Latest / Total Barnage / MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Mark Cowlard Reveals How He Lost 30kg in his 50s

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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Mark Cowlard Reveals How He Lost 30kg in his 50s · Total Barnage

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to a Total Barnage Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_04: Today we are joined with Mark Cowlard.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_04: Hello, Mark.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: Hey guy, great to see you.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_04: And and Charles Xavier's joined us today as well.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is it Charles today or is it Xavier or I'm Charles Charles today?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was I was looking over the um the previous episode um where I embodied the character of Xavier and uh yeah it was a very odd out of body feel it was definitely odd.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was it yeah.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_04: It it it well it brought a smile to my face, Charles.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_04: But George, you don't really know Mark too well, and uh Mark, you're here to share a bit about your story of health and fitness.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but can you just let Charlie and the audience know who you are?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, right, so uh I'm Mark Coward, I'm 56, nearly 57, and I've had a really full career uh doing all sorts of different things, a squiggly career, as I like to call it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I do, Charles, I'll start at the beginning and I'll just give you a whiz through in terms of uh my career.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I learned when I was really young, I used to play loads of golf when I was 12, 13, something like that.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I used to play golf with these really old guys who I now realise were probably younger than me.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they were all from great, great backgrounds, interesting jobs, which I didn't really appreciate at the time.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: But one of them said to me one time, he said, Whatever you do in your career, make sure that you stay with a business for a long time, but do as many possible roles as you can with that business.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: When you leave the business, join a totally different type of organization.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: For whatever reason, when I was probably on the 13th hole or whatever it was, playing golf, that stuck with me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I did a degree as a quantity surveyor.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've never worked a day in my life, though, as a quantity surveyor, even though I'm a chartered quantity surveyor today.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I went straight into construction litigation and I did a job for two to three years, completely and utterly out of my depth, where I had to learn very quickly to be thinking on my feet really quickly, agile in my mindset, and learning quickly.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, these were in the days, showing my age again, where there was no such thing as uh the internet.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if you wanted to know something, you had to ask somebody.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Really interesting foundation to my career.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: I went from there to work for mobile oil, and in mobile oil, I was there for around about three years.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I had six different jobs in three years, and that's the kind of the start of what's gone on a lot in my career.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of agility, lots of growth mindset, lots of changing what I do based on what the demand actually is.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I worked for mobile oil, loved working for mobile oil, only left then because they merged with BP, and I thought it would slow my career up.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I didn't have a job, but I thought it would slow things up.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I left there and went to a very different place again.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a company that some of your listeners who are my age would at least know you guys probably don't, a company called Dixon Stores Group.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Dixon Stores Group were a UK PLC, and Dixons used to own uh brands like Dixon's on the High Street, PC World and Curries.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: You've probably heard of PC World and Couries at superstores.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: One of the biggest retailers, FTSE100, um, joined an organisation with the worst possible culture you ever could do.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, I left Mobile Oil, had a wonderful time at Mobile Oil, and I left and got married.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I left on a Friday, I got married the week on the Saturday, went on my honeymoon, came back from my honeymoon on a Sunday, started work on a Monday at Dixon Stores Group.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Why did I do that?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why I did that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just totally, totally nuts to actually do something like that.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I did.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I joined this company called Dixon's, and the culture was this horrible retail culture of the 1990s.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody shouted and screamed, people took great pleasure in grown men being brought down to tears working in the environment.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually, I really don't know why I stuck with it except it was feeding my hunger for change.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So doing lots of different roles, lots of different jobs, um, being challenged in different ways and learning an awful lot.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I stayed there for uh around about seven years, and then I stepped out of there into another totally different environment.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I went from Dixon Stores Group, electrical retailing to a company called Atkins, who were design engineers, and I worked in the rail sector.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I went from high energy, electrical retailing to railway engineering.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: You couldn't be more kind of diverse in that in that shift.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I joined this organisation that was entrenched in what used to be called British Rail, and a lot of the time I was known as the television salesman because that's where I that was the environment they perceived me as coming in.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't particularly like in the early days who I was.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And again, in that organisation, lots and lots of different roles.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: I worked there for 10 years, I had seven different jobs in ten years.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I started off as commercial director, and one of the things about squiggly career that I talk about, I became the group commercial director for their rail business, and that was going really well.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And my boss said to me, But what you're going to do next?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Where is there for you to go next?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there really wasn't anywhere in the organisation.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to leave.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: But there was a job that needed filling, which was running a business in the Croydon office, and it was a place nobody wanted to go.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was a vacancier that had been there for more than a year, and I just thought, well, why not?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually stepped down, you know, hierarchically, I stepped quite a long way down in the organisation.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: People were saying to me, So what have you done wrong?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: What went wrong?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you doing that?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get pushed into doing this role?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't, it was I saw this opportunity to do something really different and to step in and to learn more to then accelerate my career again in a very different direction.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I did that, and gradually over the course of the next three years, I went from running Croydon to another office, adding offices, and became eventually the manager and director of that business.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then the last organization that I worked for is a company called Arcadis, and again, uh a 13-year career at Arcadis, loads and loads of different jobs there, uh, 13 years, seven jobs, so not quite as many ratio as before.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but a lot of those were about uh leadership and success through people, uh people services organization at the end of the day, and I just loved working in that organization.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I loved um bringing together, energizing people for success towards clients, success towards their own careers, and success towards what it was that our shareholders were looking for.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: In that organization, I uh was the CEO of our UK business, I was the global president for uh the biggest business that we restructured and then created, and then most recently the uh chief people officer of the business, a 36,000-person business, by the way.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of people to manage.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of people.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to manage them, but I was absolutely responsible for thinking about how it was that they enabled the business, the direction that they went in, think about their careers, think about the culture of our organisation and success through the people.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, big, big organisation, Dutch-listed organisation.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it's so funny because it's just levels to things, and I sometimes get a little bit stressed with six staff members, and then you know, you hear a company.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: They are pretty stressful, those six staff members.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're clearly causing some problems, Charles.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Turbulence.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, that's just the nature of business.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_04: But then you then you hear 36,000.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_04: Uh uh 32,000.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_04: I remember when you first told me that, and and this must we've known each other for what, three years?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, three and a half, probably, yeah.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, around that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, it I must have spent a lot of money here.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just that got so much back in terms of value in space, and it's and it's just like there's just levels, and you're like, wow, how I I couldn't even start to comprehend.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, so that's yeah.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_04: I I think of a stadium of 32,000 people and think, God, that's interesting.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_04: How do you make it a good analogy?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I always think when I think numbers, and it's just like, okay, well, how would you even begin to think how you manage a business of that size?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_04: And you were the chief people officer, right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was my last role, yeah.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_04: What what was like the biggest challenges you faced in that role?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for me, it was um an unusual role to do.