it. And I've got to kind of do them all to keep keep up with whatever I'm doing, but it's, it's a lot. And you can't help but see and consume everybody else's feeds, and you can't expect people to look at yours if you're not going to look at theirs and kind of show the same sort of gratitude for them. And it's just a never-ending cycle. But I mean, you must be doing some social media in regards to your book. Yeah, and that's been going quite well actually, but I've had to, um, I had to start a TikTok account, um, to try and promote the book, um, because you sort of have your three— you have your three, um, accounts that you have. You have TikTok for young people, your Instagram for— let's call them middle-aged— Facebook for your older generation. And of course, the thing with the book is the idea is to appeal to all of them. So, um, TikTok I found difficult, and I had to get my friend's teenage daughter to explain it to me. Because I couldn't understand it at all. But yeah, it's, it's, it's been, there's been a lot of social media. I can't say I like doing it that much, but it is interesting to see what's out there because I'm learning quite a lot about it. And as a, as a marketing tool, it's extremely powerful. It is. It's, it's how people talk about what they should read next and why they love this, that, and whatever. And generally the book reading community is absolutely lovely, predominantly on Twitter. Weirdly, that the Twitter book community is very supportive, and it's quite nice to see. But where can any of our listeners find you if they want to follow your socials? I'm on TikTok, I'm on Facebook, and I'm on Instagram. I don't really do Twitter, or X as it's called now. I've got an account, but I don't really use it. Um, but, um, TikTok is Sorry, there's somebody knocking on the door. Um, TikTok, yeah, TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. I do those three. Um, and there's been some quite, um, some quite good engagement and some, some nice feedback, um, particularly on Instagram. I found that the Bookstagram community is really supportive. Go on, where can we find you? What's your tag? Um, it's @rust2000_uk on Instagram, and they've been really, really helpful, and I've had quite some really nice feedback and some, some nice tips about how to improve your posts and things like that. But I don't post them all. I'm scrolling probably more than anything else, looking at other people's stuff. You've got loads of followers. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've got quite— there's quite a few people, and TikTok's growing quite quickly as well, which I've got the same handle on that, um, and I've got quite a few followers on there in the last, um, particularly in the last month or so. It's really grown. So, so yeah, it's going well. I'm going to— I don't really understand, um, how followers translates into people who are interested in your book though, because I don't know a lot of the people I see adding me on TikTok. You know, they're not going to be looking at the book, I wouldn't have thought. They're just— I don't know, you don't know. And all of it is just increasing people's knowledge of who you are and what you've got to offer. And when somebody's looking for a book or they're looking for, you know, a particular genre, that's how they're going to find it. Yeah, yeah. And BookTok's a big thing now, isn't it? Um, so, um, that's something that I'm trying to use as well. But again, it's learning because I don't really understand. I don't use social media, especially since my wife went on to social media. I know I haven't needed to post pictures of the kids or anything for their family because my wife's Polish. So we, um, I used to have to post things on there so her family back in Poland could see, you know, the kids, and the kids went camping and the kids went to the zoo and things like that. They like looking at that. But now she's on there, I need to do it, but I need to Nate should do it for the book, for sure. Yeah, well, unsurprisingly, we're going to run out of time, um, in the next minute or two, but I, I do like to ask my guests here on Get Booked the 3 top tips on trying to maintain a good level of well-being. What would be your 3 tips? Um, I would say be discerning about what you see on social media, um, because watching the highlight reels of 500 people's lives is not something you can compared to your own, because they don't post about all the bad days. Um, they only post about all the good things. Not many people are posting about when the shower broke and they had to go and fix it. No. Um, or when the fish got— the— your fish got caught in the fish tank filter and things like that. They don't post about those things. Um, I would say another one would be make sure you get plenty of sleep if you can. Um, sleep's really important. Something we learned when we had children and how that can affect your mental health is that sleep deprivation is fundamentally torture. Yeah, it is torture. It's incredibly scary how, how much it can affect how we operate. Um, getting good sleep, I think, is important, and good quality sleep at the same time as well. And then, um, exercise is something I've I've always exercised. I played sports or gone to the gym or what have you, and I've always found that that sort of leaves me feeling pretty good