The Uneducated PT Podcast - Episode 105 – Ben Hawksworth: Life, Loss & Lessons (Part 1)

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, Ben Hawksworth opens up about the pivotal moments, painful challenges, and powerful lessons that have shaped his life – on and off the rugby field. From navigating performance anxiety and bullying to finding self-worth beyond athletic achievement, Ben shares the principles that helped him rebuild from burnout, depression, and toxic relationships. We explore his “50/50 Rule” – the balance between mastering your inner world and building your outer systems – and how ignoring either side can cause everything to crumble. Ben also speaks candidly about body image struggles in sport, the danger of the “I’ll be happy when…” mindset, and the empty feeling that can follow big wins when you have no one to celebrate them with. Other key themes you’ll hear in this episode:Belonging & Self-Worth – Coping with being excluded, advice for those who feel like they don’t fit in, and the importance of self-compassion in healing your past.Toxic Ties & Boundaries – Why creating distance from damaging relationships can be the most loving act, and how to do it without guilt.Mental Health & Resilience – Ben’s experiences with depression, suicidal thoughts, and how he reframed his narrative to avoid destructive outcomes.Assertiveness Without Aggression – How to find your voice, stop being a doormat, and channel frustration into constructive action.Burnout & Balance – Lessons from overtraining, overworking, and spreading yourself too thin.Friendship & Connection – What real friendship means in a busy, digital world, and the story of the bond that kept Ben anchored during his darkest times.Performance Enhancers – A frank discussion on motivation, risks, and self-awareness for young athletes considering them.Money & Mindset – The pitfalls of early financial success and how to avoid the “infinite income” trap in your 20s.Travel & Perspective – Stories from Uganda and Kilimanjaro that shifted Ben’s worldview, and why experiences matter more than documentation.This is part one of an inspiring and deeply human two-part series with Ben Hawksworth – expect to leave with practical insights, personal reflections, and a reminder that success isn’t just what you achieve, but who you become along the way.

This is the raw unfiltered story of how I discovered what I call the 50-50 rule. The fundamental truth that success, fulfillment and genuine impact come from mastering two distinct but equally crucial domains. Your inner world and your outer systems. 50% human, 50% business. In my experience, when one outweighs the other, something always breaks. Talk to me a little bit about the meaning behind that in the context of your own life experiences and in business as well. well the whole point of the book was to tell a real story as a starting point i think that sometimes people look at the business and look at the life and they look like yeah i'm in a great spot now at 30 years old but jesus christ it has not always been like that and it's definitely not always going to be like this moving forward so for me i've kind of when i look from 20 year old to 30 year old i think that i've

almost split it in two. So it was almost like the 50-50 rule was heavily based on who I was from 20 to 25 years old and then who I've kind of become in the last five years. So for example, in my early 20s, I was not really focusing on the business side. I was doing a lot personally, but a lot of it was the self-sabotage and almost abuse, abuse with both work, business, partying, alcohol, drugs, a trauma, not. addressing previous trauma and I spent like five years in a place where I was I was doing well like earning very good money and all that type stuff but I was absolutely miserable because

I weren't really balancing the kind of two in the last five years it probably flipped on its head a little bit onto the other perspective where I had myself locked down really really really well but I'd scaled to a point where I just didn't have systems running for me properly inside business I've always had great teams I've always had great products but I've always relied on my superpower of having ADHD, ASD, ABC, you fucking name it, whatever's on the alphabet. I've kind of, I scaled from a place of output that until I were 25. I was like, well, I know that I can work really, really hard. I know that I can fuck myself up.

I know that I can do back-to-back days. But then when it comes to like meeting my wife's, well, I met my wife stays at 23, but from like 25 onwards when we were looking at like sitting down and going to starting to get married and starting to talk about our kids and all that type of stuff i was like whoa like this this business is not a system like as soon as i'm not on top form like this whole show just completely not really breaks down so that's basically like the overview for it um and just in terms of the background like life story i can't remember how old i was i think how 12 year old i started those pages from um throughout that period was was very very very very rough um and like my kind

the big thing is when people have, I always say is it doesn't matter if you stub your toe, if that really, really upset you, you're still tub your toe and that's a bad situation. Like, I was very, I class myself as very fortunate now for the trauma that I went through, but for at least a 10 year period,

I resented it, I fought against it, I thought that I could just bury my burdens and my mental health into business. And when I got another 10 grand a month or 50, I got all that, I'd suddenly be really, really high. happy. And what I found it like coming up to 25 is I was like absolutely smashing it. Probably more than I'm smashing it now because I have such a big team and pay so much out.

But I was absolutely miserable. I was like I remember I come back from, I come back from Dubai and we did like a massive month. I'd spent like 40 grand in a week or something daffler out on all my mates. Just just for laugh basically. And I come back and I was like, I'm clinically depressed here. I'm not okay. and that's when I started to really buy into the concept of the 50-50 rule. It's probably before 25 years old that I've never been able to write that book. It's only since experiencing getting the trauma and myself sorted alongside having a business which is ran based on sitting obviously artificial intelligence now, which is absolutely frightening. It was only since I kind of balanced the right, my business needs to be not just me killing

myself and also I need to stop internally killing myself. that I would say that I thought, I found success. My version of success is very different to what yours will be or what someone else's will be. I have so many people now like, what, you still do, 40, 50 hour weeks? I said, yeah, because I love it. Because I genuinely live and breathe this.

But yeah, that's where the concept of the book was born. It was not like, I'm suddenly going to call it this. It was me looking at the last 18 years of my life and gone, oh my God, when I were 18 years old, I wish I'd bought into this, because I could have saved myself seven years of scaling a business much easier, but also seven years of actually starting to feel happy. That was my thing that I strolled with,

is I wouldn't even, I'd argue with saying that I were only 27 years old when, 27, 28, and I was like, oh, wait, am I happy? Do you know that? And that's why I love your content so much, because it's, even though you do it in, you package it in such a funny way with, like, the memes and stuff. there, but that's why I've wanted to be on this podcast for age, is why I want to get you on mine as well,

because what I write in your book, I wrote about depth and I like, the thing that I'm most attracted to now with people is like people who think at depth and they think about stuff away from just a surface level thing, and that's pretty much what I've discovered in my life, that business is not just a case of killing yourself. Like, if you've been through some shit,

you can't just suddenly think, right, I'm going to be happy now. Or especially when we've just been speaking a minute ago about becoming a dad, that sets a load of new challenges on. And I think that people have this 100% attitude where it's like, right, in my early 20s, I'm just going to 100% live my life, go travelling, party and do all that. And then they're coming to the next part with like, right, I'm just going to go 100% into business and family and everything else. And then you forget about the fun part.

And what we do is we go through this state of going, right, I'm having a really good time. Now I'm just going to bury myself again. Now I'm going to go to a really good time. And this is with the ADHD, what I always wanted. I was like, I want to feel middle ground. I want to be able to do both. But again, go back to the concept of the book is the moment that I disregarded myself or I disregarded the systems element of businesses.

And I was never able to find that kind of middle ground. So that's how it was born, really. Yeah, I think that's such a good point. And that's something that surprised me so much about the book as well, was that you talk really heavily in depth about relationships and about connections, stuff like that. And I think there's a misconception people have that, oh, if you're talking about relationships and friendships and that aspect of things, it means that you're not serious about being a hard worker or a businessman or an entrepreneur or vice versa. If you're solely them things, then you don't really care about, you know, having fun or personal relationships or anything like that.

It's like when the two coexist together, they're not opposing each other. Yeah, it's about finding that balance. Like, the only time that I've ever stalled in business has never been a, it has never, ever, ever been a professional problem. It's always been personal. It was like when me and Stacey have had an argument or where I've had a disagreement with someone in the team, but it was the personal way that are a personal perspective,

that I've looked, looked at it. And it's even when you're looking at integrating systems into your business, people who go, well, I don't have the system, I don't have the strategy. And I said, no, that's just your connotation and belief system about using a system or strategy. It's like every decision that we make, it never just comes from the part of our brain, which is business, Ben, or personal Ben. Like, we always make a decision based on our personal belief system or perspective around that situation. So even when I look at times I've stalled in business, the only time I've ever stalled in business is where I've had a belief system around acquisition.

So I've not done something because I don't want to do that or I don't want to. I want to, the fear of, what's it called, the fear of rejection. And you have that kind of element going, oh, well, I don't want to do that because I'm scared of getting rejected. That's not a business strategy. That's, that's a personal perspective. Like, when I look at the 50-50 book, like, what's the most important? 100% the personal side.

Because it's the foundation on which anyone will process information and use information. And most of the time it's, it might be a situation, it might be a trauma, it might be circumstance, but a lot of the time it's just perspective. Like when you change your perspective on something, then you can start to see opportunities. It's not the fact that you're not trying hard enough in business or that strategy doesn't work. It's the fact that when you've tried something, it's not worked and you've given up on it. Whereas guys like, fucking I'm still at this point now where like every single week,

I'm like, oh, sweet, that didn't work. That didn't work. That didn't work. Like in the last four or five years since I changed my perspective on that is like, we have a rule. It's like fail as fast as you possibly can. Do you think that's a muscle that you need to kind of work that kind of, all right, you failed, but it's about reframing that?

Yes, 100%. I think that most people, a lot of people that early on in the careers will spend as much time trying to avoid stress and pain as human as possible. So you will only, and I'm a massive believer in, again, the whole concept of stubbing your toever, some of the stuff I've been through in life. Like, my tolerance to bullshit is so high, so, so, so high. My tolerance to failure is so high.

I've lost 120 grand on a meal prep company. I've closed education companies down now. Originally back in the day when our online coach personal trainer, I set up business models wrong there. And I've had events what I've lost 20 grand, rather than made 20 grand. And it's only these situations that like compounded over time to get to a point of going,

actually wait, like every time I do fucking fail, I'm generating more momentum. Like so, and this is what I love about the whole AI concept now, because because you can produce things at such a fast rate, you can also fail much faster, but also if you fail faster,

you can also bounce back faster as well. And that's where I think for me is like, people don't have a tolerance to failure because it's much, much easier to go back into a natural human state of fight or fight or fleas or freeze or face, is it? Yeah. And it's like we spend that much time in these states that we actually just stop doing the thing

that we need to do to actually be able to overcome that situation. So it's like for me in terms of tolerance, I feel like if people aren't making progress or they're not where they want to be in life, because this is not just about business either. This is about having that uncomfortable conversation with your wife, having that uncomfortable conversation with your husband. Like your marriage or your kids or your relationships,

they might not be there because of the avoidance of not wanting to get into that conversation. And that's just what I believe is like you have to learn to start taking, well, it's not even taking a step forward, it's learning to trip forwards and just basically adapting over time really another one I knew how to be an athlete before I knew how to be a person my entire existence my values as a human being

had somehow become tangled up in how well I performed on a muddy field can you talk to me a little bit about that in terms of your experiences with performance anxiety oh god performance anxiety right the best way I could describe that guys is that's me from 12 years old to 18 years old. My inability to address my performance anxiety as a child still, still,

I think I worked with TMP three years ago now, it was still messing me up big time at 26, 27. And I was like, what we pinpointed is like my, throughout my childhood, like I was, again, family situation, but then balancing between a semi-professional rugby league player alongside trying to do all the education stuff as well until I kind of closed the door on it when I was 16 and then restarted again.

