The Wellness Scoop - Spencer Matthews: lack of purpose, taking responsibility, and the power of small healthy habits

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

This week Ella is joined by Spencer Matthews for a candid conversation on the pressure to fulfil your potential, avoidance, and the detrimental impact of a life without purpose. They discuss taking responsibility of unhealthy habits, how sobriety transformed Spencer’s life and has enabled him to be the father, husband, friend, and businessman that he always wanted to be. They discuss: Chasing fame in his 20s Feeling a pressure to succeed and live up to your potential Using drinking to numb out boredom and a lack of purpose His catalyst moment for addressing his relationship with alcohol Spencer’s experience of breaking the cycle of excessive drinking Building mental strength through physical fitness Cultivating self-awareness The mindset shift that helped him transform his health Spencer’s outlook towards implementing healthy habits Links: Spencer’s podcast Big Fish For new subscribers, use code podcast20 to get 20% off the Feel Better App Wellness Toolkit for this episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Terms and conditions apply. Quick favour, could you hit the subscribe button? It really helps get the show out there so that more people can be inspired by the personal growth that our guests are talking about and take those lessons into their own lives. Welcome to Wellness with Ella, the Deliciously Ella podcast.

This is a podcast that aims to inspire you, to empower you, to leave you feeling uplifted. And each week I want to share what wellness really looks like as we unpack the simple tools that have helped each one of our guests turn a negative into a positive and unlock true happiness and genuine health. And by health, I don't mean how they look, I mean their energy their excitement their fulfillment the question is how can we all get more from life so a few months ago I met today's guest on a panel for a Facebook event that we were both doing and it was about turning a negative into a positive how do you take your rock bottom

and transform it into purpose and prior to that I'm not sure if I'm completely honest that this guest is who I would have immediately had in mind for the show but as part of this panel and this discussion I was really struck by his story his experience his very honest way of talking about the catalyst that made him want to change his life what it felt like to go towards his sense of rock bottom and realize what was really holding him back from the life that he wanted and I think we can all relate to those habits the ones that we know aren't helping us but there aren't easy to change and the the question really is, is what happens if we could change

them? Would it help unlock our sense of potential? Could it change our lives? It sounds simple, but that is what our guest today, Spencer Matthews, found when he made one fundamental change to his life. He found he not only got the gift of more time, but focus, fulfillment, joy, and the sense of purpose and personal satisfaction that I think he'd been missing all of his life up until that point. So with those questions in mind, let's get into the episode, looking at how we can stop wasting aspects of our lives and unlock all of our potential. Well, Spencer, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me.

So we've got a lot to talk about, and I just wanted to give you a bit of context for it, which is that basically over the last five years of the show existing, we've spoken to loads of doctors and neuroscientists and all about how to look after your health. You know, why sleep's good for you, the benefit of exercise, how that impacts your brain, etc. And it's been fascinating. But I personally very passionately believe that people learn from people and people are inspired by people and real human stories. And we all, everyone's lives are fundamentally completely different, but no life is linear. And we all have bumps in the road or challenges that often can act as a catalyst moment to look at some of our behaviors some of our habits and kind of take that look in the mirror of like are we living

the life we want to live or could we get so much more from our life and those challenges manifest so differently for everybody but I'm so interested to look at that for want of a better word journey for people and these kind of universal challenges and therefore slightly universal solutions but in one person's life and so before we get into that I would love you just to introduce yourself because obviously people might know you from your podcast Big Fish, from your reality TV, all the different shows you've done, from yours and your wife Vogue's podcast and so on or from your entrepreneurial story with Clean Co but who who do you feel you are? I'm Spencer Matthews and I'm a dad above all else and and I have and firstly I'm delighted to be

here because everything you've just said resonates so much with me and you know if I can get and get messages out to people it's always within those parameters How can you do more with your life and how can you be healthier? That's pretty much how CleanCo came about. I suppose I would love to be known as the CleanCo founder. That is what's probably most important to me professionally outside of my family. And it's where I think we can do the most good and for lack of a better word, change the most lives or help the most people as well as building something that I think is really cool and it was born out of a desire to almost help myself change right I drank excessively I had a drinking problem whether or not I was dependent

on alcohol or just had fallen into very bad habits over the years is something that I'm unclear on, to be honest. But what I think is very important for anybody is just to have a good, healthy relationship with alcohol, whether that be not drinking at all or drinking moderately or whatever it looks like to you and everyone's journey is personal and different. But with CleanCo, you know, I took the decision to become sober and it completely changed my life. Immeasurably different life now. And it allowed me to become professionally driven. It allowed me to develop something that I truly care about and could invest most of my time into you know yeah proud to say that Cleanco is now the leading independent British non-alcoholic brand and you know I'm looking

forward to digging into that more with you but it's just really important to me and I love doing it and it's such a change and that's what I kind of really want to pick up on I guess to go back to understand where you've got to today and what that process of change was like because that's one of the other things I'm fascinated by I think you often see almost the before and after with people and there's a lot of shows that that delve into that but I I find myself listening to them or reading about someone's story and understanding but how did you do that because it might not be alcohol for someone it might be numbing out or avoiding things and using all sorts of different other tools but I think we all know we need to change something and how people

actually change it like what are the steps what's the mindset that's what fascinates me but I'd love to kind of rewind a bit if you don't mind to your kind of earlier stages of life I guess it's that moment before you realized you needed to make a change and you know am I right that you were about 19 when you started on reality tv yeah about that age I might have just turned 20 I previously to that had spent some time in LA I went to cinema television school out there I wanted to be an actor and why why did I want to be an actor I was always I always loved acting at school and always loved you know school plays and becoming somebody else and I thought I was good at it and you know I I've always been really into cinema film and television

