The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Joe Wicks on Addiction, Childhood Trauma, Depression And World Domination

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

This week I have a recurring guest, the man who helped the lives of people around the globe during lockdown when they needed it most, Joe Wicks. After we last spoke he achieved his dream and has recently been awarded an MBE but when it had finished it led to Joe feeling lost and a notion of lack of purpose, he still has struggles that on the surface you would never imagine he had! Joe talks open and honestly about addiction, childhood Trauma and depression. These are just a handful of topics we cover in this week's episode, this is the Joe you don't know. Honestly, this is one of the most EMOTIONAL discussions I've ever taken part in and you need to hear it. Topics: - Achieving my ultimate goal in 18 weeks - Feeling lost - Goals going forwards - Your childhood - You must be really busy - Marriage, tell me where I’m going wrong - Therapy - Psychedelics & mental health - If you were to die today what would you regret - Social media - What roll does money play in your life? Sponsor - https://uk.huel.com/

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. This is the first podcast I've done this year where we had tears, and not just once. And I don't really know how to introduce this conversation. I guess the thing I want you to know is that things aren't always what they seem. And really that humans all feel the same.

We all feel the same emotions, the same peaks, the same troughs. And no matter what it looks like on the outside, things aren't always what they seem. I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening. But if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Visualization. That's a very relevant word i think to start this conversation because in our last conversation last year when i asked you what you wanted to be remembered for what you wanted to do next in your career you told me that you wanted to have a legacy for getting kids all across this country up exercising and really into exercise sort of similar to how Jamie Oliver completely changed the way we view like school dinners and things and I remember Jamie

Oliver was the reason I was eating apples instead of Mars bars when I was younger and then just like a couple of months later the pandemic happens and you're getting millions and millions of kids in this country up dancing and into exercise only a couple months later it like boggles my mind i've never seen someone say something so big such a big ambition and then only like a couple of months later do it on a scale which nobody has ever done it before that's what happened and i remember when we met and we talked about that moonshot thing the idea of like having a goal so big and so out of reach that you feel you can never you know almost never attain it and that was my vision it was to have that legacy of making an impact you know and i do think about jane oliver he's had amazing success as a

chef as a you know an author but i think about the jamie school dinners the man who went into the schools all over the uk and said that this, this isn't enough. Our kids can eat healthier. And I feel the same about school fitness and exercise and PE, not just about obesity and the diabetes thing, but I think about our children's mental health. And I said to you that I want to have a legacy where I can create absolute, you know, national change and national, create awareness around fitness. And, you know, lockdown happened and within you know 18 weeks that happened so it was almost like a 10-year dream happened in 18 weeks and i'm so proud of that i've reached that many people take take me to the start so lockdown

happens where does this idea come from like what what happens how does and then i want to hear like when you saw the numbers the amount of people tuning in every day and the impact it was having how did all that feel it was an intense moment in time, but it was also something I did visualize and I did, I had been working on. So I'd been visiting schools and on the UK tour, I went to Ireland, Northern Ireland, I'd visited schools. I'd worked out with hundreds of kids in these schools. Um, that Monday I was supposed to go on another tour. Me and Nikki were going to take the camera, you know, it's my brother, Nikki. Um, and like I've always said, I was supposed to go on another tour, me and Nikki, we're going to take the camera, you know, it's my brother, Nikki. And like I've always said, there was no TV show, there was no money, there was no budget, it was just me and Nikki, going and doing what we love, which is

connecting and I suppose reconnecting with the mission and purpose that I have. Because when it's all digital, I do sometimes feel like it's just numbers. And is it is it real people. So I have to go and visit the schools and actually meet the kids and do it. So on the Monday, I was supposed to go out on the road, we had about 15 schools chosen. And Boris announced, you know, there's going to be this lockdown. So it was 1215am, I was laying in bed on the Thursday night. And I text Nikki, because I looked at my WhatsApp the next day. And I text Nikki saying, I've got this idea. And honestly, I saw everything. I saw a hashtag, I saw a logo, I saw the name, I said, it's going to be called P with Joe every day next week.

Let's just try it for a week, 9am, Monday to Friday. I announced it and loads of PR, you know, loads of school newsletters were tweeting it and I was doing ESPN, CNN, like global PR and I thought this is going to be really big. But still had no idea how many people would tune in on the Monday. And on the Monday we went live, I stepped in front of that camera and I was really nervous and 850,000 I think it was live streams and I thought wow like if you think about how many kids that could possibly be and then day two was the biggest one so day two was 954,000 live streams which is a world record yeah concurrent it was almost a million people watching at the same time yeah it blew

my mind then I I realized there and then that that was like families that was kids it was schools it wasn't like individual people so really it was probably tens of millions of people a day and I felt this amazing sense of purpose like I was there for people that when they needed me the most because everyone was locked in you know whether you had children or not you were like confined you felt restricted your mental health was going to suffer that day. And I was there like to be there and just have fun. And I never once one thing I was really cautious of never mentioned lockdown, never mentioned COVID or the or you know, anything to do that it was like it was a safe 30 minutes where we could forget about things. I put the music on, we were dancing around being

really silly. And that was a gift. That was my gift to the world. It was just a bit of laughter, some feel good energy and a real boost in their mood when that finished i know that they were happier afterwards and you must have got a lot of calls from the big sort of production companies and tv companies wanting to like buy it or or to to bring it to tv right within a few days so you remember i told you the story about the channel four thing i was trying my hardest to make the uk tour thing in a documentary around schools fitness but they never had the budget that no one could do it well within a few days the head of channel 4 like the top guy i can't think of his name called me up personally said joe what you're doing is amazing we'd love you to stream the workouts on channel 4 and i i was like dude like

i'm doing this on youtube i've got kids in sri lanka and south america and india and like even like madagascar and the Maldives taking part in these workouts I can't do this on channel four I need to be global and I'm so glad I stuck with that because that really allowed it to go globally it allowed everyone all over the world to take part and don't forget I was getting a million live streams but by the end of the 24 hours there was seven eight million views crazy so total 80 million views on the 18 weeks so 80 million individual views but how many families or schools are doing that so it's tens of millions of kids and that was my

dream so i just can't believe it happened but i'd built up that trust over eight years you know as the body coach as joe wicks as this mission driven person anyone could have had the same idea but maybe they wouldn't have had the same reaction because like i said i put out so much love and energy and positivity and visiting these schools that those teachers knew I was going to deliver a really fun and safe session for their kids. 18 million people is you know when you sat down with me last year and we had this conversation you said you wanted to do this nationally right you said you want to get kids exercising nationally there's only about 60 million people in the uk you managed to do 80 million people all around the world on a global level but also at a time when people really needed that kind of

energy the most at a time when the country was you know fearful and people were trapped indoors and not exercising as much as they they could have been so i you know we can talk about the the p with joe thing for a long time but the thing that actually fascinates me more is what happens afterwards so you've just that goal you set out to achieve you achieved it quick how does it feel after well you talk about that gold medal syndrome you know of people having this like coming off tour or coming to back from the Olympics and they have this kind of feeling of like feeling flat or not depressed, maybe, but confused and lost. And that's what happened. I moved into this new house and I thought, I've got this lovely house. Why am I feeling flat? And for the first two weeks I was there, I was missing my old house in Richmond because my children were born there. Pee, which I was in that living room that you interviewed me in. And it was like this, I left this energy behind and moved into this new life. And I was like, why am I feeling this? And I realized it was because I'd lost my purpose. I'd been disconnected from that audience every day. So when I felt that, the first thing I do, I jump on my Instagram, like I said to you, I used to do DMs and voice notes, and I reconnect

with the messages. I read the YouTube comments so that I know 2 million people a month for doing YouTube workouts before the lockdown. I'm now getting six to seven million views a month. So that's real people that have changed their habits that are still doing it. Um, and it reminded me why I did it. And also I had wonderful letters. I had two, two or two or three, I'm going to say it's probably nearly two or 3000 like letters and cards and things. That's that seems mad, but I had this stack of things to go through. So I sat in my office for two days, laughing, crying, feeling this love. It was like this wave of love when I realized what I'd actually done during that time.