But throughout my childhood is like I was taught to train, eat, sleep, play, perform. But the worst thing about it is sometimes people have got stories about that coach or that parent who put themselves under pressure. I didn't have that. All I had was support from, well, not parents, but like other people

where they were getting supported on everything, 11, but I had this. self-perceive level of anxiety around like even when I could go into a pitch and I could score five tries I could take someone's head off on on biggest hit on pitch and I'd come off that field and I and I just without question I'd just hate myself it weren't even it weren't even a performance anxiety when I were younger it was just like my self-esteem was that low about myself is even when I performed at a top top top level like I still I still have this horrible like um opinion of myself and this happened when I was when I was when I was 26 27 when I originally

started the agency back in the day and over a 12 month period we're working with the biggest companies in the US Dubai UK all all of the top line people but that little kids anxiety what used to be on that pitch was exactly the same I'd like people like blow and smoke up my ass been so happy with it but in my head it was like oh I'm not good enough I need to bend over backwards for these people and what I was doing is I was little living in this perception of an ideal what wasn't even real. And I think that's a place that a lot of people sit where it's like, yeah, but they might have this opinion on me,

or I might not have performed against someone else. Like, most of the time, guys, nobody gives a fuck. Like, nobody cares. Like, if you're doing something bad and wrong, people are going to care. But no one will ever really put the same level of pressure on you as what you do yourself. And again, for me, and this is again, what I love

with Carl is like is so into his mental health and like the depth to it and understanding it is I was seeing counsellors when I was 18, 19, 20 years old but it went from like depression to anxiety.

It was, it were only by keep going back and asking these questions that eventually got to a point where I was like fucking I've got, I've got severe performance anxiety where did that come from? And I was like,

I've pinpointed it. I've got pictures of me on Facebook still when I used to play rugby league and I was that anxious when I were on the pitch or sod on the sidelines I'd be picking the skin out of my hands because I'd be that stressed just wanting to get on

or even just wanting to get off sometimes so I feel like I weren't doing good enough I'd throw up like projectile of vomit before every single game and it was just something that I couldn't shake potentially down the line it was probably the undiagnosed ADHD that I didn't know because obviously

the amount of pressure you put on yourself for that but yeah like it's performance anxiety is very very real and it comes in many different shapes and forms i had the same again when i become a dad like because i was like oh am i am i doing enough for my wife am i doing enough for my kid i've set them up for life my wife's retired but i still didn't feel good enough as a husband or a father and it's something that you have to keep working on yeah well i was going to say that and that's something that kind of never really goes away but you become a little bit more self-aware about it when it is coming up yeah it's like no it's it's is learning to accept yourself and

and acknowledge yourself, especially now. And I think this is part of the culture that we're in now. Like, everything that we do is based on external validation. Like social media, likes, comments, like everything else. Like, one of my biggest things that is probably my biggest insecurity, is the fact that I've got a business like I have, and I've done this for this long, but I ain't got fucking any followers.

Grains on me, grains on me all the time. But then at the same time, I look at, well, is my judgment and acknowledgement of myself based on that or is it what the actual output that I've got from it and the life that I live and I think that sometimes we just get so fixated on on the numbers and metrics and definitely like the social media side is like a big kind of player to that but yeah it just it's something that you can't shake easily because I think that if a 10 years ago is very different like I remember when I started business as 10 years ago compared to now like it's a tough place because there is so much external judgment. There's so much stuff that were digesting on YouTube, TikTok,

Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagrams. You're getting served people with these idealistic lives of how you, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how is it, how happy you should look like, like, like, fuck that, you're never going to see me driving around in a Lambo. You're never going to see, I'm, I'm not bothered about stuff like that. Like, for me, it's like, I've just been away with my family for seven days, been had total time off. My business has ran completely without me, no stress at all. Like, that there's, like a tangible output that and now judge myself on, whereas probably until four or five years ago,

I won't be able to take that week off. Yeah. Because they're performing as anxiety, but we can't fucking take time off. You need to reply to that client straight away. You need to be doing this. You need to be doing that. And we've just got this culture now,

which is quite difficult place to be in. But again, like, this is why, when people are going, why have I adopted so heavily into AI? Because it solves pretty much fucking every single problem. that I've ever had in business that I've had to do manually or solves the problem that I don't have enough time to do something like and then again like we've got these systems out there

we've got this software but the thing at the moment is I don't want to use that but why the only reason you don't want to use it is because you've not used it and you don't know what it can do for you like there is not a single person who could spend an hour with me now with show them everything with AI and turn around and not use it and it's and it's that there it's not a business problem that someone's having it's a belief system about them not wanting to use it so it always comes back down to that personal problem and personal perspective leads to a professional roadblock does a lot of it come down to fair yeah with pretty much everything that pretty much everything that i do especially when it comes to

business i think the fear of failure is like it is is is massive um i think that when it's i think when you've got a personal problem it's always going to come back down to a fear of perception yeah so it's like I don't want to be perceived by my friends, family, people who know me in that type of way. Whereas when it comes to a business side, it's like, I want to do this, but I'm scared of it failing.

And it's that perception, that fear of perception and fear of failure. What does completely hinders and roadblocks people like all of the time. The only, trust me guys, that if there are a way to avoid these fears in my lifetime, I'd have found them. I'd have found,

I've read every book, every audio book. I've spent tens upon thousands of pounds on, on trying to overcome these situations. Most of my progress I've made as a person, most of my progress I've made professional has always been coming from, just stepping straight into that fear

and taking it on the head and then learning from it and adapting from it and pivoting as fast as humanly possible off the back of that actual direct feedback that you're getting in that situation. There's a special kind of bullying that doesn't leave bruises. No one ever punched me or stole my lunch money.

That would have been easier to explain, easier to fight against. Instead, they simply acted as if I didn't exist for the first couple of years. Do you have any advice for younger people who are listening to this who feel like they don't belong or they don't fit in and how to kind of deal with that from an early age?

This stemmed from what was happening at home at the time. So I spent a substantial amount of years in silence or violence. I think I've spoke about that in the book. It was at home, it was either complete silence, so for weeks, months, sometimes felt like years and this is not a case of adults having a fallout

and then you just don't speak for a few hours like it was literally like complete pin drop silence in my house or it was like an eruption of just like shit you just don't want to talk about but so when I was like going into school I was going to school like wanting to make friends or wanting to see people

but I was also an outsider because I couldn't really go to schools in my area because it's a shit hole It's one thing like my mum did with us is she just made sure we didn't go to those staff schools because it could have probably gone down a different area. And when I went to school,

it was a bit of a strange one because it's again like when people talk about a conventional style of bullying, I always say to it and say, I would have loved back then as teenage men I'd have loved to have gone to school and someone battered me. I'd have loved it.

I'd have loved that because that's what I craved at home. I used to sit at wait, I used to sit and wait at the top of the stage. waiting for something to kick off because something was better than nothing. So when I went to school and I was like, I got faced with this like exclusion from a group or exclusion from a situation. Like it was so hard because it was like, it makes me up save and think about now to a fair.

But like, it was like what, all I have used to ask myself is like, what am I doing wrong? What have I? Why am I not like anyone else? Like, why is this happening to me? And especially when you're going into like P groups and stuff and people are jumping into partners and you're getting left out. or you're just getting put on the sidelines all the time.

And again, the thing that was the catalyst to me overcoming that situation the book was actually one day I just erupted. I think sometimes like when you walk into a room and you're a kid and you're silent, you're silent because people aren't including you, but you're silent because you're not actually making enough noise. Like sometimes like you need to come in and just try and just get yourself into the actual thick of it, like even if it's just a case of starting one conversation. Like for me, I was battling home and school together, whereas mine was a weird situation because I actually

battered a kid in middle of class, nail for like, smashing my bed table up, which I got about at that time. But it was after that where I showed this raw emotion and showed that, like, I got really, in the back end of, like, my school years, like, I, I was one of most popular kids in the year like I was I was I was the man you could say are starting starting to become but for the first two three years I was silent and that was yeah the culture that is at school with kids and it would god it worries me now what what it's like with with remi going to school when she's older but you need to make noise you need to speak like this it might be a case of a teacher has got 30 kids in a classroom but she doesn't know it's the real silent one it might be a case of pulling a

teacher over to one side and going like look I feel like I'm getting left out is or anything where we can do things in groups so i have an opportunity to speak to someone like don't be don't be afraid to start just working your way into certain groups by just asking a few questions here and there but the main thing is like and the worst thing that you can do is do two three years like i did without saying a thing getting walked all over because when people are walking all over you they'll continue to do that so it's a case of either standing up if you are getting bullied i'm a like i'm never going to promote like fighting in school or anything like that but if someone's giving you shit you need to have a voice and say something back because

that type of bully will just build on that and build on that and build on that and that's what they'll want in the want in that power because of bullying is just an insecurity in itself so when you're kind of in that situation like you need to have a voice you need to say something back if you're in that situation where you feel like you're getting left out you need to ask someone and speak to them about what type stuff that there is out there or make it known to the teacher even little things like a teacher just saying your name more in class some of some of these kids there like like I used to, that's how I used to feel. I'm like, I'm invisible. I'm, I might as well not be it.

I could walk out of that classroom and no one would even know that I weren't there. So I think, again, the big part of it is, is like, don't just walk up to a group of people in school because you're probably going to get shit back from them. But speak to people like teachers, start looking at opportunities where you can do more stuff in groups. Start looking at where a teacher could rather than saying, right, jump into pairs. You get put into pairs together and start working for those workarounds because I think that, especially bullying and exclusion. A lot of the time you can't address it head on with that person

or that group of people, like you're just going to get sort of shit back, aren't you? So I think that you need to start looking at what type of workarounds that there are. But that type of situation, guys, that's not just when you're in secondary school. I was about to say.

Yeah, university exactly the same, especially if you're moving away from home. Like you need to be looking at what type of almost forced community and social networking and stuff that there is. getting out on nights out even if you're not a night out person you don't have to drink but get into social occasions kind of with them but I know people

now like even in this moment now we're part of friendship groups but they feel like the friends don't them include them in certain areas like exclusion sometimes well a lot of the time it is direct but sometimes it's indirect and you just need to get in that way so people do

actually see you yeah it's a hard one isn't it like that I think that advice is relevant across all demographics because you know people are are lonely at the moment in all demographics from from kids teenagers younger adults and even older adults and it really is like you said you you almost have to find your voice and be proactive and kind of push your way into certain spaces and which can feel difficult I would imagine when

you do feel invisible what you want to do is you want to shell into yourself probably even more yeah start online as well especially and obviously not for kids God, Remmy's not getting a phone when she was like 10, 12 years old, like I see. But especially if you're at university, just start online. Start in the Facebook forum, start on the university forums. Like, even like I've had previous clients before who were part of company formations where there's like 250, 300 staff in there. And I'm like, well, are you in any of the groups?