I've always loved it and I guess also was intrigued as to, you know, what fame might be like. So probably the wrong reasons for wanting to be an actor, but, but I did love acting, right? I was, I was passionate about acting and went out there and, you know, the USC, the college was, was fantastic, but I honestly didn't feel like I was learning much. It was a four year course to obtain a bachelor of arts degree in cinema television. I'm not sure that that would have helped me become an actor. So I was spending a lot of time with people. I spent a bit of time with the guys who were on The Hills at the time, which was massive. It was this huge MTV hit show. I was obsessed with it. Oh my gosh, I loved it. Who

were you hanging out with from the hills I was pretty close with with Brodie Jenner and Spencer Pratt and we had a mutual friend called Jared and you know I was spending a lot of time with them but they were being hounded by paparazzi on scooters and they were being paid a hundred thousand dollars to go to a nightclub that they would have gone to anyway. I just couldn't kind of believe the lifestyle they were living. Was it appealing? I've always been quite financially driven, right? And quite competitive. And I've always wanted to succeed in the vertical commas, make something of myself, be somebody, right? So if I'm being honest, and you know, they seemed on the surface to have it all. They were very wealthy at a young

age. And again, I think as you grow older and, you know, you become more developed and have kids, you know, these things matter less. I'm talking from the perspective of a 19 year old or an 18 year old. I just couldn't quite believe, you know, cause they didn't have any, and I don't mean this disparagingly, they didn't have any kind of notable skill, right? Brody Jenner is obviously very good looking. That's about it, right? You know, I just, I couldn't quite, you know, you know and by that i mean they weren't talented actors or singers or you know they didn't have a skill set that could be appealing anyway so i found the whole thing quite fascinating came back to the uk and thought that it could be a cool idea to do something similar and you know

a group of us pitched the show to a production company, and we called it The Big Smoke to be kind of, you know, the UK version of The Hills. And we shot a pilot, and we heard nothing back at all. And I thought, right, okay, probably time to get serious. And I went and worked in finance and kind of worked my way into a position as a forward foreign exchange broker at ICAP, which at the time I thought was a very, you know, serious career. My brother was in finance and I kind of wanted to follow his footsteps and become a serious person

and then about eight months into that, we got a call from Channel 4 saying, we're going to make the show that you pitched essentially, but not that Made in Chelsea came from my pitch, but they had had the same idea and they wanted to talk to me because the people that we pitched the show to had mentioned me to them and i went and met them and made all kinds of ludicrous demands of things that i wanted and they they granted none of them and i did it anyway so perfect and that's kind of how that started i don't think i was ever expecting it to be successful right i was very aware at the time the the demographic of us on that show would be almost irritating for a lot of people but it did you know succeeded we won a bafta and and you know it was it was kind of a really interesting cool time in my life and then it

started to become less original and less fun i suppose like i suppose any job does i always saw it as a business that show is its commodity that it trades on is drama. I'm not a dramatic person at all and never have been. So it became boring, you know, always having to be locking horns with people and having fights with people, you know, they weren't real to me. They weren't real fights. I outgrew it and got bored of it and left. And how did it feel being famous at that point? Because as you said, it's interesting that you'd had this kind of front row view to other people's fame that was similar in terms of this reality TV premise and thought it looked appealing. Did it feel as appealing when it kind of translated into your own life? Yeah, I think when you look back at it,

it's, you know, embarrassing is the kind of wrong word. You feel very famous, but you're not really, right? It's kind of like you're in a little bubble. At the height of Made in Chelsea, probably a million people watched it. A tiny portion of the country are engaged with what you're saying and what you're doing. And an even smaller percent of the viewers are taking it in and taking it seriously so you're actually talking to a really small portion of people so yeah at the time look it was good fun being recognized and having people pointing out car windows at you and stuff like it's kind of oh hey i've kind of made it a bit but you haven't really right when you look back at it as kind of i think any platform that you're able to create for yourself in an ideal world should be used to build something or create something not necessarily all of the time but that's kind of where I was with it I wanted to leverage recognition and popularity if you want to call it that into being able to make something but I didn't know what that was until I began to abuse alcohol regularly

and what did it feel like? I know obviously it was, you know, it's on completely different scale, but when Delicious Yellow really took off, I was 23 and, and I just hadn't expected it to be successful. It, you know, it was working nicely for me and I was teaching small supper clubs and workshops and cooking classes. Like it was a very, it was a big online community, but it was niche and it was very very contained and then when our first book came out in January 2015 suddenly Delicious Yellow was everywhere and I was doing interviews in literally every kind of outlet media outlet in the country and I was 23 I mean I literally didn't have a clue I'm kind of very

honest about that I wish I could almost go back and give that person a hug and be like good job like well done for just trying but I found that move from people talking to you to talking about you very strange it made me feel very vulnerable maybe because I didn't expect it and I wasn't ready for it but I'm, did you feel that at any point? Like, I imagine there's a joy in a way in the recognition and this idea, as you said, that you're potentially creating a springboard for something, even if you don't know what it is, you're still creating it. But that personal exposure that you've got of suddenly people having lots of opinions on you. I mean, I found it, obviously I had it on a very small scale

comparatively, but I found that really hard hard initially we were kind of asking for that i suppose it's why i struggle with reality stars kind of claiming that they don't like having photos taken of them it's kind of like well what was the reason behind you doing this show you get that a lot i think and that's different for like incredible actors who perhaps are like incredibly private people you can't argue that you're a private person who does reality television in my opinion by the sounds of things you're a private person who started a brand which took off and i think it's different right i do remember the first time that people were able to to see us we a few of us watched the first episode together.

And social media at the time was quite new, but it was Twitter. And we all had our little Twitter accounts. I think I was even at Spencer MIC at the time. And you get, you know, it was the first time ever that people in general had been able to message you directly without having your phone number or email address you know so that was a bit of a shock I remember it because obviously people's opinions were mixed all right as we kind of would expect them to be and you'd get these

really nice comments about you know how you look or who you are and then you'd get these absolutely horrific ones you know about being a posh twat or whatever. And I suppose fair enough, you know, we were asking for it. But that was an interesting time, like the start of social media. And actually, a lot of people who did that show, their mental health was very badly affected by it. And having the opinions of strangers flooding your inbox all day long. It's difficult for some people. I grew up with a very loving family, but quite a stern father. He was a pretty hard kind of guy from Sheffield who had built it all himself.