afterwards. And maybe it's because I've got old, and if I don't go, my body seizes up like an old machine. But, um, it's functional. Yeah, well, I don't know how you find the time, but brilliant. But I think even if you just go out for a walk, um, I think that would help, even you do something in your living room. I mean, it's the studies that are on there, don't they? Exercise release the chemicals in the brain. Is it dopamine? Yes, that, that it releases, and, um, that automatically improves your mood and makes you feel better about yourself as well, I think. So, um, well, I'm a firm believer in all three of those, and I do, um, that's something that I do focus on, and even the element of getting good sleep at the moment. I'm so strict on it. I'm out doing exercise left, right, and center. But yeah, absolutely brilliant. Completely agree with you on all of those. Um, thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. I've thoroughly enjoyed chatting to you and honestly cannot wait for the next book. If you can hurry up with that and send it over, that'd be fab. Yeah, yeah, the next The next part of this series will be out next year, um, um, but it's pretty much done and it'll need a little editing, um, but other than that it's pretty much ready to go. So that'll be out later part of next year, and then, um, the plan is to release a book a year after that until the series is complete. So, um, the good people at the Coldmare Press have committed to publish the whole thing, so, um, so that's good. So we'll, um, be publishing the whole series with them, and, um, that'll be out sort of one a year starting next year. Brilliant, I cannot wait. Uh, right, listeners, go and buy Britannia Rises by Russell Dumble. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. Great to talk to you. That was today's guest, Russell Dumper, who has now read us an extract from today's book for you to listen to. A little bit of try before you buy. Hi, my name's Russell Dumper, and this is an excerpt from my book Britannia Rises, and I hope you enjoy it. The taxi drove away and he tightened his scarf. The frigid breeze swept down the dark street, which seemed to funnel it perfectly. He looked both ways and saw no vehicles or people, so he crossed the road and headed down the alleyway towards Ulanov's house. It was only a 4-minute walk, but he could already feel the chill in his bones by the time he arrived there. The street was quiet and dark, The fog slightly thicker here, it seemed, than the adjacent streets, but he looked— but he located the house quickly. It was a semi-detached townhouse with large green bay windows and beige brick. There was a tall fence around the property and a few small birch trees around the edge of the garden. He examined the house, discerning that there was a light visible through the upstairs window and another light emanating from the front door, recessed in a brick open porch. The gate was already unlatched, so he opened it with a loud creak and walked up the pathway towards the front door. The light was quite bright, and he paused to look through the small window of tempered glass at the head height in the front door. He didn't see any movement inside, so he gently pressed the button on the panel next to the UPVC door. A pleasant melody sounded. After a few moments, he thought he heard someone, or someone moving around upstairs, but nobody came to the door. He watched the light through the small window closely, waiting for a silhouette to block it, but that did not happen either. He pressed the button again, listening to pashabel echoing around inside the house. There was a faint thud from upstairs somewhere, but it could have been next door, or Olenov could have a pet. He had no idea. He stood there for a couple of minutes, pressing his eye up against the door and peeking in through the bottom bay window before he decided it was far too cold to wait around outside any longer. He pulled the papers from his inner jacket pocket and folded them up. As he stepped forwards to feed them through the letterbox, he placed his hand on the door to steady himself. It opened slightly. He stepped back, surprised and unsure what to do next. Had she gone out and left the door unlocked? Was she home and about to leave? He chose to slip the papers through the gap and pull door closed, but then he saw the silhouette of Ulanov through the window. He pushed the door open to greet her but found the figure of a man there instead. Presumably her date, he thought. Their eyes met and Baston smiled. He held out the papers. Hi, he said. I'm just dropping these off for the professor. The man's reaction was not at all what he had expected. It was somewhere between confusion and surprise, but the eyes seemed calculating, as if analyzing the visitor on the doorstep. 