Are you in any of the email friends? Are you actually going to the social events that they put on and team building stuff? because a lot of the time it's like, yeah, I agree that people feel lonely, but I feel like a big part of that has got a little bit to blame on them because it has never been more easy to connect with people. It's a self-fulfilling cycle, essentially. If you're one of those people, like I don't like social media, I don't like posting on social media, I'm not going to have an Instagram,

I'm not going to have a Facebook, I'm not going to have that. Well, you're never going to connect. Every single thing that we do now is online. It's not like what it used to be going back into today or go into like youth clubs and stuff there. It's like you need to understand that like you don't have to have a social profile, but you need to be in the groups where people are hanging out and speaking and just starting to get your name out there and get your face there.

Like I have it now. Like even with some, when I run like events in the past, for example, like the best way I could describe this is I might have 100, 150 people coming to an event. And there might be 20, 30 of those people who come up and say hello to me. And I'm like thinking, who the fuck is that? As soon as I see the social media, I'm like, Oh yeah, I know exactly what that is. And it's like, you're just like, how weird is it like that?

But that's how it works now? Like people register you and recognize you based on your social profile and not the presence that you do have in a room. So you just need to really kind of focus on that, I think. Yeah. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself and your media family is create distance from toxic relatives. This isn't failure, it's self-preservation.

Remember that family is ultimately about love and support, anyone who consistently undermines those values is family only in name. So do you have any words of wisdom for people who might be kind of stuck in this cycle of like toxic relationships, whether it's family, friends, partner and, you know, find it difficult to break out of that? Yeah, I'm trying to think the best way to put it across. So I was like anything, I've always been in my life, I was very like, I'm all in, then I'm suddenly all out.

And when I'm all out, I'm not bothered. that story there is basically talking about my nanan who was the root of all fucking evil I don't know I could ever describe that woman so her oldest daughter hung herself her other daughter drank herself to death is my aunties her son my mom's twin was a like a sex offender pedophile horrific fucking human being and then my mom which is an absolute saint obviously because it says that in the book but she obviously did go through a quite period of alcoholism as well which caused a lot of the stuff in my childhood and and for me i got pushed to the brink of it and i'd never ever want to be i'd never want to put someone in the

situation that i was in where i had to turn my back on my entire family because that was also something that i really struggled with for the next 15 years after that because not it's sorry next five 10 years after that because my family were fixed my family were happy but i distance myself so the way that i would describe this is imagine that you've got a you've got a bullshit timeline, right? I got to the end of my timeline where I was like, I've had enough for this bullshit and I just went into a straight fight response, right?

I went into a straight, fuck you, fuck everyone, I'm going to go and do all this on my own. And luckily, for what happened from that, I have done it, and that's why I'm so grateful for everything that I did go through as a kid. Whereas I did also go through a lot of pain. What people see is they see Ben Oksuff, who had these businesses, got to this point, got that,

like, they don't say, see what goes off in the back end. They don't see from 20 to 25 I had maybe two free gram of cocaine every single weekend and drink two bottles of whiskey and be sat in my own at 3 o'clock in the morning and wanting to kill myself. And why was that?

Because I'd let that get to that point of that fight response where I was like, and I lost all connection. I had no connection with like my brother, my mom, my stepdad, like I couldn't hold down friendships, properly, relationships. I was just work, work, work,

party, go out. drinking cycle avoidance whereas that's the threshold that I got to my recommendation is you still have a bullshit meter because what people do here is they have this bullshit meter that's fucking endless and they get four five six years down the line where they see that the girlfriend's been actually been treating them like shit or the boyfriend's been treating them like shit since day one or they look back and they realize actually my dad has always been a come to me since I were 15 years old and we go through these extended timelines

we think that family is something that yeah and I do believe that family always needs to come first but you don't choose your family like you choose your friends and my recommendation would be is if you've had not like a couple of situations guys god like families are complicated man like so complicated with the dynamics that you have there but if you have something what is like is a hindrance with someone what's been going on for a suspended period of time you just need to address it with that person head on early doors which I did try to do many many times before before I got to that bullshit me at point and blew up. But like for me, it's like you need to,

you need to understand that whether it's personally, professionally, relationships, fucking psychologically, spiritually, every single thing that we do will always come back down to communication. And it's the hardest thing to do because sometimes when someone is being an absolute top twat, the last thing that you want to do is have a conversation

with them about being a top twat. But it's like now, the best way, and a good way that's to describe this is, in my company with all my staff, have a no sideline rule. So there's no situation where you can hit me from the side on without me, I've been having any awareness for it.

Like that's the worst situation that anyone in my team can ever put me in. If you put me in a situation where you've addressed loads of little problems to me in a different area, I can accumulate that to then get to a point of having a response. Whereas if you are just letting it get to that point where that bullshit me, a side swipes there's no positive, there's no positive outcome to it. And sometimes like, especially when you've got a family member, is behaving or acting in a certain way, especially when you've got the hierarchy of like a family,

like it might be a grandfather, father, cousin, uncle, and you're like, oh, well, I can't tell that person to stop. Or if I address that with my wife, like, she's going to get really, really upset. Like, people get upset. But if there's no point in you being in that situation where you are taking loads of shit to keep someone else's peace happy,

even if they're being a twat. Like, you need to learn to, like, understand that, like, this is the difference between, like, right or wrong. this is what I'm okay with. This is what I'm not okay with because you've always got that fresh old leave away where someone's going to push it a little bit too much. But you need to kind of understand that.

There's no positive situation. I say that, but I've created a positive situation of what I went through. But God, how many years did it take me? And again, like, when you look at what I now categorize a success, not money, it was like getting to a point where I had my wife, my daughter, my house, and everything.

I was like, wow, I actually feel happy here. but how bad is that guys like waiting until 27 to think oh fucking hell yeah i'm happy 27 years has them has them experiences where you almost had to push back and finally kind of speak up for yourself and and you know use that communication has that has that helped you going into your later years in your relationships and in your business no not in any way shape or form because I was, I'd learn that the way that you overcome a situation is by

fighting back against it. So like again, this isn't going stemming back to the years where I was fighting maybe three, four times a week where just for the sake of it because it was like that's what was, I was trained, it was in my nature. That's like kind of who I was.

But then when it come to being in a relationship, rather than being able to communicate something about it, it goes, or whenever you've got a team, member or a client who's not performing, it's this level of reactivity. So, and that's what I'm trying to like, good, great question that, by the way, because that's exactly what I mean by hitting a fight response is the fucking worst thing that you can get to.

Like, don't come wrong. I believe in controlled aggression where, like, I'm, I'm a sadistic bastard now. Like, when things aren't going well for me, I'm like, come at me. Like, you can throw what you want at me. I'm still going to fucking win. And I've always had this mindset because of that. but what I found is when you let a relationship get to a point where you have to react, you start to think, well, this is how you fix something by reacting.

And if I don't know if anyone's got a girlfriend or boyfriend or a wife or a husband, but you don't get to a positive outcome for what you want in a situation without reacting. Like, I was saying to one of my mates of the day is like, Stacy must fucking hate it. Now she won't, she loves it because we've got a great best relationship we've ever had where we are now. But like back in the day, oh, she could win, she would win everything. because all I was is reactive whereas now I'm quite receptive and I understand and I can articulate and communicate

it's a little bit and it's a battle of getting one up or not but it's a lot more difficult to get an outcome that you want when all you think is well in order for me to solve this problem I need to react and and then the reaction becomes more of a problem than the actual problem

yeah and then it's like why are you acting like why you're being aggressive like what what's this response and especially for a service base industry like so we obviously have like our group program now but we still have my one-to-one clients and I still have like the propel program which is like a small agency and when you're a service-based environment so like guessing that a lot are online coaches will be obviously watching this when you've got people and you've got emotions and then eventually when you have to hire

team members in acquisitions sales fulfillment operations like if you're in any type of if you want to like well there's no situation where you can have a reactive mindset like unless you are running your entire business through AI and you don't have to communicate with another human being, you can avoid to be in an office getting angry and reacting at shit. Whereas if you have to speak to other people, then you need to learn to like avoid any type of reactivity. Like if anything ever gets to a point where you're reacting, you have lost immediately. And it's not going to be a positive situation for that other person or there's definitely not a positive situation for you. And that's just something that again, I had to learn the hard way,

like, but I've burnt so many relationships in my early 20s, just. from stupid stuff, like just reacting unnecessarily. And you just have to learn to adapt, evolve, understand, pivot, take a step back.

Like, I'm at a point now where, like, I do have situations which still get me like, riled up. But I rarely ever like show something on the front end.

Like, if I'm ever at that point, I'll just remove my, I'll literally just remove myself on my computer, or I'll remove myself from a conversation or I'll just be like, look, we're going to come and revisit this down the line. Whereas as human beings,

like when you've got, especially a service-based industry with an online client, and they are, and I put this on my story the other day, because they spoke about these weight loss jabs and these pill, like the appetite suppressants and all that. And I'm like, guys, you need to stop attacking this stuff because you're attacking someone's belief system

and a solution that they have. Like, whenever you go into that type of head-on situation with a belief system that someone's halt, it is going to do nothing in terms of a positive outcome for you because they're going to constantly fight their corner and the moment that you raise up or you attack in any way, shape, or form, the natural thing for that person to do is defend.

So the same. And that again, it all comes back down to that. You get attacked by a bear. You're going to try and protect yourself or you're going to fucking run off, right? You're not going to, in that situation, don't sit and have a conversation with a bear guy. It's like, please, please just get yourself out of there.

Or if you fancy it, like, give it one. But like, you always need to, you always need to kind of, like, I always call it, like, balancing, in any energy balance. So sometimes someone can come to you really, really, really high and sometimes someone can come into you really, really low. Like my job with what I do now is a dad and a husband and a family member

and a friend and running these teams is my job is to come in at equilibrium. So if someone's energy is really, really, really down here, I'm going to communicate with them on a sense to bring them up to a level what I can be there. If someone's really, really, really high, then what I can need to do is then bring them down. So like you're looking at that up and down scale on, on balancing communication for me

because it's not always reaction. Sometimes it's like someone's reacting but in a freeze perspective where they're just talking so, so low about themselves, like you need to build them up. I did like this morning, I've processed like over 200 end of month feedback forms for our group and our one-to-one clients,

which then I'll do like a run over. I would be able to read that immediate point of support or from each person and turn around and say that person's high or that person's low. So my response to them will be if it's like, look, self-belief, really shit, like, feel shit about myself, whatever. I'm not going to come in on them hard with a business strategy. I'm going to come upon them and just get their belief systems back into this spot.