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, part of that squiggly career, not following this you know, straight line up type of career.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I went from running the big biggest business, which was around about 16,000 people, to becoming the chief people officer.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a role that's traditionally a professional role.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: You are a professional HR person, you follow a very traditional career to get there.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but what the business wanted from me was somebody that was actually able to bring the business mindset to that function.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: So big challenges around just learning, uh, but that's something that again I love doing.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, big changes around expectations of others and kind of stepping from a business role to a functional role.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody that's done that in any large organization will know that that in itself is quite a challenge because the functions are there to support, enable the business.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if they're not perceived as enabling, they're getting a hard time, and rightly so, because the business needs to perform.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, really interesting, really interesting role adapting, sitting around uh an executive leadership team table, but taking a very different position on that table, but also bringing my old business skills to that as well, uh, was quite a challenge.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that gosh, like well, so much to unpack as well with your whole like career.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: We obviously won't go into everything.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Surely but I think you know the the squiggly nature of it um and how you've you know switched from even within the same kind of profession from role to role and like you say, kind of taking a step back to then go a bit further.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course, that's a that's a lot of different circumstances, but obviously the constant is you in that process.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned kind of your growth mindset.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a certain point in that process, a defining moment where you've shifted from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, or is it something that you've always had and maybe is the reason why it's been so squiggly?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great question.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think it kind of feels like there was a point in time, but probably actually there wasn't.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was more the point of time when I realized what it was as opposed to actually consciously said I've got to do, you know, I've got to operate with this growth mindset.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um because I just, you know, I was one of these people, rightly or wrongly, incredibly loyal to all the organisations I worked to and and uh worked for.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if somebody asked me to do something, as long as it was legitimate to do, then I would do it, uh, including building petrol filling stations in Moscow and all sorts of crazy, crazy things that I did in the past.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: But there was a moment in time where I started to, you know, you start to become more educated, even though I had an education, you become educated in a work sense, and you suddenly learn more about things like growth mindset, what that can mean, um, and actually how you can through yourself reflect that on others, and therefore the business can benefit in that way.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, some of it is about you, I, me, but actually, an awful lot of it is about well, who am I, what do I represent, and how do our people then react to that representation?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, is there an example that you can kind of give early on in your career where you know either if you didn't have that sort of mindset you wouldn't have been as successful, or maybe something, a certain trait that you've showed when dealing with other people where it's been really beneficial?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a great question.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if I go back to Dixon Stores group days, the the shocking culture that did get better, by the way, uh during the 10 years there at that show.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was a seven-year stint there, and it got better halfway through, I guess, and uh without going into the details, but it was all about change of leadership, and it just shows what what absolute leadership from the top, the reflection that that has on the business, the culture, and so on.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but yeah, you know, you were you were dealing with so we were one of the things I was doing, Charles, was fitting out uh high street electrical stores.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wasn't personally doing it, I was project managing it effectively.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But but your client would come in and do a royal visit, and they'd walk around or they'd look for kind of a scratch in the paint on the skirting somewhere, and it was incredibly challenging, and really the detail was more than was really needed.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: But they'd suddenly go, Oh, I think perhaps we could try this instead.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it would mean pulling stuff down, literally pulling stuff down, dismantling things, taking structures down that had been built, and then finding a way, working with a team really quickly to say, well, how can we put this back together again in a way that's gonna work for the client to try to achieve um what it was that they needed?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, it was a difficult role, that role actually, because I was sitting in between the client, I worked for the client organisation, but the client meaning the actual retailers themselves, and I was sitting between them and the contractors who were gonna do that work.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you had to convince them that they were then gonna work through the night or do whatever it was they were going to do to uh to deliver what the client wanted.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And how did you convince them more often than not?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: What's the what's the motivation?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, do you know what it's really interesting?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about teamwork.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it wasn't a case of sitting down and saying, hey, look, can we do this and this is how and so on and so on.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, what we learned there, and we were really blessed because we had fantastic teams, and they didn't all work for the same company, by the way.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: They were there was like an M ⁇ E contractor, there was a flooring contractor, a structures contractor, keeping it simple, but you know, all different companies.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: But because they worked together so much, they learned how they work together, and so they just wanted success for the organization.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, success for the organization was success for them as well.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it was really about ensuring that you created that team spirit all the time.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That team then wanted to deliver together, and actually, you didn't then have to really convince them an awful lot about what it was that you needed to achieve.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's fascinating.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think like gosh, even even uh kind of trying to to instill that culture, and in especially when you say how the culture's you know so so poor, or you just might not be aligned with it, yeah.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um how difficult you know that that must be at times.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Did you did you have you know for you within that, how did you kind of cope with maybe because there's a lot of factors at play, a lot of variables, yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot of things out of your control as well.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're you're not you're trying to create a bit of you know that that team environment rather than specifically giving someone something to do or trying to convince them.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, how do you how do you deal with uh things that are in your control and then things that are out of your control?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I guess um the stuff that's in your control, you you just get it done because that's kind of what you do.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that comes on to a bit about my fitness journey as well, which we'll talk about in a mo.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if you if you can deal with it, then you deal with it.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: The stuff that's not in your control comes back to the team again at the end of the day.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: You you you work out between you all who knows what, and you try and find the best solution all the time.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um you always come up with a solution.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Does it work?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, not always.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you make mistakes?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you learn from those mistakes?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, again as well.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: But actually bringing that all together and then just growing and growing and growing step by step, um, whilst in that environment avoiding some of the missiles that came at you as well.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but just you know, just getting it right is uh key.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess going now into that that fitness component and and health at the start of your career, were you as health conscious and and how has that changed throughout your career?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, interesting.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So no, I wasn't for sure.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've always had a dalliance with lifting weights since I was kind of 16-ish or something like that, and it's kind of been up and down.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but never has it played a role in my life like it does today.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um like everybody, I always knew I should do more.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like everybody, I tried doing things, I had a fad of doing something for four or six weeks and thought I'd cracked it, and then it slipped away again.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think also as you get older, as I've got older, you become more aware of your body, you become more aware of aging, you become more aware of not only longevity, but what I like to talk about being health span as opposed to lifespan.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and for me that means living the most full life for as long as you can, not necessarily living the longest life that you can.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's personally something really important to me.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you know, as a community, as a country, we've all become and as a you know, globally so much more aware of our health.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the data is there now that helps us, there's social media is there that helps to promote it as well, and it's just more of a constant.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's therefore it's only in the last few years that I've really kind of got it cracked for me in the way that I've got it cracked.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean it's perfect, by the way.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, is that is that the um the kind of turning point?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because like you said right at the start, about you're having to learn analog and just through through experience, you've not got all of these like amazing.