Become a Better Man - WMA x The Better Man podcast with Alex Myers

Time frame at all. So you, you.

We usually chat for about 90 minutes.

Fine for me, I think by then.

People are like, yeah, can only take so much. Yeah, let's do that. But firstly, just thanks for coming. It's a pleasure. Obviously followed your insta for a while and it was when I was with Nick, he was like, you know, let's beat Anthony. He was at the farm and I was like, whole man academy. I know, I know that guy. I checked it out and yeah, you do some, some really impressive stuff. So how did that come about? Firstly, like, what got you into that arena?

How far should we go back? In short, when I left the city and I'd worked in London for, let's say, 20 years, I round it up to 20 years. It sounds better than say like 19 or 18 or something like that. But in, in the years before I left the city, I'd become disillusioned with where I was in life, if that makes sense. And I looked around and realized I was in that gap where you wanted to live a better life. And I started to spend a lot of time around men who were leading, you know, great lives. But you were stuck in the hamster wheel of, you know, 200 hours a month at your desk, etc, etc. And that's where, that's where when I left, you know, it kind of gave me the thinking space to be able to actually start the whole man academy, if that makes sense.

What were you doing in London?

So I worked as a. I started at Glencore when I was 18, had no idea what I was doing, didn't even know what the company was, which is like one of the biggest or probably the world's biggest, like precious metals and trading companies.

I.

And probably if I'd have known, I mean, you know, you talk a lot about confidence. If I'd have known what the company was and how big it was when I went for interview, I probably wouldn't have got the job because I would have been too scared. But I didn't have a clue what it was. So I just acted normally instead of thinking there's a, you know, a reason why you're going there.

Ignorance is bliss, you know, sometimes it'll get you quite far not knowing those things.

Oh yeah, ignorance is bliss. I think for the last couple of years that's, that's been an interesting one. But I found after the first, I was there for like four years and that was great. And that gave you a window into people with money. And we all know money doesn't make you happy. But it can certainly help you do some cool stuff in life. And you know, I'd gone from being a boy that lived on a, on a non working farm down in Maidstone and working for a local golf club, you know, serving, doing silver service and stuff and pocketing all the tips and not letting the chefs have it to working for this enormous company and, and being kind of, you know, the, the door or the curtain was pulled back to a different world and you know, of what's possible and. But after four years of that, I moved on to as a junior power trader, a company ABB big, another big, big company. And the path took me from there. We all got made redundant, which I always say redundancy if I talk about that topic on LinkedIn and a lot of other people. It's one of the biggest ones that people interact with because it's amazing how you can think your life's going really well and then you get made redundant. You're. And if you've got something to go to, it's great but if not, you are, it's not a great term but you are considered redundant for a while. And I'd worked as a junior trader for about a year and a half and then the whole company, basically the allied parent company made a massive up. So they just said to the whole of the risk trading team, you're all done, you're all out. It didn't matter whether you'd made money or not, you are, you're going. And I remember sitting down. It's one of those times in your life where, you know, it could have gone either way. I sat down and the day we got told I was being made redundant was a day that my girlfriend at the time and I had just bought our first apartment, you know, good timing. And I remember phoning her up and being like, hey, you know, yeah, being made redundant. And she's like, what the fuck are we going to do now? And I was like, I have no idea. And thankfully I got called in and we got a really, really good payoff. But had I not have done, I'm not sure where things would have gone from there. And it's that sliding doors moment, isn't it? Within life you sometimes be lucky. But it was around that time I understood what a broker was and not a trader and I never fully understood what I was doing as a trader. I knew the basics, but I just wasn't interested in it. And whereas when I spent time with the brokers I realized that was less about the data and the numbers. And more about being a people person and relationships, you know, which probably is why I enjoyed in the podcast as well. So I worked as a broker in carbon emissions and European power for 12, 13 years, and it was towards the end of that time that I started thinking, I don't want to. Like, I've enjoyed it. And you met some great people and, you know, went to some really cool things. But like, everything, sometimes it's run its path. And I try and describe for people that don't understand that kind of job is a bit like being a personal trainer. People that are outside it don't understand there's good and bad points of doing any job. And you, as a broker, your job was basically to make the trader like you, so he wanted to do loads of business with you. That's, you know, that's in a nutshell. It was less about knowing how the markets work to know how the people worked that were dealing in the markets. And I was really good at that. But the underbelly of that was, of course, the entertainment side, which meant, you know, you, you had to. First you had to be into work at 6:45 in the morning. And it's funny how people would say, oh, so I guess if you start at seven, you probably like finish like two or three and you're like, no, no, no, you might finish at five or maybe six. But then some nights you'd then go out with clients and, you know, you'd go to your steak restaurants or sushi restaurants and you'd go to the best ones. You wouldn't go to any normal ones. And I remember like going to Zuma Rocker Nobu, which would be the top ones. And I remember going to Zuma, like, literally one night Bernie Ecclestone was sitting there with his. Whichever wife he was with at the time and one of his daughters, you know, we had all of Take that bar, Robbie Williams were on the chef's table to the right. You had one of the nights I sat there with Gwyneth Paltrow just opposite me, having her dinner with someone, you know, cricket, guys, footballers, all these different stuff. And you'd have great food, but of course then you'd finish that and then you'd go to a nightclub and you'd finish it two or three or who knows? And sometimes you either go home, which you'd get into bed at, let's say three or four, and you'd still get up at, you know, 5:30, or you just go straight back to your desk and you'd sleep at your desk or sometimes under your desk. And when the market opened again at 7 o' clock or before that, you know, you. There was no, I'm going to take it easy. It's like, the market's open, you've got 30 traders to deal with across the world. You better be sharp. Or if you make a mistake, it's going to cost them money and it's going to cost you, you know, revenue. So that was great for a while and I think it's a young man's game. And like, you know, I don't know. How old are you?

39.

39. So I'm 45 and, you know, in my, in my 20s and early 30s, I've really enjoyed it because I think you can cope, your body can cope with that, but you wonder what damage you're doing to yourself. Kind of, you know, for longevity and great example. I mean, I, I would go to Ibiza some weekends and you'd spend as much money as you want. You take a couple of clients with. You'd stay in a really cool hotel, you'd have someone drive you around Ibiza, pick you up from the clubs, you'd have tables there, you'd get your bottles of vodka and all the gubbins, which sounds great, but some weekends you didn't want to do that. And you. Then maybe the next weekend you might go, I don't know, you might fly to Amsterdam for lunch or you might go to Paris to see a client or have you. And yeah, after a while you start to look around and think, like, is this it? Is this all I'm gonna do? And that culminated in, for me also with the markets that I dealt in, I could see that computers were taking. I mean, look at where we are with AI now. But even back then, there was one or two kind of trading exchanges that were basically faster, more efficient, cheaper. You know, they didn't come in hungover. You know, commuters don't have off days. And I could see that those were taking over the, the volume of trading that we were doing was going down as that was going up. And at some point there's going to be a tipping point where you go, do you know what? We're not needed. We're not needed at all. And it was around that time that it all kind of rolled together where I thought, I just don't want to do this anymore. And it was then that I'd met Emma, my now partner, who we've been with for like 12 years at work and, and when she was living in mine, she Said, oh, we should start listening to podcasts. Which I would say podcasts saved my life because, you know, it's not, not, not meant because I was suicidal or something, but because I was very kind of tunnel vision on I'll just be in the city doing what I'm doing and that's it. But that was the first time I heard the word, like probably Tony Robbins for one. And, and yeah, you know, I said on quite a few interviews, but I remember saying to her like, I'm not listening to podcasts, I'm busy, I'm really busy being busy and what have you. And actually realized that, you know, a lot of men are busy doing the, the day to day work but actually aren't going to spend their time listening to podcasts and stuff.

Why would you, what, what were you trying to get from the podcast? What was it you needed to hear?

I think for some, at some point I needed to hear there was other options in life. And you needed to hear the story of men that had been on either, not so just in the city, but men that have become a better man who've reinvented themselves because it's fucking scary to be in a well paid, relatively well paid job. It's not like you're getting your hands dirty. You're just sitting at a desk, you know, bringing in the money and bonuses and what have you to then walk out and be like, you know, I'm going to go and do something else. And it's not just for you, it's the people around you because your family and friends and most people are well meaning, but they don't understand if you've got a burning desire to leave because they're like, what about the money and the security? And you know that, you know that can only take you so far.

Was it, did something happen for you to slow down enough to kind of step back and have a look at how you wanted to spend your life? Or was it an accumulation of this feeling just getting bigger over, over the years, which then resulted in you having said, stop this, this isn't for me anymore.

I think it was, it was a bit of both. I, I, one of the things I did was started listening to a podcast when the guy who's now a friend and fan of the whole man academy, but he said his podcast is called Mindset by Design. And I remember listening to one where he said, and it's is the basic stuff, you know, it's like, what do you actually want? And even if you, you know, if you take action now, it might not happen straight away, but you've, you know, consistency and, you know, putting in the hours. And I sat there and realized I didn't know necessarily what I wanted, but I knew I didn't want to sit at a desk, you know, doing something I wasn't interested in for 200 hours a month, you know.

Yeah, it's a great way because, you know, it sounds like it's such a simple question, what do you want? And there's so many guys who struggle to answer that. I think what you've just said there is so right. Like sometimes you kind of clear on what you don't want from life. My first mentor, Jeff, told me that's a great way to keep going. What don't I want? What don't I want? What don't I want? And it will, it will get you to this vision or at least it will start guiding you in direction. But it's a big question, isn't it? It's an important one because if you don't know what you want, it's like, what do you do with your time, what you do, your energy, what you do, your attention, what do you do, your focus.

Because you then feel, you know, if you reflect on it, you might look back and be like, I wasted a lot of my time. And I think, I mean, you being in your 30s, me in my 40s, that it also depends on your age. Because what I wanted as a 18 year old was different to a 24 year old. I don't think I was interested in money really. When I was 18, I just kind of wanted to have fun and spend a lot of time chasing girls. That was the fun part of it. Then once you get around, you know, once you're in the proper workplace, you start to see the, I call it the trappings of success of what other people have got. And you think, oh, that if I have those things, then you know, ultimately I'll either I'll be happier or also attractive, you know, the right partner. But then once you get to your 30s, depending on if you've got kids, I think that's where, you know, for me, we didn't have, our first child is now 6. So I didn't have, we didn't have Hudson till I was basically 38, 39. So I would have been an interesting test for me having if he'd have had children earlier. But there was the two things. The one with the podcast where there was just sometimes like one episode where he just thought, yeah, what, you know, what do I want. And I knew one, one of them isn't to sit and do this. I. And also it was that slow realization that if you didn't go and do something, you could quite easily stay kind of comfortable, you know, just, you know. And one of the big things for me when I went to a Tony Robbins event, part of the package was your own life coach for whatever you want to call it, 12 sessions or something. And midway through, the lady was asking me and she had a great life. She was a coach, she lived in Ibiza and basically would do like six to eight coaching sessions a day on Skype or what have you. And I remember her saying to me, look, when you say you don't like your job, when are you going to leave? And because I was good at my job, when I left that 8 or 9 year old, the company said, we don't want to lose you because I make them a lot of money. So we'll find you another role, I.

Guess with more lucrative.

And you like, great, Yeah. A part of you would say, oh for fuck, I just want to leave. Another part of you that, you know, the kind of the heart would say, I want to leave. The head would say, well, it's money and it's security. And I moved to a role where I didn't, I was so I was new to it. It would be like putting you in this situation now saying, right, you're going to do fuel or broking now you know how our broker works, but you have no idea how the systems work. And it's very hard when you go from being totally competent and confident in, in what you do to just totally out of your comfort zone again. And I remember sitting at the desk and my previous trading or broken sprints always had screens. So you'd have all the day or the hours, days, months, years, seasons, all kind of like all the different numbers where you wanted to buy and sell. And I sat down and I knew I was going to have to take this job. And I was like, where's, where's the screen? And they were like, oh, we don't have one. We just, it's just like in your head. And I was like, like I, like, it's not that I couldn't do it, but I was like, this is so new to me. And I stayed on that desk for one year until they shut it down because it was already like a dying dog when I, when I joined it. And I ended up being the last person left on that desk. And I still didn't really know what I was doing because you just realize, I think a lot of people I've met in life, you know, they have that, like, either imposter syndrome or people were like, waiting to be found out that they don't know what they're doing.