So then I can come in and start talking about systems and business. Whereas if someone's coming up and they are really, really high and this is not worked or that I'm worked or this, whatever, like, my job then is to do the exact same thing, but bring them back down to that personal level and say, like, look, it's not the fact that it's not worked. This is the fact that you're reacting to it because you think that failure is a negative situation. like it always comes back and if you like again do you know it's funny since I wrote the book I refer to so much shit as the 50-50 rule now like

it was weird because what I'm talking about there is that I'm not talking about 100 I'm not talking about zero I'm talking about 50 and keeping that balance trying to be as balance as possible looking back at that period of my life now I see a kid who was dealing with adult sized problems without adult size resources

I see someone who was trying his best with what he had limited understanding and limited perspective. What that sounds like to me when I read that was self-compassion. Do you think that's needed for people to move on from their past and make a better and brighter future?

I'm going to ask your audience a question here. When you are sat there right now and you think about any situation or any trauma that you have been through, how much of that situation do you actually put blame on yourself? I blamed everything on myself. I blamed my aunt is suicide.

I blamed what we went through in terms of, even though I were trying to stop the alcohol and the fighting and then the arguments. And I blame myself for losing touch with my family. Like every single thing and every point of therapy that I've kind of done. And the exact same with business, like losing businesses, closing businesses. It was never been a case of like, oh, I'm actually really, really upset of that trauma situation of it being as an independent problem.

and I was upset at the thought of thinking that was my fault or I was involved in that. And that took me a very, very, very long time to realize. Whereas I was like, actually, it wasn't my fault. Actually, I shouldn't have gone through that. Or actually, now I've experienced six months after that situation, look what's actually happened in terms of growth. Like, you're looking at it from like,

when you look at trauma, you have trauma personally and professionally, like personal trauma lasts a very, very, very, very long time. So like you can sometimes, and again, it's just a natural thing that you want to put it under a rug or put it in a box and you're not going to come back to it down the line. Like the longer that you extend that out, the longer that you're going to keep fucking yourself up. Because of that type of stuff,

remember when I lost my meal prep company because of the pandemic and the council closing it down and lost a year of my life, lost all that money. But because I'd learned to like kind of basically address like these personal situations, the personal trauma is a lot more quickly. When I closed that business down, bearing in mind, we lost everything. I started from scratch again.

It was in the 12 months after closing that business down that I actually hit my first seven-figure company. In 12 months, in 12 months, we're over a million turnover, right? But in situations before with a personal trading team, an online coaching team or a level two, level three, back

in the day, whatever it may have been, I'd spend six months after that, wallowing and self-pity and feeling shit about myself. whereas what I actually realized when I lost all that money and lost that stuff as I was like, fucking hell,

well, what have I actually learned from this now? How can I actually use those mistakes and use the lack of marketing and money that I point into that and the model that I use, how can I actually compound on that over time?

So I think that professional trauma is very, very different because it's a lot of situations where you've just got to accept, analyze, overcome and adapt and grow. Whereas when it comes to a personal trauma, the biggest thing that you need to do

is just get to a point where you can turn around to yourself not fucking in a conversation with a mum or dad or whatever it is it's like you need to be able to turn around to yourself and go actually I'm not to blame for that happening if your dad's died you might not have spent enough time with if someone if something some of those horrific things that you could ever imagine whatever it may be what I found with myself and with people I've spoke to

is they will always find a way to attach their emotional to why that actually happened, even if it is fucking completely disconnected, again, it could be the time that they spent, the argument that you had, the conversation that you avoided, or the one thing that you may have done wrong in a relationship, that we always attach on to the thing that we can put blame on ourselves rather than actually turn around and going, that's a really, really shitty, shitty situation that's happened to me. And that's why I want people to watch this back to turn around and pinpoint what it is that maybe two or three things and write it down going like why are blaming yourself

and then from that point and I says I always I use something called a logic tree I use this in a I use this in everything so if I'm faced with a trauma or a situation or a circumstance of whatever it may be like you most people may have heard of the five whys before so if you want to get to a root cause of a problem you need to ask yourself five questions why so with the logic tree or do a double that and do it in 10 steps so if I've ever got a belief or a perception or a trauma or whatever it is, I must write an arrow down, do it on a piece of paper normally, and get to a point of a conclusion where I'm just not talking shit to myself about it.

Because if not, if you get to the bottom of that tree, you're still talking shit to yourself, you need to not leave that tree. Like you need to, because you know straight away, like, because it's like, all right, well, this happened and then you just wrote 10 negative things. Like, that there is just the first thing that's in your face where it's like, actually, this is a serious problem for me because I cannot see. And because this is not just about like bad situations happening in life. Like it might have been how you tread your wife or your husband.

You may have cheated. Whatever it may be, you may have said something horrible to one of your kids and you've in that ruined your relationship for a little bit. Like you need to find a way where within that treat, you get to a point of having logic and sense on going, this is how I overcome feeling like this. Whereas me and my, well, obviously from 12 to 20 and 20, and 20 to 25.

I didn't do shit like that because all I thought was, I just need to get on with it. I just need to get on with it. But then what happens is is we go through days and weeks and months and years and all these little situations

like, I'm just going to get on with it, I'm just going to get over it. I'm not going to think about it. They just compound. And when you compound all these different situations, when it comes to that next relationship, you're really fucked because you've not addressed what happened in your previous one.

When it comes to something else, what's a trauma situation, what happened in your family, you fucked even more because you've not addressed what happened two years ago. And you need to have these.

So I call mine my logic tree just because I'm, everything I do is based on logic. Like this, this must make sense. That's how I'm, like if someone presents something to me and I can't look at it and go, right, I actually understand that.

Like I don't, I can't have any type. Like my brain's like a fucking computer guy. That's something I could describe it. And that's why I've loved AI because I'm like, well, this makes sense. Like, this makes so.

You're ahead of the curve. I'm so excited. Like, My team were like, next kid that we're going to be called. It's going to be called like Gamma or Claude or Poppy or something. I'm just going to name it on an AI system. But like for me, like the logic tree is like it is the thing that I do where it's like I have to stem it down and get to a solution. And that solution has to be positive where I'm allowed to just get myself over that.

But even just starting with the five wise guys like Google it, stick into chat GPT. If you've got a problem, I still do. So I actually have this as part of like a business solution framework of people. it's like when someone comes or this isn't working I'll just turn around and I go there's a prompt and it's a pre-prompt what's already got a pre-structure on the five wise to get to the root problem of why that actually is. That's very interesting. Yeah, I always think even when you're when you were speaking there like the there was a quote

that just kept on coming in my head and it was like, uh, I think it's like you don't drown by falling into the river but by staying submerged in it. So like a lot of people end up staying submerged in their trauma or their problems and it almost becomes part of them and then they don't want to let it go and because they don't want to let it go then they can't move on does that make sense yeah yeah underdog mentality and lone wolf mentality that is so what caused i said there is that was me submerged and drowning for many many years because i had this mindset where it's like i do not need anyone right i can do i'm an underdog i'm i i must work i must do this i must do that and all it was is just me staying stuck in that river getting dragged

all the way down and it was the one thing that was just continuously kind of causing problems. So yeah, I massively agree with that. And suicide. I became absolutely fixated on depression and suicide because I thought it was intrinsically linked to how I was feeling. Like looking in a mirror and seeing not just my reflection, but a possible future version of myself that I wasn't sure I could avoid. How did you end up changing that narrative? Because I think that's one that a lot of people fall into that. you know, they feel a certain way and therefore it will eventually lead to a certain outcome.

Oh, yeah, that's a strong one to pull from the book that. I weren't expecting that one. So I started having suicidal thoughts when I were 12 years old. I don't know why performance anxiety, ADHD, things happening at home. I don't know what it was. And these suicidal thoughts, like, carried on until I was about 16, but I'd not spoke to anyone about it at this point. So for like four years,

I was just like kind of doing my thing. And then my auntie hung herself. And I remember that happening. And obviously I weren't, I weren't very close to my family. Like, but obviously it was a very negative situation. And there's a lot of stuff

what I've not wrote about in the book about that, but which makes it a little more of a real situation. But I remember when we went through that like kind of process as a family. And I become obsessed with it. And I mean absolutely fucking. obsessed to the point where over the course of an eight year period even until

I actually to put into perspective like even when my daughter was born and I went through a little bit of like and people it's always like a woman as like post pregnancy depression yeah postpartum depression I did I had that quite severely when Remit was born because I go off and a tangent here

but I've built up this life and this picture of what it were going to be when it were our dad Stacey's sorry Remme is still a breastfed baby now So for the first year, she didn't want anything to do with me. And that was really, really, really hard because I was like, she's everything that I've ever wanted to change everything. And I went back into those kind of thought processes. But that's only come around for maybe two months.

Whereas when I was, in terms of the obsession, I got to a point where I was thinking of suicide up to like 27 times a day. So I was making a cup of tea in a meeting on a call, sat writing. and these thought process were coming into my head but it was never the fact that I was and I've done an attempt to suicide and I feel like most of my early 20s were attempting suicide which I used to do it to myself

but for me it was I realized like it wasn't the fact that I was suicidal it was just my attachment to what was that actual situation itself and it was such a kind of a strange strange one because this lasted for 15 years I mean at least 15 years. The only thing, the single only thing that fully stopped me with my, with actually thinking about suicide was actually finally getting my ADHD diagnosis.

So, and again, logic. Everything I was doing was always coming about logic. So I never had logic before. When I had a counsellor, when I were 18, they said I were depressed. When I went to a professional therapist at 22, it was anxiety. Then it was performance anxiety. off the back of that I was like kind of got to a point when I like 29 and I was like my clients it would do with clients who like these just turned around to me and going like you're

100% autistic and it got me kind of thinking when I like I had an inkling at like 28 that was like I'm just not operating or thinking on the same pathway as people and my emotions that are just so like up and down throughout the kind of the floor um so when I got to like 29 I had that ADHD diagnosis it was like that final moment where I was like, oh my fucking God, I'm not depressed. That's what it was. It was that moment where I'm like, oh my God, I'm actually not depressed.

And that was like the level one to it. So I got to that level. This is only two years ago, this by the way, guys. This is not long into the past compared to like the book. So that 12 years old to 28, I was like, I'm depressed. I'm suicidal. I'm thinking about all this stuff. So everything that you,

may have seen for me build, which has all been around now for quite a few years, I was going through these suicidal thoughts while building all of that. And it was my, probably the thing what got me over it was working output, because it's like the busy of that I stayed, the less time that I had to think about it. Coming away from like the self-sabotage, alcohol drugs, obviously made a massive difference, finding peace and stability with Remi and Stacey massively helped it, but I still at two years, my birthday, Friday, actually. So three years ago, I got that ADHD diagnosis and I was like oh my god like that's fixed it but it didn't so I'd like it's not long after that I was like well I've got this diagnosis this is fucking min but I still feel

exactly the same as what I were doing so I tried maybe three like two or three different ADHD medication um I did say to the people I went private and spent quite a lot money on it I said do not put me on a stimulant I am the most stimulated person that you will ever come across like this is I'm not I'm not ADHD to stereotypical so I have like behavioral ASD as well so I said my problem isn't getting distracted and needing to focus my problem is not doing that and staying in like a medium level and this guys listen the number one thing I'll take from this so when I was 21 years old I was offered metazapine so I was offered metazepine which is an antidepressants that there is out there I said no to it didn't I why because I'm a lone wolf

and I could fix everything myself and I didn't need help from anyone or anything. I got offered that drug when I was 21 and turned it down and I actually didn't get advised it. I turned around to Stacey six months later and said, I think I've figured this out. Like I don't need something to keep me focus. I don't need something to keep me there.