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can sit down and I can listen to a conversation between experts or professionals in something that I have literally barely any kind of degrees of freedom, any like link to do you think that is the products like your the change that you've made in your health and like prioritizing it has been because of the amount of information?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, would that have been the case?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Would it have happened, let's say, earlier if you had the information available, or is there something else at play that's made you make that that priority shift?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: A good great question.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that definitely information that's who I am, that's how my psyche works.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's a bit of, I'm sure there's probably a bit of ADHD in there somewhere.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I love that sort of hyper-focus on things.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and obviously the more information there is, the more you can hyper focus on.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that definitely makes a difference.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think I would never have got to where I've got to had I just carried on being flat line, let's just say, you know, I don't know, 95 kilos, I may not have done it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's only because I allowed myself to get worse that it actually caused me to say, hang on, this is just absolutely not right.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've got to do something about this, I will do something about this.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that shift that enabled me to actually take the big step as opposed to a gradual change.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: Well I mean when we first started out, Mark, there was probably the first 18 months you perhaps struggled to let it click.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: And and perhaps you were still looking for that almost that quick win aspect?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_04: Definitely, I was, yeah, for sure.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: What changed between the last 18 months and the first 18 months of us kind of working together?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: Was it a mentality shift or was it what was the process behind that?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_04: Because you lost almost 30 kilos.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_04: 30 kilos, yeah.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 30 kilos.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I think that the biggest thing was just it's interesting, a quick story.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was at um I've had two hip replacements, so my body's kind of starting to fall apart.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've had tons of uh 13 operations on my knee, yeah, exactly.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was just been like absolutely nuts.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's wild.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, left knee, 13 operations.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: On the same one, yeah.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from a skiing accident when I was 21.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting the crazy things you do and the impact it has on your life.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think my hips are often as a consequence of my knee as well, because I never walked properly, I always compensated and so on.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I had a uh hip surgery um roughly 18 months ago, and it kind of went okay, but it didn't go great.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And leading up to that, I was in a lot of pain, and I was just I was tailing off with you.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I absolutely was drinking way, way, way too much.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: My work levels were really stressed.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I drink five times a week a bottle of wine a night if I was working at home, and it would be more than that if I was out in business things, business dinners, functions, and so on.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we had a conference, and I was limping around this conference because I just I couldn't get my hip back into shape, couldn't get the movement and so on.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I came home, as was typical, um, I'd been back dropped back by my driver about half past eleven at night, exhausted, been away for a week and a half, looked in the hall mirror, and I just honestly, and so it was vanity that started it, I guess, but I just looked in the mirror and just thought, I don't like what I see.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just like that for me.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: It literally was like that.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought, I've got to do something about it.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it was that moment in time that that made that start of that shift 18 months ago for me.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Such an interesting part of our psychology is the and I you know I've noticed it a few years ago, it's things need to get to a certain level of bad for us to do something about it.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it's like your knee surgery.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my yeah, my You wouldn't have gone through that investment in yourself if it hadn't have been really n necessary.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And even if I play the thought experiment out, like my knee was pretty messed up, you know, kind of preventing me from walking pain-free for a good year and a half.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's the reason why I came back from the US to just kind of start afresh and get some decent like help for it.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd always try and play the thought experiment, could try and be proactive rather than reactive about it, and think, you know, if this was worse, would I be better off?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And listing the things that maybe there's just a natural waiting to then get that bit more energy to get that that moment of looking in the mirror and really like the it clicking like that.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a gradual process, iterations day by day.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we don't notice a deterioration or something which you know, maybe on the the on the mental side rather than the physical side.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Physical is a little bit more obvious, mental stress levels you can you be able to get by.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably a lot more things you can get by doing and not even realise.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I'd always kind of play those scenarios out and think, you know, all right, am I just waiting for it to get worse or am I going to put a time limit exactly?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it it sometimes comes.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a trade off, isn't it?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a trade off.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's and it's fascinating that it's it's the same experience for you with with your with your health stuff and and seeing seeing that moment in in the mirror of it.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: What were the what were the sort of I guess like your relationship with yourself and health at that point?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um what were the what were the certain what were the kind of thoughts and things that you might say to yourself about your physical health?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess you know it a lot of it was around um yeah in my job I was on a stage an awful lot of the time and I don't necessarily mean a a literal stage, but you know, visiting people, wandering around, meeting clients, travelling the world, doing videos on you know um teams meetings, lots and you know, thousands of people on those calls sometimes and so on.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, you know, one of the things that was starting to happen for me was I was just buying more and more clothes that were just getting bigger and bigger.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, there there is a bit of vanity in all of this.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely acknowledge that.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, you just feel disappointed in yourself that, oh God, you know, and actually if I'd had just focused over the last month and I because I I was always quite lucky, I could always lose and gain, though, a lot of weight quite quickly.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: I could drop a stone in a month, and I could probably put on a stone in uh two months or something like that, you know.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it that and so you used to waver around like you know, so many people struggle like this.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it was you know, just trying to really get my head around that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's what that's where I was at at that time, and I just knew I needed to do something.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: But it was just that, I don't know, maybe the lighting was bad in my hallway when I walked in and saw myself in the mirror, whatever it was, and I just thought, shit, I really don't want to be that person.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, at the time I was what 54.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had lost quite a lot of weight leading up to my 50th birthday as well, but not but not to the same extent, and I held on to that for a long time, and I guess the stresses of work, different roles in work.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um the world went from um post-COVID, so I was 50 just before COVID, so I went through the whole COVID time in control, and then when the world opened up again, we all kind of let ourselves go again.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it yeah, it was just literally that one moment in time, and I'm I'm I'm grateful that I did look in the mirror.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: I walked I turned right as I walked into my hallway rather than turn left.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: If I turned left, I wouldn't have seen myself, and maybe I wouldn't have uh achieved what I've achieved today.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_04: I I find it always it's interesting what point do you let yourself get to before you make that decision to start.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um and I'm I'm always big on telling people like, don't let yourself get there.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_04: Start now.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_04: You're so right, yeah, you know, because you don't need the motivation of, oh my goodness, am I gonna die of a heart attack in five years?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, on the cards here, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, with the level of stress you were having and the late nights, the pressure tablets, uh you look at your body fat content, you know, the every you know, you have an annual medical for work and it and it tells you black and white where you're going, what you're heading towards.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_04: So Okay, we we were at your point, you're looking at yourself in the mirror, like what was it you are well we or myself helped you manage to do.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_04: What was the difference between you doing it on your own before and having maybe like a fad diet or a crazy workout routine for six weeks, then comparing that to what you did working with us?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um what was the main difference in strategy?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think a couple of things.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one about you, which is around structure.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know, we talked about it before, but you didn't tell me what to do all the time, every single day, or anything like that.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like I was some um film star having to get in shape for a movie or something like that.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: But what you did was what Barn Jim did was give me a real foundation to my mindset around my health going forwards, and then my energy levels gave me the bit that helped me to build on that foundation to get it right.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that you know, a couple of things.