John Harvey is well know across the South West as a networking rockstar! He’s the owner of The Samphire Club, a private membership networking organisation that promotes business connections and collaborations throughout the South West through a series of regular networking events and consultancy. The ethos is ‘Just be Nice’ and ‘Pay it Forward’. Within the Samphire Club, business is about collaboration, not competition. Motivated to empower others to enjoy their careers and build their businesses, John has, for many years, been much in demand as a speaker, consultant and guest contributor. The Samphire Club sees him combine his business development experience and strategic networking skills with his flair for curating memorable and valuable gatherings. Of course, this was bound to be an interesting interview and I wasn’t disappointed!
What does your Monday morning routine look like?
Monday is the day when I try and work from home, so it’s normally a bit more leisurely than a normal working day as I don’t have to get up and go. I always start the day with a cup of tea in bed but I will normally be catching up with admin. I usually have one or two calls scheduled, but Monday is the day when I don’t go out.
What’s your all-time favourite movie, and why?
I’m going to go with a movie called Heat, which was set in Los Angeles. It’s a Michael Mann picture, and he was the director behind Miami Vice for all those years. It’s very long. It’s beautifully filmed and it has Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. And yet they only share the screen time for one scene in a diner.
If you could visit any place in the world right now, where would you go?
I would go back to the Maldives tomorrow. I would lay on the beach in the sun. I like the sun and I love beaches. I was lucky enough to honeymoon in the Seychelles and I’ve been to the Maldives, and I would go back to the Maldives over the Seychelles every day of the week. Two weeks as it’s in the second week where all the benefits come from because you need a week to unwind first! It’s what they call a fly-and-flop holiday – where you fly in and flop down and kick off your shoes. Take off your watch, read books and sleep!
What’s your go-to karaoke song?
You know what? I don’t think I have done karaoke for so many years. It would be a Rolling Stones song for sure. It’d probably be ‘Beast of Burden’ by The Rolling Stones. It’s very, very beautiful. It’s not a big rocky number, it’s one of their ballads.
What is your most memorable foody childhood memory?
That’s actually quite funny! As a child, we were on a family holiday to France. It was a camping holiday in Brittany. So, I’ve got two sisters and a brother, and my parents and we were in a fish restaurant in Concon and my dad took it upon himself to order crab for the whole family. All of us. And you can imagine, we’re kids. We’re tiny. We didn’t eat crab. We still laugh about this as a family going: “Do you remember the time Daddy ordered crab for everybody?” We did also have fruit, chocolate, eclairs and langoustines, so it wasn’t all bad!
What’s your favourite way to unwind and de-stress?
Sit around the table with really good friends and break bread and chat and cook. I like cook to de-stress. Because I’m single and only cooking for me, I’ll probably batch cook and freeze a lot of it, but I just like playing in the kitchen – love it.
If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be and why?
I would like to be invisible I think, because I’m curious and you could just witness things, but also because anywhere I go in the South West someone always recognises me, which is cool – I like it – but there are times when you think ‘I want to be invisible!’
Morning person or night owl?
Morning person! I wake up between 5am and 6am. And if I’ve got writing to do, that’s when I’m most creative.
If you were to write a book, what genre would it be?
As you know, I’ve already written a book. I’m published! It’s a book about networking called ‘For the Love of Networking’. If I was to write another book it would be a business book – I already have an idea for one. It’s going to be a book of business tips – I’m going to gather tips from everybody in my network, so it’s going to write itself!
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
It was from a lawyer called Verity Slater, who is one of my members. I was involved in a dispute with a previous employer and she told me to walk away before I got embroiled in something I didn’t want and, you know, I did. It’s not what I wanted to hear, but it was the best advice I ever had.
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
I walked into the Grand Canyon and back barefoot and I didn’t get blisters because I lived in Africa, in Zambia, for a long-time and my feet are very tough because we always walked around with bare feet. Everyone else had blisters, not me. Easy to walk down the path but coming up is impossible! When you’re going down, nobody coming up says hello to you and you don’t understand why until you start walking up again and then it’s just head down, one foot in front of the other. Turn the corner and its just “Oh, please God, make this end now!”
I also did white water rafting in Canada and was offered to go bungee jumping in the Garden Route in South Africa, but no amount of money would make me do that!
What is your favourite food/drink product on the market right now and why?
Oh, I’ll tell you. I’ll give a big-up to one of my members. Barbuoy Cocktails down in Exmouth. Tip of the hat to Tim and Ria Ball. Their Negroni pre-make is my current favourite product because negroni is my favourite cocktail.
What would your last meal be?
Do you know what? I love that question. I hear it on podcasts all the time. It would probably be lots of small plates. There would definitely be Cornish crab with lime juice and a bit of red chilli. There would be Cornish Lobster. Green salad. There would be pizza in there somewhere and tarte au citron and a cheese board. That kind of thing.
Favourite colour
Orange and everything orange. I love orange. The Dutch Football team is orange. Orange chocolates, orange Kit-Kats – it’s a happy colour.
What inspires you?
People. One-word answer. People.
In my world, I get to meet people all the time. I get to hear their stories. I get to see their journeys. It’s inspiring.
You can connect with John through LinkedIn and Instagram and find out more about the Samphire Club at the website.