It wasn't just about me getting kids exercise, and it was like widows. It was single parents. It was people with anxiety and depression living on their own. And in all the different places in the world, it was people with anxiety and depression living on their own and in all the all the different places in the world it was really emotional so I did feel lost but I've reconnected with that because now I'm still doing my YouTube workouts I'm still delivering free content and although there's this new product and this app coming out I'm so passionate and committed to doing that one workout a week that I'll never neglect that free content and that audience that are there that still may never buy my app or my books you talked about buying a new house probably

a bit of a dream come true in many senses um but again you speak about it being kind of anti-climactical like in like not feeling like that expectation that when you've got that big house because i've seen the house it's a nice house you should have felt like confetti should have come down and you should have felt amazing and but you kind of described it like you didn't feel that like that yeah i kind of thought you know I was I was gonna move anyway but it was like the the lockdown accelerated because we had paparazzi outside and I wasn't used to that you know I wasn't used to being having like photos taken of me and India when we walked to the park and we lived on a main road so it's quite public and people would knock and sort of

say hello and it was fine but sometimes you just want a little bit of privacy like when you switch off so we found this lovely house and it's you know it's got a nice driveway it's got a beautiful back garden and when I was in there I just kind of thought why aren't I double as happy I've got more space I've got more garden but I genuinely felt like I left that part of me behind in that house that was so purpose driven it was all about P with Joe it's where my kids were born so I suppose it's a lesson and I really talked about that when Boris announced the lockdown number two and I'm sitting there in my kitchen I've got all this space I'm thinking it doesn't matter if you've got a massive house we live in a one bedroom flat we all feel the same right now we all feel very disconnected very lonely you know we miss our friends and family we

need to socialize we need events we need live music we need dinners so so it's just a really important message that it doesn't matter what situation you're in we're all feeling the same and I really wanted to share that message. And it definitely helped people open up the conversation because we're all struggling, you know, mentally with this, with what's going on. And, yeah, you know, you've talked about it before, you know, ordering the car and the house. And I think we're driven by these things and consumerism that we're always wanting the next thing. But what I've realized during this lockdown is I'm happy exactly where I am with just what I've got. And that's a nice feeling it's really nice when you realize that another Rolex another

car even another motorbike or another holiday it doesn't it doesn't give you what you really think and I think people listening that are desperate for that life I think we all come to the same conclusion eventually whether you're 30 or 60 we will all level out and realize that what's important is our friends and our connection and our love to the people around us is it as you say it took me a long time to learn that lesson and i the the phrase that i was only 27 aren't you something like that yeah you ain't taking that long you've yeah you've you've got i think you're very when i listen to your podcast i think you've got a lot of wisdom i think you've spoken to a lot of people and you you've absorbed a lot and i think you've really taken into your own um your own life and philosophies I think I think do you know what I think it is I've also been really like self

analytical as in I will have a thought and I'll have a feeling and I'll try and grab onto it and hold it out in front of me and go why are you feeling like that so the day as you kind of alluded to there where I realized I was going to be very wealthy and I start looking at cars and houses I get this feeling of like the feeling you described with your old house, which is, I think if I get this, I'll actually feel poorer in some way. I'll lose something. Like if I, and then I thought to myself, well, if I get this one, what's next? If you get a Lamborghini Aventador, the best fucking sports car, what's next? And then I was like, I'm going to just keep going. And then me realizing that if I, if I always start to believe

that my happiness was somewhere else, in a promotion, in a new car, in a big house, it will never be here. If I believe that I can't possibly be happy because I don't have X, I will never be happy. Because once I get X, it's like a mirage or a rainbow. It just moves out further in front of you. Yeah. And you see that with a lot of celebrities,

a lot of musicians, like talented people that get everything so young, you know, they get to that point where they start you know they're going to depression and anxiety and it can you know manifest in drug addiction or you know all kinds of things but yes if you're constantly looking for the next thing or almost living in the past with old memories and what you used to have like you talk about down contrasting and up contrasting like that thing you said changed my life just thinking stop thinking about what you did last year how you went to america and you went to coachella think about what you're doing today and not worrying about that and it really just brings you to it's like

a meditator it's like a meditation it's like a thought a simple thought where you can actually start to bring yourself back to the moment and like like i said i it could be a quote it could be a podcast it could be an interview little things just sometimes it opens up a whole new thought process isn't it and you start to think actually do you know what that's amazing and also i interviewed fern cotton and she said one of these lovely quotes is nothing in nature blooms all year round you know where we're constantly i need number one podcast i need the number one app i need to have um you know the best book i need everything's got to be number one i need to be doing everything every month for the year but i've realized that in nature like nothing blooms all year round and that again made me realize it's

okay to have quiet months and not be in the media chill out relax because something good will come later on in the year you'll bloom again and during summer and i think so little things like that really open up my mind and i'm evolving quickly i think since i've become a parent as well um you start to be much more empathetic and you start to understand and you feel a lot more when you've got kids i don't know where it comes from but i'm i think a lot more about other people's feelings now more than i ever used to i actually wrote down um when i was watching your video that you did during the lockdown where you start discussing your own mental health and you're saying i've just watched boris's announcement and i'm feeling really shit but in that video you also

say i'm feeling shit at the thought that there's loads of families out here that are going to lose their jobs and stuff and I wrote in my notes like incredibly empathetic like you are incredibly empathetic and it kind of it made me question like where does he get that from because that is a trait I noticed in you last time as well most people in the middle of a lockdown when they've just found out that we're going into our second lockdown don't think oh my god all these other people that are going to lose their jobs and you I could see it in your face and I know you're a genuine guy because I've been with you we've gone for dinner you know outside of the podcast I know who you are I'm like he genuinely genuinely cares I think it's grown him I think that feeling has grown in me

but where I used to be like you know when you're a teenager you're a young adult it's all about you it's like me me me and then you you know you find a partner and you start to realize it's about your partner and it's about your kids. But I think, yeah, like the more I realized that we're all connected, it's that thing of connection, you know, it comes from sometimes a meditation or a feeling of like, we're all, we're all in the same experience. And, you know, I've had, I've been very lucky, like the body coach brand has grown, you know, my YouTube audience has grown, like the signups to the plan, it's all gone insane. And so I think about other people in small businesses i genuinely care about fat i think about families that have run like restaurants for 30 years or had you know properties

or had like amazing nightclubs or you know amazing restaurants that are suddenly going under like that it affects me and that really when i stop and think about all the pain and suffering in the world it really brings me down it really kind of brings my energy down. And then I have to kind of exercise or do something positive because I start to feel a bit sad because that is the world right now. You know, there's billions of people that are going through a really difficult time. And so my reaction to that is trying to inspire them to move, to eat well, to exercise, because I know that it can counteract any kind of, you know, financial pressures or stress that's going on. If you exercise and you lift your energy and you put good food in your body, you know financial pressures or stress that's going on if you exercise and you

lift your energy and you and you put good food in your body you know even temporarily you're going to feel better and it's going to change your mind so that's my gift you know I try and inspire people to exercise and feel good for you know even if it's once a day or once a week it's enough to change the way you feel about yourself and your life we went for um a little dinner a couple of couple of months back I don't know I think just after the first lockdown, before the second one. And I came home really inspired on one end, but just I couldn't shake this thought. I hate to go back to it, but I couldn't shake this idea that you just had the biggest achievement of your life with this P, I mean, outside of your kids, in my opinion, with this P with Joe format that just spread across the world, right? And the Joe I met at that dinner was somewhat

despondent, as you say, like confused. And as you say, like really unsure about why you weren't feeling on top of the world and also really unsure about what you do next to to kind of like top that i guess and it really stayed with me it stayed with me for like a couple of weeks what did you think do you think i'd be more like energetic and and proud and like ambitious or what every every person on planet earth would have thought okay so joe set out to achieve something and he smashed it out the park he is on all of the tv stations congratulations on the mbe by the way that's a whole nother conversation we'll get to that mad he smashed everything out the park um he's got to be just absolutely buzzing we were sat at the dinner and there's people coming up to us asking

you for pictures halfway through the dinner as well. But you weren't like that. And even though I've written about this in my book at great length about gold medal syndrome and gold medal depression and my own experiences, I still, when I saw that in you, I was like, fuck, people need to hear about this. Because you were, I'll be honest, right? That was the lowest I've ever seen you. Really? Yeah. I suppose.

I was concerned. No, I mean, look, I was really looking've ever seen you. Really? Yeah. I suppose. I was concerned. No, I mean, look, I was really looking forward to seeing you. And I was, you know, we hadn't been out for a while. But I think coming off the back of that pee with Joe, I was emotionally drained, I think. You know, physically, I can do workouts all day. Dude, I've done a 24-hour workout. Like, I can move my body. But I think the energy of performing, like going on stage, stepping in front of the camera,

when I wasn't in the mood for it, when I had to like pick up every, I was literally carrying everyone's emotion and energy and trying to, and I do believe in energy that we carry it and we push it. And we sometimes hold negative energy. We sometimes hold things locked up from years ago. And I was just, I suppose, fatigued, emotionally fatigued at that point, but I've bounced back, you know, I'm back in the zone. I'm filming workouts again. And I'm, um, I'm refocused like i said on the on the purpose and the mission which is like fitness for all and i've got the app is one option i've got the books as one option but then also instagram youtube you know there's so much free content because i don't want anyone to feel like the body coach is premium brand and i can only get him through that paid subscription no i'm still going to give you one workout a week

on youtube and i'm still going to do my instagram recipes i'm still going to give you one workout a week on YouTube. And I'm still going to do my Instagram recipes, I'm still going to share my daily stories and motivate you. And every now and again, I might mention the app, but it really is just like for people that want to give it that extra push, you know, and try something a bit different. So as we park P with Joe, you know, last time you sat down here, you put put out into the world your your goal, your ambition, and it came true. So I think, you know, let's tempt fate again uh what is your what is your goal and ambition now going forward in terms of your purpose well i think what i what what happened i achieved was a short-term thing you know it changed behaviors but they had to they had to do it because they were locked in parents had to keep their kids moving um you know schools

weren't providing p that everything was closed so it was a temporary thing it was the start start of a movement, but the legacy is still continuing that movement, you know, continuing to visit schools, continuing to speak to heads. And I don't see it as a government thing because I've realised that you can actually just speak to local schools and they have the ability to change their curriculum. Well, they have to follow the curriculum, but they can change their timetable. So if they want to fit a 15 minute workout in one today with their children or do it, you know, at the end of the day, they have the ability. So again, it's about continuing to grow that mission to create content, maybe as a separate platform, which schools can use. But it isn't over because like anything, motivation drops, it drops for me, it drops for you, different times of the year. And with young people, they're very engaged at the early ages

in primary school. But when they start hitting their teens they're in the devices they become more resistant to exercise so the challenge becomes tougher as they get older so my mission now is to continue the school's work um when i can go on the road start visiting schools again creating content you know um hopefully creating a tv show around that you know like jamie one of the school dinners was only six episodes in my head it felt like it was weeks and months and months of content. So, you know, I want to do the same thing. I want to create a really amazing series, whether it's, you know, Netflix or BBC or Channel 4, where I can continue that conversation to get one teacher or one dinner lady or one head of a school to believe in the power of exercise for their children. So I really feel

like I've just started. There's so much more to go. I think you have as well. And, you know, so like we, one thing I've learned from doing this podcast and speaking to guests like you is that, and even Eddie Hearn who we had on last week, is how pivotal and how defining our early years are. And you are like a really fascinating guy in so many ways.