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: I that I decided that actually this is a work project.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was about my health, of course, it was about how I represent myself towards my family, providing for my family longer term, uh, which is hugely important to me.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: But it was also about my work and how it is that I enabled myself to be my very best to deliver in my role for the business that I work for as well.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of thought, well, if you've got a work project, you don't let the business down.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: You you put together a plan, you stick at it, you are agile and everything else as well.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of thought, well, what's different actually to this to a work project?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of thought of it in a much more disciplined way and thought about you know what's stopping me from achieving what I've needed to do over the previous 18 months or so, and how is it that I can put in place those actions, those mitigations that help to shift that so that I can enable myself in the journey as well.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's also a bit about it's about identity as well, and I don't mean identity in a vanity sense, it's about you know what do you want to represent in yourself and how is it that that representation uh delivers for business, delivers for work?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: You you know, how do you look towards your and I don't necessarily mean physically look, it's just you know, how do you come across confidently to your shareholders, to your stakeholders, to the people that look up to you, the your peer group that you work with?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And bringing all of those things together, I think, is really, really key.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it's one thing I always try and get across to people in business.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_04: It's the same strategy to grow your business is the same strategy to grow your muscles completely body fat.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_04: Completely, completely.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: Just getting that mindset over from you know how to operate a business very well, we just need to get that same mindset over to about about your body, yeah, and your mind as well.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and it's it's just making that transition, and it's difficult though, because it it's it's you holding yourself accountable much of the time and you know what goes on behind closed doors no one else really knows about.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um everyone has it, I'll just have a couple crisps, and then you eat the whole packet, or one glass of wine turns into a bottle.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_04: And in business, you can't so much get away with that.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_04: There's not much to hide around because there's hard numbers and you look at it and then you go, okay, well everything's transparent.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_04: And that that's where I think coaching can help a lot more is because now I then I was holding you accountable and still holding you accountable.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_04: Accountability is critical.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_04: Because then I I help you, you know, what goes on behind closed doors.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_04: I don't see it, but I know about it because the numbers Yeah, but you know me well enough to you know you could tell.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_04: You could tell.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_04: You can tell.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_04: So it's it's I mean, structure and accountability for me has always been the the most important thing, and and what strategy you apply depends on the person, right?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, we could have 20 other people who are at the gym at the moment who've had real life-changing results, but every single strategy is very different, and it's it's giving you enough freedom to kind of work out that best strategy.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um how do you find the strategy with your nutrition, especially with like dinners uh and client meetings?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, how did you manage that?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_04: Because it's all good and well me giving you a strict meal plan, but when it comes down to okay, you're eating out or there's you know, everyone's having to disappear.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: So how fitness pal doesn't really work when you're in a five-seven course tasting menu or whatever it is.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it's got quite an extensive array of things at my fitness palm, and it's growing by the day.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think one of the things for me was um because obviously that's a mega, mega challenge, and it's a temptation as well.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so one of my tactics was I would always make sure that I looked at the menu of the restaurant before I went there, wherever I was, so assuming it was a, you know, and not everything's in a in a restaurant where you're choosing from a menu and all that sort of stuff, but where I could, I would understand what it was I was going to eat and I work in my mind actually what I would eat and what I wouldn't eat, even to the extent of what's on the plate, what am I going to leave, what am I going to eat.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that started to uh have a real big difference.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was lucky as well that I kind of just managed to cut the alcohol out, and I say lucky because I think you are lucky if you're able to do that.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's not about it's not just about willpower, it's just falling out of love with alcohol as opposed to uh being in love with the sensation or the feelings or the emotions that alcohol can give you.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um so managing to those two things, um, but really trying to plan also recognising when you're just full or you've had enough food.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for me, I was I was brought up as a child that you ate the food that was on your plate, and you know, quite possibly that's not a good lesson to give to young people.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you probably should just simply stop eating when you feel like you've eaten enough food, whether that's a quarter of the way through or over the plate, whatever it might be.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So learning to stop, I think was also um pretty key.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: But again, uh the support you gave me talking around nutrition, using some of the tools that you advise me to use, like my fitness pal, and then my own uh inquiring mind, inquisitivity around nutrition, you know, learning low.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: We learn so much from Instagram.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you've got the right fee coming through, and I recognise that some of it's crap as well.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but but there is so much that you can learn.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that stuff really helped to motivate me as well.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, the best thing is that when you are suddenly starting to get into half of a size, or the trousers aren't quite as tight, or you're actually having to buy a pair of trisers that are a size less or a top less, you know, when you're seeing the difference when you look in the mirror, when you're feeling the difference, when you're putting on clothes, when you're feeling the difference when you're walking up a hill or going up the stairs, there's no greater motivator than that at the end of the day.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_04: And going kind of into that My Fitness Power thing, and I've told you from the start, it's not necessarily a long-term strategy, but it's a tool.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, immediately at the start, when you start tracking your food, and I like to call it food tracking because calories aren't everything, they're gonna define your weight, but then the macronutrients, the micronutrients, the food quality is all important.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_04: But as a foundation to build up your knowledge around nutrition, how have you found, you know, when you were meticulously tracking all the time to perhaps now you're having spurts where you're not always tracking, how how have you found that's helped you with making good food choices when you're when you're not able to?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think yeah, because I don't track now.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I do, I did some days I do it, some days I don't.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it kind of depends on where I'm at in terms of what am I doing.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Am I just trying to lose a bit of body fat?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Then I'll probably track more.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think I can judge how many calories I've eaten in a day now, give or take a couple of hundred paps at the most, you know, just because you just learn so much.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that innate learning what's good for you and learning to like what's good for you, learning to get that kind of balance right through the day, because it's also for me about when do you eat in the day as well, you know, trying not to eat too late and all those sorts of things.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but just yeah, just growing up, learning around what is it that's working for your body, what do you actually need to succeed?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, protein being a critical part, but not the only part in that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: But real for me, it was a big, big focus on how many grams of protein a day was I eating.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, especially the amount of muscle you packed on.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, of recently it's it's uh you're like Popeye at the moment.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's it's worth mentioning kind of like some numbers, maybe, or like because I got here, you know, I joined Barn Gym in June of last year.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I remember meeting you for the first time.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and we were outside, yeah, had beautiful weather, it's gonna you know, hopefully get back to it, which would be very nice.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I didn't know your story, I didn't know your transformation.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Guy mentioned it, and I was like asked about it, and then you showed your transformation photos.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: What sort of numbers, like where were you at uh in and in what year, what month, and which what were your aims, and then what did you kind of get down to?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I was in when I started, it was October 24, back end of October 24, and I was about 102 kilos.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm five foot seven and a bit, um, just to give you a bit of context.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what my BMI was.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I imagine my body fat was early 40s perhaps something.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Probably around there.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, something like that, I would guess.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then so today, um I use a Hume, by the way, which you and I have talked about quite a lot, um, because I like again it's data, it gives you so many data points every single day.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I jump on my Hume most days, not every single day now, but today uh I was uh 71.4 kilos, uh 13.2% body fat.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: So impressive.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's been good.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just love it, but I love the the data because what we were talking about again this morning.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to build a bit more muscle, so I've I've allowed my weight just to creep up ever so slightly, but my body fat's come down slightly whilst my weight's gone up, and and you know, again, it's it's it's got to be about the mindset, it's just driving me uh to uh enjoy it and succeed.