He had very little in the way of help growing up, had it pretty rough, right? And there was very little room for way of help growing up, had it pretty rough, right? And there was very little room for weakness in my house, which admittedly was lovely. You know, I'm not suggesting I've had a tough childhood, but as a kid, it was, you know, we were drilled into us that any issue, you face it straight up, just get through it, move forward. You know, there was no dwelling in pain or pity type thing and I've kind of I've realized as an adult I lack empathy you know I mistake emotion for weakness sometimes I'm not the guy to come to with your problems really so I was always very thick-skinned on that show I didn't really care what people thought of me. And I suppose, again, with the kids, that loosens up a bit.

But, you know, it was, in my opinion, love is exactly the same thing as hate on that show. If people are watching it and they're engaging with it, great, you've done your job. And that was my job. My job was to create entertainment for people. And I think we did an okay job of it. The people who played it very safe on the show in the hope of just coming across really well weren't featured really.

That was just the way it was. Yes, it seems like you almost, it's almost an alter ego, almost. You know, you're going to work and you're performing as opposed to that vulnerability of kind of fully being exactly who you are. As you said, you're kind of playing up the storylines, the drama, and it's okay, therefore, people like you or don't like you're kind of playing up the storylines the drama and it's okay therefore

people like you or don't like you because that's not fundamentally completely who you are as a person that you're showing I would at the end of a scene clock off and go home and feel like you know right that's my job done for the day and you'd go home and be yourself right it's kind of and I think the line gets blurred for some people who mistake it as real, right? When it's obviously not real in my head. Completely. And as you said, for me, the thing I worry about most with my two children who are very similar ages is social media. And I think it's the same conversation there that's really challenging for people's wellbeing because social media is also not real. It is a very teeny snapshot curated or seemingly real but it's still

the smallest window into what someone's life actually looks like and I'm really interested to just pick up a little bit there before we kind of come to this moment of this cast this moment about you saying growing up and and weakness and you know I hope you don't mind me asking about it but you know obviously you went through a big loss when you were quite young. Do you feel that fed into any of this desire to exceed people's expectations, to protect yourself from what people felt? You know, you needed to have a kind of harder exterior. Yeah, I think so. But again, when Michael died, there was a pretty stiff upper lip throughout the family.

Of course, we were all devastated. I was 10, so I didn't really believe it. Like it didn't hit me in the same way that it hits the rest of the family. And how old was your brother, sorry? He was 22. He was the youngest Brit to summit Mount Everest. And there were some complications and he died on his way down. And it was obviously, it was horrific for the family,

but my mum took it really well. She was devastated, of course, but she showed very little weakness to us. You know, she's an amazing woman and I think it does come back to this being a strong family and we've always put that foot forward i suppose it only really resonated with me that he actually was dead months later because i was still at the age of 10 into superheroes and cartoons and for me michael was my he's he's who I looked up to the most in the world, right? He was my, he can do anything.

He's my superhero. So I was just, well, you know, when I heard, I wasn't told he was dead. I was told that he had been lost on the mountain and I just thought, oh, well, he'll come back down. So of course then time passed and I realized, But I never had that big impactful moment where it's like, you know, your brother is dead. I kind of carried on with my day to day life as a kid. And of course, I was sad about it afterwards. And we've recently made a project around it, which I don't think I'm allowed to say much about. But it'll be out this year. And you went to Everest, right, for that.

Yeah. Yeah. say much about but it'll be out this year and you went to everest yeah right for that yeah yeah so i was on on the mountain uh at base camp for over five weeks which was it's a long time to be at base camp not that i've ever been there any other time but it's uh you know people would kind of come and go and we stayed there for a while did that kind of resurface any of the grief or kind of an adult reconciliation with the loss in a way. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I was keen to explore it a bit and dig into those feelings a bit. You know, I, as I said, I've kind of been void of emotion is too strong a word, but I I've, I've suppressed emotion, not just his death, just general emotion as a child. The last time I said I saw a therapist about this,

somebody ran a story saying that I've had countless hours of therapy in the lead up, and I haven't actually, but I did go and see a guy just to talk about the loss and he was fantastic. And he said, you've suppressed emotion for a long time. It's very, I don't cry really as an adult. And as I say, even if I'm presented with a tricky

issue, I'll just jump straight to the conclusion of how I believe that issue should be resolved. And I'll just resolve the issue to the best of my ability quickly with very little emotion. And I think that can be quite helpful in business. I think one thing I learned, particularly with building CleanCo quite quickly, is that the less emotion you have when dealing with stuff, particularly when things go wrong, the better, right? It won't benefit you at all to be emotional around business deals. So I guess I'm happy, you know, in that regard that I am that way. The emotional arc, I suppose, of Michael's loss is explored within the project that we've just made. So I'm looking forward to that coming out.