We talked about your empathy, your achievements, all of these things suggest that you're because they're such extraordinary things or out of the ordinary things suggest that you probably had quite an out of ordinary childhood whenever whenever i meet someone uh who is achieved out of ordinary things i always think okay tell me about your childhood so how was your childhood joe oh so you think you don't think it was a stable childhood you think they were saying a bit more than motivated me on to yeah i i think i think um and it doesn't necessarily mean it was like a really bad childhood or a good childhood i always you know and i actually did childhood psychology for two

years which people don't know about this is why i'm so fascinated by like all the freudian um psychology and and how one thing that happened i've got a friend who told me that one thing that happened when he was a kid he still remembers to the day to this day and he holds that one comment that someone in his family made to him as the reason for his probably his single biggest flaw in his personality and it was just one comment on one day from a parent yeah that's that's that's amazing and it's the power of um yeah the power of a negative thought like if someone says your teeth are a bit crooked or you've got skinny legs like someone could say you've got lovely teeth your whole life but you still think your teeth are crooked yeah and that's happened to me in the past i got invisalign because one a girlfriend said to me

once you know your teeth are a bit wonky or really you know and and someone said about you know this is a true story when i was 16 i had glasses but i was really embarrassed i was really shy about it and the girl i was going out i've said I said something like I wonder if I'd look good in glasses and she she said oh no you'd look silly in glasses so I never wore them for two or three years I just hide them in my car drive to her house take them out and you know it's that thing of we really take on these these thoughts and it can really affect our confidence um that definitely definitely happened to me as a kid but But I suppose my childhood was very chaotic. You know, it was very unstable.

My dad was a drug addict from a very young age. So, you know, that was, it was a bit like, you know, he was there one minute. Next minute he was in rehab. Next minute he was back on the gear, you know. And my mum would take him back and it was all good. And then they'd be arguing. And, you know, I lived in a council flat with really thin doors. So it was like, it was like plywood. and so there used to be holes in the what used to be holes in the door because i remember um i used to think

why are there holes in the door like and i look back now and it's because my mom and dad used to fight and argue and you know it'd be like it was a symbol of aggression and impatience and intolerance and then it'd be gone and so i always i didn't have a positive role model in terms of male. And also when it comes to marriage, you know, my mum and dad never got married. If they were married, they would have been divorced 100 times. So I had similar beliefs around marriage

and commitment to you. Like when are you talking about it? Like I suppose I had the same feelings when I was 25. I didn't believe that people stay together, that people are committed, that marriage is going to work, that, you know, people get through tough time because it was always like when it got shit and tough, my dad would piss off and we'd be back on our own again.

So, you know, again destruction of drugs in my household, and what came with that all the chaos really put me off ever wanting to smoke weed or drink alcohol, you know, I was so scared that I was going to enjoy it. And I was gonna become an addict. I thought it's a genetic thing. I thought I don't want to be a drug addict. So I wouldn't go near it. So it definitely, it definitely shaped me, you know, and when I look at where my love and generosity and empathy comes from, it's my mom, like like my mum is she's so kind and loving and she's so always putting other people first and I think that definitely shaped me as an adult. I didn't actually know this stuff about you before I didn't know that you'd been through such a traumatic early childhood and as you were saying that I was thinking fucking hell it's remarkable that you are who you are and that you have such feelings of empathy and you're just such a kind human being having gone through such a, you know, violent and traumatic childhood.

And I guess that is credit to your mum. I suppose, yeah, I look back when I get asked in interviews now, like, where did your generosity and your kindness come from and your kind of desire to want to help others it's about help you know I'm happiest when I'm helping others so if I know I'm helping someone or I'm helping millions I'm really happy and so that when it when it stops I felt I'm not I'm not I'm not I haven't got my purpose I'm not valuable but I've realized I am still valuable I'm still helping people um but yeah my mum you know she left school at 15 no qualifications she met my dad in a squat She had my brother when she was 17. Then she had me when she was 19. She's like a kid.

And when we used to go places, like people used to say, is that your sister? She looked so young. You can't imagine. But somewhere along the line, she taught me value. She taught me respect. You know, if I had to be home at 10 o'clock on a Friday night, I was home at 10 o'clock.

My mates were down the park till 1, 2, 3 a.m. because their parents let them run loose. And they were ones graffiti and they were the ones smoking weed they were the ones that got in you know in trouble for you know crimes and whatnot so my mum was really considering she wasn't parented her dad left her when she was a kid she was she was abandoned when she was a baby so I don't know where her love comes from but she's got this ability to just love and and be so generous and when she went to university she went back she said i want to study she she went to become a social worker so the first thing she'd done with her life was go and help people that you know young offenders people that

had been through abuse and and all this stuff so it has to come from her it's emotional because my mom so i took my mom for dinner um the night before it was going to be announced and i said to her like we're celebrating my birthday tonight aren't we because it's we were having a late birthday night but it's something else yeah my mb and I said mum um I've got an mb and she we're in the middle of lucky cat restaurant in London and she burst into tears and I'm like in the middle of the restaurant crying with her and she's like when she was younger like all her friends used to say you're a fucking shit parent imagine the pride and it is it's she raised me like i have to put it down to her you talked about your dad there and so you said that you've um after all that you'd

been through and all you'd observed and his addiction and his battles with addiction you've got a good relationship with him now yeah we we do because you know addiction never goes away like he's you know he does his na meetings it's a part of his life but he he needs that he needs to have a fellowship and a network of people to talk to like i don't understand addiction i've never been addicted to anything so for me it's like he needs that that network of people he can talk to and that's obviously at the moment mostly through zoom but usually it's like na meetings you know you go and have a talk and you you feel better and he's had you know he's had therapy but you know he's learned he's he's became he's evolved like again like his dad left him and

I understand my mom and dad because they went through so much trauma my mom was abandoned when she was two years old was living in a she was in a um you know an orphanage and then my dad the same thing his dad left him like he didn't have you know he didn't ever say I think I don't think my dad's dad told him he loved him until he was like on his deathbed when he had cancer so like I understand where that addiction why my dad chose to like do that with his life and I understand why my mum had OCD like because I know what she went through as a kid I know what she went through as a young teenager and so you start to understand it and then you start to really love your parents even more because they protect you when you're a kid they're just protecting you they can't tell you what they went through they can't tell you this stuff so it really like makes you realize how much trauma

they've had and where that's manifested and so now like my relationship my dad is I understand him I understand that he he has seasonal depression during the winter he's really low and he'll have a holiday and he feels great and he comes back and he's up and down and that's him and I just have to kind of love him and although I'm quite consistent with my emotions and you want everyone around you to be happy all the time, then you think, I'll buy him a motorbike. I'll send him to the Maldives. You can go and stay at my house in America. It's all temporary.

It's all, it doesn't do a lot, you know? So real connection comes from like communicating, reaching out, spending time with him. He's happy when he comes around and we go for a walk or we go out on our skateboards together. You know, we've got electric skateboards. So it's about reconnecting and being with him and he needs that my dad needs to see the grandkids he needs to see my brothers he needs to see me and um yeah i've just learned

that like i said that really nice quote that the you know the antidote to addiction is connection not push them away i hate you i can't stand it why are you relapsing again why are you going into depression you know the mind's really complex and you have to understand that people aren't going to always be how you want them to be and you have to love them unconditionally. But if you asked me as a teenager, I would be too angry. I would be like, fuck that.

No, I can't deal with it. I don't have a dad. But that's a drug and I don't speak to him. I wouldn't have had the emotional ability to deal with that. But now as an adult, I'm 35 and I can understand it a bit more. It's crazy because um I love that quote by the way and it I think Johanna Hari is a real uh sort of yeah I think

I've got his book on the shelf behind me about lost connection that's where it's from yeah that's yeah I think Russell Brand mentioned it to me and I thought wow that's such a nice thought and that's what the book is about it's about the real reasons for depression and anxiety fundamentally stem back to a loss of connection of some sort and it was it was telling when you were telling your story about the generational sort of cycle that's going on there your mother's you know your dad and her upbringing and then your father's dad and how like it was a lack of connection it seems that put them into the situations they were in and then that lack of connection made them a certain way, which then nearly made you treat them with a lack of connection as well.