I need something to keep me at the 50-50 mark. So we go back to the start of the podcast where I say I used to be up here or down there. I needed something that kept me on this real baseline equilibrium level. And when I read into metazepine, it was like the, the whole point of like metasmin, it like boost your like serotonin. It helps you sleep better and all that. But it also keeps you quite, what's basically like subdued and quite like low.

So the side effects I was reading from people who depressed is it sent them lower. Whereas I was like, wait, actually, but if I'm bouncing off the ceiling all the time and I can have a drug, what brings me down to there? Like that sounds like a pretty good idea. Mate, change my life. honestly the only the only the it's not the only reason but I will stay on that

I'm still on that drug now 45 45 milligram every single day and when I say to people like what in that antidepressant said yeah but it depends on its functionality and what you're using it for whereas for me is I that there was one of the one of the best things that I've ever done

like I've never ever felt as equilibrium and balanced and zen as I have done in the last two years despite being a, becoming a dad despite the pushing the business where I've pushed it despite all that and I do categorize that it is because of finding that because I actually trialed it I came off for four weeks yeah my emotions went straight back to how they were before yeah so it's like my lesson to you there is like because of my stuck in the river mentality lone wolf mentality at 21 years old and I

fucking keep myself for it as I like oh my god what could I how could I it's not about what could I have achieved because the only reason that I've achieved what I've done is because of everything that we spoke about. But I look back and think how happy, how happy could I have been? Because could, could that have, could that have allowed me to have more stability from 21 years old compared to only finding that at 28, 29? And there's so many people out there. Like, I remember like, when I spoke about this on another podcast before, I spoke back to our community, like, the first thing people say is like, why, like people don't admit that. That they don't, speak about that. I said, I'm here to help people. I'm not here to tell you you need to take this

or need to take that. But I'm here to tell you that there's absolutely nothing fucking wrong with getting ADHD medication. There's nothing wrong with getting antidepressant medication. Like every single one of us is wired completely different. It's the same as with the eating babies and disorders. Like some people, it's not the fact that you're depressed or your anxiety you've got bad anxiety. It's the fact that you've got a relationship with food that you can't control what's creating your depression and your anxiety. So like these emerging tools. So I was, I was looking at logic and I look at a tool like metazepine is a tool for me to stay at equilibrium.

And when I'm at equilibrium, I used to have a flow state painting behind me. We've got a new fancy feature wall now, which I don't like as much as my old paintings, but as well as. But like all of these drugs and these situations, maybe a supplement, might be a, what's it called? It might be a little system where you've got a five-minute journal every single day. like all of these things that are out there like here to come in and help you whereas as human beings it's like I don't need help I am not and it was my mindset that I had around oh my god I've got depression that labeled I self-labeled myself and I got labeled from someone else and it was that label that actually stopped me from turning around and getting the help that I

needed back then but yeah like I said guys like for if you if you it's funny because if you googled Mertaz been a that I looked at like that I looked at like like people's reviews and side effects, it's the complete bipolar opposite to what I'm saying to you right now. But remember that scale is like, where do you stand on that scale? If you are, if you're ADHD and not ISD, because you can't get medicated for that, but if you've got ADHD and you feel like you're down here all the time

because you're getting distracted, then you're potentially needing an upper, right? Whereas if you've coming through the ceiling all the time and that emotional ceiling is causing you to come down and up and down and up, you might need a little bit of a downer. like it's um if anyone's ever been to a party scene back in the day guys you'll know exactly what i mean about that um some some people need up and some people need a downer sometimes but it's like i i had i had to really change my mindset on that because i remember when i first started started trialing

with it and i was like so apprehensive on it but i was like within four weeks i was like oh my god and it was that back to the original question because i was gone on such a long tangent it was only since taking that that I've stopped suicidal thoughts even two years ago I suppose and look because so many people are are getting diagnosed now and I I would imagine it is like you know breathing for the first time because it's like

you finally can understand what's going on with yourself whereas for so many years you just think that oh there's something wrong with me there's something wrong with me but you're you don't understand what it is yeah I know loads of bit so I was put on LVANs ADHD that was literally like put that was basically like giving me a full bowl of cocaine and

adrenaline in the morning that is the only way that I could describe how I felt when I were taking that whereas I know some people zen zends them out on another level I'm about to name 30 different people I've spoke to about this since where they're like elvans changed my life mate do you know what I mean so it's like it's it's completely the dependent but the one thing that you can't do is again i love that analogy have been stuck in the river is you get stuck in that river and when some when that first life raft doesn't work you just think oh it's fucking easier for me to stay inside here sometimes you might need two three four five different life rafts until you get that one thing and when you get that one thing you stay on you stay on top of it

um being passive might seem easy in the moment avoiding conflicts keeping peace but it's a slow poison eating away at yourself respect finding your voice Learning to channel anger into assertion rather than aggression is one of the most important skills. It's not about becoming a dick. It's about refusing to be a dormant. So could you give a little bit of advice to people who maybe are a little bit of a dorm out, kind of letting people walk all over them and not being assertive in their life? And maybe explain to the listeners as well in the context of your own life where that came from.

yeah so i was a dormant for for a very very very long time and i was getting walked all over and there was even and this is not just the case if you go from being dormant to not a dormant you might be a dormant you might be a dormant at home but you might be an absolute killer at work but then you've not got an imbalance between what's kind of going on so i always um i would probably say that this is one of my most common conversations that i've had with with fitness professionals and business owners in general where they'll come to me with a problem where something's not worked or whatever it may be

and again depending on where they are with the fight, freeze, flight and all that. But I would say most of the time my response always come back going like, where's your fucking fight? Where's the fight in you? Where's that? Where's your aggression? Like, why are you actually wanting to do this? And I'll always look at

when they, let's just say they spin a context or a situation at me at A, I'll normally try and revisit that and present it back to them in a place where like actually all you're doing is you're fighting against a you know you're not trying to avoid it or or get to it it's like you're trying to beat that fucking situation like i'm i'm an incredibly aggressive person like very i always have been i was a semi-professional rugby league player fighting from a from a family of like just violent and

all that type of stuff like i've always had aggression in my nature and from a testosterone perspective i feel like i'm over the tops up there anyway so like what i used to do is like I remember when I used to have like this mannerism and characteristic about myself with what I used to do with training and the gym and everything else but when it comes to business I'd be subdued and I thought oh that's beating me I'm not good enough whereas when I started to pull through that same characteristic of that aggression and in and push that into business like I would I would categorize saying that most of the success that I've created in business has come from a place of aggression I'm a massive believer in that I'm a massive believer in

if I'm told to do something really, really slowly over a two-year period, such as writing that book, right, such as rebuilding my program that I've just built, like people, I remember when I was launching the book and launching the new AI-powered smart scaling system, people are like, why are you doing this to yourself? Because I'd rather get aggressive as fucking box it off than I would be to be passive and let it just beat me in the process. Because the moment that you turn around, let's just say, if you can,

I always, I'm better at this now, Like back in the day, like when I was doing something, I would always call myself out on my own bullshit first. So rather than going, oh, I might do this. I might do that. I'd be turning around it going, I am doing this on that day. That was like when people do, when people sign up with an online coach, when you book that photo shoot, guess what you do?

You get fucking in shape because otherwise you're going to look like an absolute doormat. So like when people are looking at their goals, like I, I'm bothered about people's goals, but I'm more bothered about when they're actually going to do it. Yeah. Because you've got the why, which is great. You could be the where, but it's the when. It's the when what creates that kind of pressure, creates that aggression.

So like, I always, every single thing that we do now, for clients for myself, is like, what is your deadline? Because most of the time, guys, like, I would probably categorize it saying, when people say something's going to take 10 hours, it can take one hour. But the thing is, we put ourselves in its situation,

situation was like, well, I want to, I want this to happen to my personal life. I want to buy that house or I want to get that car. I want to do this. But you don't turn around and go like, when, this is what I'm doing it. So it's like, well, I was, I was about to buy us forever home until I spent about 80 grand on this program this year. But I've turned around now and gone, right, in two years time, I'm buying that fucking farmhouse in the countryside. I ain't got enough money for it yet, no chance. But I've turned around and said, in two years time, on this day, this is where we're going to be in a situation where we can start getting that forever home.

It's like the signing up to an ultramarathon, it might be signed up to a bike rider, might whatever it be, but rather than having these little passive goals, like if you're a passive goal person, you'll be a passive person and you'll become a doormat. If you have that level of like intensity and ingression around what you actually want to achieve from life and business,

then that's when in my opinion you will actually start to kind of make it happen. In terms of being a dormant in general, or guys like what type of what type of context do you mean by that if someone's just walking all over them yeah i would i would say if we if we were going to stick to maybe business um or we can stick to even relationships as well it's you know not standing up for yourself not um saying what you think um doing things for people just because they asked you to but it's not really you know um it's not really conducive to to what you want but you but you you you you you you you don't have your voice to stick up for yourself.

First thing I'd be saying there is what you actually comparing against, what is the expectation? So if someone's walking all over someone else, it means that they've got an expectation for what they believe and perceive, whereas if that other person hasn't got any type of foundation for themselves, then you're never going to be able to stand up for yourself. So like this all starts with, so earlier in the podcast,

I spoke about the no side swipe rule. So nobody in my company at any point is allowed to side. swipe me because I will side swipe their head off straight away. And I'm the best relaxed boss ever. And I stand by that in terms of what I do for my team, what they get paid. I'm a great boss, right? But if you side swipe me, you're done. So that's a situation where loads of people could, without that rule, could come in and hit me with anything at any point.

But that way, that's where I'm being a door map because people are doing the complete opposite of what the expectation I have is for them. So like if you're in a situation where it's like my wife or my husband or my boyfriend or girlfriend, dad, mom, whatever it is, is treating me in a way which I'm not happy with. The first thing that you need to write down is

what is the way that you do actually want them to treat you? Because if you've not got, it's like when people go into our debates, it's like one person being prepared with a debate and the other person not having anything prepared, that person's going to trample all over that person. So like you need, in order to not be a doormat and stand up for this,

like you need to actually know what your own expectations are as a person, what your own values are. So this is very, very similar to what I call a red and green flags list with sales. So if you need to have your green flags list is what people are on the call with who are ticking all the boxes. These are going to be a great client. Your red flags list is where people are ticking loads of boxes where they're going to be a nightmare client. Like for you to not be a doormat there would be to turn around to the red flags person and turn around and go, sorry, mate, this is not right for you. But if you don't have that comparison

of what your expectations and what their expectation is, then you're never going to be in a situation to be able to stand up for yourself. So the common thing here is like, look, I know values gets like pushed around all over the place, especially like within business,

but like I actually think values are a lot more important as a person than they are as a professional sometimes because, again, going back to that standpoint of your professional opinions and beliefs will always shape your professional expectations and outputs. So, like, for me, it's like, it's really starting to understand, like, what do you actually value as a person?