Yeah, no, me too. It's an extraordinary, extraordinary thing to go back and do. And I imagine it's going to be a really interesting show to watch. I've got one question before we move on to that sense of realisation. But did you feel, and again again I hope you don't mind me asking that you almost had to kind of live up to him with him not not being here anymore that you had to kind of be more than good enough you know you had to be absolutely phenomenal and exceed all expectations yeah absolutely yeah yeah but it's not just him my dad is an overachiever so is my brother and we all do our own thing actually we're not we're not in each other's businesses at all but no we all are competitive in a very agreeable way but we we i get it mostly from from james though and he doesn't particularly like being spoken about so

i won't touch on him for too long. But he has this incredible ability to push himself. And so did Mike, of course, until he died. And Mike was a remarkable young climber. He climbed Aconcagua in record time. He was a very comfortable, confident young climber who momentarily took the record away from Bear Grylls as the youngest, you know, to Summit Everest at the time. And Bear's always been so kind to me about that, you know, saying that that would always be his record. And Bear's kind of almost been a kind of brotherly figure to me since then. He came to speak at our school and I went and spoke to him afterwards and he, you know,

has been very kind to me. Yeah. So, you know, I grew up with my brother running countless marathons and then the Marathon de Sable and swimming the Autelieu and all of this cycling across America and just all of this mind-blowing stuff that a lot of people? What's the point? It's just so much to do. And he was, of course, raising money for the Michael Matthews Foundation, which was set up in my brother's name. And we look after about 5,000 kids in Africa, put them through school. We're one of the first foundations to offer tablet schooling to thousands of children. And we built schools so that they don't have to walk long distances to get to a neighboring town. And unfortunately, on those long walks, they can be very dangerous for those kids. So we feel like we're doing something nice for Michael in his name. very interested in socializing going out drinking having fun and you know he was running the marathon to sub and i was just like like i'll never be like him and actually it was a fair amount of pressure looking back on it because sometimes you feel that you can't compete with people that you watch david goggins stuff and you just go well okay great i get i get it but you

know i'm not going to do that or i can't do that, which is why, you know, I think it's nice to, when people are kind enough to ask for advice, you know, say, you know, go for a nice walk, go for a long walk, get your body moving, you know, start running or lift some weights or eat well, or, you know, try and get more sleep, you know, just kind of baby steps for some people, I think. But I ended up doing the Marathon de Sable in October just because my brother did it and I wanted to beat my brother you know and it's kind of like did you beat your brother I did beat my brother in the end but again it's not a competition but it kind of is a competition it's in the back of your mind you know but we get along famously and actually certainly more so than ever now that

I'm sober we were very different before like I I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying if at the time that I used to drink to excess all the time, you know, had we not been brothers, we would not have been friends, right? We're just totally separate ends of the spectrum. So I'm very interested in the way you talk about these huge physical challenges actually being so empowering because I don't think people often think about it like that. And I really enjoyed the way that you spoke about that. I think it made it feel much more motivating actually to set yourself these kind of big goals. But I totally just to second you there, agree with this idea that I think sometimes perfect is the enemy of good. We don't try things because we don't feel we can do them as well as other people. We don't have the capacity to do it to the fullest extent. And I think sometimes our wellbeing, that's one of the challenges. But just coming onto then the decision to go sober, did you feel this kind of sense of pressure and this avoidance in a way of emotions was almost you were channeling that a bit into kind

of avoidance and drinking as sort of one of those quite obvious tools and ways of sort of numbing out and avoiding and suppressing things when i had this session with with this gentleman who i think is fantastic regrettably i've only seen him twice but the first time i saw him was for about four hours it was like a half day thing and he said what you've just said, you know, he just said all of the suppressing emotion is all of your excessive drinking has been a way of expressing yourself in a way where you can't sober. And I'm not someone that has a lot of therapy and I'm probably not the best advocate for it, but it was an interesting conversation that we had

because I've always, with my hardheadedness, believed that the excessive drinking is just my fault, right? It's something that I chose to do. I wanted to drink. I wanted to feel that way. How did you want to feel? I think that my alcoholism, if you want to call it that, and you may know that I hate that word, and I can talk about that if you like, but it was almost directly linked to a lack of purpose. As I've said, my brother is this great guy who does interesting things, so is my dad.

And I felt I was doing nothing, really, in comparison. You just weren't fulfilled by reality TV, etc. No, I've never been proud of the reality TV thing. You know, as I said, I saw it as a kind of bit of a stepping stone to potentially becoming a television presenter and then realized I didn't really want to be a television presenter.

And, you know, what else could I use it for? And there'd be weeks at a time where I had nothing to do. And then of course you'd get offered like other reality shows. And I did a few of those, you know, namely the ones that you have to at least show some kind of skill to win you know like the jump or master chef or something where there's a point to it right you know like i never saw the point as an example of

a big brother or something it's a popularity contest i'm not that interested in people thinking that i'm the coolest person that i don't really care but if i can win a cooking show you know or something like that then cool great know, and you learn things in the process. So those were, I thought interesting things to do, but you can't, in my opinion, call it a career, just being yourself and having your brands that you, you know, show on in different formats. Isn't, isn't a career is work, I suppose, but's not I anyway perhaps it is a career to some people I felt like it wasn't to me so I felt unfulfilled I felt like I didn't have a purpose you know because the point of all those things is I suppose to build your name I suppose but what is the point

of that unless you can build something that other people can use I suppose I've always wanted to do that so I think that's really common when you're not feeling fulfilled and you don't have this kind of clear sense of direction that you try and fill that void with something else and 10 those tend to be not that healthy obviously in your case it was alcohol for some people it could be binge eating etc but i think that's a I think that's a very common trait it became a kind of like right well you know I'm not doing anything tomorrow so you know why don't I just go and meet Tom who's made up for the purpose of this you know and and drink all afternoon and have a great time and for most of my excessive drinking it wasn't like I wasn't crawling home

I wasn't throwing up I wasn't you know I wasn't in a bad state, you know, most people that I would spend time with probably wouldn't have identified me as having a problem with alcohol, right? You know, I know some people who when they drink, their character completely changes, they can become aggressive, you know, they can become, you know, assholes for lack of a better word. And I was never really like that, but I'd say I was probably operating at 25% of my potential or capacity. And I think in order to achieve anything or build anything, it's difficult. You're hindering yourself, you're shooting yourself in the foot. And I think actually sobriety nowadays feels like far more mainstream than it has done recently.