And I think it seems like much of the reason you're able to break the cycle is because you've realized that. And you're like, as you say, bringing him close, despite, you know, I talk about this a lot with my friends that have an estranged parent or have lost a parent. And I always try to tell them, I was doing it this week,

I was saying, you've got to forgive them for their own faults because their faults have come from some kind of trauma and tony robbins says it as well he says you've got sometimes we've got to forgive our parents for being imperfect not being the parents we hope they were yeah it's so true and like you said you know memories memories can form like your literally change your characteristics in your personality and your belief system and I had really negative beliefs around commitment around um you know people being faithful people sticking together like when things got tough to people and even I'd be affected if like celebrities that I really loved like they'd break up I'd think see that even they can't stay together I just thought

no one stays together no one's loyal no one's no one's ever like actually happily married and stays together but now as a married man with two kids who I love I'm really really like I don't believe that I believe that you can be happy I believe that when I see an old couple on the bench you know a 78 year old couple I love that I think how amazing they've spent their life together I want to be like that I want to be a couple that stuck together so it's you know my child has affected my um my my love and commitment as a in a as a relate in a relationship to to Rosie but also as a parent like I don't want to be impatient and intolerant and snappy and swear and shout but that is my default setting that's what my head's trying to do when Indian Marley is screaming at me I want to slam the door

and walk out the house or I want to scream and shout back at him because that's what I that's what I had as a kid so I have to actively work against that so although i might be screaming in my head i just take a breath and i like almost just sort of um yeah just take a moment to just sort of calm myself and then i can react very differently but that is that's a muscle you have to train it because otherwise i'd just be screaming and shouting all day long you know so that's definitely it's hard to do that when you've had it all your life when you just got you know screamed at shouted at it's, it's hard to do that when you've had it all your life, when you just got screamed at, shouted at. It's just, it's like what you know, isn't it? It's your default.

It's your default, yeah, like it truly is. It's like a computer program and you have to sort of try and undo that code. And I read a book called Calm Parents, Happy Kids. And it's that thing, you can either fight, flight or pause and have a breath. You can fight them and swear and shout and scream and slam the door. You can run out of the house and just deal with it and let them deal with it and just not even deal with any emotion

and show no emotional control. Or you can pause and have a breath. And that's the secret. It's just having that, right? Indy's two years old. Her brain's not rational. She can't understand why I really want to just clean the side and put her down on the floor right now.

And so like, you've got to literally remind yourself every time and then you can start to really respond differently i guess we're all human you have days where you you get it oh yeah i've days like i mean of course i have days where i shout and i lose the plot and i feel terrible but also i know that she won't hold it against me like the amount of times i was shouted at i i love my mom to death so it's not like she shouted at me i think she's terrible and i don't love her for today like i think it's okay to not be perfect not be a perfect parent and her the other day at a row of rose and i said i'm i'm sorry i'm not perfect every day i'm sorry that some days i'm sorry rose is my wife i said i'm i'm i'm sorry that i'm not perfect every i love you so much

i'm so affectionate and sensitive but if i'm stressed and i've got something going some sometimes i'm snappy sometimes i'm impatient and I don't shout at the kids. I might shout at you and I'm sorry. And it's nice to say that out loud and have a bit of a chat about it because then you kind of move on and you can just, you know, get on with it and you learn from it. You're getting busier, right? With the app stuff you're doing, you're getting more requests than ever before, surely. Dude, I'm so, this has been the year, I mean, I've worked hard really over the last years. And during the growing stage, like with social media, you know, it's hard building an audience. And

then I kind of had great success with the books. And now like, you know, this year since P with Joe, um, the 24 hour challenge, I then done wake up with Joe, which was three workouts a week for lockdown too. Cause I thought they need to exercise. People need to move. Um, I've now had the book PR I've been doing radio interviews. I've done the channel for, so the BBC children need 24 hour channels. I channels i've not stopped like i don't know how i'm still going but i now at this moment need more energy than ever because this is the busy time this is like leading up to christmas i'm also doing a january boot camp five days a week i'm doing live workouts through the app you know which is great because it means people are going to go

i want to give it a go and it's a really amazing way of marketing the product but i'm going to be exhausted if you think about your state and your mood and how you feel within yourself in the midst of all this like chaos and then we've got the pandemic rattling on outside as well what impact has it had on you um all of this busyness and now you've got two kids you know that are you're growing up and screaming at you and don't want to be put down. Have you felt a change? I deal with it in different ways. Like usually I have these like blocks where I work for like two, three months and then I go, right, I'm going to go to Santa Monica for a few weeks or let's go have a nice week in Dubai just to unwind and leave the phones and stuff. And I've missed that.

I've missed that. Just that reset button, because I've had a couple of days away um just when lockdown was over but it wasn't enough because I actually spent my time filming workouts because I said I was gonna do three workouts a week so although I was there relaxing I'm still there my what I do is so physical like you know being being physical and doing exercise but also doing it with such an amazing energy through the camera is so draining but last week has been the most emotionally draining. I was doing like radio interviews with like Jamie Oliver and Ricky Gervais and doing all these things. It's out of my comfort zone completely. And then I had phone calls every

hour on the hour to promote the new book. So that is a different type of emotion. And when we talk about the body coach, so, you know, I am the physical body, like the energy and Nikki is like the CTO, he's the brains. He takes all the energy and nikki is like the cto he's the brains he takes all the all the things i can't the process stuff nikki's on a laptop doing zoom calls nine hours a day like managing this agency and all the other marketing stuff so together we have this perfect kind of relationship where we are working as equally as hard but we're taking we're doing what we can do sure so i don't feel like burning out but i do think at the end of january i need to block a month out so i've taken the month off hoping to go, you know, somewhere nice.

I love Costa Rica. I'd love to go with the kids, you know, just, just, just unwind. And basically when I have that time down off the offline and I'm not filming, it really re-energized me when I come back. I'm like, I'm like reset and like body coach volume two, ready to go again, sort of thing. You talked a little bit there about marriage earlier and you've also you've also heard me on this podcast talking about marriage right i want you to tell me where i i'm getting it wrong yeah and also why you think i'm getting it wrong so i listened to two episodes of your podcast and i i really hear i hear myself in you when i was like 25 and i was a lot and i feel i feel like a part of you's lost because you've got everything on the surface you could possibly want you've you've smashed it in business like you've got an amazing story and

you've got you know incredible success which is wonderful but there's maybe you're missing that deeper connection with one person you know you've got amazing friends and you've got a great network of people you work but I do feel like the love between one person you know it's different it's a different kind of relationship where you can always lean on them so when I was 25 I was in a relationship from 19 and I really I was running away I couldn't commit to it I didn't I used to say like exactly what you were like this marriage it's like this religious thing it's a contract and why should that person get half of what I've got and what it's not going to work all my other friends are unhappy they're all divorced you know one in three marriages so the more you tell yourself that the more it becomes true and the truth is how you feel now is how you feel and what you believe now

is what you believe but when you meet someone and you you realize and when you do fall in love and whatever sense that could be it was almost like with Rosie I was telling her every day I loved her and it wasn't enough it was I needed to tell her more I needed to have something stronger between us so I said can we have a baby you You know, then she fell pregnant and we had Indy. So for me, in my head, the ultimate bond between two humans is another child. And then when she was pregnant, I never thought I would get excited about the idea of like proposing and getting married, but it was just, it just changed. My mind has changed as I started to think, do you know, I love this girl. I don't want to be waking up, you know, every other week with a

different girl in a different hotel. I'm like, that's not who I have been. It's never who I'll be. So I love being with, I love being close to one person. I think I'm quite emotional like that. And then I asked her to marry me. We had this amazing wedding day and I do love being married. And I just think when you have kids and you start seeing your children grow and you, you see how wonderful that can be and how much joy they bring you. I just think your perspective will change over time and you're just not there yet it might you might not get that till you're 35 you could be 45 i was 30 i met rosie at 30 okay and i've been the happiest since i turned 30 honestly i've just been i'm commit because being being honest and being committed is two of the most wonderful things being sneaky being deceitful not being honest

or being jealous and insecure, they're feelings you do not want to go through your life with. So when you find someone, you know, be committed and be loyal. It really takes your love to another level. Do you believe in, you know, there's a bunch of words people use in this realm of like love and marriage.

They say, you know, you've got to find your soulmate. I don't know if it's soulmate, but everyone says, oh, hard, you know, love's hard work, marriage is hard work't know if it's soul mate but everyone says oh hard you know love's hard work marriage is hard work it isn't it doesn't have to be hard work not if you're the right person of course you could get with someone too young marry the wrong person it all goes wrong and you know that's a bad experience but it doesn't mean that the next relationship won't be better and you can't improve and learn from it but you know i do feel like rosie is is the kind of female version of me like when when we met, you know, we were just having so much fun

and she's a wonderful parent. I watch her and I see how patient she is. I think I learn a lot from her because I've got like a two or three minute kind of tolerance of Marley screaming and screaming in my face where I just have to walk out the room. I just can't handle it. Whereas she can be in there like 20 minutes all through the night. And I'm like, yeah, with Indy crying or Marley teething.

And I think it's amazing. She's just got just got this natural innate like motherly patience and love and tolerance so I watched that and I literally like go I need a bit more of that and I sort of learn from it but yeah I mean you know maybe maybe you might have one relationship last five years but I do believe that when you are in a relationship like give it all don't don't be thinking this is going to end soon this my last one didn't work out. I know now it's going to break down and we're going to end up breaking apart. We're going to end up leaving each other. She'll have an affair.