'She needs them for class next week,' he continued. The man said nothing. He simply stood there staring in the darkness. At that point, Baston noticed a foot protruding from the corner. Then he noticed a wire dangling from the man's hand and what seemed to be blood dripping from it to form a small pool on the floor. Baston looked at the foot, then the blood, then at the man. The eyes looking back at him were no longer confused or surprised. They were cold. They were dangerous. They were the eyes of a killer. Baston felt the chill of terror in his bones. The paralyzing horror seemed to grip his limbs as his heartbeat became louder and faster. Yet all his senses seemed to be working in slow motion. The killer smiled, but his lips appeared to move frame by frame. Baston heard a car pass on the road behind him, a door slammed shut in the distance. His senses restored themselves slowly. The swirling thoughts in his mind started to settle down. He was standing face to face with a murderer, and he knew nothing about the reasons why. He only knew that he was next. The two men remained in their impasse for 20 seconds. Besides the car and the door, the only sounds were the deep breaths that the killer heaved into his lungs. The light was behind him, so Baston could barely distinguish his features at all, just the menacing gray eyes, the cold smile, thin lips, and crooked white teeth. Baston felt the composure washing over him. The numbness in his fingertips faded, and he started to think more clearly. The distance between them was easily 4 meters. He was fast, very fast, and this man was tired after tackling a tiny little woman like Ulanov. Granted, he'd never garrotted anyone, but he imagined she was quite weak and Baston was not. He could feel the blood rushing back to his extremities and washing the fear away. His brain suddenly felt stripped of the torpor that was smothering it only a few moments before. He was analyzing, he was calculating. He did not understand how he was able to process what had happened and what might yet happen, but he knew a little about adrenaline and suspected it was a factor. As his head churned through all the scenarios, only one fact It became very clear to him. The longer he stood there, the more time the assassin had to recover from his exertions. If he was going to move, he needed to go now. Baston turned and bolted. He leapt down the steps, sprinted down the path, and vaulted the gate. He turned left and sped down the street as fast as he could. He tried to think of a safe place to aim for. He needed somewhere to hide. He headed back towards where the taxi had dropped him off, and he heard the clunk of boots behind him. As he zoomed down the alleyway, he stole a glance behind him and described that the killer had already lost a lot of ground. He was perhaps 10 or 11 meters behind Baston. Turning right out of the alleyway, Baston raced down the street. His thighs were starting to burn, but he tried to ignore it. His arms pumped at his side and his heart hammered against his breastbone so loudly it made it difficult to concentrate on a destination. His device was in his inner pocket. But there was no way he could get to it without slowing down, and his slender lead would be gone quickly if he did that. He could not even use the voice control because it needed his chip first to activate it. That was in his wallet in his front trouser pocket. He reached the end of the street and veered left again, then took an immediate right. He powered down the middle of the road, trying to train his ears to locate his pursuer, but his own footsteps were too loud. He peeked back and saw the man turning into the street as he turned the corner. That was 13 or 14 seconds, maybe more. He was gaining ground. Questions kept leaping into his brain without invitation. Who was this guy? Why Ulanov? Was that her date? Was she involved in something more sinister? He forced them back out of his mind. He had to focus on finding a safe place. He heard some voices up ahead and turned left towards where they were coming from. Maybe they could help him. As he got closer, however, it became clear it was an open window and a television that that teased him. There was a short thudding noise and a shower of sparks on the lamppost ahead. What was that? A bullet? Baston was not going to wait to find out. He vaguely recognized the area he was in, but he didn't— did not know it well enough to be able to navigate it to safety. He knew that he was quite close to the city center though, and people. He would surely be safer with more people around. He dashed down the next street and turned again, this time leaping over a fence and pounding down the pathway through small park. He veered from the path and burst through a copse, aiming to try and confuse the assassin. He could hear the gate hinges rattle behind him and it echoed through the darkness. The grass cushioned his footsteps and Baston thought that would give him an advantage. However, the lack of ambient sound and lack of footfalls told the killer what he had done. As Baston peered over his shoulder, he saw the dark figure cutting across a flower bed. When he reached the gate and leapt over the fence, Baston realized he had lost most of his lead. The man followed him out of the park only 5 or 6 seconds later. He powered down the next street, willing his legs and arms to move faster as he saw the lights of the city center ahead. He could hear the music from a couple of bars, and there were cars crossing at the junction up ahead. It was only a few hundred meters. He was sure he was far enough ahead. All he had to do was keep going. He looked behind and saw the gap was growing. As he turned to face forwards though, he noticed the raised pavement too late. He tried to adjust, but the tip of his shoe clipped it and he stumbled. He strained every sinew to remain upright. The long, inelegant giraffe