Yeah.

I think especially when you start something new, there is a real realization of you're gonna have to feel like that for a while. Is. I'm never good in that area either. I like to feel good at what I do. I like to feel confident. But if you say start a podcast, for example, those first, you know, 10, 20 episodes.

Yeah.

And even now I'm like, what. Why the am I doing a podcast? Who's gonna listen? So I kind of. I'm aware that imposter's there, but I think confidence is something that grows with action more than. Than thoughts. And I think you can think your way into being a confident man. I think you have to go and get in the trenches a little bit.

Gotta do the work.

Yeah, definitely. I think it's a misconception. You know, we'd all like to be confident, we'd all like to be courageous. But if you want to do those things, you have to kind of train them.

Yeah, it's doing. It's doing a lot of the things you're not confident about regularly to get good and confident. It's like you say doing podcasts. I mean, we could come on to that. But yeah, like, when I look back, I still now, after 130 episodes, you have that. Where just as people are about to come on. Mine are primarily on zoom. Part of me always hopes they don't turn up.

Yeah.

That's whenever it's a sales call for me, if I'm trying to get someone into the group.

Yeah.

Or a webinar, I'm like, yeah, please.

Just because it gives you an out.

Of course it does.

Doesn't it? To be like. Well, they weren't. They didn't. They weren't there.

Yeah.

So. Well, that. That confidence thing. I mean, I went through the Tony Robbins kind of three different, like, personal development seminars, and that was. London was Unleash the Power within, where you do the firewalk and what have you.

Yeah.

Which was nuts.

Yeah, it was awesome. Some of it was outdated. Not necessarily. The mindset stuff for the health stuff was a load of. Basically, you felt like it had been recorded 10 years ago. And, you know, my partner, M is a naturopathic nutritionist, so I know a lot more than the average person, but I certainly don't know as much as Her. And even I'd sit there and be like, this stuff isn't, isn't, isn't right. But that experience led me to. Then, you know, at the end, they try and obviously upsell you to a great experience of saying, right, go to date with Destiny, which is that in Miami. And I was in that good situation. I was like, I want to make some changes. I don't really know what, like, you know, I just know that some I want to progress and be better. And I had a fair amount of money in the bank. So when they kind of said right at the back of the room, there's a five grand ticket to go wherever, I was just like, yeah, great, let's. Let's go and book that. And I came back from the break and she was like, you're right. So I've just booked to go to David Destiny. She's like, how much is that? I was like, I know, five, six grand. And she's like, did you not think to ask me? I was like, well, not really, because it's got nothing to do with you. Like, I'm going whether you like it or not. I want to be better. And it's, It's. I've got the money, so probably could have done better with that one, but that's where I was doing that just as I had decided to leave the city. And what the life coach did, which really helped me, and I often do with guys I'm talking to now, is because it's easy, like we said, to play safe and just drift without a compass and kind of just, you know, get week to week. And she would say to me, listen, you know, on a naught to 10, how much do you want to leave? And of course, I'd be like a 10. And she's like, well, you don't sound like a 10 because you stay in there. And I was like, okay, well, actually, I really want to leave, but I'm really scared to leave. So there's somewhere in between. And she'd say, look, if you take the level of pain you feel of staying there, which isn't like, again, you feel like you're gonna kill yourself if you don't leave. But it's just like, I'm fucking done with this. You can cope with that for another week or a month, to be honest, quite easily, because it's not that bad, but future pace it to six months time. And I was like, oh, there's no way I'm going to be there in six months. And she's like, well, if you carry on like this, you will be, because you'll just drift from month to month. And what about in a year's time or, you know, if you get offered a bit more money? And I realized then, it's like, at some point, as I say, you've got to stick your cock in the custard and go, right, I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to make a decision. And, you know, when I did and I left, it felt like a weight off my shoulders. But still, I didn't. I. You know, the concept of the whole man academy hadn't started then. I just knew I wanted to do something. And Emma and I decided to relocate to the Cotswolds. So, you know, I'd got made redundant and had one or two other offers, but I had to be strict with myself and go, no.

So the redundancy was almost a blessing.

Right.

I noticed this, you know, off the back of the worst thing that is happening to you at the time. Often the best thing is born. Right. You just, obviously, you can't see at the time. You can't feel it. And if someone says that to you, you're like, get the out here. Yeah, yeah, off. What I'm gonna do with my life. Like, it's terrible. But when we think about that, I've seen so many things, like from COVID for example, so many good things born from that. So this podcast was actually born in lockdown. Yeah, so it does. It's just. But even though we're wise to that and we know it's still very difficult to speak that language when you're feeling so uncertain about yourself and your capabilities, I think it's a bad place for a man to be when he's. When he's sat there and goes, I don't know what to do with myself or my life, because you feel very useless. And I think we want to feel useful as men.

Don't feel redundant.

Yeah, yeah.

So many ways, right?

Yeah.

And I think that's. It's an awful place to be up in there several times and still end up there occasionally, too. It's like, yeah, well, I want to be useful. I want to do something. And if you don't know what that is, or you're doing something that offers you security but is not. Is not fulfilling other needs, that's a.

Great example of why I've dealt with some guys. How can I put it? That are. That are very, very wealthy but completely lost because they haven't got. There's no Real reason for them to get out of bed in the morning because they haven't got to have drive to. To kind of to earn, let's just say. And it's. People always think, oh, if you have loads of money, you know, I'll just do nothing. No, no, no. Like, some of the people I know.

That.

Have lived a great life who are elderly because they've carried on working and not because they have to, because they want to.

That's the difference. I think with money, it could produce scarcity. So you know that redundancy you're offered. If you let the fear win you, you. You take the next job that comes available, even if it's one that you don't want. You just. You just need the money. And scarcity. It can be both. Well, I was with Jack in the last podcast, and we're saying everything's pretty much a blessing and a curse. So that scarcity can force you to go and pursue what you want in life because you have to, or it can force you to take the job that you really don't want because you've got a wife and kid to feed.

Yeah.

You know, it drives us. Pain is the best driver, unfortunately. Like, you know, it always is. That's why when a coach says, you know, when are you ready? You're probably ready when it hurts.

Yeah. Yeah.

So. And it's a shame because it would be nice to be able to change. But every transformation I've been involved in with all the men I've coached, they've come to me because they're not feeling good.

Yeah.

I mean, they're severely overweight and they hate the way they look or their missus has left them or usually an internal feeling of just self.

Something has to break sometimes, you know.

Yeah.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, a significant break, but it might be. It might mean, feel like insignificant to one of us looking on the outside, but for them, yeah, it can be a comment or something. I mean, weight is a good example of sometimes people can just get fat slowly because you can't get fat quickly, and then they can just ignore it. And then one day you get a comment from someone and that's the thing that you just be like, I don't want to feel like that. Again, a great example of that. My. My best mate, Tom, who I think he would happily say had always struggled with his weight, but I remember he was a referee and a terrible referee at that, and he's the only referee I've ever end up shouting At. And he was my best mate, you know, and. But I remember going to watch him as a mate. He was refereeing at a game down in Kent and I went along and the abuse he took. Just as a referee, I mean, hell, I would never be a referee. I'd be really good at it. But I'd end up having to like. You'd end up answering back to the crowd all the time. I wouldn't get any actual refereeing done.

I don't get guys who want to be referenced. Where does that come from?

It's, it, it's. It's a lose, lose situation because basically, you know, one team is going to lose and they're probably going to slag you off. And sometimes the team wins and still slags you off. But I remember standing on the touch line and he had a decent game. He was, you know, it's only kind of lower league level at the time in. Down in Sid cup. And literally one of the guys that Tom ran past was like, you fat cunt. And it really got me because he was my best mate and Tom heard him. But afterwards I said, listen, if that hurt you, what was it that hurt you? Was it that he called you a name or was he called you fat?

Yeah.

Is it the cunt or is it the fight?

Exactly. Because to be honest, you can call someone that's skinny or, or super fit that, but it's the fat thing you can do something about. And, you know, if you're, if you're in good shape, there's nothing people aren't going to, oh, you bastard. You're in good shape. It's not going to happen. And I was like, if you use that as your driver to go, do you know what? I don't ever want to record that again. And I'll do something about it. I'm like, great. You could have spent thousands traveling around the world being motivated by top professionals. But maybe that one word is the thing. And that is where, for someone like that, I would say men find themselves in the gap and with the whole man academy, once we'd moved up to the Cotswolds, which was a. We knew that if we were going to have kids, we wanted to bring them up somewhere that was nicer than either. Emma's family, we lived in North London and I was living in kind of Chiselhurst, which is a nice leafy area. But, you know, where we live now, you know, we have no houses that look onto us. We look on fields and horses front and back.

Nice.

You know, you've got the horses trotting past our gate each morning and the odd car here and there. But it was a big change and we'll come on to that. But I found that hard because I moved away from my friends and colleagues and suddenly you had to kind of like, make friends again. And as a man, what I realized I missed. Someone asked me once was what? I can't remember exactly what the question was. Something like, what do you think with creating the whole man academy? What is it that you. You were missing that you think you to get? And I said, I realized I missed the banter of being in the city, because imagine you and I in this room with another 300 men, all pretty much like us, who like football and women and cars and money and working out and whatever, how much fun you'd have whilst you made loads of money for people and a bit for yourself. But to be taken away and say, now just sit in a room on your own, it's like. Like it's just me.

I think that's how men show affection sometimes as well. You know, that we're playful, we take the piss. I remember being really frustrated at the mental health industry because they wanted the word banter.

Yes.

And again, I was like, you clearly don't know what it's like to be a guy. Like, if I take the piss out of you, it's because I feel comfortable around you and I can say things and you can dish it back. It's just the way guys. Yeah, show some of that. And I hate this thing of we're trying to change people all the time. I'm just like, that's what we do. It's fine.

Yeah.

I know the difference between whether you're being a twat.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean. Or whether it's actual just banter. It's how I bond with my best.

Friends, I'll tell you. I mean, we could go down many avenues because I have lots of great topics I like to talk about, and schooling and home education is one of them, because we home educate our kids. But, for example, my nephews go to Warwick Boys School, which is supposedly, you know, bringing up the. Some. Some young leaders. I mean, I could talk about many things there, but one of them was they ran a campaign saying banter is bullying.

That's.

Fuck that.

It's.

You know, and if you think banter is bullying, as you said, and I wrote an article about it and had really good feedback from the guys all like us just saying, listen, there's a line between. Of course there's people that can be nasty in bullying. And I saw that at school, I saw that in sports teams. I saw that in the city. You're gonna get it everywhere. But if you're gonna try and who says, what's the difference between it only for you? Cause the same words, if I said you're you fucking big nose bastard or something, my mate would be like, oh, yeah. But if it's someone you've never met before, they'd be like, you, what a twat.

Yeah.

So if you're going to teach young boys that any banter is bullying is, is. It's a very slippery slope to go down.

It is.

And it's confusing as well. Like even I'm confused, like in the industry that I'm in, specifically, you know, fitness, nutrition. Yeah, very confusing. Now the mental health is kind of joined that and the mental health has become an industry now as people can make good money from it. So it's very conflicting. You know, men are told to be vulnerable and then they're told to be super strong. And it's, it's like, I can see that they're both the same thing, but it's just confusing, especially as a young lad, to hear, well, like, what's a good man now? Like, how do I behave?

Yeah.

You know, I'm single, how do I date, how do I approach women?

Who do you look up to?

It's crazy. Yeah, there's some, you know, the Andrew Tate thing comes up all the time here and I get absolutely bashed for my views on him. You know, I think his core message, core message is, okay, it's a little bit like politics for me. Like, if you vote red in your labor, you don't say, I, I vote on 100 of everything they do. I agree with 100. Everything they say is right. I think if you're a young guy, you can be easily influenced, of course, but, you know, if you're mid-30s, 40s or whatever, you can take a guy like that and you can take out the, the message that you want to hear, the good, the discipline, the hard work. And you can ignore what you would want to ignore. But yeah, I think this demonizing people.