I'll leave her. It won't work. That just, it's hard to be happy in that situation. So I think take every relationship and just maximize it to the best of your ability. Like you would with someone that you were of a business partner. If we went into business together, you try and make that partnership so like awesome and so effective and efficient and it's the same with a relationship you've got to you know keep keep keep doing the things that make you happy and and yeah i think with rosie like just having a night

out going for dinner um and the you know the secret is if you stop kissing you're fucked if you don't kiss your girlfriend and you stop kissing you just bypass each other and you don't because everything starts from a kiss do you know what i mean it could become a massage could become you know you might do a bit of hanky panky but if you stop kissing that one thing that intimacy i feel like i feel like everything breaks down seriously keep kissing it's one of the it's probably the only thing that i've thought about going and seeing a therapist about is like i have a fairly negative or pessimistic let's say perception on romantic relationships um and i i think i've identified that on one hand i'm my expectations are probably like somewhat unmeet unmeetable and then on the other hand i kind of

see relationships as being like a bird in a cage is the best way where's that come from like so i know your mom and dad and they're arguing at each other my parents so that's the only that that's the only marriage role modeling your your base in your opinion on yeah so i i have these but when i say my parents screamed at each other i'm like my mom i've never seen since a human able to perform the screaming match she did nigerian woman and if you don't know nigerian women i can picture it i do visualize it like around the kitchen table the sound is un like you've never seen my dad actually said one day he said i your mom was screaming at me this is i think when we lived in manchester probably before

i was born your mom was screaming at me and I went out, like went shopping, did all that, she had no idea. I came back and she's still screaming. She had no idea that I'd left the house. And the sound of it, I have this like mental image of my dad sat passively, just this like passive white guy just sat there watching TV, just looking at the screen. And my African mother like kind of stood above him, just bellowing into his face at full volume for like six hours. She didn't lose energy. We talked about like exhausting yourself. She didn't lose her energy

and she would follow him around the house. And so I looked at my dad and thought, he's trapped. And this is what my- You know that experience of seeing your mum shout, is that like affected your, you know, your ability, are you calm and, you know when you argue, are you confrontational? Are are you like because me and rosey more like silent dream we sulk and we're so stubborn and we'll like go two days about talking we don't scream and shout

each other you are you quite a shout i will never shout oh so you're calm never i will not do it i will the minute so i will try and explain myself in a very calm way and then i'm like okay i'm going right and i walk away i will like do you ever say sorry do you ever admit you're wrong uh or do you find it hard to admit so if you'd asked me that question two years ago the answer would have been like no i never say sorry like because i always kind of think i'm right and it's like my way or the highway in the last year and when when i was i got with this this certain person um who i won't name and she kind of taught me to like grow up a little bit and and i started to apologize for things and i started to learn to apologize a little bit more but i've got to be honest i'm not gonna lie it's like the whole point of this podcast is not to fucking lie like i'm

still not that good at it it is hard i'm the same i find it hard to say sorry in the moment but i do if i go away for a little half an hour an hour have a walk or do a workout i do come back and go i was a bit disrespectful there i do apologize but yeah it's an ego thing it's like you've just got to let your guard down one thing i'll say about relationships which i really think is valuable i can't remember where i heard it or read it but it was about you can be in a relationship with someone and this expectation thing where you want them to do everything perfect and be everything in one and be like this amazing like just like unicorn like unicorn, right? But you might find them really attractive and really funny, but intellectually, they just don't challenge you. You can't have conversations about what they don't understand you, but you can ring me or Nikki and you can get that part of a relationship from someone else. So there's no

pressure on that person you're with to like be really intelligent, really understand business and really understand social media. Like that's something I've learned that sometimes you have to love the person for what they've got you know love that they're really affectionate love that they're really caring considerate but maybe other elements of their personality you have to get from someone else because the chance of you finding the unicorn is so rare isn't it you're going to find that and also you like you might be amazing at certain things but you might not be good at one yeah i'm not unicorn this is the problem who is it no one's a unicorn really no one's completely perfect because when you're in a relationship you want the other person to like you know do everything like you and it'd be

interesting the same things you like rosie's not into you know motorbikes but i got my brother and my my little my little brother george and my dad so i kind of get i scratch that itch and i come back and then i spend time with rosie and the kids so it's really about finding the needs that you need as a human being in in maybe in multiple people and then you can really just focus on what you love about your partner I talked a little bit about there about going to therapy have you ever gone to therapy I call it the gym but yeah I think my therapy from a kid and I look back like for sure like I was stressed I didn't want to go home I would be always out the house always playing sport I think it was my therapy and I dealt with things through sport and maybe that's why I became the body coach but I think I had um I had one therapy session with a

counselor once um because I was basically in a relationship I didn't want to be in and I needed to talk to someone about it and I had that session and I I just spoke and verbalized everything I was going through and it was almost like verbalized everything I was going through, and it was almost like, just by saying it, I was like, I know I need to walk away from this now, and I went home, and that was it, so it was really, it was an investment, it was like an hour of my time, I spoke to someone, because it wasn't my mum who was invested, my dad who was invested, it wasn't her parents and my friends who really cared about her, it was like a completely neutral person, and it really helped, because it changed the direction of my my life because I left a relationship I wasn't happy in

I met Rosie I got married and I had kids you know and this is the situation I was 19 when I met that girl I was backpacking I was in a bar in Australia you're very different 10 years later so maybe maybe there can be such thing as a relationship that's really great at a certain time in your life but then when it's not right and it isn't working having a child and marrying that person is definitely the wrong thing to do um and i didn't really realize that until i met rosie just how how unhappy i probably was in that last relationship so yeah i've had it once and i think if i if i feel like i need it i'd be open to it i've got a lot of friends that do it it's like i see it as like personal training for the mind isn't it it's like why not why not take care of your brain and your heart and your mind and that can be done through therapy so i be open to it. I've got a lot of friends that do it. It's like, I see it as like personal training for the mind, isn't it? It's like, why not? Why not take care of your brain and your heart and your mind?

And that can be done through therapy. So I'm open to it. Um, I just haven't felt, I haven't had the calling. I'm more interested in, um, I really liked the idea of doing an iOS ceremony.

Can we do it together? Do you know why? I'm just, I listened to your podcast. I listened to like certain people that do it. And I, I'm drawn to it because of that gateway and open up that, that even more love and more connection. When you realize we're all so interconnected and obviously you

can meditate for 10 years or you can go and do an ayahuasca ceremony apparently you get it's like a fast track to that feeling but yeah you've talked about it have you have i mean i was in mexico and tulum and they were doing like peyote ceremonies out there and i i just couldn't quite convince myself to do it but i would love to do ayahuasca one day like go proper into the amazon do it properly with a shaman and like you know feel feel that mother nature they talk about that feeling of like the earth and that are connected to the human race it must be a wonderful feeling have you ever done mushrooms i've never done mushrooms no i've never i've never done drugs so i couldn't really um i've never done anything like that i've never done mushrooms or ayahuasca, but I, the more, so I've just, I've just invested almost a million dollars into a psychedelics company.

That's using it to cure mental health disorders. We talked about this, didn't we? Yeah. For the psilocybin. So my dad is involved in the trials at the Imperial College, London. He's involved.

He was basically one of the, not the Guinea pigs, but yeah, he, it was a trial between psilocybin, a placebo and an antidepressant drugs. And obviously the, the studies come back that like this can really help. And it's a trial between psilocybin um a placebo and an antidepressant drugs and obviously the studies come back that like this can really help and it's a natural it's a natural product from from the earth so yeah i can see that growing in the next few years for sure when it when it

gets approved has it been approved in the u.s for like yeah so it's in the stuff um don't quote me on this but it's an it's in the final stage of fda approval psilocybin so it's very very close and there's a company called compass pathways which has just gone public and is as of right It's in the final stage of FDA approval psilocybin. So it's very, very close. And there's a company called Compass Pathways, which has just gone public and is as of right now worth about 2 billion, which is really sort of leading the pack in developing psilocybin. But it's crazy that I've not tried it,

but I've looked at all the research and development videos and studies and data and it like blew my mind. Are you tempted to try it yourself? Are you scared and nervous about it? No, because I know the numbers. I've been through, I've looked at every drug and i've seen where mushrooms and psilocybin um rank in terms of the harm they could possibly do to you and the harm they can do to others when you're on them it's below alcohol it's below like every it's at the bottom it's the bottom thing on the list yeah it's been shown to really um really help with

addiction and depression and trauma from that so yeah i suppose i wonder what the experience like for us who maybe we're not depressed and we're not anxious i wonder what that experience would be like but but yeah you know i listen to a lot of podcasts you know tim ferris is big on it rogan rogan you know and yeah it's just kind of it feels like this scary thing but i suppose because it's been going on for thousands of years you know we've kind of tribes and it's not some dirty chemical drug it's been manufactured in a lab i think it it's non-addictive it opens up so what they say is it opens up like neurological pathways that maybe it's all these memories locked did you hear the tim ferris podcast he said like he'd done an ayahuasca ceremony or maybe it was psilocybin and he had

this vision of trauma that came through that he completely blocked out really yeah so he got he experienced um child abuse like he literally didn't remember it and he had this vision and all these memories of being abused and it like completely like opened up his his mind he's now obviously sharing about it but that was like some wow something so it's quite in a way you don't know what you're unlocking you can unlock really beautiful memories and amazing things like it can also show you like quite traumatic upsetting things but either way like you can learn from that thing do you know what i did this morning is the the the founder

one of the founders of the company a tie um which is leading the charge in terms of psychedelics they're really developing about 10 different compounds in the space i i said to him i need to get you on this podcast would you come on and so he's he's um as far as i know he's you know he's an incredibly successful biotech guy he's been doing it for decades and um he's, as far as I know, he's an incredibly successful biotech guy. He's been doing it for decades and he's going to come on onto the podcast and really talk through all of these things. So like Ibogaine and psilocybin and all of that. So that'll be fascinating.