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, data's so important, it's massive in today's world, you know, and it's also the numbers we do in the gym, right?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_04: With me tracking them and like getting PBs.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, at the start we were seeing much faster progress, and it's almost weekly we're making PBs, but today we we did a couple PBs and it's like, yes, that's a win because it progress does slow down eventually.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um data tracking for me is just it there's nothing more rewarding.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_04: I think people look for motivation or think motivation just comes to them or inspiration, but the reality is you're not gonna feel inspired or motivated until you start seeing that progress.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_04: And if yeah, if you're not measuring anything, you're not gonna really see that progress, and then you're not gonna be motivated.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_04: And like I always find that you know when I'm seeing consistent progress month by month, motor momentum builds, and then you start seeing better and better results.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_04: But when you shy away from tracking, shy away of hopping on the scales, or shy away from you know calculating the weights you've done in the gym, then that momentum starts to fade, and yeah, that's where people can start to feel a bit stuck again and think, oh, what's gone on?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_04: I've put on some weight, etc.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_04: And restarting.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting though, because I think you know, I'm conscious of my age, yeah, and you know, I don't want to I don't want to stop, I want to keep improving.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, as you get older, even if you're standing still, that's still an improvement, really.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I and I so I I'm sort of preparing myself for that mindset as well.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's not to say I'm gonna give in, but you know, I still want to be fabulous metabolic and athletic age in uh you know how I am.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I j what Charlie, a question to you maybe, you know, as an athlete, you know, you don't see, you know, when you're at your peak, you don't actually see that big step change every single day, every single week, or every single how do you how would you deal with that and how is that relevant to to me?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's such a good question.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming that is the case, by the way, as well as that.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, well, in yeah, in in my mind, um, and I think it's very relevant as well the stage that I'm at at the moment, because um I have been injured for the last two years, coming up to like two years.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, long time.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a long time, and it's the longest time that I've had without running at all.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've had periods in the past where I've been out for you know half a year or so.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's the one where those measures of success have been taken away from me.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so and that that's the what kind of a question that sparked in my head when you were talking about um certain measures of success that that you've had, like definitive measures with data.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And but there's a lot of stuff that's not on the spreadsheet.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of stuff that you can't go with with data.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, like it used to be uh, you know, it might be a sort of thing like trusting the process or trusting a coach or someone externally that knew um that knew what you what you're doing, what you needed to do with training, and it's then focusing on being consistent and doing the inputs, and then the results might just be delayed.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um but recently, over the last couple of years, I mean I've had I had a year and a half before this surgery where I didn't make any improvements walking around pain-wise, yeah, despite being the most consistent I've ever been in my training.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we saw it, yeah.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Backing off when I need to back off, like taking weeks and maybe months off completely to recover.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then also some days like being really diligent, doing a couple of hours of training a day, cross-training, mobility, trying to seek information.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's in in that process, I've kind of been I've not had the measurable stuff.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: It then just comes down to questioning the values of really what I get out of the pursuit, and it's that relationship of me with with my with myself.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's finding something greater than myself to to keep me accountable and to realise the value of still going and keep going and and learning.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in my process, like I've I've been curious, like you know, my whole life with like academic stuff, with sports stuff, yeah.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Numbers.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Numbers, yeah, numbers, love numbers, yeah.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's it really is that curiosity, like you've said, you know, you you you have that curiosity, um, and I think it for me it's just constantly learning more about myself.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every setback that I will have for me now is an opportunity to learn more, and it's always a blessing, and then also really questioning like if I got stripped of everything and my health, and if I couldn't do the things that I'd want to be able to do, what am I left with?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: And where can I derive my sense of self and like enjoyment?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and a lot of that now has just come down to being in the present, in the activity, understanding myself more, like where my thoughts come from, certain things that a massive thing over the last couple of years has actually just been a practice of letting go.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh letting go of what really matters or doesn't matter.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: It it sounds like you've you've had a a similar process of letting go of the things that don't serve you, letting go of the like alcohol, um, letting go of certain other habits that were holding you back from getting to kind of where um where you want to be.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's yeah, it's it's a mixture of what I call you know quantity metrics.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've never gone my whole thing because it's been about performance, it's never about scale weight, um, and it's never been about body fat percentage.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't I I my they're just not your yeah, your measures are different to mine.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: But then it but then a lot of the time it would be about um race times, running times, tenths of a second or hundredths of a second on a track or whatever it is.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then it would be about um strength measures if I'm going to a physio and like right, I'll improve on on this and see if that see if that works.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think more and more because I've gone like I don't need to be chasing certain numbers, I won't need to be recovering or just learning more about myself.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a lot more of a um kind of a quality quality metric of how I'm feeling, how I can negotiate setbacks, yeah, and then also having that thing that's greater than myself and knowing that um the more that I invest into myself and using setbacks and uncertainty um to my advantage as like resistance to train against, then can I still engage in my relationships with other people when everything else for me is like so much uncertainty?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: So can I have consistency within a whole spectrum of like you know various like circumstances?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's yeah, it's interesting.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Guy, do you see I mean we talked a little bit uh recently about some of your other uh sort of corporate PT clients that you have?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see similar stories with them as well, or are there different stories that you see with them in terms of how it is that they're going on their journey and what makes them successful?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_04: There's similar trends, um balancing acts, health, career, family, social life, and it's always difficult to kind of get that balance and working out what to prioritize.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_04: I think a lot of the time the biggest trend is I think it see is people who have very busy careers, you know, working 70, 80 hours a week, they push off health because they think it's gonna take up a lot of time, hours of meal prep, you know, long workouts.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um and the reality is it it really does start to save time if you get it right and if you have the right strategy, you know.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_04: Doing some, you know, three or four 30-minute workouts a week, just buy some kettlebells at home and being productive with it because it pays back in dividends when you have that higher fitness level.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, um sleeps better, for example.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_04: You sleep better, you have more energy in the day.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um food wise, it's not a lot of people.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: People think healthy eating requires a lot of prep time.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_04: But a big thing I've always preached to clients is well, if you're going to cook one meal, why not just make enough for three or four portions to have for lunches for the week?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_04: And just applying some strategies where it actually does start to save time by being that healthier person.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_04: But each case is different, right?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_04: There's there's always different issues, it could be injuries, it could be mindsets that you have to shift.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_04: But generally, it's time is the biggest complaint.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_04: And that's a trait I see across the majority of my professional men and women who have got you know crazy hours a week they're trying to work.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, I don't have the time, I've got a family, I've got that, uh, you know, endless hours at work.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, but but what did you find since I guess the past 18 months, two years, since you really start to focus on it?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_04: How has it affected the time you have and the quality of your work?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I guess one of the things that's you know really interesting listening to what you're just saying is I'm really lucky because when I'm at home, I've got a gym at home.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's nothing sexy, nothing fancy, but I can do everything I need to do in there, and it takes me 15 seconds outside out of my front door to be in my gym.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that makes a big difference.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely acknowledge that doing that compared to jumping in a car and driving 20 minutes to a gym living where we do here, you know, everything's a 20-minute, half an hour drive to somewhere, and that makes a massive difference.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in terms of you know, how does it help me?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly I feel more confident about my health when I have my health check uh October last year, a pupa health check, you know, it's just just fantastic to see again more data, but what's their data telling me about me now?