For, that's not enough for some people though, is it? They want you to either be for or against, and there can't be any gray area in between.

That's it.

And that's the problem is you. It's either, I mean, look at, you know, we're recording this as the stuff in the Middle east with Palestine and Israel is happening. And you look at the moment, and even some of my friends, like, it's so funny, they become experts on stuff in the Middle east overnight. And I'm like, it's weird because you've never posted anything about this shit before, but now suddenly you know exactly what's going on. And even when you bring that down to mental health, you. You come to the. I really always get tagged in things about, you know, toxic masculinity. And you will know as well that there is no thing as toxic masculinity. There's toxic behavior, maybe. And maybe you could come into that as the bullying. But masculinity itself, for most men, I think they want to be good guys and they're not trying to be assholes. But you're going to get assholes in the male form and the female form. And you just said the word confusing. I look at not just men of our kind of age, but like you say, men in their. In their 30s, 20s, some of them are afraid to offer an opinion because they're going to get shut down by someone. And, you know, I think I wrote about the other day, said there's always someone around the corner waiting to be offended.

Yeah, yeah, People actively. I think that's the difference now. People actively look for it. And of course, we've got, you know, we live in a different world where everyone's got an opinion on social media. So it's very different. You know, we didn't have all these opinions, like, yeah, 20, you know, even when I was young, we didn't have the Internet. Internet or the.

Thank God.

I mean, yeah, it was kind of like, I hate to be that guy that says this, but it was like good times when you were young and you play out and you actually form real friendships. But it is confusing, you know, if you're a young guy. You know, I was listening to a podcast this morning. I said, you know, most. Most men now boys, they go to school, and it's predominantly female teachers. I think it's about 95 female teachers. So they've kind of never had a male role, especially if dad's either absent or at work all the time. They might have had a role model there. They might not get one at school. They leave. 16, 17, college, similar thing, you know, or maybe they don't go college. Maybe they fall into some trouble and they say, I want to speak. I want some therapy. I think 80% of therapists now are female. So they reckon the average guy now gets to about 21 and he might have had no Positive male role model in his life. One that's going to guide him and sit him down and say, look, this is, you know, this, this might serve you better than this. Yeah, you know, you can talk to me about how you feel. A lot of guys don't have that. So, you know, you get to 21, you go, wow, where do I go? And, and I think that's why people attached to guys like Tate, because it's like finally, so someone who speaks my language, rightly or wrongly.

Yeah.

People are looking for mentors. They do look around for guidance. We need guidance because it's hard just.

Gonna say, that's what. So when I interviewed a guy called James Hawes, H A W E S sounds like a slanderous term. He's a psychotherapist. Is he psychotherapist or is he just therapist? I can't remember. Anyway, it doesn't matter. You know, I've interviewed so many people that I sometimes forget what someone's title is. But long story short, he was, he wrote a book called It's Something to Do with Men. Anyway. And he, he says something like 95 or 90 of the men that he works with, as it were. It's, I think because they had, didn't have either didn't have a father figure or their father figure was either that was useless or dead or was an alcoholic. You know, there's some deep seated thing. And you, and I know as a baby, you look up to mummy first and then you look to dad to see what he's doing and how he's acting. And I know with my three boys, I mean, one's only six months old, so I've got a bit of a pass on him at the moment. But everything that I do and say, you find them watching you and some of the stuff they say, I'm like, shit, that's me. Like, that's exactly. So I think that men in their 30s, 40s have got a big responsibility not just to act. I want to say as a real man. I don't want a real man, you would say, but, you know, with integrity, with truth, with purpose. But to act how you think you should. I would say, you know, act how you should even when people aren't watching because that generates a bit of continuity in you to, to look after yourself, to work out, to eat better, to not watch on TV or propaganda on the news because you never know who's watching. And yeah, I look at my, let's say my nephews who are like 16 and 13 and like just like you said, why do you think that a lot of boys have attached to someone like Andrew Tate? Because who else is there? So whether he's good or bad for some people, And I think the deeper down the rabbit hole with Andrew Tate you go, the more, the more you understand no one gets on mainstream media without being controlled, if that makes sense. Because if they want to shut someone down, look at the COVID stuff. If you came out with a narrative that the, the powers that we didn't like, you just got shut down. You got your accounts deleted, you got all that stuff. They didn't put you on the front pages. They didn't put you in with Piers Morgan and Candice Owens and all those people. You didn't get on those shows. So the Andrew Tate thing is a, Is a really interesting rabbit hole to go down. But I've said I wrote an, wrote a post or an article about him, and it was funny how some of the people that had followed me into the. Love your work. I just said, just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean you can't benefit from things they say. You know, if you, if you just delete everyone, you don't agree with something to say, then you, you're never going to meet everybody. You agree with everything. And it was funny how you could see some people, like, unsubscribed or unfollowed.

Yeah, I understand. I mean, I had even from my family a bit of backlash about.

Yeah.

But I think one of, I think one of the reasons is my. It's a lack of skill for me to articulate what I, what I'm trying to say, you know, because if you just come out and go, yeah, I like Andrew Tate straight away, people will jumping you go, what the fuck?

What?

Yeah, exactly. But I think if you allow conversation to open up and to have a look at. What is it that he's saying that I can relate to, you know, because he talks a lot about his core message about. As a man, it's probably better spending your time working on your own game, getting more disciplined, working out, trying to better yourself so that you will attract better things into your life. So I kind of. I like that message, you know, I think it's really strong and I think, you know, we can debate all this other stuff, but I think if that's his essence of a message, it's not a bad message for, for a math. For a guy who wants to try and improve his life. And a little bit like, you know, we said at the Start. How do you work out what you want in life where you might have a look at what you don't want? Same as if I want to be a good man. Okay, what does that mean? I don't know. But what isn't a good man? Well, it's not one who's cruel, nasty, sits on his arse all day, has no drive, he's terribly overweight. You can kind of work out what you believe to be a good man there. And I think as soon as someone can articulate that well, because he's a very good communicator, Andrew Tate. He's very, very smart. He's an articulate guy. And maybe he is playing everyone. Maybe he knows exactly what to say. And I think he does play a character. Of course, he's, you know, he's done a fantastic job of getting eyes on him.

Yeah.

But he'll go on these shows and it. Because he'll sell, you know, if Piers Morgan puts him on. I think he's had 7 or 8 million views.

Yeah. You know, they're gonna get huge amounts.

So they're playing the game, too.

I noticed. Is it Chris. Chris Williamson that does. I noticed that he said that he'd interviewed him.

Yeah.

Didn't release.

And he couldn't put that because he knew. And it was funny, actually. I'd listened to Andrew Tate, a podcast way before I knew who he was. I'd heard a clip of him and one of my friends sent me a thing saying, oh, you'd literally listen to. You'd like this podcast. He talks your kind of language on certain aspects. And I was like, oh, that's him. That's that guy. And got interested. But bypassing him, this is the big problem. Who else, you know, for a young lad, who do they look up to and go, oh, I'm going to listen to his stuff. I don't have the answer to that because I don't think there's. It's not like we go, there's this person, this person, this person. When. Especially if we talk about boys here, you know, my thing is men and dealing with kind of the male issues. When you've got kids being taught they can identify as cats and penguins at school, which is a fucking. Just absurd. How confusing is it not only in the outside world of social media, but just when you're sitting with primarily female teachers telling you can identify as a cat or penguin, and kids are going to come home and be like, you know, what the fuck's going on? So I think it's an interesting one. And in a way I'm glad that primarily for me, it's men of, let's say, 35 and over that I work with and target, as it were, because I can understand them, because I've lived that life like you have. Whereas God knows what it's like being a fucking 15 year old at the moment, coming home with being told you're privileged because you're white or banter is bullying and God knows what else. So that kind of links to, with the whole man academy. That's why I, when I started it, I wanted to, I wanted to combine the things I loved, which is, you know, personal development and health and fitness. And the fitness side of it was born from. When I was 20, I had a collapsed lung and it's called a spontaneous pneumothorax. So technically no one knows how it happens, but I know I wasn't in an impact. I literally was kind of like leaving my mate's house and I was putting my shoes on. As I got up, I felt like I'd been like winded in the stomach. And by the time I got home, what I realized was that my left lung has collapsed. And as you're breathing, of course the air is going around your chest cavity which is compressing your heart and your left arm goes numb, so you feel like you're having a heart attack, which causes a lot of heart attacks around these days. But when I arrived, I literally couldn't even get out of the car. I, like, my mum opened the car door and I slumped on the floor and we had to get an ambulance and stuff and I had a real period of inactivity and that's what like, you say, you know, the old saying of like, how can your worst day be your best day? I was just a bit of a footballer at the time, so I wasn't like super fit. But that's what got me started on the journey of learning about optimizing your body, not so much your mind and what to eat. And I became a real devout reader of, you know, I know men's health just regurgitate the same stuff all over, but at the time there wasn't anything else to read. And that's where that had set me on that path of understanding more about, you know, what you put in your body and what you do to your body. You're going to make a big difference. Because I'd got quite skinny, I couldn't do anything for six months. You know, literally they said no getting out of breath whatsoever, which didn't help your love life, as you can imagine as a 20 year old. And I had a collapsed lung a couple of times it happened. So that set me back even more. And I was very careful to get back. I was desperate but careful to get back into sport because I was like, we've got to take it easy. So that kind of 20 year interest in the fitness side of things and sport allied with then being interested in the mindset stuff going through with the Tony Robbins events meant that when I decided to do something, I started the whole man academy with another guy who I really talk about because we want to say we fell out. We just had a different path to take and he wanted it to all be mental health. And I said no, for me it's not about mental health. It's. That's part of a hell, man, you know, because you can have great mental health but be fucking fat or you can have great mental health and be. And your business being shit, but you're like, well, mentally I'm fine, but I need more strategies to help with that. But the first event was in 2018, when you think back to there, and we hired Soho, the top of Soho House down Dean street in, in Soho in London and invited, you know, various friends and people that we knew. And I think we had like 25 guys turn up. And I honestly, I thought on that morning, you think, I hope no one turns up because I can just off home, like you say with the podcast, because you're like, like, what if people, what if only three people turn up? That's more embarrassing than none.

That's the fair, I think. Yeah.

Because then if there's none, then no one knows. You could just like, great event. Cheers, guys. Didn't get any pictures. We'll do another one. But if three turn up, you look like a right twat. So, you know, I set myself up things. If you can have 10 men there, at least then I don't look embarrassing. And 25 turned up. And that first event, the guys left and said, I really liked it. When's the next one? I'm going to bring a mate with me. Which is the big for. For any men's movement. The hard thing I think is getting bums on seats. It's not creating content because you could probably sit here with me for five hours and create five ebooks on strength and fitness and mindset and eating and blah, blah, blah. It's about how do you get the guys to want to come to events and pay in theory and. And then want to take Action. So we can jump into the whole MAD academy, kind of how that evolved, if you want, and go from there.

But yeah, well, just going back to the, the desperate need for mentors. So I think, you know, the whole man academy, Better man in, I guess in essence, you know, it's a mentorship. You know, we coach, we lead. I think no matter what age you're at as a man, you need a mentor or a coach. You know, I think there's a myth that, you know, once you're past your 20s, you don't need mentor. And it's like you're gonna reach new experiences in your 30s and your 40s and your 50s. 50s. Yeah, 60s. And I've always benefited from having older men around me, you know, what is a man, you know, that you can go to and ask questions? Because often people do have the answers to some of your problems, you know, especially, you know, if you're an 8 year old guy who's lived life, you know, a bit.

Yeah.

You know, you know, the, the stuff that's gone wrong, you know, the stuff you've done. Well, I think there's a real, I think there's a real need to encourage men to look for those conversations and have them and look for guidance because it is out there. It's, it's trickier, but you've got to look hard for it. But I think it's more at the younger age now that the men are suffering because I think, like I said, there's a lot of confusement and then they don't have access to the skills and the tools that we have now. So we're in a privileged position now. We can pick and choose who we listen to, but if you're at school. Yeah, so you don't get a choice. It's like listening to that female teacher talk about, you know, Pride week or whatever.