Like, what do you value in terms of communication? What do you value in terms of the relationship that you are in? And even if you have to start writing this down, so, like, let's just say, you're in right now, guys, where you feel like you're in a doormat for someone, right? Write out all of those names of these people. You feel out walking all over here. Whatever your relationship is to that person, write a bullet point list of how that would be the best relationship for you ever. Cross-reference that against what they're at. actually doing to you and then go to that fucking person and speak to them about it and going it's like

i've got me so i'm not showing me endless to-do list but it's like you even if it's like i've been in a situation before where me and stacey have like a big decision we need to make a whatever it's and i've just wrote stuff down and i've just taken it as a notepad and just and and i think that unless you are unless you do take the time to write down like what your actual own expectations are like people are going to naturally walk all over you so like write shit down on your notes, build out, build out like little mind maps or whatever it may be, like, start making notes like what I do. Obviously, guys, I've run quite a big business that has been over the years.

In the last 10 years, there's been quite a few disciplinarists. There's been quite a few people who's been sacked. I can't go to that person and out of nowhere and go, right, you're sacked. I have to build out a list. I have to build out a list of like, look, this were a problem, this were a problem, this were a problem, this were a problem. And because of the accumulation of all these problems, you even need to sort your shit out or you need to fuck off right and that's me and god don't address

it like that and me and ever guys like even when people it's always really nice right but it's the same as a relationship it's exactly the same like that's me and stacey you've got really good at this because we've built businesses together and i think that's like it's i know so many people now where it's like they're in relationships and they're like and there's a friend's family like client client speaks me about anything as you can imagine but like looking at like the social life and the sex life and everyone what it is and they'll turn around and go well what's the actual idealistic picture of what you want out of this because you might be the fucking problem yeah that's something that people don't realize like the amount of times

I've wrote all these lists out and I've gone oh shit it's me it's me is that it's I'm not listening to stacer or when she's asked me to do that I've not actually done it like one thing that I keep getting pissed off with myself is like cleaning the room after remi when stacey's sorting kitchen out and every day like she says it to me and it's like recently i'm like right i'm make a point of going i'm just going to sort that room because that i know that's a problem for her if she walks into that living room and she's been baffing remit and it's still a shit tip and it's like but sometimes i might turn around well stacy didn't do this this this and this and this and it's complicated because it's coming from both angles so yeah to not be a dormant would be to set

your own expectations for what you actually want first compare against how someone is treating you and then cross-reference is it, are they the problem, are you the problem? If they are the problem, just go and speak to them about it. People, one thing I'll say, though, guys, is don't pull your lists out straight away. Don't do that.

That's going to piss someone off pretty quickly. But when you're in a conversation and you're going back and forth, it's like, look, I've been sat thinking about this for quite a while, like, I've actually got notes on my phone, like, if you say it there, whereas if you walk up to your wife, lads, or anyone, and go, this is a list of problems that I've got with you

or your husband, like, that's not going to go. down well but if you enter that conversation because then what you can do it I've done it before I've like I've turned around to stacing and like well you come back to me with like a few different things as well and especially within business now I do it all the time like it's like you need to go away and come back to me and I'll come back to you and then let's match this up and see how it works lesson 27 burnout isn't just being tired it's a complete system crash I was doing too much sport training and education. It was inhibiting me from making actual progress in any area.

When you spread yourself too thin, you're not getting far in any direction. How can people avoid burnout and maybe talk a little bit about your own experiences with burnout from a training perspective and even from a business perspective as well? Yeah, so my thing at the moment is I have like a priority index. when I were in my early 20s like my priorities were training and work so quite easy them whereas my priority index now is very very different

it is Stacey, Remy, family having time off for myself with the pressure that I'm kind of under and I still have these moments mate I still have these moments where I see someone do something crazy like I were planning on doing Everest in the next two years and in that moment I was like

that's impossible for me to actually able to do that I can't do it. Like, and sometimes when I see this with people like doing like a marathon prep or they do like a bodybuilding competition or whatever. And they're trying to launch like a product or build an offer or do something in the business. At the same time as this huge, massive task with themselves personally as well, alongside they've just become a parent or that they're getting married. And it's never, it's never the fact that like just getting married on its own is really difficult or just running that marathon or just doing that business. It's about how people are kind of simultaneously doing it together. So one thing that I find with people who are in a place of burnout

And I know this first-hand guys I'm not judging the choir here Like I lived I was burnout I was the definition of fucking burnout for the most of my career And all of it always come down to The fact that I was making stupid decisions It was like I know I needed to hire that person

But I didn't hire them I knew I needed to press potentially spread those two projects out a little bit more But I decided to do them together like I've just been through it myself I was preparing for an ultramarathon writing a book and rebuilding the program at the same time but the only reason I do that now guys is because I'm I've got to a point where like I'm quite good at managing that level but I also know that once I've done it and I've done it properly I can chill out after this so like the only thing I

need to do my business now which is what I love the most is just get back fully involved in the community every single client back into support more because I'm not doing these big kind of projects but like burnout for me is a decision-making process it's like am i if you look at the categories of your life where it's like is it health wealth family socials uh fitness fun whatever it may be is like sometimes people in a situation where they're doing loads with a family loads with the fitness loads with finance but they're not having any fun so like you might think that you're not in a place of burnout but you're actually are because you're channeling so much output while I'm not actually taking any time to actually have fun with it.

So like for me it comes down to like balancing all these different areas and finding that place where it's like I'm a big believer that burnout can be solved with Google Calendar. So I'm guessing that you use Google Calendar because of booking like the how I manage burnout now with my family and everything here guys is if it is not on my Google Calendar, it is not happening. even down to you're going out for a meal with Stacey like Ben you need to watch Remme for two hours there or we're going away for this weekend like if it's not in my good kind it's not happening

because when I didn't use this do use calendar and calendars properly I'd find that I'd basically have like it might have been um we're going back when I actually used to go out and enjoy myself a bit more but we might have been go to a festival for like two days like four or five years ago but then on Monday morning I had this to launch and it was like and it was never the fact

that I couldn't handle doing it all. It's the fact that I couldn't handle doing it in close succession together. So like if you're in a place of burnout at the moment, like a Google calendar tells you two things I always say to people. It tells you how fucking busy you are and it tells you how stupid you are as well. Right? Because some people, if you're not using Google Calendar, you might claim that you're really, really, really, little busy.

But when you actually put all the shit that you should be doing into your calendar and realize that you've got six hours here and there, like you ain't fucking busy. But then also at the same time as if you're like, like me and you stack in your Google calendar, you look at that and go, well, this is actually pretty fucking stupid. So like Google calendar guys, I honestly live and live and breathe on it and it'll give you all the answers because like that's one of the first things that I, whenever someone turns around to me and says, I'm really, really busy, I'm burnt out.

I'll say, send me a screenshot of your seven day Google calendar. First things first. I'll just call someone out on their own bullshit. It's a, what I really think is a good point there as well is that like people people might especially the type of people listening to this they might use google calendar to to book in all their business tasks of the week but then they don't do it to like you said do things like date night or whatever it is and obviously that's going to consume your life as well and it's important to prioritize them and have them booked in yeah so i have if anyone watches this i'll send them something called a master operator so this is basically like a google sheet that I used to plan my entire year.

So the first thing that me and Stacey do when I come to us, because obviously I've got a lot more commitments to Stacey, especially with Remy all the time. But we'll sit down at the back end of a year and I'll turn around and go, right, you tell me every single week that we're doing something. So if we're, even before this is booked, we'll

book four holidays in, maybe four weekends. We won't have a plan for it, but this will be booked onto my Google client. So I basically designed my entire year with around my friends and family and stuff that we're doing there, or if I'm doing some stupid shit like climbing mountains, which I'm doing 6,000 meter one next year. I'll book that in there so I know what weekend I'm going to do it.

And then from that point, that's when it's like, right, Rob, operations manager, when have we got events, when have I got masterminds, when have I got all this stuff? So all I do is I layer it out onto this visual, like, logic, this visual calendar, and then I'll just get my EA to just build that onto my Google calendar at start of each year. And then from that point, it's a case of like, Stacey, if I've got to watch Remy or I've got some of that, she'll book it into my calendar. Because I genuinely, like, I genuinely do not know how you overcome and manage burnout without a calendar plan.

Because it is just guesswork, and it's like you might think that you're really, really busy, but you might not be. But having it in your calendar where it's like you're going out for a few drinks with your wife or your friends are somewhere. And if you've got that calendar, it's like, well, fucking Saturday morning, I've got to be there at 10 o'clock. So you don't go out until 2 a.m. and come back in because you know you've got that next thing coming on.

So literally it's all I do is like at the start of each week I'll just literally look on to obviously have people who help me support it and manage it but I'll just look at my calendar, look at what I've got in and I'll see what spaces and then I'll just fill the gaps with different stuff. And I just have a really rigid structure. So like even in my Google calendar it has the day that I'm waking, not a day that I'm waking up, not in a coma.

But like the time that I'm waking up, the time that I'm journaling, the time that I finish work, the time that I'm home. So like today, for example, it will only be, until like 4.30 where I get that notification where I'm like, fuck, then I do my, like, even my steps, like if I walk in a morning, walking afternoon, it will only be until that notification pops

up on my screen that I go, fuck, now you need, it's finish. Because otherwise, I'd be like, and you do, you get so locked into it, especially when noise cancellation had phones on, guys, by the way, like, get some of these and you're not going to burn out superpowers. I'll send you some binaural beats and it'll send you insane, but you'll be really productive.

But yeah, Google, kind of for me. Lesson 32. When you're stuck in your own bubble, you're in a town, your social circle, your problems, everything seems all consuming. Travel pops that bubble. Tell me about your time in Uganda when you're younger. What did you learn? Oh God, man. So this is my biggest regret in life. So I feel like I've done everything. I've done the part. I have done their travel as well. I've been in, I've been to Uganda and I've been to Africa five times, Fiji, Australia, Thailand, like, loads of countries. But one thing that I never did, I never spent a sustained period of time in Fiji for

six weeks. So out of all of the traveling that I've ever done, it's always been, I only been for like a week or two. And this is something that I stand back. It's funny because I've just come back from New Yorker yesterday. And we, Stacey had two family holidays to book this year and she booked me Yorker twice and I was like, you, you better never do that again. I'm not going to same country twice in a year. Luckily, we are going to New York and then Dubai and stuff. but like the thing that I kind of look at with travel is it's there there's a guy on Instagram called one life I think it's called one life truck it and you've got one life trucker and he basically quit his job sold up got this overlander massive like truck and he has

literally just been driving around the world for like the last like two three years like he's built a massive profile and stuff over it so when I look at travel and I obviously follow loads of billionaires, loads of millionaires, loads of all that type of stuff. When I look at who's the richest person on social media, it's that bloke. Like, for me, like, there's nothing that

gets more depth to a person, changes perspective more, gives you a proper, proper time out, like, than just being in situations and circumstances and nothing that you've, you've never even perceived before.