It very much was a trend before. And maybe you'll do sober October, maybe you'll do dry January. if you were sober at a party you would be kind of the odd one out whereas i i honestly feel like in 2023 in particular like people are just completely awake to it and we're seeing that with clinko we've had a really amazing end to the year and great starts 2023 and it feels fantastic because you know i have to admit it felt like we were a bit early and being early and being wrong in business is pretty similar yeah it feels like we're certainly right now but yeah i i think i drank out of boredom and you know i've always been a happy person by the way like you know i've never been depressed or anxious or stressed or

you know i've always had a what i feel to be a good nature about me know i've never been depressed or anxious or stressed or you know i've always had a what i feel to be a good nature about me but i've never but i was bored i was really bored and also the addition of vogue to my life who is your wife yeah my wife yeah my wife is incredibly busy can't sit down she's the most wonderful mother. She's just like on it. And if she's not working that day, she'll fill her day full of just productive things for the kids or things around the house. You know, she, she is the opposite of lazy, right? And I had become lazy in my, you know, reality TV. What am I going to do days, I would very happily just like drink and do nothing and socialize and watch TV and you know, whatever. And just the chances of what I would perceive to

be success were just becoming few and far between. Like, you know, I was really hindering my chances. It was like a massive obstacle, this alcohol for me to achieve anything so that began to really shine a light on how much i was drinking because in the early days of our relationship we would be watching a film together and i would have two three whiskeys and she wouldn't drink at all or like you know i'd have a bottle of wine she wouldn't have any and she'd be like did you really need another one like just before we go to bed and I kind of made me feel a bit and I don't think she was doing it intentionally but you know it kind of made me feel a bit oh she's weird she doesn't drink like everyone else I know drinks and kind of but then

I began to think well actually I'm probably the problem did she feel like a mirror then in lots of ways yeah I think without Vogue I probably wouldn't be sober yet or I don't know you know obviously it's impossible to say but I only began to realize that my drinking was unusual when we started spending a lot of time together was there one moment or was it a kind of series of moments to the point where you know I know you said in another interview there was one night you went to bed and you felt like a real loser, which is not how I don't think anyone else would have thought you were or how you were portrayed kind of at that point in your life. And you said you had all these Disney-esque dreams of being this amazing person and there was no way to be that person with

who you are. Was it that one moment or were there kind of a few moments leading up to that big moment where you said, right, enough, I've got to make a change? I think there are a few moments. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads.

Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's b-o-b at l-i-b-s-y-n dot com. I think there are a few moments. Most notably, Vogue was away and I was drinking on my own. And I got very drunk on my own you know in my kitchen doing nothing right just literally not even watching a film or anything just just literally just sat there and I felt this is a bit of an issue now because like there was no reason for this started to play my mind a bit a friend came over called hey what are you up to come around my friend basically came around and just like put me to bed and left and how old were you at this

point this was about four and a half years ago okay about 30 and yeah i woke up the following morning and i thought right that's enough of that now and i quit and it was easy actually to begin with right because i made this big declaration to to Vogue and people that I love, right, I'm done with this now. And like, nobody believed me. Why didn't they believe you? I think when you look at somebody who has a habit like that, who wants to just kick it with no help, essentially, it can be quite difficult. You know, the same reason, same as people who smoke cigarettes, who suddenly just, okay, I'm going to quit on Friday. All right, mate. I don't think they didn't believe me in a kind of horrible way.

It was kind of like, yeah, you know, I'm sure you'll do a week or something and then we'll see what happens. It was very clear to me at the time that without this shift in behavior that I could lose everything. I could lose my, she was my fiance at the time and she was pregnant with Theodore. It was really playing on my mind that, you know, perhaps I wasn't going to be this Disney Prince dad that I'd always thought I would be. Maybe we'll have kids and I'll be a piss head and, you know, I won't be there for them and I'll just be the way I am right now. So, you know, that began to play on my mind and I just thought to myself you know I just need to make this change I need to do it I need to do it

for myself I need to do it for my family and I need to see who I can become and am I right in saying that you redid your wedding vows because you were quite drunk first time I was very like just to be clear a lot of people were drinking quite heavily on our on our wedding day we had a small private it's very normal thing yeah no so so you quite heavily on our on our wedding day we had a small private it's very normal thing yeah no so so you know I was drunk on my wedding day but I think a lot of people were as well but I didn't I didn't make the efforts for her that I should have right I I've always been a kind of off-the-cuff guy I feel like I can public speak without any notes and always have been able to you know know, like if somebody calls upon me to

say something at a wedding, I'll shoot up and speak for five minutes, you know, without having prepared anything. And that's how I treated our wedding, just like an off the cuff thing. Oh, when it's time to make a speech, I'll just, you know, hammer it like I always do. And I think there's a big misconception with people that, you know, drinking alcohol to excess turns you into a Superman and it doesn't, right? That, that, that is wrong. And I was drunk at the time of giving that speech. And I can remember not quite being as quick and witty as I usually am and like kind of struggling to find things to say. And I, at the time I was thinking, shit, I should have made an effort here. And that was not great. But it's easy to live with regret, isn't it? And I try not to, I suppose. I think it's one of the reasons that I found AA to be

not for me. And I went to a couple and I'm not dissing AA. I think AA has helped millions of people and continues to do so. And it's, you know, obviously fantastic and could become and the positive elements of sobriety and how I can use that right as opposed to dwelling on the times that we've just discussed and you know how ashamed I am of who I used to be have you seen Stutz fantastic show absolutely amazing if anyone hasn't seen it it's Jonah Hill's program program on mental health on netflix with his therapist and it is so brilliant we watched it at christmas absolutely loved it brilliant so i watched it last night and the shadow that they speak about having somebody a version of yourself that you're not proud of you know that drunk mess in the kitchen is my shadow and like jonah you know i've always just been ashamed of the

shadow. So I buried it and I've moved through it and I don't talk about it. And that's the end of it, right? Whereas kind of embracing that shadow and taking that shadow with you, according to Stutz, who I believe is just fantastic. I think he's phenomenal, is interesting. So actually only just today I've been thinking about that drunk person and the kind of difference that it could make to be more accepting of myself and therefore not be regretful of of the behavior and of course all of this led to cleanco which is my drive now right i think without being that way i would never have had the idea you you know, to launch Clean Coat, which, as I say, is outside of my family, you know, easily my top priority. Yeah, I mean, it's almost identical to my experience, which was, you know, absolutely hitting my version of rock bottom.