I'll be listening to that one, yeah. But listen, ayahuasca, mushrooms, psilocybin, if you want to do it, then I've been saying to all these people in this room now, I would say, let's go and do a retreat with like a shaman. And they've told me what the best way to do it is like the best retreat the best shaman the best place i'd love to do something like that yeah i would be up for it i mean it's a it's a real person it's like personal growth like you read a lot of books i'm not well read i wish i

had more patience and more time and well i wish i had more um commitment and discipline to reading but i do i do i'm drawn to it and it always it almost they say like it will call you like my dad's done an ayahuasca ceremony in Wales and he said it just calls you like the plant mother nature like you'll have a calling one day and it'll be like I'm ready at the moment we're just sort of experimenting with the idea of it and your dad did the psilocybin trial with imperial so what was his feedback to you after he did it yeah I mean it was um it sometimes takes a little bit longer to integrate you know you have the experience and you know it was in a very controlled room like it's in a proper like clinical setting so you're like in a hospital room and they're holding your hand and talking through it and i'm not sure the exact dosage but he got blasted with a decent dose

of psilocybin um and yeah you know he saw some things and it unlocked a little bit of you know trauma and some visual stuff that he saw but again it's just about moving forward it's about it's about taking what you see and integrating into life and saying i've had these experiences but how can i be present today how can i enjoy my life today and you know with depression is i don't think it's going to be cured i don't think you can cure it like that because of the way the brain works but you're going to learn to deal with it and and spot the signs and kind of counteract it quicker. But yeah, he had a positive experience for sure.

And he's really proud that he took part because he genuinely wants to help people. He said if people can come off chemical antidepressants and be given a really beautiful, natural, you know, natural product that can actually help them feel happier. And especially for like post-traumatic stress disorder, like people dealing with some really really hard stuff and they're getting blasted with you know antidepressants which are very addictive and it's like morphine isn't it it's like it's not even it's not even like good for you it's they're very addictive as well i don't think you're going to get the same thing yeah the side effects are really really you know crazy um sometimes i think that opioids i think is it opioids yeah antidepress i think opioid i

think antidepressants are like opioids or amphetamines it's one of them it's like it's basically the drug that you know you do not want to be taken in a very small dose but over time it can real generate real addiction and you see it in america like the prescription drug addiction over there is is really destroying people's lives over there my next question you would have heard this on the podcast if you listen to the eddie hearn one uh it's kind of a new question i'm asking and it's a question i really really love because i think it gives a unique sense of perspective um you're an incredibly busy guy you're running around at the moment doing this that and the other you know all over the place um if you found out god forbid touch glass um that this week was your last week for whatever reason

god forbid or you walked out here and you got hit by a truck what what would you regret having not done or not doing more of i really wish i had like this long list of bucket things i wish i'd done but i'm i've always even when i was at university like i would go traveling in my half term my summer holidays i always i've always maximized life to the at that moment in time and I've always I've never kind of I've never regretted or like missed out on things I've always traveled with my friends I've always you know done the things I want so if I had a week left on earth I wouldn't really regret anything I'd be proud I'm proud of what I've achieved in

this short time I'm 35 I feel like I've I've been good I've done some good things I'd probably bring everyone together and like throw my wedding party again because my wedding day was wicked like i had all you know your best friends and all your mate your mates and we had a fun fair and we had all the food and we were dancing and i think i'll try and recreate that if i knew i had seven days i'd get everyone together and say look it's my last week come down let's have another blowout and have a party um but i wouldn't regret yeah i just really wouldn't i think it's a shame to live your life like that you know regretting and wishing your childhood was different, wishing, you know, and I've got friends that kind of live in that mindset of always looking back

and almost thinking about a moment in time if they'd just done it differently, their life would have been different today. But you can't think like that. You can't get stuck between the future and the past, can you? Because that's really, really depressing. Whereas if you actually just think, look, I've done what I've've done even the bad things and the times i wasn't nice or disrespectful like i learned from it and today i'm a better person for it a lot of people that when you ask them that question they reflect on like a lack of balance in their life they'll say oh god i work too much i didn't see

the kids enough and and those kinds of things that's typically what you hear it's like oh do you know i really wish i'd spent more time with this person or or that person i think if i was to answer that question i'd probably feel i'd probably say that i'd say why didn't i spend enough time with my family i think the reason is because a lot most traditional businesses like if you're a grafter like eddie hearn always on the road always around the world you know footballers again away every weekend they're training their you know traveling the world musicians away from their family and it's hard for like you know stability stability and so they do sacrifice a lot for that fame and success whereas my fame and success has come through an iphone in my kitchen so i've really even before lockdown i

filmed all my workouts at home so i have a great balance where i can do what i'm doing and be successful but also leave my phone for two weeks and go away and not not worry about it or i can you know put my phone down like i i spend quality time my kids every day i'm adamant about that so i do you know breakfast i make them breakfast every day i have two and a half hours so between like 5 and 7 30 where i don't have my phone and i do dinner time bath time but story time like i love it it's like my routine and i know get once they're down i can go back to work or you know watch a film but it's having little moments like that just having that structure so that you don't feel like you've

missed out and you ask them how their day's been and Indy's favorite thing is like she loves cooking and she loves doing her handwriting so even just running in there and doing 10 minutes of handwriting with her I mean she's two years old and she's doing the alphabet she's she's got like these dots you follow the dots and just seeing her with a shaky hand to like now a month later she's banging out the a to z and it's like immaculate that's that's fun it's amazing so i'm not missing out on these moments although i'm really busy i'm also optimizing my time with them as well if you know i mean when you said that india's really into cooking i thought oh god she's gonna be the next body coach

and then i thought oh god i wonder if joe would want her to be on social media oh i don't know i had this dilemma with Rosie. You know, when I was bringing out my cookbook, my Wean in 15 book, so I got a book deal and I was genuinely enjoying that journey. I was learning to wean Indy for the first time. I didn't know what to do. I was working with a nutritionist and I shared so much.

You know, we got 50,000 pre-orders and I worked hard for them pre-orders because I shared everything. You know, I shared the dinner. I was, it was camera at breakfast. It was camera at lunch. It was Indy, do you like that darling? Do another one of them. Like, so I shared so much in know, I shared the dinner. I was, it was camera at breakfast. It was camera at lunch. It was Indy, do you like that darling? Do another one of them.

Like, so I shared so much in order to have that success. But now I've kind of, I've just gone a little, I just don't want the phone out during dinner time. So I'm producing less content. I'm not producing as much recipe stuff because I want to have that time just with us. And I used to just film every gusto recipe. Every recipe was on Instagram.

So yeah, I've had to sort of step back a little bit and there's no way you're going to keep your kids on social media it's just whether they're 10 or 15 they're going to eventually get it but would you like to though if you could there's two buttons in front of you one of them was she won't join social media until she's 21 and the other one was she'll join at 10 oh 100% no if I had if i could have my life without social media like i have an unhealthy relationship with it and i you know i watched the social dilemma on netflix and i was like i cannot believe how addicted we are how these devices are so well designed i would hunt i know i wish me rosie and and the kids weren't on social media but i know i wouldn't have been the body coach p which i wouldn't happen so it's almost it's like

trade-off it's like a trade-off isn't't it? It's like, if you want to have the success and have this amazing life and also reach millions of people, the only way you can do that is social media. It's not TV, it's not radio, it's social media. So it has its pros and cons, but I hope that we kind of, we can somehow learn to control

this mental health epidemic that we've got going on with social media and the narcissism of Instagram. I just hope that we kind of go actually you know what that was cool in 2010 and 2020 but maybe now let's be more humble let's just be kinder and let's like share useful content do you know what i'm trying to say yeah because it could you know india she's gonna get she's gonna get her phone she's gonna open it on that first day when she's 10 years old and she's gonna see Kylie Jenner in a bikini on a yacht in a Louboutin bikini on a massive yacht looking back at it with her ass looking perfect and perfect boobs and a perfect face and perfect hair and India's gonna stare down into that phone and

think okay yeah what's my life yeah and it isn't it's that comparative thing and it it happens to me like i follow a lot of instagram accounts and you know my explore page is basically like motorbikes or it's you know fitness models and it it's like because i'm in that in that in that kind of atmosphere in that that um world and it does you think oh these guys are in such good shape you know i'm looking a bit skinny i'm a little bit podgy like whoever you are you still start to compare yourself oh god it affects your confidence whether you know it's up constantly or not and you know i wish i was more tanned i wish i was on holiday i wish i had a bit more muscle with this i wish i wasn't so skinny or i wish i didn't have a little bit

of body fat on my tummy this year because you you're just bombarded with these visual representations so yeah i think that in that effect it almost like you can't really stop that if you if you're looking at it all the time you can't it's almost like you have to just unfollow some of those account you said didn't you said like unfollow the accounts that don't serve you yeah and i've started doing that if i get to one i go why did i follow that bang unfollow do you know what it is as well so i was when i wrote my i've started writing my well i finished my book now but when i started writing the book um people are quite crazy at the time the title's happy sexy millionaire and in this one chapter i really focus in on comparison and this is a bit of an exclusive and i go through all of the studies on

why we compare ourselves to other people and why we compare our you know our car to someone else's car and the conclusion i came to is we're not actually going to ever be able to stop comparing because our brains are wired that way for survival they like that's how our brain works it's very very lazy if you show someone three tvs in a shop an expensive one a middle one and a cheap one statistically people will pick the middle one because they think that one's gonna break and it's shit this is the cheap one and they think the expensive one is maybe too flashy so if you show them three steaks on a menu statistically people will pick the one below the most expensive yeah do you know even i actually when you come to say that i sort of feel the same like i'll be like i don't know i don't need that you know the wagyu one because i'm happy with a