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you never know what you don't know.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: But at least some of the markers that you used to worry about you can worry about less when you're going forward.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know, that mindset, um that confidence that you've done something to help yourself going forwards, and for me, helping myself, helping the business, well, actually, what is all that about?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's all actually about family at the end of the day.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: The family is the goal that's at the end of the day, providing for uh my family is why I do all of the things that I do ultimately.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, the one thing that I I mentioned sleep just now, probably the one thing that I feel from all of that that I haven't managed to really crack, although very recently getting a lot better, but it's just better recently, yeah.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just the you know the sleep is tough, but that's because you know, when you're working those hours that you talk about, I probably didn't ever work quite those hours, but I used to travel load, so you include the travelling as well as you are.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, the slightest disturbance to your sleep, your mind switches on again, and you're laying there writing emails in your head or rehearsing conversations in your head or whatever it is, uh, and so really trying to improve that sleep.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's something I didn't crack, it's as I say, much better now.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: But that's probably the one thing that I I didn't see the full I saw benefit, but the full benefit of.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean you were having right at the start, it was like five hours a night, yeah, sort of thing.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm probably doing seven to eight now.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's brilliant, which is great.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really great.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's not undisturbed though, but it's still seven to eight.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, that doesn't include when I fall asleep in front of the TV as well.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care that.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_03: And on the extras.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: And my nap that I take in the afternoon as well.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you don't you don't track it.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, my afternoon naps, that's something really important, by the way.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I absolutely when I'm at home and I've got the time between 15 and 25 minute nap, yeah, it is just the best thing you can do.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Just you know, people might say, Oh, you old what's it, or whate whatever it is.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm so for naps.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so Oh, you actually, oh yeah, I didn't know that.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: We we haven't done naps before.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's just brilliant, it's utterly, utterly brilliant.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I lay there, I feel like my body is restoring itself, and then I wake up and I feel fabulous.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not so long that you wake up feeling rubbish because you've slept too, too long as well.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's important.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're groggy as anything.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you're grumpy as well.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had it the other week when because Tuesdays are can sometimes be my it's my transition from working earlies Monday and Tuesday.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hard my Tuesdays is my hard session.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I go to the gym in the evening, do all the stuff I need to do, um, and then I'll recover kind of Wednesday morning.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: So Tuesday evening when I get down before the gym is normally when if my sleep hasn't been great, yeah, that's when I feel it.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember having a nap the other week and I woke up, I probably napped for about an hour or so.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you it's not good.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like a good idea.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it always feels like a good idea, right?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I went downstairs and my mum's asking me all these questions, and I'm just like, please not now.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm just I'm not, I want to get to the gym or do do my stuff.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what so what stuff with the with the sleep you talk about?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is something that loads of people can relate to, is especially if you're even if you're just busy mind rather than like a busy person as well, um, the switching off element.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's normally the thing with you know, if you've got insomnia, the main thing with insomnia is the thinking about having insomnia.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably heard as the most important thing for you know, the one thing that makes sense.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Self-fulfilling, isn't it?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then thinking about thinking about insomnia.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you have any, you know, kind of say protocols or maybe like circuit breakers with the thoughts to be able to switch off and because seven to eight hours is is solid, right?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now it's yeah.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: Although it's usually broken once or twice, but I'm I'm yeah.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm I'm kind of in a place where I think it's good.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of things, but so many people know this anyway.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: If it's on your mind, write it down.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that's that is a way of taking it out of your mind and putting it on the piece of paper so you can kind of move on with your sleep.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that's key.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing is I normally just get up and go and get a cup of tea or have a drink or something.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: Actually try and break that trying to get back to sleep, do something else, it's only usually five or ten minutes and then going back and start again.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um that helps.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_04: I've I've found that's helped, you know, when you're tossing and turning at night and you can't fall asleep and you're thinking about work the next day.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes it is better up off just getting up, turn the light on, walking around, reading a little bit of a book, and then going back to bed.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, writing it down, that's something I've always done.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_04: Is I'll write my daily to-do list.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_04: That's like the last thing I do each day.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, okay.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_04: And I generally just really good discipline.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of do it before I go to sleep because it it's on paper, it's out of your mind, and that helps an awful lot.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, you're just lying there thinking, I've got to do that tomorrow, I've got to email that person, and this's gotta happen, and yeah, before you know it, it's hours are gone and you're just thinking about not sleeping.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_04: So energy-wise, what is different now this year within your in the work environment since you've you know dropped the weight, you know, training consistently, eating well, sleeping better, like how's that affected your professional life?