It's just insane that, that, I mean, again, I, you know, I love talking about these topics because I would say I want to talk about the topics that people don't want to talk about. And that's the most important thing. And you know, I, I wrote an article ages and ages ago where I said, for the average man, what's the one thing you don't want to talk about? Like about yourself? Because that's probably the thing you need to address first. You know, what's the thing? You're like, no, you know, I'll leave that alone because that really hurts. I'll talk about the rest of the stuff. And you're like that, let's talk about what's really going on. Let's, let's get the truth on what's the, what's the issue here and then try and move on it. But when you look at kids, you know, I know from, from friends who've got kids, they'd say that they turn up at school and you go into like assembly and they'd have like fucking massive pride flag stuck over the front of the assembly. And the kids, sad sadly enough would be like not this again. And that has developed into, even at one of the schools they would, and I'll get the number, I'll fudge the numbers. But they were told like let's say a year and a half, two years ago that there's like a hundred genders, right? And then I think a year later they change it to actually there's 70 genders. And you're like, so, so which is it? I mean you can either think it's 2 or more or 70 or 100, but how can, doesn't matter what your thoughts are. How confusing is that for a kid and an adult to be like sorry, what 100, what are they? Well, don't even know what most of them are, but someone's just making them up. And when you go down the rabbit hole of who is making up the, the stuff that kids are being taught in school, especially sex education where they want to, I mean Scotland, they're trying to teach kids, you know about that masturbation is normal from like 4 years old and self pleasure and you realize it's a very deep, deep rabbit hole to go down. And a lot of people just don't either. I think they're too busy in their own normal lives and they'll say, oh well, it's not happening at my kids school and you go, go and check, go and see what's being taught. And when you see what's being taught, who is teaching, not so much who's teaching as in the teacher, but where is it coming from and where in what organization is that and who's running those organizations? And that's why I think with the podcast, it gives people like us an opportunity to talk openly about these things and not, and not hide from them. And Covid's example isn't it the problem there is that people got their accounts nuked. And as Chris Williamson said on his podcast, isn't that sad that I felt that you can have someone on and they can offer a completely different opinion to whatever you think. But the, you know, the psychopaths that Instagram and YouTube and what have you will just say, no, we don't think you want to listen to that stuff. We don't think you should hear it, so we'll just delete it. And I'm like, no, I Show me everything. I'm an adult. Show me everything and let me make up my mind. Don't say, don't worry, it's been fact checked. And you go, yeah, who funds the fact checkers? You know?

Well, it's interesting because, you know, similar to you, I've done about 100 and this is 110, I think so is now. So you kind of know the game by then. You have that decision. Do I carry on and, you know, go deeper into the podcast game. But even I've been, like, a bit disappointed with myself on some episodes because I feel like I haven't had the courage to say what I truly believe because it might be deemed as so shocking. And it really. It's just a way to express what's going on in your head.

Yeah.

But on a podcast, when you verbalize it, it's a little bit different. Like, you've put it out there and people will jump all over it. I just like to explore things. Even some of the darker things I don't necessarily think are right.

Yeah.

Like an Andrew Tate. I think it's good for us just to talk about him and go, well, why might that be a good approach? Or what might be good about it? I mean, just that conversation that's so limited now because just people don't want. Andrew takes piece of. He's a massage is that guy. And that's it. Conversation over. I'm like, what are we learning from this? You know, it's really poor, man. And yeah, it's. And it's one of the things that's made me question the podcast. Even some of the guests, especially in the therapy world now, it's almost like there's a script to. To follow, especially with therapists. I've noticed. It's because apparently now laws have changed. There's certain things they can say and certain things they can't say. So I don't remember. Do you follow Jordan Peterson much?

I. I do. I think he's a prime example of someone that you can take a lot of what he says. He's great. And some of the stuff you don't. And other people are like. Like, you say either love him or hate him. It's very much like they're on the same circuit, him and Andrew Tate in that respect. And it's a good reminder people like Jordan Peterson do get some things wrong. And, you know, you and I can be like, yeah, of course other people either worship them or they're like everything he says is wrong and everything he says is right. And you're like, no, no, there's, you know, there's, there's bits and pieces. So, yeah, I think a lot of what he says is he's very good on bite sized stuff for social media as well, isn't he? Because he's, he. What's the word I'm looking for? But he summarizes things succinctly.

Yeah.

That you can listen to 15 seconds ago. Fuck, he's nailed it.

Yeah.

And he was saying a therapist main job now is just to sit back and listen. You can't challenge people too much. You just have to sit and listen. You can't really give advice like you could back in therapy days. So it's just, you know, yeah, come and spill your and you know, come and moan at me kind of thing. So things have really changed and things have evolved. So it's, it's quite a scary time actually to think that like you really do have to be careful of what you talk about now without your message being demonized or attacked and.

Well, yes, you're right, it is, it is scary because I don't, for me, I want people, not necessarily to, to have to listen to us talk about different kind of, you know, hard topics much. I find them interesting. I like people. I like to impart the message that reminded that a lot of what information I think you should know is deleted or suppressed. Which I think is more worrying because once people understand that then you'd be like, well, why, like, hold on, I'm again, I'm an adult. They'll think, I don't want to have someone tell me what I can or can't listen to. And a good example, there was someone I followed on Instagram for ages who just disappeared. And I went to Follow the other day and of course you go to press follow and it comes up with a warning saying, I'll just let you know they've repeatedly posted misinformation that's been approved by fact checkers and really.

Yeah, it's a new thing now.

Oh yeah. And, and it makes you realize and. Because you wouldn't know it yourself if that was your account because you don't see it coming up. But you know when people get shadow banned and I mean, I did a podcast course with, with Brian Rose from London real. Oh, nice And I met Brian a couple of times because he. Similar path to me was he was in Wall street and then he was working in the city for icap, the brokers. And I was a, you know, competitor at gfi. So I totally understood his path of leaving. Going to do his podcast, but he just had his account deleted off of YouTube.

Yeah, pretty much everything. Isn't he go for Mayor of London?

Yeah, he did. And of course, even then, you know, I. I've only met one person recently that actually likes Sadiq Khan. Doesn't think he's a psychopath. But I remember when he was trying to canvas, you know, to go out there, he got basically arrested, supposedly for, you know, being told he can't because of the lockdown rules. But Sadiq Khan was allowed to. You're like, have a think about that.

Yeah.

But it doesn't surprise me.

No.

What does surprise me now, how everyone bows down so quickly. I think there's a real lack of courage because, you know, if you speak up now, you're gonna have to be prepared to take some bullets, you know, And I think it's very much easy. And I get it. I get why you'd want an easy life and just shut the up and just go with it. I really do. So I think there's a few brave men out there that are kind of willing to stand up, but then they become like this target of. They seem like the bad guy then. And I don't think that's always the case, but. Yeah, but even just like conversations with friends and that. And it's a bit frightening because I can just see this closure now, this mindset of, like, I'm not even going to look into it.

Yeah.

I'm just going to agree and nod and whatever I read must be true. That's it. Why are we not looking at these things? For me, it's quite blatantly obvious what's going on.

Yeah, you just.

You just said it there. Sometimes you look and I find myself like, if you try, and how can I put it, I've realized that I've got to stop trying to help people that don't. Didn't ask to be helped, for one. And now you could say you put content out, like podcasts.

You, you.

No one, no one knows who's listening to it, so therefore you haven't got any control over it. But, you know, sometimes I'd say to friends with. With stuff that's happened the last couple years of hell, it's like, it's so obvious that it's false or what have you. And you'll say, don't, you know, just basically stop believing everything you see in the news. Let's just start with the basics. And for them it's like, why would the news not be real? And you're like, because the news by definition is a carefully curated set of stories. Whether it was real or not, it's still. Someone has sat there and said, right, what should we show today as the news? And you can see them kind of glaze over and you're like, fucking nevermind. Like, don't worry. And I've said for a long time, like, with the whole man academy, one of the biggest things is like, just either stop looking at the news or look at it through a different lens of is this true? And if it is true, who benefits from putting this stuff out? But, but again, most people are just like, oh yeah, I see what you mean. But quietly, a lot of the guys I've interviewed on the podcast will say they either don't watch the news or they watch it and know it's all bullshit and it kind of gives you. But they don't want to talk about it on, you know, on, on being recorded for whatever reason. And I even spoke to some the other day who, who told me a story about some stuff that happened in his life and he's like, I just won't talk about it on the podcast. Not because I' said, but your podcast will just get deleted. So he's like, I'm doing you a favor because what's the point? He's talking about it because I'd guarantee that, you know. And I was like, ah, so you're between a rock and a hard place because you're like, you want to talk about the stuff because if you don't, it gets, it gets hidden.

Yeah. And listen, the new, you know, those companies get paid for the amount of eyes that they have on them. So it kind of total makes sense. People are fighting for your attention. So whether it's a headline, whether a story, of course. So yeah, of course things are going to be modified to, to get a certain message across.

A bit of clickbait.

Yeah, and I know that. And you know, it leaves you, you know, in two places you go, right, do I go more in on this and try and find out what's going on in the world or what, do I just kind of like live my own life and kind of be ignorant to it or. Yeah, and I've picked the second one because I started to get really depressed the more I found out the more depressed I felt. Yeah, I mean I was, I couldn't handle it. I started to get interested in politics and I lasted two weeks. I was like, fuck this, I'm out.

Yeah, I wasn't interested in politics until basically until three years ago. Had no interest. I never ever voted. I would never vote.

I've never voted.

People go, oh, it's so funny now. I mean, you know, if we talk about the politics stuff when you realize that both, you know, no one else ever apart from Labour and Conservative is going to get in, in this country anyway and if they try and start something, they get shut down. I mean I, I spoke to, I don't pretend I'm his friend at all. I've only met him once. But I spoke to Lawrence Fox, a party probably about a year and a half ago in London. So I'd never met him before. I kind of knew who he was but that put him on my radar and I spoke more to his, I don't know if they're married now, but his then girlfriend probably spoke to her for half an hour at the bar about all the COVID nonsense. And, and it just reminds you that anybody that starts some kind of political party, I mean, also would have to have enormous funding and backing to even stand a chance. But I would say that it's the illusion of choice that people think, oh yeah, things are bad with Conservative, you know, it's conservatives fault, so let's get labor in now. And you're like, fuck you. But Kia Stalin doesn't even know what a woman is, you know, and he wanted harsher lockdowns. So if you think that things are going to get better and even with Kia Stalin or Starmer as apparently his real name is, you know, he was interviewed a while ago where they said, what do you prefer, like Westminster or Davos? And he was like, Davos. And you're like, that should tell you where your priorities lie for, you know, where you think the Labour Party would go. So I, it's, it's so funny how it's embarrassingly divisive for people if you, you know, again you said it's like in America you're either let's say Democrat or well, let's just call it Trump or Biden as it were. And I remember writing a thing saying, listen, if I said that I would support one, I'll have half. You go, what a twat ant doesn't know he's talking about. And if I said it was the other one, the other half would go What a twat ant doesn't know what he's talking about. And I was like, so in a way, not to not offer an opinion, but I would say I wouldn't vote for any of them because. And just stick with that.

But list those again. Trump, Boyd. And then you got Labor, Conservative Party. What a mess of four people to pick from.

Right. Yeah.

It's absolute. So when we talk, why do young men, you know, put their attention on Andrew Tate? I can see exactly why. At least he stands for something. You know, these politicians, man. I don't. Don't ever look at a politician now and think what a great leader, you know, he really grabbed. I think the last one. Although, again, not a particular massive fan, but at least David Cameron could speak well. So. Although a bit of a dick. Like, at least he's got that about him now. Like, when Boris was there. There's not one thing about Boris that I could say I really admire that about him.

Yeah.

I know from someone who had spent time with him that, like, when he'd, let's say, about to do an interview or a talk or something like that, or public appearance, you know, he'd come down the lift and deliberately, like, mess his hair up before he goes out there.

I can believe it.

So you look like a fucking bumbling idiot.

Yeah, but who'd want that job now?

Oh, yeah.