20 pound one in the middle or whatever yeah you're right it extends across everything if i said to you joe would you rather um drive 10 minutes to save 10 pounds on a 200 pound jacket or drive 10 minutes to save 10 pounds on a 20 pound jacket people go well i'll drive i'll save the 10 pounds on the 10 on the 10 pound jacket and you go why it's 10 minutes it's going to cost you to drive and you're going to save 10 pounds but your brain is just assume it's like the very the conclusion yeah what's the sum of what's the conclusion i'm interested in that because i'd like to know what you're sharing about that. The conclusion is that our brains are so, so lazy. They make such lazy snap decisions and conclusions because those snap decisions helped us to survive

when we were 10,000 years ago. A lion's running towards you. You can't fucking like, right, okay. Is it, you've got to just like, so our brain does it at super speed. And in the context of social media, it's like i loved my nokia phone yeah until until the new one the iphone comes out right i was the proudest kid

in school showing everyone my oh look snake i can do snake on here but then but then the minute that same thing which hasn't changed in value exists in a world of iphones which is what social media is it's like me looking at Kylie Jenner immediately, even though I haven't changed in value, I am less than. Our brain tells you. No, I agree. I agree with that. And I, I feel that myself sometimes. And I, when I watched that show, the Netflix documentary, um, the social dilemma, it did say all of the guys that created the products that create the light buttons, all those people said my kids aren't on social media and that's the alarm bell. It's like saying, you know, it's like, it's like um that joke of you know i wouldn't trust an eye surgeon who's wearing glasses like

i'm getting my eyes laser on saturday by the way but like they say you know don't you know if that person that created it and it does it every day is saying to you like get your kids off social it's not good for their mental health and that is what it is it's not about it i don't think it kills ambition i think it just really affects people's mental health. And their self-esteem. Their self-esteem, yeah. Sometimes that's irreversible. And you could be like a young teenager that has an eating disorder, you know,

all through your life or is binging or under eating or, you know, not respecting your body. And that can really stem from like how you feel about yourself, right? So I try and use my social media to obviously promote healthy food and fitness that's a positive part of social media and I think your content's positive I think some of the quotes that you share like you know like the 10 things and all these little sometimes I really want to go bang wow like it's

just a nice little light bulb moment so you're using it for positive and we have to just always focus on that focus on the people that are bringing the good stuff out of it i think you've probably heard me say before that the way i use my instagram i genuinely believe has like saved my life a little bit because i would have before if you scroll down my instagram right now you'll see what i was like oh picture of a lamborghini picture of a louboutin bag and then at some point when i became a ceo of a company and i felt a sense of responsibility not to be that guy i thought okay so how can i use this i'll post quotes and because i've done that for the last like i don't know two three years it's meant that when i do have it means that i don't buy stuff to post it yeah and i if i'm in a helicopter going over sri lanka sat next to my girlfriend which i

was no one will know because i actually don't have a place to put it so i'm now making decisions on your close friends list i'm so glad i'm on that that's why i get through a nice village yeah yeah that's only there's only 100 people on there but like i i don't have a place to put it and so when i'm making the decision it's not based on social media because i know i'm not going to be able to tell really anybody other than like my couple of my close friends my question though which is kind of attached to that is about money something that a lot of people probably won't talk to you about now listen it's always uncomfortable it's like it's just awkward even articles come out like joe buys this much you know this million pound house it's like why is that important but i just know that people are obsessed aren't they so ask what you want to ask

and i'll be honest yeah so an unavoidable consequence of success like the thing is the reason why i'm actually not uncomfortable about asking you this question is because if there's anyone on planet earth on off camera that i know has the most genuine sincere intentions it is you probably of all the people i've met i'm like i can't think of a guest i've met who is more sincere about their intentions more thank you steven your maximum sincerity right so some people are as well but your maximum so um i've got no problem asking you this question which is an unavoidable consequence of your success over the last year previously is money right it's what allows you to have a camera to do p with joe right of course yeah definitely so this year i mean you've made a lot of money right like every year um what role does money play in your life just be honest with

me it's a it's that it's that thing of you know it talk we talk about you know freedom of time and like you know owning yeah i've always been about time and being with friends and family so for me it's like it's removed a lot of stress because when i was a kid i remember money was a stressor like we you know we had um we we never had food in the house so my mom would have to go to my nan's and we'd have to get like borrow pots of milk and like running next door you know when you're on a council stay it was quite common you'd go and ask for a pint of milk or a couple of I remember asking for like a bag of sugar for our cereal and stuff so I didn't have any money growing up and you know I was on school dinners you know I was my mum was on benefits so it was it was all like Iceland two for one buy and get them free it was crap food and that affects

that affects things as well you, the food you're eating. But I suppose for me, when I started to make money, it was a gradual thing. I didn't win the lottery and wake up with a million pounds. I released my online plan and one person signed up

and then it was 10 and it grew and it was gradual. And so it was a nice way of, and like with my followers, it was a nice gradual thing. I didn't just jump off of Love Island with 2 million followers and have money thrown at me.

And I think that does affect your ego differently. And I think anyone that's young that gets thrown into the media with money and fame, it would affect you in a certain way. So it definitely allowed me to have more freedom and to take care of my family. I think I'm not someone who has been successful and left people behind. That would make me seriously unhappy. I've helped my brother out. I've helped my dad. dad you know I got my mum a house we've done amazing holidays together like all the boys you know they know I'm there if they need me and and that's that's a nice feeling but yeah the question is around motivation around money as well I feel like as time's gone on I've become less motivated by it and I remember that story said about you're up here and you could have run

down and sent an email and got 20 grand I have days that too where i think i could go and do another gusto post and 10 000 people might sign up or i could go and film another workout and it could get a 2 million views and i have and when i feel like that i have to remind myself of like why i do what i do and and that mission thing about there's someone at the end of that youtube video just waiting for a new workout and they live in scunthorpe and they've got no money in their proper skin and they're waiting for the workout. And I remind myself of that. So, yeah, money, money allows it just allows freedom. It's less stress.

And money was always something we always argued about. I think maybe my marriage, I'll be honest, is easier because we don't argue about money. And maybe your mom and dad used to argue about money, like school uniform, the new trainers you wanted, the school trip you wanted to go on. I remember like going on a school trip was really hard for my mom and dad we couldn't afford to do the school trip sometimes and you know they would always work really hard and it would you know sometimes I did sometimes I didn't so I think having a bit more money in the bank means there's less pressure on you as a person and therefore you can sort of you can go through life a bit easier but I had to overcome as we talked about kind of earlier i had to overcome that that feeling though like that oh shit if more money isn't gonna have an impact then what the

hell are we doing steve like what are we doing here because you know 16 year old steve told me it was money was the whole game you get more of it you get more and more happy it's just like that your happiness goes up with your bank balance your ego inflate because i i can i can imagine when you said about you know i used to go to like china white and punk and like you know and i never had money i was skint i was a university kid i had like 20 quid in my pocket i'd be in there on a freebie but i imagine if you had money at that time you'd be the one with the bottles spraying it about and all the lights and all the girls come with the big flares is that what you were like did it inflate your egos you know spend more money i i and i've got to be as self-aware as i possibly can be here i um i don't think it's ever

had an impact on my perception of myself however i did like i've never i genuinely feel the same opinion of myself as i always have since i was three like i've it's never changed but i bet people around you changing like because they knew steve had the dough and you and all the girls would come over i was rolling into clubs and spending i I remember this one club in Manchester called neighborhood. They had this little star next to my name. Cause I was like the number one spender and I'd walk in there and get five bottles of Dom Perignon. I didn't think I was anything else,

but I was still doing it. Like I, that's a really important point to make. Like you, you hear about these rich assholes and these like young kids that like they, they get all this money. Then they start treating people like shit and they change. All of my friends say to me,

you haven't changed at all. I just i was still doing it you just you just i suppose you were like the facilitator you just you were the fun house you exactly you brought people together and you and you could have the fun and i think you know maybe if i had a bit of money at that time maybe i would have done those things because i do i mean my thing now is going to nice restaurants i love going to like zoom or nobu and having a meal with my friends i didn't have that kind of flashy kind of like nightclub vibe but you know at the time the thing is at that time that was what you wanted to do at that time you don't do it now and i think if you had fun like it's good it's all good but yeah money i got out my system yeah good at your system and it's weird because i'd i'd looked at those people

in the clubs and i'd looked at rich people and thought oh god like yeah when i when i become one of them then i'll be super happy so then you go and do it. I went and got this massive fucking mansion in the countryside and I'm sat there like, nope. Spray the bottles for a year and you're getting all the bottles for a year and you're like, okay, nope. So when you exit or even before that, you've been financially secure for a long time.