steps that— giraffe steps that followed were all he could manage to avoid tumbling to the ground. He stayed up, and within a few seconds he was back into a run again. He did not dare look back to see how close the killer was. He just needed to concentrate on reaching full speed again. Once he got his momentum back, the man would never catch him as long as he avoided another mishap. As his legs started to get back into a run, the assassin crashed into him with a desperate diving leap. The pursuer aimed for Bayston's waist and missed, but managed to impact his shoulder into Bayston's thigh, sending both men careering to the ground. Bayston fell sideways, bouncing off a fence and landing in a heap. The assassin landed on his front with a loud grunt but was straight back up. He was over to Baston in a flash. The first kick made Baston scream. The second made stars appear in his eyes. He fell backwards but managed to roll over his head and come to a halt on his knees. He knew it was a fight for his life. He could not give in to the pain. Next week on the show, we're going to be talking to the author and change management and leader specialist Jennifer Bryan on her book Leading People Through Change Successfully.. It's definitely a very informative book that can be used in so many different areas of our life. I think that's going to be one definitely not to miss. If you did miss last week's show, here is a sneaky peek. And as ever, to catch our full shows, you can pop onto womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked, or you can pop on to to the Women's and Men's Radio Station SoundCloud or my SoundCloud to listen to the full shows. I'm Hazel Butterfield. Thank you for listening to Get Booked. Right now on Get Booked, we are going to talk about Thrive by resilience coach Richard Sutton. And this book is all about how resilience is often influenced by our childhood. The type of adversity we experience as a child has a, a distinctive emotional and biological signature later in life. However, while we can't change our past, we can change our future using cognitive reappraisal creating a positive perception of negative events. This is a practice that today's guest has used himself, having overcome a traumatic childhood. He also discusses how to create a resilient brain and the 5 personality traits that foster it. And now I get to introduce today's guest to the show, Richard Sun. How are you? I'm very, very well, thank you. And thank you so much for having me on the show. You're very welcome. I have such a ridiculously long to-do list at the moment from working through Thrive. It's, um, there is a lot of content. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, because there's certain— I love books like this because you can take from it, you can learn, but there's things that you read and think, that's something I can do, or that applies to me, or that's something that I know I'm not doing properly and I didn't realize this. Was this situation. And whenever I came across something that I knew I needed to work on, my memory is terrible, so I just kept on having to stop and then even Google the concept or search where I can get DNA gene testing or figure out, make sure that I look at different things to make sure that I boost my omega-3 and da da da da da. So yeah, I'm, I've got to work through my to-do list and this weekend I'm going to have to do some serious research. You're not alone. When I was reviewing the final edit on the copy that's just been released now, I was going through it and there were so many prompts and reminders of little tips and things that can really make such a difference in one's life. And I was actually making personal notes myself. So you're not alone. Even the author needs a little bit of a reminder. And, uh, and then, then I went to listen to the audiobook, and that really reinforced, uh, some of the, some of the notions and some of the concepts. So, um, there is a tremendous amount of content. It's really just, it's about being the best version of ourselves, no matter where we came from, no matter how life started, um, the, the obstacles we face, the hurdles, the challenges, and everything in between. It's, uh, we can, we choose our paths, we choose our destination, and, and we have this, this authority that some, sometimes we forget, and, and we don't realize. Yeah, yeah. And also, we're quite often just— I mean, it's not talked about in the book, but we're also so overwhelmed with what we need to be doing sometimes. And I like, I like to kind of introduce small things so they just become part of who you are and part of your daily practice, rather than— there's a lot of my friends who make these huge changes that just don't fit into their life properly, and then they end up failing at it and then feeling even worse that they didn't succeed at the changes they wanted to. And I'm a huge fan of doing little things, integrate them into your life, and then add something else and then add something else and do it step by step. And that's why I've got, I've got an email at the moment about 8 different steps from the book that I want to completely master. And then I'll probably have to read the book again. And that falls into James Clear's Atomic Habits sweet spot. He basically said, yeah, kind of little things, make it easy, constant. Consistent