What honest, decent man would want that now? Because they know they would get absolutely fucking attacked. You've just got to say what you're meant to say now. You've got to say what. What it is that's going to get you votes for the next four years. And then you've got to play the game again when you're in power to make sure that you get the votes.

So you're never going to get someone that's. So. It's a bit like podcasts. People think that if you're running podcasts, you want to get really famous people on. And I say, listen, that's great, but you're never going to get a honest conversation. Never. Because they will be looking over their shoulder. I know from. From my own experience.

Have you.

And talking to people that have had big podcasts that you know you're better off. I always say I like to find men that you should have heard of but probably wouldn't have done because they'll. You and I will sit here and just say, in theory, pretty much whatever we want. We won't be like, oh, I won't say that, because that person won't. And I Won't say this and that, so. And it's the same in politics, isn't it? You are going to get people who are funded by certain companies. And you know, there's money awash in government if you say the right things and follow the right people. So they'll just. Just do that.

Yeah.

And I don't understand how you can vote for a party when there's policies to take into account. Right, there's policies. So that's what I'm interested in, policies, not parties. I'm not going to say I'm red and everything. Red is great, or I'm blue, couldn't give a shit. I really don't get it. And it's interesting what you just said, because I had a guy called Taylor James on. He. He's done well with his podcast, a Waffle Shop podcast, I think it's called. He's had Sheeran on them. He's done really well for himself. But, yeah, he was starting to get big names on. And then they started to say, well, you can have the guest, but here's the question.

Oh, yeah, you can ask.

And he was like, yeah, that's what I had.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm like, submit all your questions beforehand.

Is that what it's like?

Yeah.

And you go, okay, firstly off. Second. But, you know, let's just say as it is. But secondly, if we, it's like us now, if we're going to talk for like five minutes, then yes, we can. You can say, these are my five questions. But I said, listen, if I'm with you for, let's say, 45 minutes to an hour, we can, I can give you the rough topics, but I don't know where the conversation is going to go because you've lived a life that I don't know. So you might drop something in. I'm like, hey, that's really. Tell me about that. And if you're going to say, well, you can't talk about this, this, this, and even that goes back to had experience of one of the big media establishments, let's call it that, who basically wanted some information about men's mental health. And it was very much, you're going to submit not just their questions, but your answers first. And if your answers aren't going to fit what they want you to say, you're not going to get on.

Yeah, I can believe that.

And, you know, I've listened to, you know, professors even during the COVID times who've said, you know, they were invited on, let's say the BBC and doing something. But it was like, if you're not saying what they want to say, then you're. You're done and you won't come back on. Which is sad, really, but I think.

That'S where it's heading. I was thinking about this this morning. You know, if I was to deliver a talk, would it go down well? I really don't think it would and I don't think I'd be invited back.

Yeah.

Because I say what I believe to be true and what I, in my 20 years experience have seen to be helpful. And I talk about masculinity as a positive thing.

Yeah.

Because obviously if we're talking about good masculinity, well, just masculinity is a trait. I think it's really helpful, healthy for a man to take responsibility and do some of the things he knows he should do, you know, be a good person.

Yeah.

It just seems like even that word now, but it is. It's the same as, like, you know, if I was to support gay marriage, which I 100 do, it doesn't take away anything from heterosexual marriage at all. So when I start talking about men and men getting better, it doesn't go down well in the women's arena because it feels like we're taking something away from women. And it's not. It's the exact opposite. It's like most men really want to be a good dad, they really want to be a good partner.

And they love women and they love.

Women and their main thing in life is they just want to look after their family.

Yeah.

And that's what really can be left the alone.

Yeah. Yeah.

But to look after your family, you've got to be strong. You've got to get up and do the work. You've got to go through some tough times. It's. It's not easy. So I hate this thing of like, because we're pushing now, you know, this, this message to men about being better. It's not being better than a woman, it's just, you be better as a man so that you can make people's life better.

Everybody wins, don't they? Of course, you know, if you're a man who's overweight, you know, job or business, and you just spend the weekend watching football, scratching the nuts, eating crap food and what have you, what father or husband, do you think your wife is sitting there being like, oh, I can't wait to get him into bed. Like, this can be amazing. But I'm not saying that everybody should have a Six pack. But I actually like. It's funny how like degrees of separation. But there's a guy called Andy Elliott who I follow on Instagram, who's. I only started following him a couple of months ago, but he's connected with someone I had on the podcast who I'm friends with Kyle, who's connected with Garrett J. White of Wake Up Warrior. Yeah, so.

Yeah.

And so I was on Garrett's four day program a while ago. It was. So it was, I'm trying to think what it was actually called, but it was changed names. Yeah, it was, it was, it was kind of one of those. So it was four days. It was ten grand to be in the room in. In the US or two grand for like four days to do it on Zoom. But I spoke to Garrett like as in one on one on Zoom, because he was like, right, what's. What's going on with you and what's the big problem? Or you know, what you're trying to achieve? And it was really funny because I don't get flustered easily. But it was like day two and I'd been on the call for like five hours and I was in my, you know, in our front bedroom kind of. It was like eight or nine o'clock at night. And they were like, we're going to break for lunch in a minute. I was thinking, kushti, right. I'm going to go and grab a bit of dinner that Emma's made me. And then he's like, right before we go, I'm going to speak to, you know, Daryl and James and Anthony. And I was like, fuck. And my heart rate went through the roof. And it's just because suddenly you knew that you're out your comfort zone because you're about to speak to someone that I consider really like. I would say he's the top of his game in the men's for real talk and truth, and he's making lots of money. So he combines it all and he's a real polarizing character, which I'll come on to in a sec. But it was funny how I haven't had. I can't remember the last time in my life, maybe since I was a kid or something, that I literally felt my heart go from, you know, whatever beats him and it probably to triple that. And thankfully they talked to someone first, so I had time to kind of like calm down before he's like, what's going on with you? And I was like, okay, well, I've been running the whole mad academy for years. You know, I need to kind of understand, where do you take it from here, blah, blah, blah. But those kind of guys, like, Andy Elliot is a real, no nonsense character. And again, some of the stuff, he's really in your face, he's really bolshy. But if you take down his core message, which was, men should take care of themselves so they can take care of other people. And, you know, he, he did a great line which was like, basically, if you work for me and you haven't got a six pack, you're fucking fired. I was like, because it's not about the six pack, it's about. It shows that you firstly care about yourself. You've got dedication, consistency, you want to be better, you're prepared to maybe get up early, start late, do the right things, take care of yourself to become that better man. But it's easy for men that, that's too hard for them to then slack them off and be like, oh, he's always going about that. And I'm like, listen, I know from how hard it was for me, it's not easy getting in great shape like it is on paper, but you've got, you can only, you can do the work and, you know, eating the right things, not drinking very much, working out, you know, dealing with, you know, delayed onset muscle soreness the next day and the next day and all that stuff. It takes ages and ages and ages to build a really good strong body and then maintain it. Because a lot of people get to that stage where they, then, then they're like, oh, I've got here now, I can just slack off a bit and like, you can ease off a bit, you know, I don't live like a cover model now, but I got to stage, I built a cover model body. You know, I was in, in Cosmo magazine, like with my shirt off and, and I probably. Hardly anybody knows this. I never, I won City, which is the biggest kind of in London, the biggest, you know, City newspaper. I was voted the hunkiest male in City in finance and was in the paper.

I'm gonna put that on your bio.

Yeah, well, I should put that first. And it was really funny because to see the reaction of some people who were like, you know, obviously it's just fun and it's subjective, isn't it? Because I wasn't really the hunkiest man. And firstly, I'm only five foot ten and a half. I'd like to be six foot plus, but it's just about certain people voted for it and, and I beat you Know Josh Lucy, the England rugby player and different people. But it's funny how some of my mates or friends like took the, really took the piss and which I didn't mind, but some were like, there's a difference between taking the piss and there's some that were funny about it and then others that were like, oh, that's really cool. And I was like, yeah. It just reminds you sometimes that, you know, putting your head, you do your podcast, putting your head above everybody else, above the parapet to do something different or achieve something different means that some people don't like it and others will, will enjoy it.

Yeah.

And there's, there will be men that will touch a nerve in them, you know, because like you say, it's hard to get in that kind of shape. It's not a three week job, you know, so you have to have a lot of qualities about you and unfortunately not all men will have those qualities. So it will touch a nerve in, in some people, you know, when you keep banging on about physical health.

Yeah.

Maybe it reminds them what they haven't got.

Sure. Well, listen, if I took away your physical health, you're not left with much, you know. You know, if you suddenly get an illness tomorrow or whatever. And some of it we can control, some of it we can't of sort be able to focus on the bit that we can control. But from experience, I know if you, when you lose your mental health and physical health, you're done.

Yeah.

So that money in the bank, that beautiful family you've got, they need you and you've got to be there and do the work. But that's why it's valuable. That's why, you know, that's why not everyone's in great shape because it's, it takes a lot of time and effort, but that's why it's valuable.

Yeah.

You know, if it didn't take time and effort, it would have no value to it. So I think every guy at least once in his life should get in good shape and just see how it feels. If you don't like it, yeah, you can go back to your old ways. But I think every man at one stage should just try and it's not too late. Even if you're in your 50s, you can get in pretty good shape, you know, 50 odd years old.

And I, I see it, a lot of guys think that getting in good shape means like that they go out for a run and like, listen, going for a run is great, but I don't think it's actually good for you, like, you know, if you're doing long distance running and a lot of it, then you're just gonna fatigue all your joints. And, you know, if you look at a long distance runner compared to a, you know, a guy that goes to the gym and lifts weights, I think that the man that's got a stronger body is going to be more capable as he gets older as well. Whereas, you know, I remember going to park runs and you see, the guys would overtake me. Like, I never got. I got to 20 minutes and 7 seconds was my fastest 5K. And I, you know, because I wasn't skinny and I didn't do loads of running, that was about as fast I was ever going to get. But I saw guys overtaking me who were like 60, but they'd have all their knees bandaged up, elbows bandaged up, what have you. And I was like, I don't want to be that man when I'm 60, which I hate to say it's in 15 years time.

It's fucking frightening.

Yeah.

I hate this thought about getting old, but yeah, it's, it's a bit backwards. People think of weight training for the younger man. It's actually more important when you're older because your muscle tissue, you know, it's weight starting to waste away. You know, you're not gaining muscle when you're 54.

Yeah.

You know, unfortunately. So it's really important for that and for your bone strength and health.

Yeah.

You've got to lift some weights. I think getting, being strong when you're 65, it's not just about picking up heavyweights. It's getting up and down the stairs, getting off the couch.

Yeah.

You know, if you've got grandkids like that, it's gonna be hard work. You know, you're gonna be picking up a kid and about. You want to be able. That's what life is. So you're kind of not training just to look good. You're trying to. So you can have a good life.

Yeah.

And offer your grandkids one too.

Yeah.

So much like selfish thought now about the individualism. Like, people don't think about this. Like, what is the benefit to everyone around me if I'm good mentally and physically?

That's. And that's why, you know, we could do a whole podcast just about that. I remember saying to someone once who was a guy who's in his 30s and he had two kids who were like, I don't know, 6 and 8 or something, and I said, he was in not great Shape. And I said, listen, if you're in the park and you see your kids running across the park to a busy main road, you're fat and you're not going to be able to run after your kids. Like forget about looking good in front of the mirror for your wife, which is equally important. But are you capable of just fucking taking care of business? If you want to call it that. You know, literally running after. Now, I know now at 45 I could still, I've never run a marathon but you know, I know I could still do that if I wanted to, but also I could out sprint. Most people, I reckon, that are 35, if not younger, I heard a start.

The other day, they reckon after 35, 95% of men will never sprint ever again.

Sad, isn't it? And because I tell you what's funny is that, yeah, because I get, for most men, they'll end up. Because they, even if they did it like down the park, they won't have warmed up properly because they're not used to doing it. They'll end up pulling a muscle and they'll be hobbling for the next few days. So, you know, for me, having a good body is a mark of a man that at least is taking care of that side now, as you know, doesn't mean that they can't have other issues in life, but it shows that they've got the capability to be consistent and dedicated.