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're just kind of uh ready for everything.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: With a busy job, like the jobs I've had, you get you know that agility.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: You just don't know what's going to hit you one day or another.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you could be you know suddenly your share price takes a tumble and you don't really know why, and what you're doing in the business to you know to convince whether that's me or somebody else convincing shareholders about the actions that you're taking.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um but therefore sort of being ready to go, being sort of fully charged all the time, you know, as if you're a battery that's always at 90 plus percent as opposed to allowing yourself to get down to 50 or less, um it just means that you can just go, you've got more stimulus.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the other thing actually, interestingly, is I think I've been a lot more focused in my work as well.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um because I had to make changes to accommodate eating regularly, to accommodate exercise, um, you know, you can't just fit that into a however many hours a day it is that you're working because you've something else has to give, so you have to change what's in your diary.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that might be less one-to-ones with people, that might be whatever it's it's absolutely not not speaking to clients, and it is about continuing to engage with people, but just reducing down some of those things that can that you can afford to give up in order to create that space.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and then that gives you the energy, and when you're achieving at work, you've got more energy as well because you're achieving through what you're doing.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it becomes uh self-fulfilling.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: I probably I've never really thought about this, but I suspect probably in the last 18 months I've worked slightly less hours, as well as just less hours because I've given myself an hour, hour and a half a day towards my well-being.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but actually maybe slightly less hours in just doing stuff as well, interestingly, because you're probably more efficient.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and that is, and you are getting as much output, right?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's very efficient.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: The output is still constant or better or whatever it might be, but the output doesn't isn't compromised as a consequence of that.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's what a lot of people would fear if you cut down a certain amount of hours to do it.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean there's a few like psychological laws.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think Parkinson's law is one where it's you know, you you take the amount of time, you feel the time that is given to you.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I told you to do something in half an hour, you probably do it in half an hour.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if I gave you 15 minutes, you'd be probably still to get it done.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and what what I'm hearing is a lot of kind of cutting out what's not essential, um, and really like it being a practice of having that incentive to put structures in in the day to then make sure that you you are almost forced to get things done as more of an incentive.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are there certain things over that process that you've realized that what some things that you thought were productive actually aren't as productive as you thought they were?
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what were they?
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think you know conversations with people.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: I like talking to people, I love people, it's just who I am, it's what I am.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: But but maybe sometimes I spend more time talking to people than perhaps is truly necessary.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of shortening that down uh makes a bit of a difference.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also uh I struggle to actually make a start on things as well.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um if somebody else has already started something, I'm brilliant at continue with it, tuning it, making it better, whatever it is.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: But that an initiation piece I struggle with.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: So you know if you've got less time to do it, you've just got to do it, you've just got to crack on, you've just got to do it.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think uh those things really help tactically as well.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_04: It's really interesting because th these are things that uh you know you had great success in your career, but even individuals my age I talk to who are struggling to, you know, start a career or they want to start a new business or they want to start on their fitness journey, these are similar problems they have, you know, just making that start and taking that first step.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess it might be reassuring for some people to listen to actually like just because you you've you've got towards the top and you know you're you're really blossoming in your career and your physique's looking great and your health's good, you there's still these problems that reoccur across everyone, right?
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's just all about scale, it's all about relativity, isn't it?
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I could have been in the past stressed about trying to close out a big acquisition or something like that.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was really, really stressful.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: But also if you've got a different job, you know, in my mind that might be a much smaller stress, but to the person, that different stress is just as important to them or was just a bigger hurdle to them as it as whatever it was that I was involved in.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, whatever your job, everybody's dealing with the same types of challenges, and the health can help with those challenges, but the health can help with your mindset to get things done uh as well, whatever your job.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_04: Mental health-wise, is this something you previously kind of struggled with?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_04: And how has getting your body fitter affected that, if any, if it's affected at all?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think you know, every I don't I can't imagine there's anybody that puts their hand on their heart and says that they don't struggle with different things with from a mental health perspective, it's kind of it's built into who we are.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's all about again, how do you actually deal with the challenges that you have?
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you talk to somebody about it, do you internalize it?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do you use uh chemicals to help you to to improve it?
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh do you use professionals to help you to improve what you are, and all of those are you know remedies to help you with that.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you know, again, if you're feeling fresh, if you're you you just look at the world in a slightly brighter place, that doesn't mean the world can get deep and dark from time to time.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: But but it's about you know, I don't know, I've used the word foundation quite a few times today, actually, but you know, there's a foundation to your fitness, there's a foundation to your mental health, there's a foundation to your approach to life, how do you approach your friends, how do you give people your time?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: And trying to lift that foundation up all the time, I think um is critically important.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if you haven't got uh well, if you haven't got health, you haven't got anything.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's face it, you know, there was a quote, and I'm probably gonna get this wrong, but you know, you've got a million problems in your life until your health fails you, and then you've only got one problem.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there's that is so so true, isn't it?
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: And fitness doesn't give you all of the answers to that, but it it actually ticks a lot of the boxes towards helping you to uh improve the areas that you can actually influence, recognising you can't influence everything.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think your fitness is your especially on the physical side, it's kind of like the playground where then the mental can thrive.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's great.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can focus on improving your mental health, but really the way the vehicle to do it is by working on the physical, and then the mental will come kind of downstream.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Could couldn't agree with you more.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we had a conversation, sorry to interrupt, but we had a conversation, we talked about alcohol.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and um it sounds corny, and I don't want it to sound corny, but for me, like my exercise is now gives me what alcohol used to give me in terms of the boost dealing with challenges and things.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if things are tough, I'll go into the gym for a second time in the day sometimes because it's like slugging half a bottle of wine, which is what I would have done in the past, or a couple of big gin and tonics.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it just takes you to a different place and it it just lifts you up.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's so for me so critically important.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I've got a gym at home, a basic gym at home that enables me just to do that.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: But you can go and do a load of press-ups, go for a walk, go for a run, whatever whatever it might be.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it it really, really, really helps.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, it's it's always been the remedy.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_04: I remember in lockdown where everyone was locked up in their houses, especially in the city and my that was chronic.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_04: You know, a lot of people were upset, and then I was out here in the sunny weather working out uh on the grass on the farm with my dumbbells, kettlebells, and it just felt amazing.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_04: And that was the real catalyst for me thinking I need to make some other people do this because this is just seeing how how good I feel right now, and and and that's kind of what led to Barn Gym.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I guess for you, what made you want to come to Barn?
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_04: Was it the outdoor, was it the more personal approach, or was it just because it was local and you thought you'd give it a shot?
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what in truth it's a bit of all of those things, I guess.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but those are the things that get you to come in the first place or the first two or three times.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that the thing that's kept me coming is actually the regularity.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: So until very recently I'd come at twelve o'clock every single Friday.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was my slot, wasn't it?
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, AM Tuesday sort of.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh AM Tuesday now, yeah, absolutely.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but you know, the regularity of that made a real difference.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think the fact that you know I love that my knowledge has grown, and I'm absolutely not an expert in the world of fitness and nutrition, but I have a level now which I can really use that to help myself.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: But coming here, you know, so much of it's just about the friendship, so much of it's about the banter, something taking the piss out of each other.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: You telling me today, did I did I do that sled push or not?
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's still out there, is it?
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's still out there.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is at the other end.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: You never pushed it back in the end.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you know, it it's knowing that there's uh a great community here, and what you've created is massive in terms of the broader community and all the people that do all of the different things that you offer, not just PT.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and I think you know, that's really, really, really exciting for people.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: The environment is just amazing, of course.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, driving down a country lane, okay, getting fed up when you meet somebody coming the other way and it's a pain and all those things.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: But just being in the heart of the countryside uh is really, really relevant because again, that puts your head in a great space.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: We trained this morning, 8 a.m.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: and it was bloody freezing out there, but it was great, it wasn't it?