So I went to Uganda when I was 16, and I went there off the bank, of like some bad situations it was just after me answered it hung herself like when i'd kind had this fight or flight response with what were going on and i remember going to uganda and there i think i wrote about this in the book um there was it was crazy it changed my life it changed the trajectory of my life like but i went into that anger resentment hate and i still come out of it with the same feelings but i had the same feelings with a different perspective And that perspective come from this kid who was blind.

So I was volunteering in a blind school. And this kid walked out with this, I think it's an accordion or an xylophone where they press it and play it together like music. And he started, this blind kid to start playing that. And I was like, originally I would have sat there like, how the, how the fuck is that guy doing that? Like playing it so, so, so well.

Two minutes later, he starts singing. And he starts singing, I swear to go out, but like, Sean Paul's good music, not his like terrible stuff. but his voice was like identical to like Sean Paul and it was like in that moment I remember just sitting there and thinking what have I got to complain about you?

I gave away all of my so I came back in shorts and a t-shirt I gave away all of my clothes, all of my luggage, any bit of money that I had at 16, I come back with my passport and a shorts and T-shirt because that's why I'm giving it away. 24 hours later, one of the kids were I giving the clothes to,

message me on Facebook saying I'm so, so sorry and I was like, what's he done here? It was like, I'm so, so sorry after you gave me all that clothes and I was walking home, someone mugged me and beat me up and took it all off me. And I was like, and again, just had all these little situations where I was like,

so I'm here coming back to, I've still got a house, like I still weren't close with people, I've got opportunities, I've got chances, and it was from that trip where everything changed for me. So I come back and I literally got two pot washing jobs straight away.

So I went from not really doing much to having 60 hours with a pot washing a week. I bought a road bike. I was doing some dodgy shit back then, guys, so I did have a bit of money. But I bought a road bike. I did have an illegal car and a moped at one point as well. But that's a different story for another time.

And I was cycling 18 miles between these two podcast jobs. The college that I was at and I signed up to two A levels. So that was like the spark for me it only come from that trip remember it's all about perspective before that i could have come back and probably gone down a bit of a different route in life very easily but i come back from that 50 hours pot-wash in a week cycling still in a rugby league academy and completing a b-tech and two a level in one year to get into university and i just went to home do you think like it

humbled you a little bit when you went over there. Oh yeah. It was like, it were a big piece of like shut the fuck up and get on with it. That's what it was like. It was that it was just that moment of sometimes when we're sat in grief and sat in trauma, like a big part of it is we are looking for, what is it? Me and I was still doing this. I remember me and Stacey like really started speaking about it and I was like, I realized

that indirectly a lot of stuff and how I was acting was down to a validation perspective. I was trying to validate why I felt like it and validate what happened and validate all this situation. It was that validation what kept me stuck in that river and I were trapped. And that was like the first point of like that change your perspective and change your point of validation by seeing that situation. But that did again, that still come with a cost because I think that from 16 to like 24, everything was a blur because I was I was obsessed. I was that was that created the lone wolf yeah which was again the one of the reasons that I've got why do what I do today and have what I have today but that again then return the situation so when me and Carl were speaking earlier it was about like you have that one compound thing then that

next one become a thing that even though you're like looking like going that's a great story you change your life around but actually I'd then become addicted to progression I've become addicted to like going out like validation with with sleeping with way way way too many girls like just doing it for the sake of like getting that validation and confidence and for myself and

for example like again years later you start to just see these bigger pictures and like we're obviously talking from a perspective of you guys trying to avoid all this shit but guys you know like the only thing that you need to do is when you get that light bulb moment you just need to change it yeah like I still have realisations now where it's like oh my fucking God

like six years ago or something. I was like, imagine if I got that, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it because it took that amount of time, but I'm not going to ignore it. Like, I'm not going to ignore that experience, then come back and do the same shit over and over again. So, like, that's why this is what the mountains is for me now. So I've climbed Kilimanjaro, climbed tube car, climbed over a few big mountains, and my goal is to eventually get to a point of doing Everest. Like, the reason that I do that is because when I'm up, when I'm out there and I'm up in their mountains and it's like sometimes life or death situation like what i i remember i passed out on top

of kilimanjaro but that weren't fun um but when i kind of come come back down to reality it's like i just have this completely different perspective so like do you know if you're in a and i this is a conversation me and stacy had is like i am not being that family who go on the same all day to the same places to the same same same every single year i said i want to be my goals now is like in three years time, four years time or whatever, I've got my business to a point where it's like, I can batch loads of content, bachelor shit I need to do,

and then take my family on a safari to Africa. My best mate is learning to sail at the moment, and he put me up when I lost everything in 2018, his best mate brother. He wants to get a sale in yacht. So I'm like, look, I'll give you 25 grand towards it when you get to that point. It's like, they're the type of goals that I have now.

It's not like, I want to have more money for this, I want to have more money for that. it's a case of I want to have more freedom, more opportunity, so that I can experience that 50% part what, despite the life story that I do have, I want to experience more of that, because sitting and as much as like, the best way I can describe it, guys,

is I probably spent 10 times more time on the personal side of the book that did the business, the business stuff I did like that instantly. I found it so, so, so easily. When I find something really, really easy, like it doesn't really, like, challenge me as much. And for me, like the challenging stuff is getting into a position where you've got more freedom. It is taking time away and traveling and getting different perspective.

Like if you feel like you're stuck in a rut right now and your life of your business or whatever it is, like, it might be the fact that you're just going at the same places that you always do with your family. It might be the fact that you need to go and book something what's a little bit different. Or you might be living in a city somewhere in a hometown. Like I'm not one of these people where I'm like, you have to leave and go to Dubai. I'm not, we're not leaving and moving to Dubai. Like, there's no chance I've ever going to Bali. Like, yeah, is it going to help you? But sometimes it's not just about going to the same place

that everyone's telling you to go to, which is like Dubai. It might be a case of right, I'm going to fucking, I'm just going to go to Philippines for a bit. Or I'm going to, I would, it's funny, like my screen here is a globe on my right screen. And the reason that's there is like, I just look at that. And it's like, this world that we are in is so, so, so, so big. the next one for me is actually going to Peru and doing ayahuasca

which is something that I avoided in my early 20s because I think I'd have potentially turned into a serial killer but it's viral but like so that's my thing is that I want to go Peru or I'm experience that I don't think you can't walk up to Mathu Picchu anymore which is annoying but it's like those type of goals for me guys is like I had someone on a call the other day

and they was he was basically saying I've done like a three grand week or something is like I'm feeling buzzing if I don't feel anything to it and I said yeah because you're looking at money. I said, well, do you know with that money? I said, right, I want you to come back to me and describe three things that you want. It was like, oh, well, yeah, I want to get a house. I said, right, well, what house?

How many bedrooms? Where? How big is it? What the walls look like? What's your driveway look like? That's what business is about for me. It's not just about killing yourself and fucking yourself over even more. It's about working to get to a point of blittered and genuinely designing exactly what you

want from your life. your business has to fulfill the over 50% to it because otherwise what is the fucking point this leads really well onto the next one that I really loved so lesson 47 make sure you celebrate success with others this was my problem for many years after I would achieve things and feel nothing because I didn't have people around me to get behind it

no matter how big or small celebrate with people yeah I still this is um this is some of that I think most entrepreneurs get to a point of being my especially if you've got ADHD and dopamine fixation like you get to a point where these wins just don't feel like anything at all I've done it where I was like I'm back to back wins everything for years and years and years and years and I was like I just don't

I don't feel any type of attachment towards this situation so I think one of the first things that you need to do is when you do set these milestones is you need to set something where you're not going to look yeah you want to if you want to go and get yourself a car that's absolutely mint. I'm personally, I've had one materialistic thing in my life, and that was my defender at 30 years old, but I could have got that when I were 22. I wasn't bothered about it until I was like, look, I'm 30 year old now. Same when I'm 40. I want to get an Aston Martin. I could go one now if I wanted to, but I'm not going to, because I want that to be working towards.

I'm a big believer that your goals need to be met with an experience because I believe that that embeds that a lot more. So whether it's like when you hit that financial month, it's like, are you going to go away for a weekend. Are you going to go and experience something with someone you love? Talk about it and actually learn to acknowledge it and feel it because that was a big, big problem for me is like no matter what I achieved or what I did or I got to a point is I'd still felt exactly the same. And I felt very, very numb to it. I'm still quite like that now. I'm very, very, very numb to a situation. But I think that's just the conditioning with business and you kind of get to that point. But yeah, it's like when you do set these goals like try and think

about not just the amount of money or whatever it is. It's like what type of experience can you attach onto that? So one of my core memories is when we hit our first 100 grand month and I took all of my mates to Dubai and we rented like a Ferrari, Lambo, G-Wag. I jumped out of plane, nearly had a panic attack, never jumping out of a plane ever again. I thought I'm going to die. Worst experience of my life. Regret that part.

But that memory there is like a core memory. But I remember Dubai because it was when we got to that point. And I think that's what I try and work towards now. I was like, don't do stupid stuff like that. Don't get me wrong. But like money is just money. I always have this conversation with, so people always say like about like pre-nups and all that.

Like we obviously, we don't have anything like that. Like Stacey's got 50% of my business and she's a director and she's obviously wife, my kid. And I always say Stacey has like a run of joke where it's like bed would not be bothered if we split up and I took everything because it just rebuild it all straight away. Like, I'm not bothered about the money side of it. I'm bothered about the process and what it feels to actually create something. And I feel like so many people are lost in this. I'm not earning enough money yet. I'm not where I want to be yet. Rather than going,

like, the most beautiful thing in business for me is building. Like, I absolutely fucking love it. Like, I'm better when I'm climbing a hill. I think this is what reason for mountains. I'm much better when I climbs hill them when I get to the top. When I get to the top, I'm like, well, where am we going to go from here now? Like, I think that as, the one of the reasons why people don't see as much success and it's hard of people in business now is because of the fake, realistic expectation of what it is to actually build a business. Like, it's bullshit.