I agree. And self respect for me, you know, there's so many areas of my life that I struggle in. I'm like, at least I can look after myself physically. Physically, yeah, that's one thing. It's really important to me. I'd hate to see myself in the mirror as fat.

I'd hate that.

I don't think I could handle it, in fact.

Yeah.

And I know that might seem shallow, but it's just such an important part for me.

But it's harder I think if you've, if you have a great, you know, we'll call it a great physique but you know, have that physique and then you lose it than if you never had it maybe because you can look. And I, I know as a, as a now dad of three, I don't have nearly as much time to work out or I still have the same amount of time but you know, with all the different stuff, it was easier as a kid when I call it a kid in my 20s, because I had no, nothing else to do but work, eat, sleep and train. That's it. And, and Go on dates. I mean, that's my entire life was consisted of. Whereas now, you know, I still get up early, but especially after having three kids, all now under six years old, like the mornings where I've said the night before, I'm going to get up and get in the gym early and then I'll get woken up four times in the night, you know, one of them's wet the bed or one of them's cried, one of them is this. And you wake up and you're like, I feel you had those kids later, man. Yeah, and, and it was funny because I'd always wanted kids, but I just never found the right girl to have them with. And then, and I always say, I know when I first met Emma, her dad, because I was like eight years older than her, she was what, 23 or something, you know, I was like, what, 32, let's say. And in a way I was a, you know, I don't, I hate to say a flash city bro, because I wasn't flash, but you know, I had a nice convertible car, you had a house in South London, you dressed nicely, you took care of yourself, blah, blah, in all the bits and pieces. But I was like, listen, I've gone out with lots of girls because ultimately I'm trying to find the right one to have babies with. And once I had babies with, I didn't ever want to be the person that's like, oh no, I'm not with her anymore. We have another kid with someone else and stuff, you know, it happens. But I wanted it to be a. Forever.

Yeah.

And that's. Thankfully she came into my life just at the right moment.

When did you, when did you meet her?

It was a Christmas. Cliche works Christmas party. And, and I saw her across the, across the room and there was a, there was a guy who had a, a nickname called Sweeto the Pedo. And actually he was probably a nice enough guy, but he just, he just came across as a bit of a lech because I don't think he understood how to, how to talk or approach women, if that makes sense. So, you know, in the kitchens of the, of the office, like he'd be leaning against the wall whilst they're trying to like cook their lunch and, and like you like just, just sometimes it's the way you're doing it. And you know, she was only a young, say like in her 20s, very, very attractive girl, otherwise I wouldn't have spoken to her. But I saw her talking to him and I was like, hold my beer. To my mate. I went over and said to him, oh, I think someone's looking for you, whatever. And he off. And I said to her, you know, sorry about that, and spoke to her for like, I think one or two minutes. And then here's what's weird. It was a company, but it was a karaoke Christmas party. And a bit later I, I was like, God, she's lovely. Like, I, you know, I need to speak to her again. And I went up and got chatting and I, I thought, right, what can I do? I was like, maybe I can invite her to come and sing with me for the karaoke. That would be a good way to connect. And Emma's never, ever had much confidence, even though she's beautiful and clever and what have you. And that's just never had a lot of self confidence and. And I said, oh, do you want to come up and sing? And she's like, oh, there's no way I would do that. I was like, all right, what else can I say? If you did go up and sing, what would you sing? And I kid you not, she said, oh, Kingsley on Sex on Fire. And that's what I just written. I kid you not, that's what I just written down and put in to sing in about three songs time. So I was like, all right, well, you can just come and be my backing singer instead. Just as any excuse. And that basically, you know, that night she went off and I went off in different directions, but on the Monday or whatever, that was my ability to email and be like, hey, thanks for being my backing singer. And that's how we got kind of started. So it's, it's. I always love hearing how people met because I've had some really mental stories where it turns out you were in the same room or an event or something years before and you would never, if you looked him, realize that all those years later you'll be, you know, you'll be kind of, you know, parents together and stuff.

Yeah, well, look, there's some important decisions to be, to be made in life, and I think who you marry and settle down with is one of them. Right.

Massive. Probably the most. Well, say, you know, we could choose, but if you're with the right person, and I heard the term, you know, that will be with you when you're driving a Mercedes and with you when you're riding the bus. You know, when things are good, they're with you, when things are bad, they're with you. And the things in between, you don't get bored of each other, which we kind of, you know, we're very happy together. I think that is because you can take on the world when it's the two of you. If you're fighting someone at home as well, or you haven't got someone, it's a different thing altogether.

Yeah, absolutely. And going back to the getting in shape is the blueprint. It's the same in relationships, I've noticed, like if you stop going to the gym for three months, you're going to start losing that physique you work for. And relationships are the same. Right. Whether you've been with Your lady for six months, six years, 16 years. This requires effort, time, energy. I think whatever is important to you requires time, energy and discipline. I think they're the things. So what does the whole man encompass then? So we've talked about load. This is what I do, by the way.

It's great.

I'll go all over the shop. Yeah. What does it. What are the main kind of principles behind the business then? When you say whole man, what would you say encompasses the whole man approach?

So for me, always say like it's for. There's a couple of things, but it's helping the man in the gap. And the gap isn't a. He's suicidal, wants to take his own life. Because that's not what my specialties. Although I would say, I bet for you and me, if we bought someone in here, I'm generalizing here, but that was thinking of ending his own life. I. I'd bet if we could sit down and have a real conversation with them, you could probably dig deep into what's going on, what you worried about watching to do it and you could probably help them. But ultimately, would you want to spend your whole time trying to help people that are trying to kill themselves? I wouldn't. I just think that firstly, if it goes wrong, that's not going to be a very nice situation. And secondly, I wanted to the whole man academy to be for the man I was in the city. So 35, 36. I didn't have mental health problems. I was just like, you know what? I'm pissed off with life and I need a bit of direction. And also wanted to get around, like for yourself, wanting to get around more men that wanted to do more with their life. So with the events, you know, I have steep learning curve. But with the events 2019 we had, don't know, I can't remember now, like seven or eight events in London and Geves and Hawks, you know, the men's Savaro Suit Tailor, which real kind of iconic, you know, men's brand, they contacted us through an acquaintance, said like, really like what you do. We want to sponsor you for a year, which is great. And more importantly for getting the bit of money because that fucking disappeared immediately. But they allowed us to have number one Savile Row as an event space for four events, I think. And the biggest one of an our actual event was when David Gandhi, if you know who David Gandhi is.

Yeah, good looking bastard.

Yeah, really, really nice guy and a lot taller than me as well. And what was great was that he got connected to me through a kind of a mutual friend at the time and basically said, I really like your, your concept. And so when he spoke at that event, I think we had, it was 65 guys in the room, which was awesome and to have a cool event. But what was really funky was before it was either before then Geeves had said, listen, we'll throw you a kind of a. And I don't mean a brand launch party because there wasn't a brand. It was just my little concept idea. But they said, we'll throw you a kind of a, a launch party. And I was like, sweet. Like, just give us a rough idea of how many people can come along. So I thought they might say like 30 people or something. And they're like, if you can try and keep it under 200, you're like, what? Yeah, so I mean, I think I had like 220 people came along and, and it's funny now, I was so brainwashed back then that I, I was impressed by people that had a high profile like that, you know, were newsreaders and stuff like that. Whereas now I realize I have less of an opinion of, let's put it that way. But that was cool because it gave you great pictures, great conversations, great connections to all these different kind of people. And yeah, in 2019, the one thing you can't buy is momentum as, you know, with a podcast or a body or whatever, you can't buy it. You've got to put in the hours. And you know, we'd had some really good events at Soho House at South Place Hotel, really cool hotel in the city. And then coming into 2020, you know, it was going really well and David Gandhi agreed to be our kind of ambassador.

It's not bad, mate, is it always.

Helps when he's got a million followers on Instagram and stuff. And then, and then lockdowns happened and then it was like literally went to zero overnight for events.

Of course yeah, because so primarily it was events that you were doing then. Yeah, lockdown came in. And then what changes did you make when lockdown came in? And then predominantly online coaching, I assume.

Yeah, it was really hard because, you know, when you, your whole thing was like getting men together and you know, online is not the same. It serves a purpose, but it's not the same as coming to events because it's not exciting. And you, you don't have background conversations like you and I today doing the podcast would have spoken before and after is not just if we were doing the podcast, we'd have probably switched on podcast, five minute chat, go. So that's where I refined what I wanted the whole mad academy to be. And I started to realize then, especially because I had strong views on the COVID and how lockdowns were a total. Going to be a total disaster for mental health, for the, for the economy, for kids, for men working from home, for the nhs, you know, and now it's so funny when people go, oh, look, yeah, oh, it turns out the NHS waiting lists are like millions and the inflation's run out of control. And turns out that kids have got psychological damage from seeing loads of people with fucking masks. And all the time you're like, I think we mentioned that stuff two years ago and you didn't want to hear about it. But rabbit holes aside, I realized that I had to stop trying to appeal to everybody, to all men, which I wasn't to an extent, but I was playing it very safe. And then I was like, you know what? As Garrett J. White said, the quicker you could. The most important thing to start used to be polarizing. And you. And I like the way he twisted around. He said, listen, you are doing that person a favor by being as polarized as you can as soon as possible. Because if that person is looking for some guidance, if. The quicker they can make a minor, whether they think you're a, or you're. Or you're really interesting, the quicker you can help them either stick with you and they'll follow everything you do and maybe buy a product from you and come to your events. Or they'll think, don't like this guy, I'm going off to find someone else. So you're doing them a favor by being as you as possible and as real and truthful and raw to help them go off. So flip it around. Instead of it being about you, I'm gonna be polarizing. It's like, I'm doing this for you, fella.

Yeah, I like that.

And I was like, love it.

Yeah, I like that as well. And I know that. And then I always fall back into the trap of saying safe stuff.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna play that message back from this podcast every time I go and post, because sometimes there are things we want to say that are winning us, don't we?

Yeah.

And we either bottle it or we just kind of go with what's safe or what we think will be received. Well.

Yeah.

Because I'll be honest, I don't mind getting the hate. I just can't be asked to deal with it. I don't mind people saying, well, that's Alex. But, you know, to think that you've got to then deal with that on your page and maybe you don't. Maybe you just ignore it and just put out the next post.

Yeah.

But I don't want that to be my job, you know, dealing with arguments. You know, it's good just to say what you think and then, like, you say, hopefully attract the guys that go, yeah, I'm having a.

You just said the word attract. And that's where I found that, the podcast. And, you know, I've written. We're nearly at 500 articles I've written now. You know, from.

It's impressive, by the way, I loved your website and looking at the guests you've had on the podcast, you're doing a great job.

Yeah, it's. And again, it's been a learning curve. And my big thing there is for any man, man or woman, is like, if you're trying to do something, just get started. Like, my first podcast, I did the London Real Podcast course, which is great because it gave me accountability and structure, which, again, go back to anything in life if you've got accountability to kick you into gear and give you a timeframe. Because I speak to people, I really love to do a podcast. And I say, oh, great. Like, what. What's stopping you? Like, well, I thought about it six months ago, and then I. Then I. Then I. Then I'm like, why don't you just. If you just started one six months ago and did one every two weeks, just you. You'd have 20 podcasts in the bag, whatever. And Brian Rose said to me, he was like, people come up to me and go, yeah, Brian, I've got a podcast. And he goes, oh, great. How many episodes have you done? And they go, oh, like three or five. And he goes, you haven't got a podcast. You haven't got podcasts. And he was like, 25 minimum. And not just 25 in a short space of time, but stretched out 50. Come back to when you've done 100.

Yeah.