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we just cracked on.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, sometimes sometimes we're just like there was other people in the studio here and in the class gym, and you know, I value the con quality of conversation with you and other clients, and sometimes it's just like And it's not all about gym, is it?
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's not all about fitness, it's about everything.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_04: Just just having you know having a chat.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like, yes, you want a productive workout, and we we got some PD PBs today, but it's you know having a nice conversation, and for a lot of people it you know that might be the only conversation you have outside of the family or outside of work for that day.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's important too, you know, that independence of um it's not a f a friend friend, it's not a work friend, it's not your family, it's a different type of relationship.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's good.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's not to say you're not my friend, by the way.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like paying it's like paying a therapist to go and talk to them.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not something about them that you know give them a bit of money.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: To be a good PT, you've got to be a great therapist and be able to count to ten.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, which most people the second one is the one we fall down on.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think counting to ten isn't like a necessary job requirement.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_04: I think we we struggle with that.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you do often, yeah.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes creep in eight when you really want ten.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, in doubt, you just say, right, two more.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's doubt two more, right?
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's good.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_04: Two more.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_04: That's good enough.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um but Mark, I mean, it's been an insane transformation.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we we we put some of your your photos online recently as some marketing material and it's on the website, and the amount of messages we've received of just like, how did he do that?
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like what but I get if you were to just quickly explain in a sentence, how did you do that?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, your foundation, uh-huh.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely, definitely, you know, I wouldn't have done it without your foundation.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm lucky that I'm inquisitive and therefore I learned more and more.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: I used Instagram rightly or wrongly an awful lot to feed my knowledge, and I love doing that.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was lucky that I saw the progress relatively quickly and have continued to see that progress.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: And okay, the progress today is it's not about weight, um, but the progress today is about maintaining weight levels, you know, improving muscle mass, perhaps, uh bringing body fat down to a level that's appropriate for my my lifestyle and so on.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: But just measuring, seeing whatever it is that you want to measure by seeing that change.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's just so, so motivational.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I said it earlier, you know, everything you do in your life is about for me, it's about my family.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I just can't allow myself to can go back to be that person that was super unhealthy because what does that mean in terms of not only my future but my family's future?
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know putting that context into it is uh critically important as well.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's very very purpose-driven.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, um, that wake-up level where you saw yourself in the mirror, and that you you know, it's all for your family.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's it I mean there's vanity in that as well, but I'm always the first one to put my head and acknowledge that.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the acknowledgement that you know you you have, and I think it's great that you've got you have different purposes.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've got more than one purpose.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just something to as a self-improvement tool, it's something that you recognise that you have this thing that is greater than yourself.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's something which it I'm uh so fascinated by, especially moving out to America where religion is a massive thing.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, yeah.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: Huge and and in high level people don't realise that in the US, by the way, just how big that is.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was and it was mind-blowing to me how it it's almost in a certain aspect, a certain element of a delusion, but positive delusion, and how much it gives you, especially in a performance, the performance edge, yeah, is from the you know, not everything is on you.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can outsource some of that.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of the things that you've talked about is is that something outside of yourself being um you know, even writing things down.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a certain level of you know detachment.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's the it's the the leadership, like you're doing something for other people.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're not trying to, it's not like a transactional leadership technique where you're just telling people what to do, yeah.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it's then you maybe you know having that emphasis of leading by example as well and seeing that that impact.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_01: That leadership by example is just it rubs off, you know.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: If people again, another conversation.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_01: We we must talk too often and not train enough when I'm here.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: But another conversation is you know, and you know, if people want to drink, I've got nothing against people wanting to drink.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I almost wish I wanted to drink again, but I just don't want to drink again.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, when you talk to people about your journey, particularly around alcohol, you find them starting to adjust their ways.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not because I'm saying you shouldn't or don't, talking only about me, because I've got no rights to Talk about them, but suddenly people start to change whatever it is that they're doing as well.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the you know the shadow you cast on people in whatever it is that you're doing, good or bad, is just absolutely massive.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's something I'd like to touch upon is um now, like you mentioned, it's you don't have that need to drink because because it seems like you've you know you've found the benefits, you've understood the value which it provided you because a lot of the things that we do it served a purpose at some point in our lives and let it go when it doesn't serve you anymore.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: It might take sometime, it might take a hell a hell of a lot longer than than you might feel like it needs to, and you're like, or never should even not even find it.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um what I'm really interested in is are there certain things that initially felt like a sacrifice, but now that you understood the value is more of a lifestyle choice.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like alcohol might have been a yeah, something you're ready to give it up, but yeah, linked to alcohol for sure.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's easy to kind of like question yourself if you're the life and soul of a party if you're not had a not drunk, but if you've not had a few drinks, so there's that kind of thing, and you've got to almost re-relearn that.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_01: And also link to alcohol from a work perspective.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you'd often um, you know, if you're if I was away with the rest of the leadership team and um you finish a meeting at say six and right, right, we're gonna meet at 7.30 to go for dinner or whatever it might be, the likelihood is that throughout all of my career most people would drop their bags in their hotel room and be in the bar 15 minutes later.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if actually your motivation is to dash back to your room, get your gym kit on, get in the gym, train for 45 minutes, dash back to your room, get showered, and be ready to meet everybody at 7.30 when it's time to go, feeling great, feeling like you've achieved something, but actually missed out on some of the the social nature of the team, that's probably a pretty significant sacrifice from a work perspective.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and does it still feel like because that that fear of missing out is massive across the board?
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: The FOMO.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably the FOMO is probably the main thing that that stops people from giving up something.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you still feel like you're you're missing out on it?
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think you've got to you just come to terms with it, and you know, everything's a trade-off, everything's a sacrifice.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we were talking about you know, every decision you make is a business case in in business about you know, well, what's the input, what's the output, what am I gonna what's the negative, what's the risk, whatever it might be.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um But if you're just feeling good and you're feeling that you've done something for yourself and you're accomplished, it doesn't matter whether everybody knows that you've done that or not, absolutely doesn't matter.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_01: But that feels pretty good, big motivator for work.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_04: I think we've covered a lot today.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_04: Probably.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've probably rabbited on for way too long.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_04: No, not at all.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_04: I don't even know.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_04: We've been going for about an hour and ten.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_04: Hour and ten.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_04: But thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, and hopefully this story you've just told us today can inspire other people to get it.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hope so.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: I hope so.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean ki I'm keen to you know help people to learn from my experience.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not, as I said before, not preaching about my experience at all.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if I can help other people to learn from my experience, then I'd be thrilled to do that.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it's great to come here today and have the conversation with you both.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, cheer cheers for coming on, Mark.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks, guys.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks so much.