Everyone's got a different version and realizing I just couldn't live like that anymore the trajectory of my life mine was because my physical health was so bad but I wasn't doing anything to change it in fact I was almost just kind of accepting that my physical health was so bad and like leaning into it almost doing things that made it worse because I didn't know how to get out of it and it was changing everything overnight completely overhauling my lifestyle and as very similar to you I'm not sure anyone around me really believed that I keep going with this that I really would you know go to an all-natural diet and become a yogi and you know meditate and all the rest of the things I had never even considered in my life before but I was so desperate for a new

life I was so desperate not to be that person anymore and I agree with you that I was always ashamed of that person I don't like the person I was when I was ill partly because I hated being that ill and I find it hard to look back on what a bad place I was in but also partly because I wasn't my nicest self because I was ashamed to be ill rightly or wrongly I didn't really know how to communicate with people so I just shut people out I was very to be ill, rightly or wrongly. I didn't really know how to communicate with people. So I just shut people out. I was very cold at that point in my life. I don't think I was particularly kind as a result. It was a protection mechanism, but I don't think it helped anybody through it. And it was starting Delicious Yellow and having this sense of focus and sense of purpose

and this idea. And I don't want to sound too trite, but it's exactly what I wrote on Delicious Yellow on the very first day. If I can take a negative experience in my life and turn it into a positive experience for one other person as well then it gives this sense of purpose so I really relate to that idea and I actually think that it really helped me continue and not quit when it felt really hard or when it wasn't necessarily exactly where I wanted to be because I'd made a commitment to other people that we would almost do this together but I'm really interested that you said it felt almost easy to begin with and then it felt harder but I'm curious almost those first few days did you feel kind of vulnerable or exposed at all

sort of going to a party or going to the pub and saying no I'm not drinking I was really sanctimonious in the early days of it so like on day two I would look at people drinking in the pub and think god what losers do you know what I mean they're wasting their life yeah because they are wasting their life you know they should do what I'm doing and obviously that's a ridiculous thing to to think but I've always been a little bit like that it's a good thing my wife isn't here she would say that I'm still like that but I I understand that though you know I have I was like that a lot in the early days but I still have facets of that in me now where I think you know I notice things that I do and how much better it makes me feel and it makes me much more patient with my kids or much more energized at work. And I think, oh, I know people who'd benefit from this. And

there's that difficult bit of trying to translate the experience because you think it might help others without being judgy. And I always think that's an interesting balance. Yeah. It was very important, as I say, that I took this decision. So for the first while, it was very easy for me just because I was so happy within myself with the decision that I'd made. And it was just time, right? Like enough drinking, enough being wasted. And the reality of the situation is, you know, my now wife, mother of my three kids wouldn't have stuck around. So, you know, I had a choice to make. You can choose to carry on being this

waster loser or, you know, stop drinking and see where your life can go with this amazing woman who I love. So when we put it that way, it's quite an easy choice to make. And I think for me, yeah, just making the issue the enemy for a while seeing that glass of wine as the potential end of my life is easier you know than saying oh i'm just not going to drink for a bit until people you know forget about this and then i'll you know come back it's kind of i describe it as a relationship with alcohol because that's what it feels like it's kind of you know you shouldn't be doing it but you do it sometimes and you know it's kind of, you know, you shouldn't be doing it, but you do it sometimes. And, you know, it's kind of, I had a bad relationship with alcohol.

I didn't even like it towards the end, you know, much in the same way that I know some people who smoke socially who don't enjoy smoking. Like they go outside and they have a cigarette and they come back in and they go, you know, I'm like, well, nobody's forcing you to smoke, you know.

Completely. And I think so many of us have those habits in our lives that we just don't think are helping us. And as you said, we don't necessarily always enjoy them. They're just almost sometimes default habits or ways of kind of plastering something up. and that sense of purpose and obviously it radiates how much fulfillment it's given you which you clearly were missing before did you want to look after yourself better did you start kind of exercising because it seems like all these more kind of physical experiences you've had and that pushing of yourself from the physical level like the marathon to sable that all came after you stopped drinking is that right yes so absolutely impossible to do anything like that with my previous relationship with alcohol so yeah firstly it gives you a lot more

time in your day the amount of time that I would spend drinking or feeling the effects of alcohol was enormous right so all of a sudden I had all of this time that I didn't have before the average Brit in the UK spends 252 hours hung over every year yes i heard you say that the other day and it really blew my mind yeah there's a double or triple it for me right so so so kind of like you know maybe call it a month of the year maybe more i would be incapacitated maybe a bit of a strong word but you just say incapacitated for the sake of it you know that's that's a really long time to to be feeling the effects of alcohol or like you know in bed for no reason awake but in bed you know getting up much much later you know so all of a sudden i'm i'm awake at seven

cool what do i do right okay awake and energized yeah awake and energized with a clear head right so how do i use this you know time that i didn't have before? And initially, you know, the new addiction became running or weightlifting. Again, if anyone ever asked me for advice, just exercise and training is just absolutely paramount to your well-being and your mental health. You know, I'm very fortunate not to have suffered any kind of mental health problems, I don't think. So again, I'm not the best person to address those issues if you have them. But what I can say is that my energy levels are like through the roof because I train

and I love training. And there's, you know, other stuff that you can do. I interviewed Eddie Hearn who told me that he'd spent some time with Wim Hof. And if you can just have a cold shower every morning do it it's great like it's absolutely great right so i have like get in the shower like nice hot shower like normal shower do all your soapy bits you know whatever in the comfort of the warm water and then turn it down to as cold as it'll go and stand there for 30 seconds under the freezing cold water you feel like it's like you've had five coffees and I love coffee.