And I remember when we recorded our hundredth episode, trying to think who it was. Now it was a guy called Michael Laroque, I think, who was brilliant on the podcast, based out in Canada. But I remember thinking, I've hit my hundred and you know, I've had guys like you say, I've had guys not turn up in the podcast and they've come back on but they've just forgotten I've had it where we've had power cuts. Midway through, I was interviewing Salah Khalifa, who's a three time Mai Thai or kickboxing world champion. We were 20 minutes into a really good episode and. And I was in our big home gym. Everybody else was out and everything just went. And I messaged him and I was like, dude, I don't know how long it's going to come back on. He's like, I'm alright, I've got time. But like 20 minutes later it didn't come back on. But to try and recreate that in again is. Is hard. So it's been a big learning curve. But we talked about the gap. I want to take a guy who wants to lead an epic life and I would say that for you it might be different to Bob, Frank, James, whatever. Because some people it's about money, some people it's about freedom. Mine's that combination. Some people aren't a dad. Some people are and they want to be better for their son or their, you know, even if it's stepson or what have you. So I say recently, like, you know, I'm unapologetic in my filtration system of wanting to find men that don't want to be passive and pathetic. I want those guys that are like, I'm prepared to get up early and start late and have difficult conversations and put the work in to become the man I know I can be.

You'd have liked the guest we had on a couple of episodes ago called Tony Stein. He was talking about the. How this message has been lost now. You know, Right. I will get up early, I will stay up late and I will work hard to achieve. He said that message especially because he works in like the, you know, healthcare business. Corporate.

Yeah.

He said you can't speak to staff like that now. It's not about working hard, it's about.

Are you okay taking care of you?

Yeah.

Do you feel all right? That's all it is now you're not offended by anything. Yeah, that's all it is. And that message, again, I think is really healthy for a guy as well, by the way. Yeah. Work hard. A lot of your success is there. And even if it's. It's not the material success, it's the internal success that you get from that. It's the lessons, it's the growth, it's the, the feeling proud of yourself. Like, no one talks about this anymore in the mental health world. It's all about being vulnerable and. Yeah, well, it's that, but it's about.

Feeling the, the vulnerability stuff. And, you know, it's a myth.

Some of it is a myth, absolutely.

The, the problem is it is developed into and this is why I'm on LinkedIn and I.

It's.

That's it. And it's. It's something I realized. I, I've used it, I've managed to use it without getting bored of it because I, I'm very much just myself on there because I disrupt a bit. That's right. I love it when you see people and this sounds harsh, but there's someone I know who works for, I don't even really know what they do something with legal accountancy, something. And they'll be like, I was so excited to be at this, this event where there's three people on stage talking about, you know, the legal diversity, what have you. The same. I'm like, fuck off. Like, I know what you're like in real life and you like getting drunk and getting fucked and that's it. Let's not pretend. So I'm just, again, just act yourself and then no one can kind of, you know, like, call you out, call you out on it. Because it's like, if you don't like me off, if you do come and join me. Come to a dinner or something. But it was last year, I think, where there was a guy who. And he was dubbed like the. Was it the crying CEO where he wrote a post saying, I'm really sad because I've had to let like X amount of team members go. But that was really wanky, was he'd taken like a photo of himself crying. And what was great was you had good and bad in some ways because I hate the division of social media again, black and white. But you had. Here's how it went. You have some people go, oh, I'm so sorry. And look at your sad face. I feel those tears. What have you other people going, don't be a cunt, mate. That's fucking pathetic. Like, how Many takes. Did it. Did you take one and be like, oh, the tears. I can't even really see the tears glistening. Let's do another angle. That's pathetic. But here's what happened. You had people saying to those people, don't be so horrible. He's being vulnerable. What have you other people saying to him, fuck off, this is ridiculous. And it. All the way down.

That's not vulnerability.

No. And I was exactly. I was like, this isn't vulnerability, though. Taking pictures of sad selfies of yourself, in a way confuses men because you think, is that normal? Is that what I'm supposed to do? So for me, that man, not. I knew him, but I have total lack of respect for someone like that, because it's forced, it's fake. Whereas I say, if he was really struggling, you could put the post out there. We don't need to take a sad selfie. But then go and speak to someone about it.

That's the vulnerability behind those. Like, I will address the things that I need to address. That's why it's strength in there.

Yeah.

It's not that. It's not the give me my likes. It's absolute. But again, saying this now, like, oh, you're a bully. You know, you're horrible. You don't understand what this guy's going through. It's absolute. And if you listen to Chris Williamson with a guy called Connor Beaton, Right. Called Mantle, it's just been released. It's superb. You'd love it. I talk about the myth of vulnerability, saying that actually, you know, men who commit suicide, they have. A lot of them have been through talking, therapy.

Yes.

They've reached out.

They've reached out. So it's not like that they. They would have been saved if they. That's not what killed them.

Yeah.

It was the fact they didn't have the skills, the tools, the resources, the crew.

Yeah.

The environment, to. To change their situation in life.

When you said tools, that's. And again, I like to use terminology that most men can understand. And it's funny how you have people go like, oh, if, you know, if you use tools, then you're generalizing that all men. And you're like, listen, I know from my boys who are young, we've never pushed them into being interested in anything, to be honest, because they just do what they want. But they're interested in tractors and. And building things and all that kind of stuff that generally boys are not to say girls aren't. But, you know, around the terminology, I realized that I'D speak the language that you and I would speak. So I will swear I will say can't. I don't care what it is because I know that if I was in a room or a pub with you guys, that's what you're going to say. You're not trying to have chat GP tizzle, polish a turd into something that's like, you know, beautiful queen's English. And then you've got the people online, like you say, who are like, oh, maybe if I'm vulnerable I can get some likes and stuff like that. And you're like, that's sad really. I say that. Men talking, we all have like in a different. I call it a silent struggle. All men have some kind of silent struggle and that often for men, they know what it is, but they don't want to talk to anybody about it. But if you let that silent struggle build up, it will create like a, you know, a pressurized on your shoulders. And if you can't find an outlet, be at the gym or talking to someone or whatever it is, you know, going to kickboxing or something. If you can't find an outlet, at some point that pressure will come out. And usually in a way that means they either have a breakdown, they burn out, or they kill themselves. And the big question for both of us is how do you take a guy that's anywhere around that area? And for me, it's like I can create tools to help him. So it's a podcast, so, you know, it's free for one, you know, a guy could listen to. Let's say between you and me, if your podcast, an average hour they can now listen to. They've got over 230 hours of men talking generally to men. I know mine is women about stuff that they could listen to. And I get emails saying that thing you said From a podcast, Podcast 50 with Jake Alicker, who was a Max Verstappen's Formula One performance coach when he was young. I can't even remember the podcast, it's so long ago. But this guy will go, I just listened to his podcast. There was this thing he or you said that's really helped me.

Yeah, it's good. It's evergreen content podcast as well. So like I say, people can pick up on this stuff, but you don't think environment is, is maybe more important than coaching. I. I've thought this. So, you know, I can speak to a guy for half an hour on the phone, but if he's going back to his same old situation, yeah, Relationship job that's kind of going to beat the heart. It's like the guy who trains for half an hour a week but eats every other meal like you.

Nothing changes.

Nothing that changes. So I've suddenly realized the importance of like, when I'm around good men with energy, I become better and I become more energized. When I'm around negative people and people that are on a different path, I do start to eventually become them.

Yeah.

Just catch myself.

Oh yeah.

Become very discontent.

In that environment you allow, you start swimming in their negativity and sometimes you kind of dip your toe in it just by, you know, let's say someone turns up, they're like, it's outside. If you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of saying it's just weather, like, and actually if you had a raincoat on, it wouldn't be such a big bad thing. But I've done it where, you know, you'll know again, it's about who you hang around with and that's where the more you content you put out. I know Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, it says you put like 8 or 12 bits of content out a day. That's great if you've got a team to do it for you, but that will blow your head off if it's just you or me who are technically a one man band. But it is true that the more content you put out, that is you, you know, the quicker people will resonate with you or not. And that's how I see with the whole man academy. The, the podcasts were a tool to help men go, I like him, don't like him. Interesting guest, interesting. The whole man journal, which, yeah, I started in 2019, you know, coming up to 500 of those, I've written about all different topics because if I just wrote about mental health, for example, all the time, you'll lose a lot of people because they'll be like, yeah, that's really interesting, but I'd like to. I've talked about finance. I wrote in an article that Credit Suisse would go bust. I wrote that two years ago. It's obvious that Credit Suisse would implode.

Yeah.

But if you have a look at men who are suffering with their mental health, finance usually is, has a role to play with it. So like when we're teaching our money's massive.

Yeah.

They were saying there was come up with a list of kind of contributing factors and finance was on every list for every guy who's suffering. Like if you're financially Stressed, you're gonna have a lot of worries if you've got a family, like, what else could test your mental health is, I don't know how I'm going to feed my provide.

Yeah.

So money is a big thing. So when you're teaching people about that, that for me, that's contributing towards a good life and good mental health. Do you ever sit back and go, okay, because there's so many people in this industry now in this space, isn't there? Doing what you do, what I do. And yeah, we all, of course, we have our own spin on things, but I was starting to, you know, the amount of guys I've spoken to, I've, like, I wonder why guys don't join forces more and. And come together a bit more. I don't know whether it's our competitive nature and we want to build something, you know, something. You want to build some. Or whether you sit back and go, do you want. This guy's on a similar mission to me.

It's a really good.

We do an event, that kind of thing.

Yes.

We just. I'm not very good at it, I think.

So on the events thing, there's so much. What's the word? Appetite for events. But knowing people that have done events and have got bigger budget, it is really hard. Unless you've got a massive audience, it is really hard to get, like, to get the bums and seats. And of course, people forget, let's say with the David Gandhi kind of event. I did.

Yeah.

We had 65 guys come along, but. And we didn't have to spend money in the event space, but geese and hawks, if. If we'd have hired. It would have been over a thousand pounds. I mean, you know, iconic place. So that. Did he share that, by the way, Gandhi, did he.

Did he share it? Did he let people know?

Yes.

Right. So there's a guy with a million followers, right?

Yeah.

And that just shows you how hard it is.

Right.

He might say, I'm doing this thing, I'm doing this event. Or, you know, go to this event.

Yeah.

And you still get like 65, which is very respectable, but still not a massive number.

Right.

Just shows you how difficult it is. There was a story about a woman who, I think she had 2 million followers and she. She was trying to sell T shirts and she couldn't sell one T shirt despite having 2 million followers.

Yeah.

So it just shows you. You're right. Getting guys to show up in that room.

So that comes back to the raving fans, you know, or. Sorry, you know, of raving fans and a thousand true fans concept and, and I love that of people think that you need millions of followers. Great if you've got them. But actually, if someone said to you, now listen, fragrance sake, if you can find a thousand men, and let's call it what is for you, let's say you're trying to build the better man to become monetarily beneficial to you so you can do a live a good life yourself. But also you can do better events, better things. If you could find a thousand men across the world of however many billions supposedly. Although I love it when people say that the world's overpopulated, I think that's total bollocks. I think we're just told that so the people believe, you know, that we should all be cutting down on stuff and not eating meat and all that bullshit. But if you could find a thousand men across the world, which isn't that difficult, that resonate with you and be like, I like his message. And you did. You created one, let's say digital product a year for a hundred dollars. You've got $100,000 business and, and no one else knows who you are. And I know there's a saying, you know, everybody wants to be rich and famous. Try being rich first. Yeah, because fame is a poison chalice from what I've seen. Knowing, knowing famous people and even, I mean, hell, 25 years ago, and I was like, I remember Ant and Dec being at my house because my sister was, was a model at the time and she was represented by the same management team. So, you know, I went to stuff where it was Ant and Deck's party, album launch party, where I got so drunk I had to go to hospital. I got, yeah, great, great story. But, but I realized, you know, if. If you're famous, you're in a fishbowl and everybody will either want to be your friend or want to tear you down when you do what they don't like. And look at the last two or three years, if you said something against the official narrative of what people think of COVID lockdowns, blah, blah, blah, you had this onslaught of people who, you know, would try and delete you off of social media. So, yeah, I think that even for the whole man academy, it's not about having. I couldn't give a shit how many followers or what have you. It's about, I get quite a few messages from men. Even as I was just coming here, one or two guys saying, hey, mate, when is this next event in London or Is it Winchester? Is it the Cotswolds? I'm coming along to it. So that takes the pressure off you of trying to create something when you're not trying to get millions of people. It's like, okay, I'll, I'll just ask. When I say stay in my own lane, I'll just stick with what I know. I'll build my following slowly and a brotherhood of people, of men, and then, you know, try and do some good stuff together.