cues, reinforce it with some sort of kind of positive experience afterwards. And, and if we can do that, we can adopt and really bring these habits into our lives. And by doing so, our life ultimately changes. And, but, but I totally subscribe with what you're saying. It's the little things that really make a difference over time. I think that over time is the big piece. It's the consistency factor that really means a lot in terms of a personal journey or growth journey. Yeah, yeah. And I think something— I mean, I was reading about the, um, the DNA testing as well, because although there's like work that we need to do, sometimes we're wasting our energy because we're not actually understanding what's going on chemically within our body, where it could be actually be quite a quick fix, or it's just a case of we needed to take certain nutrients or we're missing something else. It's not always external factors. And I loved reading about that, but also I read a book a couple of months ago as well. And the main thing that the psychologist said is like, get your blood work done, understand your own genetic makeup because it could solve so many questions you might have about yourself. We live in such an exciting time where biotechnology is advancing by the day and we can gain so much knowledge. And the whole resilience journey and performance journey in life really boils down to one thing is know yourself.. And if, if we can take, you know, a small little blood sample, get it analyzed, and, and the, the gene panel that I reference in, in the book is a gene panel that I, I collaborated with in biotechnology, um, lab around the world, and it looks at the 13 most influential genes in human performance. And, and just if, if we, we do have certain polymorphisms or certain adaptations to those genes that might make us a little bit vulnerable in, in certain instances, we, we have the power to choose and shape the environment to neutralize, if not eradicate that influence altogether. It's, it's simply a dial. We can turn it up and turn it down, and, uh, it helps us choose our nutritional supplements. It helps us, us choose our exercise habits and behaviors, or lack thereof. It helps us choose when to listen to music. And do we need cold exposure? Do we need heat exposure? Do we need anything in between? Do we need medication? It's just like such an incredible— and it's a science that is evolving. It certainly hasn't got there yet, but we know enough to, to make a substantial difference in our own personal lives and on our own personal journey. I, do you know what, I was absolutely enthralled reading about the chemical elements of resilience capability, just how much we can actually control and consume. And, and actually there was so much information in here. I like the fact that people can choose what's going to work for them because, you know, some ideologies just aren't going to work for some people. That just might not be something that kind of floats their boat. But I love that there was so many different options that the mere fact that sometimes, you know, even if we're a bit depressed or anxious and we can't understand why and it's driving us crazy and probably making us even more depressed and anxious, actually it can just be that we're deficit in something. Oh, 100%. And, and like you pointed out, it— the, this, this whole experience is very molecular. So there are around 7 molecules that have a very profound influence on our resiliency and our coping capabilities. And if we're able to tap into these molecules, um, augment them support them, nurture them, ensure that these systems are well governed, it really does give us an opportunity. It gives us an opportunity to be more successful through adversity and challenge and change and complexity and everything that we experience in today's modern world. But, you know, to your point, a couple of days ago I had a conversation and the conversation was It was around a photograph and I'm always caught blinking, like my eyes are always closed on photographs and because I blink a lot and, and the person asked me like, why come your eyes always closed, everyone else's are not? And I explained that I blink a lot and they said, why? And dopamine is often associated, high levels of dopamine associated with a lot of blinking. So I said, my dopamine levels are pretty high. So they said, So that's, you know, if that's an intrinsic thing, how does it manifest? So, so I'm pretty motivated, I'm pretty ambitious, I'm pretty driven. And I then proceeded to say that it's not only good, um, you can also have a, a negative, um, negative relationship to excessive dopamine. And that negative relationship is anxiety. So I'm also prone to anxiety. So in the mornings, I've, I've got a cold plunge, and cold plunge will help modulate my, my levels of arousal and anxiety and then create a I need to do yoga, I need to meditate, and that's where I can modulate that experience. But at the same time, I'm also getting the benefits of the raised levels of dopamine, the ambition, the drive, the motivation, and everything in between. And it's just this knowledge that we can manipulate the variables in such a way that we can create and facilitate the best outcome for ourselves. Well, that's where knowledge is power, isn't it? Applied knowledge is the power. Applied knowledge. Yeah. Not, not