It's like you've had five coffees. You're so energized. And if you can just, you know, even take baby steps, just go for a walk, walk your dog or go for a run, even better. Lift weights, do jujitsu, whatever. You know, I posted something today. Actually, I just saw it was such nice, simple advice. Some guy's doing a podcast with some other bloke that i never heard of some american guy and he just says do you have any advice for you know

men who feel that they're you know getting older and he just said yeah lift weights go running stop drinking alcohol do jiu-jitsu and stretch simple it's true i happen to do all those things and it's kind of like you you do feel better if you are an active person and you know you have a nice diet and you don't just eat rubbish all of the time and you do go running and you do get some fresh air it's like it makes a serious difference to like your work ethic and also like if you can just get it done in the morning you know so many people i don't have time to train that is rubbish that was what i wanted to pick up on because to your point about the hunt being hung over and losing time i think this i'm curious if

you felt you kind of almost made excuses for yourself like oh i don't have time to do this i don't have time to do that because i think that's such a normal process and even if it's you know being hung over is not the challenge this i this idea that we don't have time i think it's and look we've not all sat in everyone's shoes and i i appreciate that but i think it's such an interesting excuse as to why we can't do things to improve our health you know i feel so passionately about this you know you we know that just as you said like something small 10 minutes of exercise is proven to change your brain like it is proven to improve your mood you know if you struggle with stress like breathing for 10 minutes is proven to lower your stress levels but we always say we don't have time to

do it but then most of us are spending like an hour a day on social media or you know we've all watched the latest netflix show and you know all the rest of it and i just think it's a really interesting one in terms of prioritizing yourself you've got to put yourself first, right? Like even if you, so I used to work at ICAP, as we've touched on, I would have to get up at 5.45 to get to work on time, right? And then I would leave work at 6 p.m. and often would have to entertain clients after work until two in the morning, right?

Like we would go for dinner and then they would want to go out and then they'd want to go to a nightclub. You know, my drinking was awful at the time and you were young, so you'd want to do it anyway, but you'd be, I was operating often on three, four hours sleep, like every night and doing it every day. And it's like, even I had time to train, you'd go and go on your lunch break or whatever. Right. So I don't really care if you're Jeff Bezos or, or, or, you you know some somebody that that doesn't have a job like i think if you're if you're not making the time to put your physical and mental well-being first you absolutely should be

i totally agree with that and i think as you said like small is better than nothing and that's the idea of making perfect the enemy of good you know i know I did that when I had my kids in a way, because I'd always given a lot more time to my wellness. I'm much more of a yoga person than a marathon disabled person. But, you know, I'd go to class pretty much seven days a week. And it was absolutely, it was like my medicine. It kept me feeling physically and mentally like my absolute best. And then I had a baby and I had another baby a year later. And obviously, you just don't have And then I had a baby and I had another baby a year later. And obviously you just don't have that level of time anymore. But I use that not having that level of time to almost not do anything. And then I started doing 20 minutes

before they woke up and I was like, wow, I feel like I've got, you know, 80% of the benefit of this and it still works in my life. And it's, I think it's hard in that perspective that most of us can find 10, 20 minutes, even if we can't find the rest yeah but I've got two questions for you first of all did you feel you were moving one addiction maybe a less healthy addiction into another addiction that's maybe a healthier addiction you know I know you've got very into jiu-jitsu you write am I right in saying you're a jiu-jitsu master and then you've done a lot of physical challenges i i'm a master in the sense that i'm old so so so kind of like i think your your age your age category is a defined so i'm a master's i'm a master's one which means that i'm that just means that i'm over 30 unfortunately don't tell people that it sounds amazing no no so yes i'm a

i'm a i'm a two-stripe blue belt masters one category which just means that if i were to ever compete like tom hardy you you're in a master's category so he's a master's two because he's 43 i think or 44 so that that has no bearing on your skill set uh unfortunately although being a master anything is pretty cool very cool yeah but do you feel you've almost moved the addiction into like intense exercise so I heard you saying on one podcast like what's the point of running a marathon I'm going to run six marathons in five days and it's extraordinary well I'm sorry to have said it in that way but yeah so I think for me

having it having a kind of big audacious unachievable goal almost is more exciting and interesting than doing something that I know I can do. And I find it, certainly in my latty years, understanding that failure can be really beneficial to your growth is important to me as well. I would have said that failing is what I'm most frightened of, whereas I'm sure there have been failings in Deliciously Elegious as there are in Clean Co and in our personal lives as well. It's just a normal thing to build upon and become better. So I signed up to the Marathon d'Assad because it's the toughest foot race on earth, which by the way, I'm not sure it actually is, but it's called the toughest foot race on earth. And I wanted to test myself in a way where I was unsure if I would be able to finish that or not. That was more exciting for me than running another marathon, which I think,

you know, at this stage of my life, I know I can do. It's not that big a deal, you know, for me, right? So I think, but if you haven't run a marathon, go and run a marathon. I think it's a great thing to do. The desert thing was just really intrigued me. I was really interested in it because my brother had done it and, you know, I'd read a few things about it and I found it a fascinating challenge, right? But one that only became interesting to me when I became sober. So like, you know, before I was literally, I thought it was reserved for the mentally unwell, right? People who ran that race. And, you know, you get there and it's a great experience it's one of the most cathartic

things i've ever done i loved i loved it i mean of course there were moments of like extreme pain throughout it that you you know didn't think perhaps that you could pull through but then of course you pull through it and that is awesome right like and it's an amazing feeling finishing that right i had like i had feelings that like oh my god when i finish this it's gonna feel just so great and like you finish it and you're literally dead like you have no feeling at all you know you're not you're not joyful you're just done like you you're you're you're over it in a pretty major way. But then, you know, I was sat on the plane with my medal and flying home and I really felt like that if I can do that, I can do anything.