What's the single biggest problem that you encounter with, with what single biggest problem the guys bring to you? You know, when you're doing these events, what do you keep hearing? What keeps showing up?

Confidence. And it's funny, I would never, until years ago, Emma Partner did a, a questionnaire for, for a lot of men and she got a lot of men in the city to, to kind of forward it to their friends. And it was anonymous questionnaire. And I would never have said to you that confidence was going to be the, the thing. But I reckon, let's say for every, like, let's say in 100 responses, 75 of them labeled confidence as one of the two or three things that actually they need to wish they had more of. And you'd be like, but these guys on paper are super successful and you know, all of them generally had money in the bank and what have you, but confidence. Because then that leads on to confidence to try and get a better body. You know, it's a gateway as a thing. So confidence one and like you say money. I think, especially in this, you know, I think the economy is about to implode spectacularly and it's been flashing red for a long time.

Yeah, we keep getting the warnings.

That's it. So it's, it's not like you go, oh my God, I can't believe it. Like the economy's been doing so well. You know, they, they, they lie about, you know, it's so funny when you see like inflation and they'd say, experts have said it's only this and it's this, this. And you're like, you've only got to go to your local supermarket to see where we are at. I mean, I was at Legoland the other week and like not, it's not expensive any, but you know, a coffee was like 4 pound 85 or something. So yeah, even when Credit Suisse went bust, I mean I, you knew it was getting close to it when the Financial Times was allowed to put out a exposes. If it's not all deliberately controlled, I would Suggest on their like, you know, the social media channel on YouTube. But they did like a 20 minute video on basically how corrupt Credit Suisse were. And that kind of should be the last red flag that their, their, their time is up if, if they're, if the Financial Times is allowed to do such a, you know, a deep dark expose on them. So yeah, with a financial situation, I think that contributes for a lot of men at the moment. COVID lockdowns. A lot of middle class people who were entrepreneurs and you saw people in the US and this country who, if you had a small business, it was funny, isn't it? How let's say in the US the mum and pop kind of five and dime shops all had to shut down because it was so dangerous to go out there. But Costco and places were allowed to stay open and you had 100 people plus in these big department stores. But if you'd have gone to the small place, you've only had a couple of in there. So it didn't make sense.

I remember running the game at Wembley as well when businesses were still not allowed to open. This was 85, 90,000 people crammed in the stadium.

I just thought.

Seems odd.

Does, doesn't it?

Yeah.

I thought, you know, people are not able to open their restaurants and stuff.

Yeah.

Their businesses, whatever business they have. But we can go to these football stadiums. It just makes sense. But again, obviously people.

Oh yeah, a good example, someone I know that runs a chocolate shop and they were told to close and literally visited by police when they had opened. But they could stock that chocolate at the local garden center and that was. Okay, so you like. So people can go to the garden center and it's safe there, is it? To go to places. I mean it was safe everywhere. Let's be clear on that. You know, I would suggest Covid is one of the biggest lies in the history of the world. When you realize, and I wrote an article, because I've been very clear about it, when you realize that the politicians who now, you know, were shown to be partying during it and even when they, you know, they source their alcohol from sending their lackeys out to the Tesco's Express to bring a suitcase back. Because I would wager that with Downing street, they've got amazing wine cellars and therefore that would leave a paper trail if you were taking the stuff out of there. So if you ship it in from your Tesco's Express, no one, no one knows and they were busy so rocking and you know, fiddling around with Their secretaries and God knows what else these clowns are doing. And, and, and, and on the dark side of it, you had people going to funerals alone, dying in care homes, looking at their partners, their, you know, their mum or dad's on a zoom call or on a WhatsApp. You had people being, going to care homes and like talking to their mums through windows and stuff like that. And you know, that is horrendous. You had people giving birth alone or wearing masks when they're giving birth. I mean the mental insanity you could, it just, you know, blows my mind when people, no one said, hold on a minute, I'm not having this, this doesn't make sense. But you know, I think it shows you that a lot of people watch the news and will believe anything they see on the news.

Yeah, I agree. What's next for the whole man Academy then? Where do you want to take this? So what's life look like for you in the next 12 months?

My, my mistake, as it were. You know, you can say like, never go back, but if I had my time again. About a couple of years ago, someone contacted me and said, I've looked at your stuff, good stuff. How do I join the whole Mountain Academy? And I was like, well you, you know, you can kind of like, you know, I could do some coaching with me or you can listen to podcast, blah, blah, blah. So about, well, it was the start of this year. I said, right, we're going to create a membership and call it the network and basically bring guys from all across the world, but primarily from this country who like you say, join, who want to be better and we will help them achieve whatever they want whilst also doing events, you know, having regular check ins, you know, monthly Zoom calls, etc. Etc. So we launched that in September. And it's funny how when I talk to people, they assume that you want a load, loads and loads of people to sign up. And I was like, no, no. From the guy that's helped me, he said, you basically want a core amount of men and then a gradual increase because then you can actually know every man. You can talk to him about what does he really want. It's not just like, let's get as many people in as possible. So we launched that and there's 13 of us in it so far. So that's, it's been like, I think 13 of us in the, in the first like three weeks or something. And it's nice because I know where they all live.

Yeah.

What they want, you know, it's like yourself. It's not a numbers game. I mean, to an extent, but it's not a numbers game. It's a. I want to be able to reel off my tongue. We've got Relay, we've got Tom, we've got. We've got two Toms, we've got John, we've got Barry, we've got guys from down in Brighton, we've got guys in Middlesbrough like David Relay. Really lovely chap. So you could call it his silent struggle. He, I think it was in 2004, was driving along the M40 and thinks he fell asleep at the wheel and hit the central reservation. And when he woke up, he'd broken his neck and. And basically has been in a wheelchair ever since. But it's important to realize that no matter what you've gone through, even for him, he's shown resilience because people could go, fuck it, my life's over. I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna curl up and do nothing. And you're like, no, no, no. Like, you've been dealt this hand. You've now got a decision to make. You can either let it define you or you can be like, you know what, it could have been worse and I'll become the best person I can. So for me, it's about growing slowly. The network and. And yeah, we just announced the next three whole man dinners, which is. Which is like the. The 9th is down in Winchester, then the. I think the 16th is in London and the 23rd of November is. Is in. Is in the Cotswolds. Yeah, And I love those because again, it's. It's the events.

Yeah, absolutely. We do the events here. Actually. They're pretty cool. So. But I have a very similar business. We have two 30 guys split across two groups. One's the intro of Pure Physical Health.

Yeah.

Then the other is what we call elite, because once you've got your health on point, you can start focusing on. Yeah, yeah, that exciting game, you know, and. And you feel ready. Then I think, I think you prove something to yourself and your energy is on point and you, you know, your ambitions open up and so that's how we do it. But, yeah, every guy gets like a birthday card. We know every guy, speak to every guy pretty much every week. So it's. It is that it's hard work.

Personal touch.

Yeah, of course. The guys appreciate it and I love it too.

Yeah.

And we've actually become. One of the first things I was taught PST school was never become friends with your clients. I think that's us a fucking horse.

Bollocks.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we're actually. Because they're the guys that. We share the same values. I mean, so why wouldn't you be friends with those people that you share values with?

I think that's really important, because my saying is, I'm not here to be your friend, but we probably will do, because you might have coaching where you want to say, mate, that's a fucking shit excuse. Like, I had someone. I won't say who it was, but I had someone who. A guy who gave me some excuses to why something's happening in his life at the moment. And because he wasn't. Sounds harsh. Because he's not paying me, I can't be bothered to, like, you know, it's not my job to try and help him. So I just was, okay, fine, like, fair enough. But I wanted. If it had been paying me, I'd have said, mate, no, that's bollocks. Like, it's your fault. You're where you are because of what you've done. You need to take ownership of it. And then. And once you do that, you can then start digging yourself out the pit. But all the time, you look around and go, it's their fault. Their fault. They did this, did this. It's like, no, no, mate, you're just. It's. You're swimming in negativity. You need to say, I'm where I am. What can I do about it?

Absolutely. Because if it's someone else's fault, it means you can't change the situation. You have to wait for them to change it. It's a bit like when we focus on the politics of, like, yeah, it's conservatives.

Wait till they get in.

Wait till they begin to save me. Yeah, well, you're gonna have the same. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's back to that. So, I mean, I could speak to you all day, man, but I'm gonna have to wrap this up now. There's one more question I love asking. It's a traditional better man question. Gets people thinking, what do you need to work on now in order to become what you would call a better man?

Yeah, it's a good question because there's always multiple things. For me, it's about being able to reach more men. And that has been something that I don't think I'd realized before, but it's like, for me, yeah, being on more podcasts, because doing your own ones is great, but actually getting on more podcasts means you expand your, your network.

It's good fun as well.

I love, love it because you don't have to think about it.

That's it.

And also it's, it's. For me, it's been about getting out more. It's easy to hide behind your screen and be like, oh, more, more Instagram posts or more LinkedIn posts, what have you, which is valuable. But a lot of value comes from going out and doing stuff and actually kind of, you know, giving people an hour or two of your time and having great conversations because you can only have your own ideas.

Yeah.

And thank you for that because I think that's kind of reminded me what I need to do in my business because again, I, you know, sat there and did a strategy thing last week and it's all about the content that I put out. And not once did I think, well, maybe I should get off my go out.

Yeah.

I mean, and do that. And I think that, I think I trained myself in lockdown just to be good at that because that's all I could do. So. And the second thing that I really kind of like, thought was great value from, from a selfish point of view was the reframe of, like, being okay to post things that might, that might polarize people or might kind of like shuffle out. Who doesn't, you know, isn't a good fit for you versus who is? Because I know that. But knowing and doing are two very different things. They're two very different things. But those reminders, you know, when you hear another guy just say it.

Yeah.

As straight as it is. Yes, that's been very helpful.

And one thing I'll finish on this. It's a really good point about. People often say to me, oh, have you seen this person or this person or this guy's doing men's stuff? And I never see it as competition. I'm like, it's more great men that you can connect with. Because like we say, let's just, let's just pretend for argument's sake, there's a billion men in the world. Right. That's more than enough. If I said, listen, I've got 100,000 men who want to join your program, I can't handle that. I'd just take another five each month if I could or something. So it's like the more men that, that resonate with each other, and you and I clearly have gotten well with all this stuff and are coming from the same hymn sheet. It's like, why can't you do more stuff together? And your 30 men and my guys in the network and they do something together and it's like that's where the magic happens.

Yeah.

One of the most rewarding things for me is the guys inside the group and out. They're great friends. So you're helping create these bonds, these friendships. So you know, I could go away for a few weeks now. The business is in a pretty good place. Yeah, they're cool.

Yeah.

They'll look after each other now. And I always wanted to create a business like that where we would all look out for each other. I mean I'm one that I was, you know, I don't, I don't tell the guys what to do anymore. I say, guys, I'm on this journey. Do you want to come with me? And we're all developing together. I mean so it's really healthy and it's, it's a positive environment to be in. I think. What would be a good shout if it's, if it's cool. Reviews come back in a couple of months, two, three months if you're up for that.

Always.

Yeah.

Because this. There's a few topics I would like to go deep on.

Yeah.

Especially the controversial ones. I think you'd be a good man to speak to because I don't think you have that like script that some people might follow.

Yeah, I don't care. I'm like, listen, that's good. The, the, you know, the, the darkest conversations are often they bring the best amount of light.

Yeah. I like those kind of conversations. So it's refreshing to find someone that's up for that. So I think that'd be good. But I love what you do. I think it's really important. A bit like the guy that had in earlier. I just think we need people like you to stay strong and spread that message. Really. And I don't think we ever really know what a good difference we made. Some of the guys lives. I find that difficult to accept. You know, any praise that we do a good job.

Yeah.

But I can view from the outside and say to other people, you're doing some really good work. So yeah. Keep up. I hope you've enjoyed today, man.

I loved it. I'll happily come back whenever you want.

Cool. I just hope it's fucking recorded. This is my anxiety. When you say about things cutting off 20 minutes in. I'm like, please recorded properly. No, but thank you and keep up the great work, Mom. I'm going to be following what you do.

Pleasure.

Appreciate you.