Like, there is no, like, guys, I work with some of the top, top, top, top people in this game, right? And I've worked with them even more before. All of them struggle still. nobody's waking up every single day in business

and absolutely fucking killing it none of the people that you're seeing on ads none of them there is always problems

so it's like if you're only ever attached onto the outcome or the result and not the actual process and learning

to problem solve and digest and discovering actually become a business owner like you're never

going to see success because all you're going ever see is failure and see the things

that aren't working rather than going like I love it now like I have

all of my live that I do every single week. I have three live calls a week with a group community. All I do on there is I have a document and everyone blasts problems at me for 60 minutes straight, but I put it onto a document and I just dissect it one by one. Do I mean like, whereas I love that. And my clients love it as well.

It's like, I'm obviously doing this for you, but you need to create that type of mindset where it's not just about watching something for the Sega Washington or doing this. It's like, what problem is this going to solve? And I think that when you get to a point of like focusing on like the solutions and the frameworks and understanding like what it takes to build a business, it becomes a much more fun process. But the worst clients that we have or have seen previously is like the people who just come in with a completely unrealistic expectation of what it actually takes to build a business. Because they just fall out of it at the moment that something doesn't work. And I'm like that doesn't work for anyone. I love Elon Musk's quote on this, whereas like he still spends the majority of,

of his time in the mechanical room. He's got no reason like we're fucking 400 billion that bloke or whatever it is. I'm pretty sure that Eka and I are the best mechanical person that there is out there in the world, but he still spends most of his time in the ranks and where all the problems are.

Because that's what he's obsessed with, is obsessed with that type of process. Real connection requires vulnerability, presence and the willingness to show up when it's inconvenient, not just when it fits your schedule. In a busy world of business what have you learned about friendship oh oh god I could go down two different

routes here I'm I'm a person where I trust very very very very quickly but I'll also cut off even quicker I'm a big I really like to see the best in people I would say that it's my my biggest trait as a person is how much I care about people but my biggest weakness as a person is how much I care about what they think or how much I care about their actions and behaviours. So I've been in situations now where the majority of my team are so loyal to me because of what I've done to them and how much I've given to them. Same as my friendship groups. But then I've also had some people in my friendship groups who have just tried to lean on me for financial support or business support because they're doing

something similar in this space. And that friendship has then become just a free consult. and the same with people where I've given so much to them. They've also stabbed me in the back quite a few times over the years. Like it really, really comes down to that 50-50 rule. And I'm not a believer in ever tiptoeing into something. It's like you, mate. Like, when I come across you and your account,

like, I must like and comment on about four or five year posts every single week. I'm proper obsessed with it. But it's like when I find someone I can really, really relate to and I can connect to it, like, I'm going to invest into that person. and I'm going to show them something back. Whereas I think that a lot of people, like, they know people, but they keep them at arm's length. It's like they've got that gap and that space to protect themselves.

And yeah, I completely understand the process of, like, protecting yourself and keeping your cards close to your chest and all that type of stuff. I get the concepts of it, but, like, I just truly believe, like, you're never, ever going to get to know what type of relationship that can go into fruition from is if you don't just allow yourself to go into it, It's like when people have been cheating on by a partner and then they just don't get a boyfriend or a girlfriend for like years after that. And I'm like that that's like, that's just mind-blowing.

Like the reason that you are not getting into another relationship is because you've held onto that trauma. And then even if you do get into another relationship, you're still holding onto that. So you're going to judge them based on that. And then next thing you know, you're 10 years down the line. You're still not got a successful relationship and you're wondering why. It's the exact same process with business. Like when you hire coaches or hire teams or. or managers or set as close,

operations, managers, whatever it is like, some people are going to be good, some people are going to be shit. But it's the same way as a failing relationship or a failing friendship or a failing team member. You just need to get over it and get on with it really quickly. So when people, and what I love a concept of is that hire slow, fire fast. So you should never ever hire someone really, really, really quickly because you don't know enough about them

and then keep them stretched on because you spent so much time fucking hiring them. So like, so when you kind of coming in, it's like, hire as slow as you can, but also when someone's getting to a point where they're stretching out, being a problematic person, like you just need to exit that straight away. Like, number one, especially with the teams that I've worked in companies, is like firing people and organizational structure will completely and ultimately transform the dynamic of a company.

All it takes is one by the way to be causing so many problems. And for me, it's the exact same with your friendships and your relationships. like I just I'm not a it's hard this make because I know a lot of people will be like you need to protect yourself and you need to like make sure you've got looking after your own back and that but I'm like you can never actually get to know the depth of a relationship if you're keeping someone on arm's length like I'm a big believer in putting two feet in if someone's a twat I'm putting two feet out I'm not I'm not tiptoeing in where someone doesn't know where I stand with them or where I do you know what I mean vice versa well that's where the vulnerability comes into isn't it's like you're taking a risk and it can be scary but if you don't take that risk you could be missing out on something wonderful. Yeah, I'm a massive believer in that, bro. Yeah. Last one, all right. He saved me from myself many times.

When I couldn't connect with people, I could connect with him. When I couldn't love myself, I could love him. When I couldn't be consistent with anything else, I was consistent with his care. That responsibility anchored me when I was at risk of flowing away completely. Do you know who I'm talking about? My dog, Jacks. God, this is

touch you on this at a moment. So Jack's getting old. Jack's getting old now. It's like 11. And it's weird. Do you know what people say you prepare yourself for the worst? Like, I've,

mentally I've just thought about what am I going to do when he actually dies? Like, what am I actually going to do? Like if you were going to ask, obviously not now with like Remi and Stacey, but if you were going to speak to anyone in my life and I mean anyone who knows anything about me, they will alter,

around and go, what is the priority order? What is the worst situation that can ever happen to Ben? And it's, you know, it's Jack's dying. He was, but, God, he was feral, he were angry, he were aggressive, he were, he were an absolute

nightmare as a puppet, and he was just a reflection of me back then. It was the exact, he was fucking the, and this is what everyone says, is like, he spent time with me and Jack's like, even now, as I've, as I've evolved in the last 10 years, he's evolved with me at the same time.

So to put this to perspective, guys, everyone's seen that. I can't remember what film is where, like, it pins the dog down and bites him to stop him being aggressive. It's that snow dogs film. I can't remember what it's called. When I got Jacks, I took him to puppy training him. I took him to everything, like, he was vicious.

Like, he was, like, big, well, obviously it's big now, but a puppy, aggressive as anything. And I took him to like a Husky specialist. And there was like, you need to pin this dog down, bite it and hit it like you'd hit an adult. and I'm like, what? I mean, you want me to, and bear in mind, I skipped cage training, which were a big mistake

because I were too soft and he were crying and I were upset and I wanted him to get in bed with me. But he was like, you don't understand, if you don't do this to this dog, right, you'll end up having to getting put down in three, four years' time because he currently thinks he's the alpha, currently thinks he's that situation. So I was like, so you want me to get this, like,

you're getting bigger and bigger. You want to get a, like, puppy, teenage dog, get it on the floor, bite it and punch it when it attacks me when it's wanting to get his food. Now, I swear to God, mate, like, I remember getting down my hands and knees in front of his dog bowl, and I was like, I can't believe him even doing this. He's going mental, same as you know,

there's a vicious growling at bad, going mental, comes at me, lunges at me. I grabbed him, pinned him down, punched him, bit him. I swear to God, mate, it's squealed, set up, right? His whole mannerism and his face completely and utterly changed. And then from that point there, he was like the most loyal, loving dog you will ever experience in your life.

Like, everyone always turned around to me back in the day and it was like, you can't train a husker to not run off the lead. I was like, watch me. I was like watch me. So it took me two years with like a 100 metre long lead on a field where I'd think he'd be running off and I'd just stand on lead and tunk it, tunking back after 50 metres or so. But eventually, like, I then got him to a point where he was like off lead,

but like such a well-behaved dog. and then Narlah, my second Husky, like, Jacks was taught by her. So, like, so funny, because I take him out, like, obviously every single day, like,

anytime I see, like, dog walkers or people who are huskies, they're like, how have you done that? How have you done that? I said, by just not giving up on it. Yeah.

Same as, like, not giving up on anything. Like, people might turn around to you and say, you can't do this or you can't do that. Like,

I love that because I'm like, watch me. I'm going to, I will find a way to make this work, no wonder what it is. But, yeah, he was, oh mate like he he was there during the 3 a.m. sessions on my own with a bottle of whiskey.

He was there when I was like so close to doing so much stupid and he'd come up to me and stop me. Like he's like it's so, so, so, so in touch with me. And it's like since I've, in last four or five years since I've just got a lot more kind of relaxed, especially after just meeting Stacey. Like, Evan knows says like Stacey like was the person who like tamed me. like I did with Jacks. And even since I just become more and more relaxed, like he's just exactly the same. Like, he's just match my energy and match my personality.

And he's still a pub, it's weird because he's like, he's obviously getting old now, but he's still exactly just like a puppy. Like you wouldn't even think that he doesn't look that old yet, but it obviously is a bit. So, but then I'm in a point in my life now where like when it does come to that point,

I think that I will, I will be able to have the capacity to handle it because of everything that I've learned, everything that I've believed, the gratitude that I have from other situations, the medication, like, I feel like, Remy, my responsibility is now very, very different. But yeah, that was like, that was like my worst nightmare for a long time. Like I used to think about me doing it and then him diet, like, I'd think about these situations all the time. Whereas now it's like, I'm just grateful for who he is and what he is.

And I'm hoping that he's obviously going to be with us for a few more years at least. Yeah, I think it's so powerful that line as well. When I couldn't be consistent with anything else, I was consistent with his care. I think for people who aren't dog owners or don't have pets, like I think when you get your first pet, like there is something there about like, it changes who you are in terms of responsibility and like your capacity for love and care.

And you know, I love there's a, there's a meme that I was sharing. It's like, you don't have to worry if humans don't like it. It's when animals don't like that you need to worry about. I thought that was brilliant. I looked at, Ben, this is being unbelievable. If people wanted to follow up on the work that you do, or they wanted to get your book,

which I 10 out of 10 recommend. I think it's brilliant. Where can they go? If you just go to Ben Hawksuff underscore and then click onto my links and it's like all links, the book ones there. But if you drop me a message out,

I can send you over as well. I've got a little code as well so I can fire a code over to anyone who wants a bit of a discount. It's not that expensive. It might buy two quid, but it adds up, I think it's worth it.

And we're going to do part two and go more deeper into business for the next one. Yeah, so we're going to do a part two and I'll get that onto my YouTube as well so I think that would be a class discussion. Because that's actually a really good idea for the book promo,

which I didn't even think about until Carl's just done it now. So I just want to say, like, one, thank you for letting me on, bro. I know that originally I asked you, but I've just been writing the book and building the program since then. But Carl's an incredible guy, so I don't know where you'll be watching this or wherever it is, but like share his word. Like there's not many. In his book, I'll say what I'll put in his book.

I wrote down, I said the one thing that I find most attractive in a person is depth, you are the ocean. That's the best way I could describe, Carl, is like, there are not many people in this world who think and act and operate on like the level he does, and I can see why he's had such success and has great opportunities that kind of coming in his way all the time because you're a great bloke, bro. I appreciate and I appreciate today, and until the next one.