And, you know, perhaps that's not true, but that's the feeling you have. You kind of feel like, I don't know if you ever watched Dragon Ball Z, but you kind of feel like a super Saiyan, like, you know, nothing can get in your way. And I remember going back to the office afterwards and you just feel, let's do more. Let let's you know like the the aim with clinko has always been to be the best non-alcoholic brand in the world right great to get there you've got to have far more

managed expectations but the view from the very beginning was always to be a big global phenomenal business you know and that's just the way I am and you have to push yourself personally in order to feel like you can push yourself professionally it sounds like I really like this idea that because I think a lot of us are scared of setting big goals or big tasks or possible achievements for ourselves because we're scared as you say of failing but I think this idea that maybe even if you don't get to the end you've still achieved more than you ever thought you could achieve you're showing yourself physically and mentally you're so much more capable than you ever thought you were and obviously that then is going to seep into every aspect of your life isn't it it's not

just just because you can run six marathons in five days and 40 degree heat which is extraordinary if you can do that to your point what else can't you do you know unless you push yourself through these uncomfortable barriers you know you're very unlikely to to grow as a person i feel you know i think being very comfortable with your goals and being very comfortable with your diet and being very comfortable with your you know physicality and stuff is in my opinion not as good as pushing your comfort levels and being very comfortable with your physicality and stuff is, in my opinion, not as good as pushing your comfort levels and being slightly outside of your comfort zone and trying to achieve things that you thought weren't possible. Because if you are able to do it, you will feel phenomenal. And it can be a tiny, simple thing like, oh, I'm going to go running

tomorrow morning. Open the windows. It's raining. It's wet, it's cold. Ah, I'll go running, you know, some other time. Go running anyway. Just get out there, get cold, do it, come back. The shower will feel so great and your day will have been kicked off in a far more productive, awesome way than had you decided to just get back into bed and it's actually like you know we're fine here you know particularly if you live in London you know the conditions are never going to be anything like they can be you know in some of these challenges so just push yourself and so it's just my last question what do you do every day to look after yourself you know are there any daily-ish habits that you've got that really make

a difference to feeling like you're getting the most from your life obviously not drinking being very much one of those I avoid alcohol uh yeah which I think we might have touched on I've spoken to people with really extraordinary kind of like daily routines that and I'm not quite sure how comfortable I am with whether or not that makes any notable difference to their kind of mental wellbeing. I, I, I try and get some exercise every day. I try and eat well, but obviously we also have pizzas and chocolate and you know, whatever. I don't think you put yourself under too much pressure to constantly have a great diet. I'm honestly loving the cold shower thing. I know, again, it sounds like a bit of a cliche

thing, but just try it. Like, I honestly think you'll love it. I got my wife to do it the other day. She absolutely hates cold water and she felt brilliant afterwards. It just really wakes you up. And then just having a kind of good, solid working relationship with kind of key people in your team. I rely on a lot of my top team for their expertise, but also just general advice with the business. I think being busy for me, again, comfort being the killer, you know, I have to be busy. If I have three hours of nothing, I'm like, my head spins. I just need to be kind of focused with stuff. At the moment, if we're allowed to plug something, I these two guys who who are amazing they call themselves the mushroom brothers and they have

a brand called dirty dirty i don't know if you know it yeah i buy their um the mushroom cacao powder and make hot chocolates with it every single morning i just saw your interview with them on big fish i haven't listened to it yet no so uh so so yeah so so i i've been drinking lion's mane with my kind of coffee and i actually like i love independent brands that are doing well i always prefer that to kind of some big mainstream brand but i feel fantastic like i've been drinking their stuff for you know maybe a week and i feel just fantastic and i don't know if i would feel fantastic anyway or not, but like, I feel great. And then obviously spending time with the kids, you know, every evening, I just love they're at the age where they're kind of a joy to be around that they can communicate now.

So everything's, you know, great big joke, but love doing bedtime and, you know, I'm very fortunate to be madly in love with my wife. Right. spend a lot of time together as well we're not the most social people so we're at home kind of a lot when we're not working and you know it feels really great I feel lucky blessed you know whatever you want to look at it I suppose to to be to have the relationship that I have with my wife I get a lot from her she's very driven very hard working and just just great just just very happy amazing well thank you so much and thank you for being so honest as i said it's a the aim of the show is to inspire people and empower people in their own lives and their own experiences and they're all different you know lots of people won't have been on a reality tv series but I think we can all relate

to this idea of feeling unfulfilled lacking in purpose and sometimes filling those with habits that aren't doing us that well and being really honest about what those habits are and then making that change and I think what's so inspiring is seeing that making that change it sounds like you've become the person that you thought you were losing and that you couldn't be at that point that you made the change. And I think that's what I hope to do to show that people can inspire people. If you can do it, we can all do it. So thank you.

Long way to go. But thanks a lot. I hope you all took a lot from that episode. I think it's for me this interesting exploration of universal challenges and how we get through them and whilst stopping drinking was the challenge for Spencer I think as I said in the very beginning of the show I think we all have those habits that we often use as coping mechanisms or to help us avoid something that we don't really want to look at. The big question is if we can be honest to ourselves about what those are and we can maybe switch them to some healthier habits

what would happen and I always find it really inspiring to hear someone's story about when they've done that and I know it's easier said than done but nonetheless you can really feel talking to Spencer that it has completely changed his life from what I sense was a real sort of confusion and trying to figure out what his path was. As always we'll bring together the different tools that you could use if you're feeling in a kind of similar way on Feel Better the Deliciously Ella app and if you don't have the app yet just know you can always download it with the special podcast 20% off just use podcast20 at subscription.deliciouslyella.com and as always I would love to hear from you so please do share

any thoughts on social media or over email podcast at deliciouslyella.com or just at deliciouslyella on social and otherwise I will see you back here next week. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of my exploration on how we can all inspire one another. And as always, just a big thank you to Curly Media who are our partners in producing the show each week. You're a podcast listener Thank you. post endorsements, or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more.

That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.