Has your motivation dropped or increased? Because at the moment I'm feeling quite demotivated but i'm more excited by the legacy and the potential of like building the body coach to a point that in 20 years time i can look back when i'm a bit older and go i started that i created that company you know that's still going did you find yourself a good question lost motivation because you're like you know what i can chill now i ain't got i ain't got the hustle in me anymore it's a really good question and again i've been writing a lot about motivation lately. So I think I've got a pretty good answer to this.

You know, one of the best sort of easiest answers to this question is just referring to my gym routine. I think you might've heard on the podcast, I said in one of the episodes that every February and March, I'm the most motivated person on planet earth to work out. And I say to myself, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna have a great body for summer. And then summer comes, I drop the photo on social media summer ends and i literally can't bring

myself to the gym because my motivation my why was anchored to a timeline which is summer and looking good and so the minute i post and everyone likes it it was like i genuinely couldn't get myself to the gym and i was going like two times a day before and this relates to our motive our other motivations in other parts of our life like when you lose when you lose the anchor with your why which is what you described after p with joe yeah you've got to fucking find it again it's like the gold medalist you've got to go and find it again and you've got to re-anchor yourself to something that hopefully doesn't have a short-term timeline against it gary vaynerchuk says the same thing he says the worst day of my life will be when i buy the jets it's been his yeah that's his thing isn't it it's forever this is moonshot and you talk you you i

didn't hear that before that that term moonshot is nice because it's like joe so big don't just do something you know you can do in six months do something you think will take you 20 years this is what the conversation we had right yeah that's what you said and i went home and i was thinking the same i said nikki i said i love that i love the idea of a moonshot what's our moonshot and he's like well our moonshot is that we build the body coach and we have an exit so that someone comes along and buys it and it continues to flourish for years to come because otherwise I was it's like Mr Motivator smashed it in the 80s or 90s whatever it was and I would have just been the body coach the Mr Motivator of this time unless I build it to sell and I build it to sustain itself and grow

and continue to help people and that's really where my head's at. I think I've had a shift in my mentality towards that. But I did lose motivation at several parts of my life. And it was always, as I described with the 20k in the email downstairs, it was when I was doing things without that real intrinsic deep sense. Why? So when, before social change started, I had no motivation to do any marketing for anybody or to send emails to anybody. And then social chain starts and i'm going to the fucking ukraine at 3am in the morning i spend fit or what was it i spent 11 of the 12 months last year in hotel rooms happy driving for this mission of building this company with super key thing with people i loved yeah right because it didn't have to be social media we had a purpose we had a worthwhile goal i was working with people i loved towards

that worthwhile goal and i felt competent in doing so and if you have those three things like competence a worthwhile goal and you're working with people you love yeah and lastly i'd say a sense of control like autonomy because a lot of people don't we have that in our lives a lot of people working in factories and other industries don't have that sense feeling of autonomy over their time and have you got the hustle now could you like go back and do the 11 months on the road suitcase because i remember you used to always be in an airport always rolling that little wheelie thing around i thought it must be like no matter how much money you're making no matter how much money how much you're building there must be an element of loneliness and that exhaustion where you think i just need to be like settled in one

place and now you're in london can you're sticking about are you going to hit the road again um great question and it's something i've reflected on if you told me now to fly to the ukraine and do a talk i'd be like fuck off i've said this to my assistant the other day i said i can't understand where it where the motivation came from and it's because i've lost it i've lost the anchor i've quit social chain so when i even with this mindset i think go to the fucking ukraine and do a talk at 9am to a bunch of people for an hour. Fuck off. Yeah, you lost it. I've lost it because I've quit.

So my anchor's gone and I can't even get myself back into the mindset. However, I will get my anchor back at some point. And I'll find something else that, and I'm not trying to find it at the moment. Yeah, it's nice to slow things. I think the lockdown's helped us just think we don't need to be on this hamster all the time like it's all right a few months of the year like you said you know nothing in nature blooms all year round like you can have a couple of quiet months because you know you know your event didn't happen i really wanted to be at that event in manchester but i'm hoping that happened i need to come it's gonna be huge yeah i know i mean like you showed me the music i got

me and nikki got mad like goosebumps just listen to the music you're gonna play um but yeah've got loads of heady. I think it's important to just have these months where you go, I'm not everywhere at the moment. But I know in six months, I've got this great project. And there's your moment to bloom. And that's kind of where my head's at now, rather than like, come on, what should we do now? Let's do another this, let's do more of this. I'm like, it's okay to be not busy and not be successful for a few months. And to create a void in your life is what my mentor said to me. He's one of I think he was one of the first investor ever in Spotify. he said steve i met him after i resigned and he said steve listen it's so tempting to just sort of grab the bull again and just go

in run and run and run and run he said but the reason you were successful before is because you were really hungry yeah so he said create a void in your life resist the temptations just to run back into something and just let it be a concept that's probably not easy for me or you to understand like just the i'm getting it now though i'm getting it now because i like i said i've always had like two books a year i've had a dvd out i've had merchandise pots and pans you know protein stuff i've always had something but actually now i know i need to just chill out and take some time off because i can't i don't want to be hammered i don't want to be selling stuff to people all the time.

I want to just be get back to my free content, what I'm good at, what I start, you know, the organic stuff that I genuinely started doing in the beginning, because that's when I'm happiest when I'm getting millions of views on my YouTube channel. I love that. I love that people are actually like doing those workouts. It's 15 minutes of my time, but it's helping someone really transform their day. And so I'll continue to um you know push that mission which is to get people moving and if it's within this one person a day like it's

enough sometimes i just reflected then when you said that i think of one of the conversations we had in that restaurant which was you were saying you know i've done the p with joe and what's next and i was saying i was i remember saying to you like joe this is a false peak because like i did i say this i said i don't think i'm going to achieve anything in my life that's going to have more impact because what there may never be another lockdown and there may never be like 80 million people in their living room doing my workouts again but you were like joe don't be silly like there's something else there's something that has to be like if you don't you're going to lose it you can lose motivation so yeah you said the thing about

the moonshot like imagine eradicating you know whatever it may be like going for that real like still as steve steve jobs or bill gates like vision of like changing the world it's exciting it might never happen but at least have a crack but you have that you this is why i refer to it as a false peak because mountaineers when they're climbing they look up the mountain and they see these peaks and it because of the perspective when you're climbing a mountain it looks like the top and so they climb up and they stop and they go oh oh fuck, that was, but it's a false peak. And I think for you, this is going to be a false peak

because now you have more power than you've ever had. So you have this, in my view, again, not telling how you live your life, you have a responsibility to what you're a fucking MBE. You know, everyone knows your name now and you've got a power to do things on a global level that even I'm not sure yet you realize you're capable of doing.

And I think when you realize what you're capable of, then you're going to find a why. Because listen, you can't waste the power you've got. You just simply can't. And there's a lot of pain out there. There's a lot of people getting fat. There's a lot of people not eating right. And they need someone that has your power. It's like, it's like, you know, life has given you this, this responsibility and gone, Joe, listen, we need you. And I think that's, I mean, that's enough to get out of bed for every day. That is the goal, mate. And it's like you know life has given you this this responsibility and gone joe listen we need you and i think that's i mean that's enough to get out of bed for every day that is the goal mate and it's so lovely to hear you say that and i do believe that we have a purpose and we have we have an energy inside us and i bumped into this guy once on the street in london he was really i think he was a shaman of some sort and he he basically put his hand on my shoulder he does my workouts and

he's like there's something about you like you've got an energy there's something pushing you forward isn't there like it's more than views and fame and numbers that there's something inside said yeah like there is it's this energy that is constantly like just go and film the workout I know you're tired but do it and it's that that's that thing of giving I I'm my happiest I'm giving and sharing and the minute I stop that even if I sell the body coach you know I know that that moment will come where I feel like, you know, I still need to be doing what I'm good at and still need to be reconnecting. And that is my energy. That's that. And I didn't have that. I was really lost and confused until 25. I came back from this trip to America. I started to become a personal trainer. And it was like,

I just knew in that moment, this is what I was going to do. And I've just put all my energy and love into it since. So yeah, let's see what we can do in 2021 thank you so much for your time joe it's been an absolute pleasure and i'm super excited to bring you back on for a third time once you've conquered the world and we'll be like we were sat here and you said this and then i know it's been a pleasure man and i really do enjoy your podcast i take little nuggets from it i think you're always sharing a positive message so keep doing it um it's good to see that you're growing and building and i am i hope this episode does really well for you thank you mate appreciate you always thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and learnings i'm continuing to be inspired by you i can't wait to see what you achieve in the next few years now go and get your moon shot

go and build a rocket.